Customer relationship management
Used terms
ARIS (Architecture of Integrated Information Systems) is an
approach to enterprise modeling. It offers methods for analyzing processes and
taking a holistic view of process design, management, work flow, and
application processing.
Audit - independent evaluation of the organization or its
segment on compliance to standards.
Business-process is a set of sequential actions
leading to the solution of specific business objectives.
Consulting company is a group of specialists giving
recommendations to other companies and individuals in a specific sphere of
knowledge.
CRM (customer relationship management) is a the process of
achieving and maintaining an ongoing relationship with customers across
multiple customer touch points through differential and tailored treatment of
individual customers based on their likely responses to alternative marketing
programs, such that the contribution of each customer to the overall
profitability of the firm is maximized.
CRM system is a technology-based business
management tool for developing and leveraging customer knowledge to nurture,
maintain, and strengthen profitable relationships with customers.
EPC (Event-driven Process Chain) is a type of flowchart used for
business process modeling. EPC's can be used for configuring an enterprise
resource planning (ERP) implementation, and for business process improvement.
Loyalty can be defined as building and sustaining a
relationship with customers that leads to the customers’ repeated purchases of
products or services over a given period of time.
Introduction
Currently, customer relationships are the key target to any
company. Successful cooperation with the client inevitably leads to further
requests and recommendations of the company’s services, and, thereby, expands
its customer base. Companies having immediate and long-term contact with the
end customer deserve closer attention. The best example appears to be the
companies providing consulting and audit services. However, despite the
importance of customer relationship processes all customer information is often
stored in Excel tables, and the negotiation information is kept in the mind of
the employee. This situation leads to many problems: customer information can
be lost, be entered incorrectly or duplicated. These issues are extremely
important, as they can slow the flow of a business process, and, in exceptional
cases, prevent it from completion. These problems can be divided into several
groups according to the reasons of appearance and the losses from them:
• Lack of centralized control leads to time losses spent to
find the employee responsible for the task and clarify the status of the
current process
• Lack of information support of employees involved into the
business process leads to time loses and expenses of human resources engaged in
training of new employees and searching for information known only for one
person.
• Lack of document patterns lead to time losses spent on the
information search and completing the document.systems, automatizing customer
relationship business-processes are used to solve such problems.aim of this
work is to improve the business processes of customer relationship management
through automation.achieve this goal it is necessary to complete the following
tasks:
• Analyze known solutions to the problem of the absence of
automation of customer related business processes
• Analyze the activity of a consulting company
• Identify and analyze the drawbacks customer related
business processes
• Establish controls and monitoring the flow of business
processes
• Create an instrument for storing and analyzing customer
data
• Develop templates to support ongoing processes of customer
relationships
Chapter 1. Analytical analyses of problem solving
approaches
chapter is related to the analytical overview of past years
experience of CRM systems implementation. This experience is of great
significance for consulting companies preparing for CRM system implementation.
This overview covers negative and positive consequences of CRM system
implementation as well as the most common obstacles to the successful
implementation of the system.
1.1 Overview of customer-oriented approach
Previously, the companies’ main goals were selling more
products and obtaining leading market position. Nowadays most of the companies
are focusing their activity on the consumer. The customer has become the centre
around which all the business processes of the company are concentrated. Bryan
Foss et al (2008) describe this approach as “…detection of customers’ needs,
appropriate reaction to them and their preservation because to attract new
customers is more expensive”. Proper attention to customers’ needs leads to
increased loyalty and, as a result, more profit to the company. Another benefit
of customer retention is that a satisfied customer may tell their friends and
colleges about the quality of goods or services. Hence, providing sufficient
attention to existing customers can increase the number of customers and reduce
the expenses on attracting the new ones.
1.2 Analysis of CRM system functionality
Often, companies do not have enough ability to achieve
competitive advantage in the fight for customers. Michael E. Porter (1980) to
achieve competitive advantage suggests “taking an offensive approach by
developing strategies designed to influence the balance of competitive forces.
Innovations in marketing can raise brand identification or otherwise
differentiate the company's product”. For example, novelty in marketing can
distinguish the company in the face of consumers. Since the late 90's CRM
system became such innovation.system allows you to automate all business
processes related to customer relationships. Darrell K. Rigby and Dianne
Ledingham (2004) offer the following life-cycle of a customer relationships
processes, called CRM cycle (Fig. 1).the future work, multiple CRM systems from
different vendors will be analyzed and evaluated.
