An Analysis of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

This report provides a comprehensive overview of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. It begins by defining CRM systems and highlighting key characteristics, such as their ability to leverage real-time data to understand customer behavior and integrate various business operations. The report then explores the benefits of CRM, including enhanced communication strategies, process optimization, and the creation of process-oriented and real-time enterprises. It discusses the integration of CRM with Business Intelligence (BI) tools and its alignment with IT and business strategies. The report also addresses important considerations in implementing and maintaining CRM systems, including application maintenance, user interface management, and overall system administration. Finally, the report classifies CRM systems into three types: operational, analytical, and collaborative, and provides relevant references.

Customer relationship management (CRM) system

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
Table of Contents
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems............................................................................2
References................................................................................................................................................5
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems are the automated applications that
optimize and automate all the customer related functions and operations. One of such widely
used applications is the SAP CRM system (Santouridis & Veraki, 2017). There are a few
characteristics that are associated with the CRM systems as described below.
CRM systems allow an organization to understand the customer behavior and expectations
using the real-time data. This makes the organization an information-driven enterprise. It is;
however, required for the organizations to control the access to the information sets.
There are varied business operations and activities that are carried out in an organization.
CRM packages allow the business executives to carry out all of such operations on an
integrated platform. Distributed and multi-located tasks can also be easily carried out using
these packages that result in the emergence of a global enterprise (Kale, 2015).
CRM systems also allow the companies to have interaction with their customers using
different mediums. It leads to the formation and implementation of an enhanced
communication strategy. There are varied business goals that are targeted with the execution
of the cross-functional processes. The required customer, product and organizational
information is also retained for future references. It therefore, reflects the integrated nature of
an enterprise (Bull, 2010).
Traditional systems only capture and follow the data-oriented view of a particular process.
However, CRM promotes the idea of parallel view comprising of data along with business
rules and processes. Process-oriented enterprise can be created as a result of the same.
Concurrent processing can be achieved with the aid of CRM systems that comprise of real-
time processing and enterprise-level integration. Many different processes can be parallel
carried out with this ability that may result in higher efficiency, throughput and productivity
levels. It also provides additional benefits to the enterprise in terms of accurate Available to
Promise (ATP) details, latest Capture to Promise (CTP) details and increased on-time
delivery. The dynamic nature of customer requests can also be met by these systems leading
to the formation of real-time enterprise (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014).
CRM can also be integrated with a number of Business Intelligent (BI) tools to form an
intelligent enterprise. There are real-time decision making and processing systems that
involve an event-driven hub, analysis engine and a rule-driven decision engine. CRM can be
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
integrated with such systems for enhanced data management and data analysis along with
real-time decision making and processing.
Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) are an integral part of the present
day business units. The focus of these technologies and systems is now customer-oriented so
that customer expectations and needs can be met. CRM also does its bit in the same by
making sure that IT strategy is in line with the business strategy of the organization.
CRM also includes multiple approaches for overall performance improvement. The hard
approach of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and various soft approaches to achieve
customer satisfaction can be achieved with the aid of CRM (Vanitha, 2012).
The companies in the present era are deploying the software packages according to the need
and domain of critical information management. The traditional software implementation
suffers from a number of drawbacks, such as late error detection and risk resolution, a lot of
rework, limited scalability etc. CRM has made it possible to implement new department store
model with the implementation of the CRM systems.
In case of CRM, the end-users are directly and actively involved in the business operations
and activities. There are several advantages that it offers in terms of process focus, number of
internal and external users, key business benefits, strategic and industry focus as compared to
the traditional back-office automation technology.
There are a few issues that need to be addressed in association with CRM systems.
Application maintenance of the related systems in terms of application repository systems,
fourth generation language development environment, query and report management system,
configuration management, change management and version management systems along with
Application Programming Interface (API) shall be evaluated. User Interface related systems
comprising of Graphical User-Interface (GUI) Management System, Menu and Help
Management system shall be assessed. There is also an overall management of the related
systems that is necessary. These include database management systems, application
administration and management system, software distribution, security and authorization
management system, audit management, disaster recovery, archival management and
communication management system (Trkman, Mertens, Viaene & Gemmel, 2015).
Application support shall also be considered in the areas of online and print documentation
systems, online tutorials and training along with implementation project management system.
The other areas of focus shall include office automation system and data warehouse systems.
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
CRM systems are broadly classified in three types as operational CRM, Analytical CRM and
Collaboration CRM.
Types of CRM Systems
The figure above showcases the relationship between the different types of CRM systems.
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
References
Bull, C. (2010). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, intermediation and
disintermediation: The case of INSG. International Journal Of Information
Management, 30(1), 94-97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2009.11.004
Kale, V. (2015). Implementing SAP® CRM: The Guide for Business and Technology
Managers (pp. 69-83). Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Khodakarami, F., & Chan, Y. (2014). Exploring the role of customer relationship
management (CRM) systems in customer knowledge creation. Information &
Management, 51(1), 27-42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2013.09.001
Santouridis, I., & Veraki, A. (2017). Customer relationship management and customer
satisfaction: the mediating role of relationship quality. Total Quality Management &
Business Excellence, 28(9-10), 1122-1133.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2017.1303889
Trkman, P., Mertens, W., Viaene, S., & Gemmel, P. (2015). From business process
management to customer process management. Business Process Management Journal,
21(2), 250-266. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/bpmj-02-2014-0010
Vanitha, K. (2012). Customer Relationship Management on Customer Satisfaction.
International Journal Of Scientific Research, 3(4), 1-3.
http://dx.doi.org/10.15373/22778179/apr2014/240
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