Integrating Social Media with CRM: A Case Study of OnePlus

This report delves into how OnePlus, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, integrates Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and the OnePlus community to enhance customer engagement and address business challenges. It identifies competitors like Xiaomi, Samsung, and Apple, and explores existing problems such as feature disparities and security concerns. The proposed solution involves leveraging social media for direct communication with customers, gathering feedback, and implementing strategic changes. The report also discusses reaching consensus on the role of social media, managing change triggered by its introduction, planning IS development for social media solutions, and dealing with outsourcing and privacy issues. Furthermore, it covers strategic alignment, resistance factors, the Kotter 8-STEP model for change management, and the impact of social media on how individuals work and communicate, providing a comprehensive overview of OnePlus's CRM and social media strategy.

Running head: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Customer Relationship Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
1 Introduction & Background..........................................................................................................4
1.1 Organization..........................................................................................................................4
1.2 Competitors............................................................................................................................4
1.3 Existing Problems/opportunity..............................................................................................4
1.4 Proposed Solution..................................................................................................................5
1.5 Literature review....................................................................................................................5
2 Reaching consensus......................................................................................................................6
2.1 Discussing the process that you propose to follow for reaching consensus..........................6
2.2 Providing examples of how social media could be used to reach consensus........................7
2.3 Using the strategic alignment process to determine the stages of the change.......................7
2.3.1 Resistance factors...........................................................................................................8
3 Managing change..........................................................................................................................9
3.1 Changes that will be triggered by the introduction of social media......................................9
3.2 Proposing a series of actions for introducing and implementing change............................10
3.3 Kotter 8 STEP MODEL.......................................................................................................11
4 Planning IS development............................................................................................................14
4.1 Organizing the impact of an IS development project for OnePlus......................................14
4.1.1 Impact of each social media.........................................................................................15
4.2 Reflecting on the impact of the social media proliferation to the sector.............................17
4.2.1 Social Medias affecting the way competitors operate..................................................18
4.3 Reviewing the impact of social media on people................................................................18
4.3.1 Explanation of how individuals change the way they work and communicate............19
4.3.2 IS Framework beneficial for OnePlus..........................................................................21
5 Dealing with outsourcing............................................................................................................23
5.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of company Outsourcing...................................................23
5.2 Discussing issues relating to outsourcing............................................................................23
5.3 Organizing and coordinating sub-contracted work..............................................................23
5.4 Managing deliverables, communication and collaboration.................................................23
6. Reference...................................................................................................................................24

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1 Introduction & Background
The foremost intention of this paper is focus on the impact of the CRM integrated with
the social media community of OnePlus.
1.1 Organization
Established in December 2013, OnePlus is a Chinese smart phone manufacturer
organization having their outlets in more than 34 countries of the world. The exotic service
provided by this manufacturing organization has seen growth in their business over the last
years in United States, India and China (Oneplus 2019). This organization have already started
implementation of the next generation wireless technology 5G services. Apart from the high
end mobile devices, wireless earphones based on latest dash charge technology, water resistant
ear buds working on aptX technology are the other products offered by this business
organization.
1.2 Competitors
There are different market competitors of this mobile manufacturing organization such as
Xiaomi, ASUS, Spice, Samsung, Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo and Apple which is the most important
competitor of OnePlus all of them are going to the top due to their advanced business strategies.
The business strategies adopted by organizations such as Apple and Microsoft which leads to
production of superior products such as Siri and Cortana respectively which are not present in
the OnePlus devices, replacement packages and warranty procedures make them have a
competitive advantage over OnePlus.

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The regional offices of these organizations are working very closely with the regional
offices so they are proving their customers with the products they are asking for whereas
OnePlus community are providing services according to the global customer requirements.
1.3 Existing Problems/opportunity
The advanced features which are offered by the other similar organizations such as the
auto brightness facility of Apple is serious concern regarding the business sales of the
smartphones in US, India and China (Dempsey 2018). The other technical issue associated
with this organization is the speaker volume issue coming from the side buttons of the OnePlus
handsets. The challenge thrown by the other mobile manufacturing organizations such as
Samsung and Apple is the prime business risk for this organization. The availability of the
product from the thirds party e-commerce applications such as Amazon is the other security
concern for OnePlus.
However, considering all the above discussed problems there are few business
opportunities of OnePlus also such as the incorporation of the Omni channel retailing
experience. The retail strategy adopted by OnePlus is the other business opportunity of this
organization which helps them to increase their business reach all over the world as well as
increase in their traffic share (Sawhney and Goodman 2016). The social media strategy
adopted by this organization is also useful as it helped the company to grow in countries like
US and India which is the major market for the other global mobile manufacturing
organizations.
1.4 Proposed Solution

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Customer engagement of OnePlus has improved significant after their online marketing
strategies with the help of social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and the
OnePlus community. Like every other business organization, OnePlus also had issue with their
products which were the reasons behind their decline in business sales (Macarthy 2018).
Customer Relationship Management can be beneficial from the business perspective of
OnePlus as the clients who are registered in the IS can communicate directly to the authorities
of OnePlus regarding any of their queries and concerns. The strategic changes needed for the
organization can be also identified with the integration of the social media with the existing
CRM practice of this organization.
1.5 Literature review
As stated by Hayes (2018), optimized techniques are being followed in the production
units of the global mobile devices such as OnePlus. The researchers of this paper focus on all
the wastages of the production units which can have an impact on the productivity of the
organization. The power consumption analysis theory is defined by the researchers which can
be useful for the management team to reduce their costs of the production units.
According to Dong et al. (2018), the privacy ending technologies have haven discussed
about the major mobile manufacturing organizations such as Apple and OnePlus. The
researchers stated about the business challenges of the mobile organizations, the prime
advantage of this paper is that it focuses on all the privacy issues of the mobile devices. The
prime limitation of this paper is the generalized description of the technical issues.
2 Reaching consensus

