e-CRM by Alsayed Khalil

E-CRM
Three Eras in the History of Marketing

1. Production Era: “A good product will sell itself.”

2. Sales Era: “Creative advertising and selling will overcome
consumer resistance and convince them to buy.”
3. Marketing Era: “The consumer is king! Find a need and fill
it.”

Profitability of Long-Life Customers

According to a study conducted by the American Management

Association (as cited in Vavra, 1992), 65 percent of the average
company’s business comes from its present, satisfied
customers. Costs a company 6x’s more to sell a product to a
new customer than it does to an existing one. A business that
each day for one year loses one customer who customarily
spends $50/week would suffer a sales decline of $1,000,000
the next year. Reichheld (as cited in Swift, 2001) found that
companies could boost profits by 100 percent by retaining just
5 percent more of their customers

Relationship Marketing

Relationship marketing involves long-term, value-added

relationships developed over time with customers and suppliers.

Definitions:

 Relationship marketing refers to all marketing activities

directed toward establishing, developing, and
maintaining successful relationship exchanges
 Morgan and Hunt (1994) theorized that successful
relationship marketing requires relationship
commitment and trust.

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 The authors proposed that relationship commitment

was central to relationship marketing and that trust was
central to all relational exchanges.

Database Marketing

 The development of database marketing has had a

tremendous effect on the improvement of marketing
strategy. Utilized initially by catalogs, record clubs, and
credit-card companies to manage customer information,
databases are more widely accepted as a result of improved
technology.

 The growth in database marketing together with the switch

from mass marketing to one-to-one marketing has changed
the face of relationship marketing.

The Changing Role of Relationship Marketing

 The role of technology has assisted in relationship marketing

and has grown to represent a new form of competitive
advantage.

 Both marketing researchers and business practitioners have

identified the implementation of technology as an essential
component of relationship marketing

1. Customer Relationship Management Era

 Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategy used

to learn more about customers’ needs and behaviors in
order to develop stronger relationships with them.

 It can be thought of as a process that will bring together lots

of pieces of information about customers, sales, marketing
effectiveness, and responsiveness and market trends

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 Customer relationship management is an attempt to modify

customer behavior over time and strengthen the bond
between the customer and the company.

 The key to CRM is identifying what creates value for the

customer and then delivering it (Newell, 2000).

Defining CRM

Customer relationship management is the process of:

1. Targeting, Acquiring, Servicing, Retaining and Building long-

term relationships with customers
It is effectively relationship marketing, using customer data and
facilitated by technology

2. Dr. Robert Shaw (as cited in Customer Relationship

Management, 2001) provides a more thorough definition of
CRM. “Customer relationship management is an interactive
process for achieving the optimum balance between
corporate investments and the satisfaction of customer
needs to generate the maximum profit”.
CRM involves measuring both inputs across all functions
including marketing, sales and service costs and outputs in
terms of customer revenue, profit and value.

3. Acquiring and continuously updating knowledge and

customer needs, motivation and behavior over the lifetime
of the relationship.

4. Applying customer knowledge to continuously improve

performance through a process of learning from successes
and failures.

5. Integrating the activities of marketing, sales and service to

achieve a common goal.

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6. The implementation of appropriate systems to support

customer knowledge acquisition, sharing and the
measurement of CRM effectiveness.

7. Constantly flexing the balance between marketing, sales and

service inputs against changing customer needs to maximize
profits.

Relationship Marketing and Customer Relationship

Management

 The basic tenet of relationship marketing and customer

relationship management is that firms benefit more from
maintaining long-term customer relationships than short-
term customer relationships (Reinartz & Kumar, 2000)

 Business is becoming more customer-centric every day.

Customers demand highly personalized products,
personalized services and immediate delivery.

Why CRM?

CRM benefits

1. Increased revenues from better prospect targeting

2. Increased purchases per current customer

3. Customers retained longer

4. Cost savings

5. Internet growth and online retail revenue are projected to

continue over the next decade

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6. The surge of interest in CRM can be explained in part by the

tremendous growth of the Internet and electronic commerce
(e-commerce).

7. According to Jupiter Media Metrix (Ploskina, 2001), U.S.

online retail revenue was supposed to leap from $25 billion
in 2000 to $118 billion in 2004.

