Analyzing CRM Strategies and Implementation at Manchester United

This case study examines the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) at Manchester United, a global football club. It explores how the club leverages CRM to manage its vast fan base, enhance fan engagement, and gain a competitive advantage in the sports industry. The report details Manchester United's CRM initiatives, including data integration from various sources like ticketing, museum, and financial partners, to gain a 360-degree view of its supporters. It highlights the club's strategies for building relationships, adding value to the fan experience, and streamlining business processes. The analysis covers the strengths and weaknesses of Manchester United's CRM approach, emphasizing the importance of data-driven decision-making and personalized services to meet fan expectations and drive revenue. The study also discusses how CRM helps Manchester United offer services anytime, anywhere, providing real-time data and information to its global fanbase. Overall, the case study provides insights into how CRM contributes to Manchester United's brand strength and market position.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Manchester United
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Introduction
Information technology undertakes imperative parts to the numerous organizations these days.
One of the major attributes associated to the information technology in the current times is
customer relationship Management (Ado, Hassan and Nasir, 2015). CRM has been combination
of the business as well as technological approaches used to fulfil requests of the clients at any
point in time. Additionally, CRM includes procurement, investigation as well as usage of the
data about the customers, while keeping in mind end goal to offer more services effectively
(Ado, Hassan and Nasir, 2015). Customer relationship management applies beyond the
traditional products as well as services offerings to the clients. CRM has turn out to be the core
strategic aspects to the sports clubs which identify on the significance of managing and
understanding their supporters (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). To most of the fans,
football brand is an individual because of the cultural ties in addition to the emotional appeal,
sports club can exceed organizations operating outside the realm of the sports in the brand
adoration and loyalty. Nevertheless, this brand craze could make a complicated environment
which necessitates cautious management and anticipation (Palsa, 2015). This approach at times
might be complicated to the football sector where competition over the supporters might
occasionally be fierce. It is apparent that football without the fans would possibly not have been
the sport it is at present. This implies a weakened fan base can easily lead to ruins of the football
clubs (Paramio-Salcines, Downs and Grady, 2015). The fans who are the clients are the base to
the football club economic model and they should not be taken for the granted because they fill
up the stadiums, purchase the merchandises and they can attract sponsorship. In this case study

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report it will describe the use of the customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Manchester
United club.
Overview of Manchester United
Manchester United is an English club and a global club. It is amongst the first English club to
perform in European Cup and the first club to actual wins it (Doidge, 2014). Moreover, they are
the main English club to have become the winners of the world clubs champion (Ausloos,
Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). The club used to be MU in 1902 when the collection of the
entrepreneurs assumed on its control. It was then they embraced the red shirts in which they are
known with up to this day (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). They first won their
championship under the leadership of Ernest Mangnall back in 1908 as well as 1911, which
included their first FA Cup in the year 1909. Nonetheless, there were no significant honors not
until the Second World War.
CRM solution
The club redeveloped on their key communication channel with the world wide fans. They
moved to invest to the creation of the fans relationship management solution. The CRM initiative
would be the growth engine for the club going forward (Doidge, 2014). Manchester United
works closely with many partners, it was important for the CRM initiative could aggregate on the
data from across their entire business ecosystem which represent 12 data feeds, which included
the ticketing, museum and the financial services partners (Doidge, 2014). This consolidated data
could form the basis to marketing and the delivery of the services in innovations in order to
reinforce the loyalty of the fans and at the same time leverage on the global value of the
Manchester United brand (Doidge, 2014).

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The use of CRM technology in Manchester United
CRM goes beyond conventional products as well as services offerings. CRM has turned into the
vital aspects to the sport clubs which perceive the significance of understanding and overseeing
on their supporters (Khodakarami and Chan, 2014). Football brand has been enthusiasm to some
fans. The football clubs they have transcended on the organisation working outside of the
domain of the brand loyalty and adoration. The football industry has fallen behind the various
industries especially when it comes to executing CRM systems the supporters are the point of
interest in gaining from the missteps which are made somewhere else (Khodakarami and Chan,
2014). Nonetheless, there is essentially contrast when it comes to football as compared to the
conventional organisations (Trainor, Andzulis, Rapp and Agnihotri, 2014). This is based on the
excellent CRM models which have been examined in writing the needs which are to be adjusted
to each professional area (Ado, Hassan and Nasir, 2015). CRM is a concept which could be used
to enhancing the customer relationship and gain competitive benefits. To enhance marketing
much effectively Manchester United they need to change on their administration from creating
football matches for the general populace, to more unpredictable plans of actions, in regards to
the customer focused relationship (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015).
Customers are the lifeblood to any business, but the significance of having strong relationship is
all the significance when the clients are the fans. Manchester United enjoys one of the most
recognized brands in the sporting fields (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015).
Manchester United is more than a club. It is a global sport organization which has interest in the
retail, media as well as financial services (Bradley and SugarCRM Inc, 2016). To attain on their
goal the club had embarked on global customer relationship management programme
(Khodakarami and Chan, 2014). The initial phase was to further develop channels which would