1.CRM Cycle
1.3 General experience in CRM system implementation
Implemented CRM system can have a significant impact on a
company’s income; however, system implementation can have negative
consequences. Darrell K. Rigby et al (2002, p. 1) mention that: “55% of CRM
systems drive customers away and actually dilute earnings”. They define 4
perils to the successful implementation of the system:
. Implementing CRM before creating a customer strategy
. Installing CRM technology before creating a
customer-focused organization
. Assuming that more CRM technology the better. Darrell K.
Rigby and Dianne Ledingham (2004, p. 5) note that “smart companies sharply
focus their CRM implementations, carefully choosing which segment of the cycle
(fig. 1), and which function within the segment, are likely to deliver the
greatest return on initial CRM investment”.
. Stalking not wooing customers.problem leading to the
failure of the implementation is that “many companies use CRM simply to
automate existing marketing functions and feel no need to undergo such a
dramatic reorganization”. (Nooren, 2012, p. 31), there are many positive
consequences. Customer survey of CRM using companies conducted by Othman
Boujena et al. (2012, p. 9) showed that "68% of respondents are aware of
their sales over two years". It shows a long-term relationship set between
a customer and seller. Another result identified in the study is “The results
indicate a positive effect of CRM applications usage on salesperson perceived
competence at the three levels: market, product and customer knowledge”. Bryan
Foss et al (2008, p. 53) divide the profits into three groups: the benefit for
proprietors, customers and employee. Proprietor profits, is divided into
increased profits and decreased costs. Increase profits are a result of “greater
quality of sales and services, management of customers’ possibilities and
problems (incidents, enquiries), better ratio of sales” (Bryan Foss et al 2008,
p. 53). Cost decrease is the cause of “increased total effectiveness, an
automated process of sales, service and marketing companies; decreased costs of
customers’ management, automated routine work." (Bryan Foss et al 2008, p.
53)profit is the ability to " to get an offer in an appropriate form when
it is necessary and what it is necessary, to be appropriately served, to feel
important, to be informed in time, a possibility to choose a service channel
(self-service, full service). (Bryan Foss et al 2008, p. 53)benefits from CRM
systems are that “it helps to fulfill more activity during the same time, and a
higher salary is related to it; the feeling of self-control, a possibility to
show oneself as leader and sound competition emerge”. (Bryan Foss et al 2008,
p. 53)a result, despite all these obstacles the outcome of the successful
implementation of CRM system “allows companies to gather customer data swiftly,
identify the most valuable customer over time, and increase customer loyalty by
providing customized products & services. It also reduces the costs of
serving these customers and makes it easier to acquire similar customers down
the road.” (Darrell K. Rigby et al., 2002)
Chapter 2. Practical tools of research
2.1 Analysis of automation object
For the analysis of the subject area “What to do Consult” was
chosen as an example. The study of the company’s activity was performed based
on documents of the company and employees’ interviews.company provides a large
number of goods and services. Among them:
• accounting services
• auditing services
• Legal Services
• Property evaluation
• Consulting services
• Assistance in establishing new business
• Asset evaluation
• Training courses
• Sales and implementation of consultant + and 1c, and
consultation and training for the users of the systems., all client information
in the company is stored in Excel tables and Access forms. It leads to a lot of
problems such as duplication or misprint of information, search difficulties.
Also, lack of templates leads to increased times for documents creating and
filling.
· Analysis of company’s business
processes and creation of as-is model. ARIS platform was chosen as a modeling
instrument. During the analysis process all necessary EPC diagrams will be
created.
· Analysis of the current business-processes
drawbacks and classification of this drawbacks as well as losses from them. On
this stage a corresponding table will be created.
· Creation of a to-be model. On this
stage tables of functional requirements and document flow will be formed.
· Project implementation. CRM systems
from a range of developers will be evaluated. Evaluation will be based on
functional requirements and special selection criteria. After the system is
chosen a number of needed documents and business processes templates will be
designed.
2.3 Anticipated results
The expected result of a research will contain a revised
business process model, recommendations for CRM system to be chosen and needed
templates. Later on these results can be used in different consulting
companies, or customer-oriented companies in another sphere. Besides this
models can be used in future work to create a solution for a specific company
based on a system chosen.
Conclusion
This paper gave basic information about the project. Common
issues were raised; background for CRM implementation was analyzed as well as
the consequences of implementation. Goals and objectives were set and the tools
of research were chosen. The outline of the future work was also
given.conclusion it can be said, that the result of this work can be useful in
solving a lot of different problems existing in consulting companies. Drawbacks
in business processes will be found and profits increase due to their revision
is expected.
Bibliography
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Nooren (2012). Case Study- Fujitsu and CRM “The Impact of Customer Relationship
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E. Porter (1980). Industry Structure & Competitive Strategy: Keys to
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