8. This growth in retail sales can be attributed to the

remarkable increase of web users. Nielsen//NetRatings
(2001) released the June 2001 Home Internet Access
estimates for web usage for the US showing a record 167.1
million users

But need good databases which are properly maintained in order

to retain customers and serve their particular needs

And the costs of acquiring new customers far outweigh the costs
of retaining existing customers

The Goals of CRM

a) According to Stewart Deck’s October 15, 2001 article in CIO

Magazine, the primary goal of CRM is to help businesses use
technology and human resources to gain insight into the
behaviors of customers and the value of those customers.

b) Provide better customer service

c) Make call centers more efficient

d) Cross sell products more effectively

e) Help sales staff close deals faster

f) Simplify marketing and sales processes

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g) Discover new customer and ultimately

h) Increase customer revenues

CRM Implementation Strategies

i. Operational CRM

Enables and streamlines communications to and from the

customer

 “Front-Office” CRM: Involves areas where direct

customer contact occurs known as touch points

Touch points: Media, Physical Mail, Phone, Fax, email, Web

Personal,

i. Analytical CRM
 Involves understanding the customer activities that occurred
in the front office.

 “Back-Office” CRM: Requires technology to compile and

process customer data and new business processes to
refine customer-facing practices to increase loyalty and
profitability.

CRM and Business Intelligence (Analytical CRM)

1. Data Warehouse

A data warehouse is a database used as a ‘data repository’

where all the information regarding a customer of a business is
stored, If a business manages and uses the data warehouse
efficiently and effectively it may be possible to gain
competitive advantage with it (Swift, p58, 2001), It may also
help a business become customer-centric and promote
customisation (Davenport, Harris & Kohl, p64, 2001), and may

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also help to reduce customer churn, promote customer

retention and increase the businesses competitive advantage
(Swift, p61, 2001)

Brown (2001) suggests that a customer data warehouse can

bring six strategic benefits to a business, which is

1. Strategic marketing

2. New product development

3. Channel management

4. Sales productivity

5. Customer equity / relationship marketing (CRM) and

6. Customer care

2. Data Mining

A data warehouse is a database used as a ‘data repository’

where all the information regarding a customer of a
business is stored If a business manages and uses the data
warehouse efficiently and effectively it may be possible to
gain competitive advantage with it (Swift, p58, 2001) It may
also help a business become customer-centric and promote
customisation (Davenport, Harris & Kohl, p64, 2001), and
may also help to reduce customer churn, promote
customer retention and increase the businesses competitive
advantage (Swift, p61, 2001) Brown (2001) suggests that a
customer data warehouse can bring six strategic benefits to
a business, which are

1. Strategic marketing

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2. New product development

3. Channel management

4. Sales productivity

5. Customer equity / relationship marketing (CRM) and

6. Customer care

3. Business Intelligence

It was once said that knowledge is power Greenberg

suggests that analytics is the process of capturing,
storing, extracting, processing, interpreting and reporting
customer data to a user

The whole process of analytics is also known as business

intelligence or data analysis, However, knowledge of your
customers may only come about by analysing the
information a business holds and then disseminating it
accordingly throughout the organisation It could also be
said that businesses gather information about their
customers and then analyse it to gain competitive
advantage. The technological tools used in analytics to
collect, store, refine and personalise customer
information are called ‘data warehouses’ and ‘data
mining’…

CRM aspects:

i. Sales force automation:

Software such as that at www.salesforce.com allows salespeople

to build, maintain and access customer records while on the road
Manage leads and accounts, send sales calls results and activity

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reports to the company data warehouse, allows salespeople to

manage their schedules

Benefits of such sales software:

1. Close more deals (allows teams across the organisation to

work together to manage accounts etc)

2. Seize all sales opportunities (every lead is recorded and

automatically routed to the right person, and tracked
through the pipeline in real time)

3. Update opportunities, accounts and contacts offline

4. Enables collaborative and consistent customer management

5. See the big picture

i. Marketing automation

1. Gives a disciplined approach to the capture, integration and

analysis of customer data

2. Helps effective targeting

3. Ensures efficient marketing communications

4. Real time monitoring of customer and market trends

5. Takes data from web sites and databases and turns it into
reports for the fine tuning of CRM efforts

i. Customer service:

Channel % using Channel % using

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Live call centre 92 Web- 31

assisted
centres

Email 88 Customer 27
briefings

Postal mail 87 Retail 12

Fax 82 Other face

to face

Web self service 53 other 10

channels

Automated call 38
centres

It looks good but CRM systems often do not work as promised

Indeed yet to see even one organisation getting CRM right

CRM usually refers to “front of house” or “front end”

operations (creating satisfying experiences at all customer
touch/contact points: telephone calls to service reps, in-person
visits to stores, email contact etc)