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enable them to connect with their customer and at the same time maximise the potential of
Manchester United brand either directly or indirectly via the partners’ network (Trainor,
Andzulis, Rapp and Agnihotri, 2014).
To the heart of their CRM strategy there was the desire to get 360 degrees of personal supporters.
At the end they have pulled together information from the numerous databases using incremental
data which captures strategy that are developed through dimension data (Edwards, 2013). They
were able to pull the data from various systems which included membership, ticketing, museum
as well as the financial partners (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). The club
has complex business from the retail with the sales of the shirts and Mermorabilia via visits to
their museum or restaurant to subscribing to one of their magazines. Moreover, they do also
credit cards and mortgages (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). They want to know when
they talk to their customer if they have a season ticket with them. The type of the conversation
they have had with the clients is totally different to what they would have with someone who just
highlights they are Manchester United fan.
The club being able to access such kind of the data and having a comprehensive view of the
client is vital to the level and the nature of service the club could offer. One of the issues is that
the demand could exceed the supply in their ticket office (Edwards, 2013). The club over the past
they have turned more than twelve thousand individuals who have tried to buy tickets for each of
their match (Petríková and Soroková, 2015). The single view they have with the clients, remains
work in progress. The relationship the club has had with their fans is the lifeblood to the business
(Edwards, 2013). They are at the early stages and CRM is a long project which might probably
never end, since is something they would develop and they continue to refine It (Nufer and

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Bühler, 2015). The good thing with the club they have model which would assist them to serve
well their clients.
CRM Practices across Manchester United Club
To enhance on the best CRM practices across the organisation Manchester United need to
implement aspect such as the following;
Establishing relationship and Adding value
Manchester United differentiated themselves from the competition (Edwards, 2013). Their site
was created with the fans, which has offered some substantial competitive advantage. The
website is user friendly to the fans and it consists of absolutely no advertisements (Edwards,
2013). The site has undergone extensive market research which was aimed in comprehending on
the needs of the fans and expectations. This could display some sense of the empathy together
with the responsiveness to their online community (Doidge , 2014 ) . This website has played a part
in several of their quality dimensions such as tangibility and access. It does contain every aspect
which the fans would have wanted to know in regards to the club (Edwards, 2013). The website
has had extensive reports and highlights on the matches along with the team sheets, match as
well as comparative player statistics (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). The fans are also able to submit
their opinions and predictions in regards to the match and interact with the other fans across the
globe.
The club has directed on their advertising campaign to stress on the strong link between club and
the world and they aim at charming a number of the stakeholders along with appealing goodwill
or the spiritual awareness of some of their fans (Kennedy, 2015). In their community program,

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they club organizes numerous fundraising and volunteering events. This is a form of adding
value to the community and in return they gain numerous numbers of the fans across the world.
How CRM has helped Manchester United attain competitive advantage in the industry
The use of CRM would allow Manchester United to streamline on the business process, better
management their fans and new clients to the onboarding process and at the same time handle the
scheduling and projects (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). CRM provides an efficient as well as
convenient way in centralizing on the operations across the business, while at the same time
keeping efficient and quality services. CRM is utilised to record, track as well as report on the
entire prospect, fans activities and the club transactions (Nufer and Bühler, 2015). It allows the
club to have data which is immediately available, and complete as well as up to data which
enables them to respond faster to any requests highlighted by the supported which enables them
to work at the peak efficiency (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Through
CRM Manchester United would offer personal services to the supporters. It is important they
exceed the clients’ expectations when everybody knows what they had promised, and what they
have scheduled from them for the future (Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015).
Full featured CRM would tie all the operations of the club, which would become one stop shop
to access all the data they need to build and also maintain amazing relationship with the fans.
CRM has enabled Manchester United to provide services anytime and anywhere to their
supporters. In their instant access omni-channel globally, the client requires quick responses
(Gonzalez, Quesada, Davis and Mora-Monge, 2015). Gone are the days which the clients had to
wait for the news or response in regards to information about the club or matches (Ogbonna and
Harris, 2015). CRM helps them to gain access to the real time club data when they need it in

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terms of any transfer, injury of the players, matches to be played and anything about the club
(Olson, Duray, Cooper and Olson, 2016).
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths
Manchester United is the most powerful and valuable sports club brand worldwide. Their use of
the CRM supports them to gain immense revenues from the sponsorship and sales of various
merchandises worldwide (Nufer, 2013). The market position of the club might be appreciated by
the fan base client that is around 330 million which happens to be 5% of the total population of
the world. This huge fan is the bases of their strong brand image and there is absolutely no
solitary reason that explains why it could encounter virtually any issues.
Weaknesses
The primary weak point of Manchester United is their high volume of the debt they have got on
the market (Ausloos, Gadomski and Vitanov, 2014). The debt is really substantial that the
strength of the club might be defied with this element. Moreover, the rules as well as the
regulations of the UEFA and FIFA do not permit the club to obtain more debts that is leading to
additional problems to the club.
Recommendations and conclusion
Manchester United found out the best solution to develop customer loyalty is acquire good data
of all their customers and make use of this data to generate a programs that could focus on each
customer preferences. The most reliable to these programs provides everybody within the club to
access the clients’ data which helps to serve the supporters better.

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The club needs to utilise CRM since it would enable them to create strategies which could focus
on the entire enterprise to serving the supporters much better. This will enable them to increase
on their earning much faster if they know who their customers are much better. CRM helps to the
club to have a better picture of the clients and this assists them in tailoring their services better.
They are able to cross sell and up sell to them different merchandise across the globe. In this
report, it has described the use of the CRM in Manchester United. Moreover, it has highlighted
who are the customers of the club and how they are using CRM in the club.

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