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2.1 Discussing the process that you propose to follow for reaching consensus
This unit of the paper will be proposing a process to reach a consensus for OnePlus.
 Implementation of the consensus decision making considering the inclusion of the
consumers, participation of the consumers in the discussion forum.
 The concept of solution mindedness can be very much useful for the finding the
difference of opinions of the consumers regarding any changes. The benefits of the
consensus process has to be identified in the first place by all the stakeholders of the
business.
 The implementation of the social media platforms with CRM can be hugely impactful for
OnePlus to deal with the business blockages.
2.2 Providing examples of how social media could be used to reach consensus
The exchange of opinion and differences can be understood in a better way using social
media platforms and the OnePlus community. New opinion can be very much impactful to reach
the consensus. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and OnePlus Community which
are used by most of the consumers of the OnePlus mobile devices.
2.3 Using the strategic alignment process to determine the stages of the change
The changes required for this organization considering both its internal as well as its
external stakeholders should be done using the two-step procedure. One step will be considering
one important business unit such as the financial resources for the implementation of a new
mobile device which is yet to come in the market (Sanderson et al. 2016). The documentation of
the first phase the final stage the final step will proceed. The alignment process will be
considering the structure of OnePlus community in China, United States and India, all the

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business strategies involved in the production unit, the resources required in the production
houses, waste products of the production rooms and the misdirection of the efforts provided by
the technical experts. The following model can be used for reaching the consensus in OnePlus
organization.

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Figure 1: The stages of change
(Source: Created by the author)
2.3.1 Resistance factors
The resistance factors for the stage of change in this organization are as followings:
 Threat coming from the increasing demand of the consumers may have an impact on the
stages of change.
 The compatibility issues of the emerging technologies which are used in the production
rooms such as the 5G services is also a resistant factor regarding the implementation of
the stages of change.
PrecontemplationContemplationPreparationActionMaintenance

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 Economic factors are the other major resistance factors for OnePlus regarding the
implementation of the stages of change.
 Allocation of the resources and the legacy systems used in the working environment of
OnePlus are the other resistance factors regarding the implementation of social media
solutions.
 Lack of communication skills can have a negative impact on the integration of the social
media platforms such as the Instagram and Facebook with CRM.
 Major server or database issue in the working environment of OnePlus can be have a
significant negative impact on the growth and productivity of the organization.
3 Managing change
3.1 Changes that will be triggered by the introduction of social media
The introduction of social media platforms such as Instagram had a great impact on the
growth and productivity of OnePlus. The private messages coming from the consumers are
easily accessed by the management team of OnePlus. The feedbacks coming from the
consumers can be useful for the making all the probable changes in the production units. New
marketing strategies can be also created using the social media (Nyadzayo & Khajehzadeh
2016). Clients of this organization can play a role in planning the future devices which will
help this organization to minimize the issue due to the changing requirements of consumers.
The integration of the social media platform will be also bring a change in the communication
process of this organization as the stakeholders of the business can have new platforms for
giving mock-ups from options such as Facebook Live (Lewis 2019). Video conferencing from
remote locations will be a lot easier as compared to the previous conventional demo
techniques. The visibility of OnePlus can be enhanced with the use of the social media

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platforms, as most of the consumers of this organization uses social media which are already
installed in the OnePlus devices (Latiff, and Safiee 2015). The business and professional
network of OnePlus community can be improved with the help of the social media.
Business marketing can be improved with the integration of the social media platforms
as connectivity with the consumer increases. Target audiences can be set and the loyal
consumers can be also identified easily with the help of the social media. Platforms such as
YouTube can be very much useful as the conferences can be live for the consumers to
understand the growth of this organization over the years (Dzhagaryan and Milenkovic 2016).
The products of the organization along with their specifications are presented in the YouTube
videos which are really useful for the consumers to compare the specification offered by this
organization with the products of the other similar organizations such as Apple. The potential
customers of this organizations can be also reached with the help of the social media
platforms.
3.2 Proposing a series of actions for introducing and implementing change
The introduction and implementation of the social media platforms as an Information
system solution for OnePlus can be as follows:
 Getting the support of the management team and involve each level of the employees
in the changing phase.
 The change should be well communicated between all the stakeholders of the business,
the consumers of the organization should be aware of all this happenings so that the
desired changes can be obtained from this change.

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 Social media marketing team should be looking after all the complexities of the social
media such as the inappropriate comments coming from the consumers, as it may have
an impact on the reputation of the organization.
The transition phase will be undergoing through behavioral changes as new candidates
might have to hire replacing the conventional marketing strategists. The location of few
employees can be replaced depending upon the scheduling if the change (Klingebiel and
Joseph 2016). Training and development of approach may be a source of concern regarding the
organizational behavior of the employees. Behavioral change models can be useful to deal
with the inappropriate behavior of the employees during this phase.
Transition management is very much important for transition phase in OnePlus.
Identification of the possible clashes using the transformational planning will be very much
important for this organization (van Liemt 2016). Unit staff meeting and all staff meetings are
necessary during the transitional phase so that the differences in approach of the employees
can be minimized.

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3.3 Kotter 8 STEP MODEL
Step 2: The co-operation of the employees and customers are needed for
bringing this change.
Step 3: The managers of the regional offices of United States, India and China
should be creating a vision for the change.
Step 4: The vision created by the managers should be circulated within the
employees, the opinion of the employees should be also taken in this phase.
Step 1: The need of social media platforms should be understood by all the
stakeholders of this business.