 Need consistent integrated operations and accurate

updating of customer records

 Need to seamlessly integrate back of house systems (e.g.

inventories and payment processes) with the front of
house CRM system and the entire supply chain
management system

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 If this happens the entire supply chain can work together,

focused on meeting customer needs profitably

CRM processes

1. The processes begin with the marketing and e-marketing

plans when target markets are determined

2. Firms monitor and attract customers online and offline as

they progress through the stages of targeting, acquiring,
transacting, servicing, retaining and growing

3. Customers are differentiated:

 By highest value, longest loyalty, highest frequency

of purchase etc (Pareto rule: 20% of customers
provide 80% of the profits)

 By different needs

 By demographic, geographic, psychographic and

usage segmentation

 Some customers are “the customer from hell” and

are not wanted because they are too costly to
maintain

4. Customising the marketing mix and interaction with these

customers

CRM information

1. Information is central to CRM, the more information a

business has the better value it can provide to each
customer and prospective customer

2. Gradually more information gathered over time less

intrusively by electronically tracking behaviour

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3. IT allows firms to move beyond traditional segment

profiling to detailed individual profiling

4. Detailed tracking of online behaviour gives a wealth of

information

Critical success factors for building successful e-

business relationships with customers

1. Target the right customers (identify best prospects and

customers and learn as much about them as possible)

2. Own the customer’s total experience (the customer share

of mind and wallet)

3. Streamline business processes that impact on the

customer (CRM-SCM integration and all-embracing
customer focus)

4. Provide a 360 degree view of the customer relationship

(all contacts)

5. Let customers help themselves (through websites etc)

6. Help customers to do their jobs (especially in B2B

markets, which generates loyalty)

7. Deliver a personalised service (through customer

profiling, privacy safekeeping and marketing mix
customisation)

8. Foster community (encouraging customers to join

communities of interest that relate to the firm’s products)

E-marketing “push” customisation tools

1. Cookies: small files written to a user’s PC hard drive

after visiting a web site. When user returns to site

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the company server looks for the cookie file and

uses it to personalise the site
2. Web log analysis: every time a user accesses a
web site the visit is recorded in the web server’s log
file (tracks pages visited, how long stays and
whether they purchase)
3. Data mining extraction: of hidden predictive
information in large databases through statistical
analysis
4. Real time profiling: special software tracks a
user’s movements through a web site, then compiles
reports on the data
5. Collaborative filtering: software gathers opinions
of like-minded users and returns these opinions to
the individual in real time
6. Outgoing email Distributed email: use email
databases to build relationships by distributing
useful and timely information, sent individually or
en-masse
7. Chat forums/ Bulletin boards: listen to users and
build community by provider space for these on the
web site
8. iPOS terminal: interactive point of sale terminals
at the retail counter, used to capture data and
present target communications

E-marketing “pulls” customisation tools

a) Agents user: programs that perform functions on behalf

of the user (search engines, price scrapers, shopping
agents)
b) Individualised web portals: users easily configure
certain web sites (e.g. Amazon.com)

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c) Web forms: designated parts of web pages for the user

to seek information

d) Fax-on-demand: customers telephone a firm, listen to

automated voice menu and select options to request a
fax on a particular topic

e) Incoming email queries: complaints, compliments

initiated by customers or prospects (essential for good
customer service)

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

• At the heart of all ERP systems is a database, when a

user enters or updates information in one module, it is
immediately and automatically updated throughout the
entire system

Bringing the Organization Together

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Integrating SCM, CRM, and ERP

• SCM, CRM, and ERP are the backbone of e-business,

Integration of these applications is the key to success for
many companies

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• Integration allows the unlocking of information to make it

available to any user, anywhere, anytime, SCM and CRM
market overviews

• Many companies purchase modules from an ERP vendor,

an SCM vendor, and a CRM vendor and must integrate
the different modules together

– Middleware – several different types of software

which sit in the middle of and provide connectivity
between two or more software applications

– Enterprise application integration (EAI)

middleware – packages together commonly used
functionality which reduced the time necessary to
develop solutions that integrate applications from
multiple vendors

Integration Tools

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Enterprise Resource Planning’s Explosive Growth

• ERP systems must integrate various organization

processes and be:

– Flexible, Modular and open, Comprehensive and

Beyond the company

• SAP boasts 20,000 installations and 10 million users

worldwide

• ERP solutions are growing because:

– ERP is a logical solution to the mess of incompatible

applications that had sprung up in most businesses

– ERP addresses the need for global information

sharing and reporting

– ERP is used to avoid the pain and expense of fixing

legacy systems

Links between e-Marketing and CRM

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• Upsetting your customers through “any” section of the

transactional processes either online or offline may
ultimately be the driver to enhancing your competitors
revenue stream and profit margins

• Getting your customer relationships right and making

your customers feel satisfied, fulfilled and valued is
integral to the overall success of any e-marketing
campaign and links to all the “lectures” within this
module!

Implementation Issues of CRM

The main areas to consider when implementing a CRM

Strategy would be the following:

– Cost

– Integration and Organisational Considerations

Cost of CRM – Spend by Businesses

1. On one level, this year’s survey shares many

characteristics with our findings last time around. Around
a third (32%) of the organisations we spoke to have
already implemented an integrated CRM system, with a
further third (36%) planning to do so within the next two
years

2. The majority (72%) of this year’s sample reckon to have

invested under £250,000 in CRM systems over the past
12 months, including hardware, software and consultancy
costs. However, 10% have ploughed in anything from £1
million to £5 million and more

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• The Gartner Group recently revealed that the majority of

businesses implementing CRM projects will
underestimate the costs by a whopping 40% to 75%

• Many companies calculate only the most obvious costs

for CRM projects, such as software license and consulting
fees In reality, CRM projects have many other costs, such
as project planning, training, testing, documentation,
data maintenance, software integration, and project
management

• Gartner estimates that large businesses spend between

$30 million and $90 million on CRM initiatives over a
three-year period

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• The irony is that despite all the money being spent on

CRM, many of these projects -- as many as 70%,
according to the Butler Group - are failures

• It is difficult to place an actual cost on any one CRM

Strategy implementation for any one business as each
business has different needs to cater for. A business
would be wise to contact one of the software vendors
mentioned on previous slides within this presentation

• As an example Microsoft has released a basic version of

Solomon CRM Standard - aimed at smaller companies.
Solomon Standard's target audience is organisations with
25 to 99 employees, annual revenue of up to $25 million
and up to 10 licensed users, according to Microsoft. A
typical single-user license costs $4,900

Integration and Organisational Considerations

• When a business is considering a CRM strategy it would

also need to look at the deeper implications involved as
far as the integration of the IT infrastructure is concerned
and the effect that this would have on the overall

– Business and

– Its people

• There is not a shortage of material of how a business

should implement technological change or how a
business should reengineer or redesign its IT and IS
infrastructure and protocols. (Rockart et al, 1996, Feeny
& Willcocks, 1998)

• With an array of different computer software and

hardware systems in place within businesses the
integration of them can be a logistical nightmare
especially if the business wants to implement a CRM

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process, which services many customers on many touch

points and on a one-to-one basis

• As Rockart et al (1996) argue businesses today have less

slack time and they also suggest that change has
become the trademark of the business world

• Tichy (1997) suggests that there are four main causes of

strategic change, which can occur within an organisation,
these are the environment, business relationships,
technology and people (Tichy in Lynch, p742, 1997)

• For a business attempting to implement a full CRM

solution it could be suggested that all four of these issues
would apply, however, the speed at which these issues
have to be implemented and addressed move at
exponential rates

• From the perspective of employees, the CRM strategy will

affect people quite dramatically; change is a people
thing. But this is what organisations must not lose sight
of, people do matter and need to be treated with dignity
and respect

• However, Hill suggests that, teach people that change is

inevitable and, if embraced, can be fun. (Leslie Hill in
Thompson, p678, 1997)

• For CRM to be successful the integration issues need to

be examined, addressed by the business and planned
carefully with accuracy and precision

Risk Factors of Implementing CRM

• All that can be said about risk is that whatever project a

business may undertake in whichever area it invests its
money there will always be an element of risk attached to
it

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• The main risk factors of implementing a CRM strategy

may be:

1. Lack of CRM planning

2. The business being unaware of its CRM strategy

3. Under investment / over spending

4. Poor front and back-end integration

5. Not being customer focused or customer centric

6. Failure to test the system

7. Security issues

• Within the perspective of CRM all of the above issues are

risk factors, which can ultimately lead to CRM failure

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e-CRM

Defined: It could simply be suggested that eCRM (electronic

Customer Relationship Management) is an extension to
traditional CRM. Jutla et al (p1, 2001) describe e-CRM as the
customer relationship care component of e-business.
Greenberg (p45-46, 2001) suggests that eCRM is CRM online

