Developing a CRM strategy is discussed in chapter 8 of the Valacich book.
What changes are necessary for an organization to successfully implement a CRM?
First they need to see if the company needs a CRM strategy, the closer they are to the end customers the more a CRM strategy is needed. Companies need to realize that a successful CRM strategy must include company-wide changes involving policies and business processes, customer service, employee training, and data collection, analysis, and sharing. In general CRM focuses on customer satisfaction and the best customer service possible but it must be careful with ethical and privacy concerns when using customer data.
In chapter 8 of the Valacich book, the terms analytical CRM, collaborative CRM and operational CRM are introduced. According to the book,
What is an analytical CRM?
What is a collaborative CRM?
What is an operational CRM?
Analytical CRM: Analytical CRM is a system for analyzing customer behavior and perceptions in order to provide business intelligence. This provides the analysis necessary to more efficiently manage sales, services, and marketing activities. Key technologies used in analytical CRM include data mining, decision support, social media monitoring, and others that attempt to create predictions of customer attributes.
Collaborative CRM: Collaborative CRM is a system for providing effective and efficient communication with the customer from the entire organization, in general it provides the communication needed in a company. Collaborative CRM is centered on greater customer focus which is understanding customer history and current needs to help focus the communication on issues of importance to the customer. These are flexible and can support both routine and non-routine events.
Operational CRM: Operational CRM is the system for automating the fundamental business processes, marketing, sales, and support, for interacting with the customer. In general the operational CRM enables the customers to interact with the company and get great service. There are some key components of operational CRM which include the sales force automation (SFA), customer service and support (CSS) ,customer interaction centers (CIC), and enterprise marketing management (EMM).
List one function that a CRM performs for the sales organization (from the Microsoft site).
Technology can now zoom in on what is working by just searching in the search bar for opportunities by campaign and sort by time to close. From this the campaigns with most promise appear and the manager can post the insight right to their team members. The team members can then get to work on their leads, competitor intel, collaborating together no matter where in order to get the signature on the dotted line.
List one function that a CRM performs for marketing organizations (from the Microsoft site).
Social listening searches social networks, analysis the data and presents it to the company can see in an instant where they stand. Key words are shown, positive and negative feeling on brands, volumes of discussion, and which channels are being targeting so the company can see where they stand at all times. A company can respond directly to a post from this technology to make the customer feel that they are being thought of.
List one function that a CRM performs for customer service organizations (from the Microsoft site).
Parature Social Monitoring is the newest addition to the Parature Customer Service Desk centralizing social customer service with the same workflows, processes, and analytical tools as a regular help desk. Companies now have complete end to end social media customer service engagement and solutions. This product helps achieve a 360-degree view of the customers and improve satisfaction and protect brand reputation.
Which Sales Plan scenario provides the highest total revenue (phones & service) over the life of the product?
Sales Plan scenario 4 gives us the highest total revenue over the life of the product at $528,127,157.
Which Sales Plan scenario provides the highest level of total profit (phones & service) over the life of the product?
Sales Plan scenario 4 also gives us the highest total profit over the life of the product at $32,786,423.
Can it make sense to sell phones at a loss, in order to maximize revenue and profit?
Why?
It can make sense to sell a phone at a loss of profit margin because even though the phone isn’t profiting at all, in fact the phones profitability is -105% the service is getting 8% which makes the total profitability 6%. If the company sells the phone for less than its market value it will cause a growth in its service. With these numbers plan 4 has both the highest total revenue and the highest total profit so it is clearly the best plan.
I would clearly choose to go with sales plan scenario 4 because it generates the highest total revenue and highest total profit in the long run and that is what I would be looking at as a manager. Our service is what would keep us going because once everyone has a phone the service is all that is going to matter anyway.
Table A
Sales & Marketing Scenarios: To be used for your DSS evaluations. Sales Plan 1:
