BUSN20019 Project Proposal: CRM Relationships for Apple and Samsung

This project proposal explores the application of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies within the highly competitive smartphone industry, specifically focusing on Apple and Samsung. The research investigates how these companies build effective customer relationships to enhance organizational performance and customer satisfaction. The proposal outlines the field of research, emphasizing the importance of customer satisfaction in organizational success and the role of technology in achieving this. It identifies publicly available secondary data sources, including Statista and news articles, to support the research. The core research question examines how organizations build effective customer relationships using CRM, with secondary questions addressing the role of CRM in organizational performance and the impact of customer satisfaction on organizational success. Search terms are provided for identifying relevant literature, and three peer-reviewed scholarly articles are cited to support the research, focusing on the relationship between CRM, organizational performance, and customer orientation.

Management
Name of the Student:

Assessment 1: Project Proposal
Helping Customers Build Relationships through CRM: The case of Apple and Samsung
Field of Research: In the intense and competitive world, organizational success and
performance is dependent on the customer satisfaction. With the changing global standards,
technology plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction. As the smartphone industry is highly
competitive, every company intends to satisfy its customers in less time. Therefore, every
organization intends to maximize the customer values electronically.
Secondary Data:
The information on https://www.statista.com/statistics/605933/worldwide-customer-
relationship-management-market-forecast/ makes it clearer how the companies are adopting
CRM software to boost customer satisfaction. The information on
https://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/mobile-phones/let-the-smartphone-wars-begin-as-
apple-and-samsung-go-all-out-to-become-the-top-seller/news-story/
17e64d26bbf8cdc3047e98795470da6d presents more quantitative data about the increasing
rivalry between the two smartphone companies- Apple and Samsung.
Research Questions:
The primary research question for the purpose of this paper is:
 How does an organization build effective customer relationships using CRM?
A few secondary questions that shall be answered in this research paper are:
 What is the role of CRM in organizational performance?

 How does customer satisfaction affect organizational success and performance?
Search Terms:
Customer Relationship Management, Organizational Performance, Customer Satisfaction
Reference List:
According to Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan (2014), customer Relationship Management
(CRM) increases sales productivity, business performance and relationship with buyers. This
reference has been chosen as it helps in determining the relationship between CRM and firm
performance. Rodrigue, Peterson and Krishnan (2018) believed that CRM technology impacts
the sales process by creating and managing opportunity and relationships. A specific study in the
three regions of the world like Europe, Asia and US was analyzed. The results suggest that there
were differences in CRM effectiveness due to difference in significant sales process. It was also
found that better CRM effectiveness resulted in better relationships and better opportunities. This
reference has been chosen as it provides insight about three different geographical regions. Wang
and Kim (2017) suggest how social media usage can help the organizations build new CRM
capabilities for better organizational performance. The authors in the article follow partial least
square regression to find the relationship between CRM and social media affecting the sales
performance. This reference has been chosen as it draws insight for the research applying the
lastest technology, i.e. social media.
Rodriguez, M., Peterson, R. M., & Ajjan, H. (2015). CRM/social media technology: impact on
customer orientation process and organizational sales performance. In Ideas in
Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old (pp. 636-638). Springer, Cham.

Rodriguez, M., Peterson, R. M., & Krishnan, V. (2018). Impact of CRM technology on sales
process behaviors: empirical results from US, Europe, and Asia. Journal of Business-to-
Business Marketing, 25(1), 1-10.
Wang, Z., & Kim, H. G. (2017). Can social media marketing improve customer relationship
capabilities and firm performance? Dynamic capability perspective. Journal of
Interactive Marketing, 39, 15-26.