Differences between CRM and eCRM

1. As customers move away from the traditional ways

of purchasing goods and services to purchasing via
the Internet businesses have to adapt their CRM to
reflect these changes and so eCRM has evolved

2. Greenberg (2001) suggests that eCRM is a way in

which a business can look after its customers via the
Internet and could also be a way in which customers
can look after themselves

3. In effect, within an eCRM environment the customer

does most of the legwork for themselves and not for
the businesses

4. Because these customers are more clued up as far

as the Internet is concerned they tend to shop
around a lot more before deciding which business
they will buy their product or service from

• Perhaps the question should be: Is there really any

difference between CRM and eCRM

• However, it would be a mistake for a business to

concentrate on one and ignore the other

• With this in mind it would be wise for businesses to

ensure that their CRM and eCRM solutions are fully

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integrated so that there is always a seamless consistency

of service by whichever channel the customer decides to
use or prefers using

Critical Success Factors of CRM

• Given the facts and figures detailed in these two lectures

and with the evidence presented here it could be
suggested that the emerging critical success factors for
successful CRM implementation would be:

– Businesses objectives of CRM Strategy i.e.

acquisition, retention of customers, creating loyalty
or all of the above

– Implementation issues i.e. does a business have the

IT infrastructure, how much will it cost, what are the
risk factors involved, will it work, how much will it
cost to train our staff, what about other costs such
as project planning, testing, documentation, data
maintenance, software integration, and project
management

– Technological issues – cost of implementing,

upgrading, integrating the systems including legacy
systems, data warehousing, data mining costs and
so on

– Strategic planning – a plan for all the above and the

whole processes involved

• Also research carried out and cited in Rockart (1979) by

the MIT team (who at the time) identified what they
termed the ‘four prime sources of critical success factors’
for business in general, which were as follows:

– Structure of a particular industry (SWOT Analysis

maybe required to ascertain this)

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– Competitive strategy, industry position, and

geographic location (Porter’s Five Forces Model
could be used here)

– Environmental factors (STEP Analysis may help to

identify these factors)

– Temporal factors (what is going on in the world as a

whole)

– (MIT cited in Rockart, p86, 1979)

• These could also influence a business’s CRM Strategy and

planning processes

• NB: The CSF’s presented here are by no means definitive

and could be described as purely subjective on the
evidence given in this research

Future Trends of CRM

• Despite ever-greater investments by organisations in

CRM systems and processes, the nature of the
relationship between the supplier and customer hasn’t
significantly changed since the industrial revolution

• The supplier still determines the product or service for

sale and the customer’s choice is limited to buying or not
buying – in the immortal words of Henry Ford: “Any
colour, as long as it’s black, sir.”

• But a wind of change is now beginning to blow that could

completely reverse the balance of power in the mass
market. New developments in products, services and
technology – including Microsoft’s .NET, My Services and
Passport offerings – are key enablers and indicators of
this change

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• The result will be a move from CRM to CMR – customer

managed relationships – where organisations can no
longer force unwilling customers to provide endless
amounts of information just to secure the basic products
and services they want

• Rather, they’ll need to develop products, services and

strategies that deliver genuine added value to their
relationships with the members of an increasingly
discerning and data-enabled community

• Limitations:

• Retail banks, telecoms operators and direct retailers have

led the way in this business-to-consumer CRM

• As a consumer, however, it now sometimes seems that

everyone from the estate agent who sold you your house
to your local sandwich bar wants to develop a long-term,
mutually rewarding relationship with you

• This widespread adoption of CRM might suggest that a

relationship-based strategy is the ‘only game in town’ –
but it could also present organisations with significant
problems

• Limitations:

• Some of these problems derive directly from the

limitations of CRM as currently practised. For example:

• Assembling a complete view of the organisation’s

relationship with its customers is difficult and costly

• Keeping this information up-to-date is even more

difficult and costly as customers move houses,
change jobs and have children – but have little or no
reason to inform the organisation of these changes

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• Governments and industry regulators are placing

increasing demands on organisations to comply with
privacy and data protection legislation

• Analysis of the organisation’s own relationship with

a customer may well lead to completely inaccurate
assessments of the potential value of the customer’s
future relationship or their existing relationships
with other organisations

