Marketing Essay: Exploring CRM Issues and Solutions

This essay delves into the complexities of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) within the marketing context, identifying key issues that organizations face. The essay highlights three primary challenges: the lack of adequate CRM software and IT support, the employment of inexperienced CRM teams, and the infrequent integration of CRM and ERP systems, especially in smaller companies. It emphasizes the need for robust CRM project planning and management, including the implementation of 360-degree customer data viewing software to overcome data fragmentation. Furthermore, the essay stresses the importance of having a skilled CRM team that understands the needs of customers and can effectively utilize CRM tools, rather than relying solely on IT departments. Finally, it underscores the significance of integrating CRM with ERP systems to streamline operations and reduce costs. The essay concludes by reiterating the importance of addressing these issues to improve customer relationship management and overall marketing effectiveness.

Running head: MARKETING
Marketing
Student’s Name
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Author’s Note

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Introduction
In the scope of this essay, the issues regarding CRM have been explored and this is in
relation to the CRM tools that are implemented in various organisations. Three main CRM
issues that companies face, have been discussed in the course of this essay. The first problem
that have been highlighted here is the lack of proper facility of proper CRM software and the
requisite IT support. The second related issue is that many of the organisations with less
experience and expertise often employs an incapable team of CRM. Lastly, the issue is that
most of the indigenous companies with a small client base do not pay heed to the aspect of
integration between CRM and ERP systems.
Thesis statement: This essay discusses the issues that the companies currently face in the
context of CRM and the most poignant issues have been highlighted here along with
suggestive approaches to solve or mitigate the issue within the organisational environment.
Discussion
The major emphasis in this essay would be on highlighting of the CRM issues and
how CRM project planning can be implemented in order to deliver a relevant solution to the
issue. One of the primary CRM related issues that requires mention here is that for CRM
planning and management, extensive software and IT support is required. However most
of the companies lack this facility. The companies mostly benefit from the CRM software by
managing a number of spreadsheets for sales cycles, follow up items and customer bases and
so on. However, the issue with spreadsheets is that they contain isolated information that can
be seldom associate with any other data on any other spreadsheets. In this context, Hung et al.
(2019), emphasises that maintaining many spreadsheets implies that there is a huge collection
of non-integrated data that is inefficient in delivering the whole overview of customer
relationship through them. The most dominant problem is that through analysis of a single

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spreadsheet, a CRM manger will hardly get to know the number of invoices that are linked
with a single customer cannot compare the sales of the previous year with that of the current
sales output, and also cannot understand whether there are any open quotes which requires
any follow up call or not.
In order to solve this CRM issue, Alamgir and Shamsuddoha (2015), reflects that
many of the large MNC enterprise have recently employed a 360 degrees viewable customer
data reading software in a single database. As Ahmed, Amroush and Maati (2019), informs,
this is essential for the purpose of comparing the current progress with the previous
achievements and conclusively planning for the progress for the organisation.
Hung et al. (2019), emphasises that there is another more severe problem that is worth
pondering up on. This is having a wrong team of Customer Relationship Management. The
purchasing as well as implementation of the CRM software are mostly left in to the hands of
the IT lead team of a company. Most of the Medium sized enterprises practice this. However
this is where the project management goes wrong, as Alamgir and Shamsuddoha (2015),
implies. The IT should be performing only a supporting role. They are never associated with
the sales platform and thus they would never be able to understand the real needs of the
customers and what is the exact way to maintain data that can help in mitigating the problem
and confusions of the customers and sales managers. In this context, Alamgir and
Shamsuddoha (2015), opines that most of the teams of higher management in the companies
do not understand the simple fact that CRM is not a one stop solution. This is simply a
software that can help in simplification of the task management of the managers. There
should be proper combination of the people and relevant processes that can follow up with
the benefits of the process. There should be an efficient team of managers who understands
how to implement the tool for their benefit and IT leads should communicate with them
rendering information of the latest facilities in the field of CRM that might ease out their job.

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The managers on the contrary should have the in-depth knowledge in order to understand
which is most feasible for their job.
Many of the CRM managers do not give emphasis to the integration between the
CRM and the ERP system. The work group that is associated with the evaluation as well as
implementation of the CRM tools, need to understand what nature of software is needed for
the customer relationship ,maintenance of the company and it’s kind of clients. It is often
very alluring to purchase any off the shelf and standalone system of CRM. This is because, as
Ahmed, Amroush and Maati (2019) communicates, once the standalone CRM software is
integrated with the ERP software bearing all the orders, invoice data as well as shipments,
this would incur cost and the company would not be benefitted from saving money through
buying a standalone software.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that it is essential to understand how CRM project
planning can be implemented in order to deliver a relevant solution to the issues that have
been highlighted herein. In order to conduct customer relationship management, many CRM
managers use multiple spreadsheets. However maintaining many spreadsheets implies that
there is a huge collection of non-integrated data that is inefficient in delivering the whole
overview of customer relationship through them. The most dominant problem is that through
analysis of a single spreadsheet, a CRM manger will hardly get to know the entire customer
data by means of using this software. Similarly, having a wrong team of Customer
Relationship Management is also harmful The purchasing as well as implementation of the
CRM software are mostly left in to the hands of the IT lead team of a company. Most of the
Medium sized enterprises practice this. However, most essential is that the companies’ higher
management should understand that CRM is basically a software that needs to be

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manhandled by efficient managers who have a huge experience in sales and customer
management. That is why it is essential that a significant combination of CRM and ERP
software be maintained for yielding in the best implementation of the CRM management.

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Reference List
Alamgir, M. and Shamsuddoha, M., 2015. Customer relationship management (crm) success
factors: an exploratory study. Ecoforum Journal, 4(1), p.7.
Ahmed, B.S., Amroush, F. and Maati, M.B., 2019. The Intelligence of E-CRM Applications
and Approaches on Online Shopping Industry. In Advanced Methodologies and Technologies
in Digital Marketing and Entrepreneurship (pp. 70-82). IGI Global.
Hung, W.H., Chang, I.C., Chen, Y. and Ho, Y.L., 2019. Aligning 4C Strategy with Social
Network Applications for CRM Performance. Journal of Global Information Management
(JGIM), 27(1), pp.93-110.

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