• Adopting a relationship-based approach no longer

represents a means of differentiation in itself.
Customers now understand the value of their own
relationships and are demanding levels of service
and tailoring of offerings to match this

• Many customers simply do not want relationships

with their bank, telecoms provider or utility
company because they don’t see the value in
laboriously providing extensive information or
providing it repeatedly to different organisations

New Services

• In response to all of this, customers are beginning to

demand a re-balancing of power in their relationships
with organisations – and the emergence of a variety of
new products and services is a reflection of this

• Rather than accepting the bundled propositions

constructed for them by CRM-savvy organisations out to
increase their share of the customer’s wallet and
maximise total customer profitability, smart customers
are increasingly using the internet and their home
computing power to take matters into their own hands

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• It is emerging that customers would prefer to be in

charge of their own data & information as oppose to
allowing businesses to hold information about them

• The common thread in this is that the customer has full

access to – and in many cases is responsible for the
maintenance and flow of – electronic data in relation to a
variety of products and services: in other words,
customer managed relationships

the way seems clear for the development of similar customer-

controlled data repositories or ‘electronic vaults’ with
information stored on the customer’s own computer hard disk,
or hosted on the internet by a trusted service provider (see
Figure 1 on next slide

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• The emergence of electronic vault services will be a

crucial enabler for truly customer-managed relationships

• The value of this to organisations is that the direct

maintenance and control of data by the individual directly
addresses the limitations of traditional CRM described
previously. Specifically:

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• The customer is uniquely positioned to assemble a

complete view of their existing relationships with all
organisations

• The customer’s view will always be up-to-date and

accurate since they are the instigator of many of the
life events or triggers that organisations are
interested in

• Since the customer controls the information and

provides it to the organisation as a ‘consenting
adult’, the cost of compliance with government and
regulatory requirements should be reduced

• With access to information about all of a customer’s

relationships, the organisation can provide better
informed recommendations on products and
services, reducing both the cost of sale and risk

• For early movers, a new basis for differentiation is

possible as electronic vault customers will prefer to
deal only with organisations that accept application
or transaction information in this form

• As the effort associated with providing information is

reduced, customers will be far more willing to
provide it, so enabling organisations to use it in
developing deeper relationships

The future…

• For the individual, CMR will represent an entirely new way

of buying products and applying for services, with no
more ‘Who are you?’ questions or repetitive form-filling

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• Using an electronic vault will give customers the ability to

shop around just as easily for complex, information-based
products and services like mortgages, loans or the best
mobile phone tariff as it is for commodities like washing
powder or beans

• For organisations, CMR could represent more of a

challenge

• In the short term, organisations who have derived

competitive advantage from superior access to privileged
data or the inertia of their customers – including banks,
insurance companies and telecoms providers – may well
find those advantages eroded

• As CMR accelerates the demand for relationships based

on genuine understanding of needs rather than data
access, organisations will need to fundamentally review
their core customer facing processes

• Ultimately, however, the migration of spending from data

collection and infrastructure to analysis capability will
mean that the smart money is being spent where it can
really make a difference – by meeting the customer need

• New opportunities may also emerge for third-party

providers of electronic vault-based services to
intermediate between customers and organisations for
information-based services such as address verification
and credit checking

• To appreciate the potential benefits of electronic-vault

based relationships, one only needs to consider a small
number of everyday customer relationship scenarios, for
example:

• Customer mailing - using a customer-maintained

version of ‘name and address’ from an electronic
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vault would eliminate inaccurate, misdirected and

duplicate mailings with associated savings in
processing of returns and complaints – a welcome
development for both the originator and the receiver
and thus improved relationships

Potential Impact of CMR:

• But what does all this mean for an organisation’s CRM

investment? Should organisations just save their money
and wait for the customers to do all the hard work of
gathering, collating and organising their data so that
organisations can use it

• The answer is that they could wait, and some may even
manage to retain enough customers to survive until CRM
is overtaken by this vision of electronic-vault based CMR –
though of course there is no guarantee this will happen

• And even if those organisations who shun business-driven

CRM do survive, it is doubtful that they would have the
wherewithal to compete in what will be a highly evolved,
but still relationship-based competitive environment

• If an organisation’s competitive advantage is founded

only in access to superior quality or privileged data, the
threat of a ‘level playing field’ might well cause it to re-
appraise its investment plans

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