BUSN20019: CRM Models of Apple and Samsung - Professional Project

This professional project report examines the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies employed by Apple and Samsung. The report begins with an executive summary, table of contents, and introduction to CRM, highlighting its importance in modern business. A comprehensive literature review explores various CRM models, including strategic, analytical, and operational approaches, and their application by Apple and Samsung. The research aims to conduct a comparative study of the CRM models used by the two companies and determine how these models have contributed to their global success. The research plan outlines the use of secondary data from online sources and academic literature, with qualitative data analysis using NVivo software. A Gantt chart provides a detailed schedule for the project, covering data collection, analysis, and report writing. The report concludes with a discussion of the findings and their implications for the smartphone industry, emphasizing the role of CRM in building customer relationships, enhancing satisfaction, and driving organizational success. The report also includes references and an appendix for further information. The report is a project proposal for BUSN20019 course at Central Queensland University.

Running Head: PROFESSIONAL PROJECT
How Business Organisations Build Customer Relationship with CRM:
The Case of Apple and Samsung
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Executive Summary
Customer Relationship Management or CRM system is utilized by many business organisations
to keep connected to the customers. This is a very effective system in building relationship with
existing and potential new customers as well as implementing new marketing strategies to attract
more customers in the products and services. This research focuses on CRM system in general as
well as the CRM models deployed by Apple and Samsung in order to engage their customers
within their business model.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Literature Review......................................................................................................................3
3.0 Research Aim and Research Questions.....................................................................................7
3.1 Aim of the Research..............................................................................................................7
3.2 Research Questions................................................................................................................7
4.0 Research Plan.............................................................................................................................7
4.1 Overview of Proposed Data Collection and Analysis Method..............................................7
4.2 Gantt Chart Schedule.............................................................................................................8
4.3 Data Sources........................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................13
Appendix........................................................................................................................................16

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1.0 Introduction
Customer Relationship Management or in short, CRM system is currently one of the most
popular IT-based systematic approach that enables the business organisations to connect with the
customers as a part of the organisational operational strategy. Various large scale business
organisations have implemented various forms of CRM system to suit their business needs and
they have been more or less successful in building a close relationship with their customers
(Williams, Ashill & Naumann, 2017). While CRM poses a significantly large field of research
on the global context, for this particular research, the field is limited to two globally popular
companies – Samsung and Apple. Apple is the largest smart device brand in the world whereas
Samsung is its nearest rival in terms of brand value and popularity. It has been seen that both of
the companies have implemented CRM systems within their operational set up and have enjoyed
success in connecting with the customers throughout their marketing and selling process.
The purpose of this report is to develop a suitable research plan that focuses on the CRM
systems implemented by Apple and Samsung and conduct a comparative study on the success of
the CRM models deployed by the two companies.
2.0 Literature Review
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system that is used by most of the
international business organisations around the world. According to the authors Kumar and
Reinartz (2018), CRM is an effective system is engaging the customers within the business
system of the organisation without even having to need the customers to work within the
organisation. In this same line of analysis, Karjaluoto et al. (2014) said that the customer-

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business relationship is established when the customer regularly purchases products from the
organisation, provides feedbacks and reviews regarding the products and the organisations make
modifications according depending on the number of feedbacks given.
According to Ogunnaike, Tairat and Emmanuel (2014), CRM system has revolutionized
the way the business organisations are operating in the market. Before the introduction of CRM,
the customer engagement in the business organisations were discreet and there was no specific
setup for systematic communication of the customers and storing and managing their data as per
the business requirements.
Rahiminik and Shamsadini (2014) discussed various types and models of CRM system
and discussed their natures and applicability to the various business models of organisations.
According to them, there are three main CRM models are used in business organisations
according to their requirements – strategic CRM, analytical CRM and operational CRM. Each
CRM model has its own advantage and disadvantage depending upon the use and nature of the
organisation.
According the authors Perna and Baraldi (2014), there are several dimensions of CRM
system that are utilized by the business organisations for connecting with the customers. As per
the author, reciprocity is one of the main dimensions of CRM in which the customer either
provides positive or hostile feedback to the business organisation depending on the nature of
product or service provided by the company.
This has been further backed by Jocovic et al. (2014) who said that more customers are
likely to exhibit positive or hostile behaviour depending on the trend of the feedbacks provided.
For instance, if most of the reviews are positive, it is more likely that more customers will

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provide positive reviews to the business organisation. CRM system helps recording these
feedbacks so that the company can engage more customers in providing feedbacks based on the
products or services provided.
The authors Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen (2019) also explain online trust as one of the
main requirements of a successful CRM system. Since majority of customer engagement in the
CRM system is online, the organisation needs to establish trust and provide security and privacy
to the customers so that they start to trust the company and also provide positive feedbacks
towards the services and products of the company.
Authors Khodakarami and Chan (2014) explained the enhancement of customer
engagement with linking the CRM system with a social media platform where most of the
customers are active. Trainor et al. (2014) also analyzed the connection of social media and
CRM and said that through the social media platform, the company can easily connect with the
customers using various offers, discounts, attractive posts and others that can easily attract new
and existing customers. Chain relationship is also established when an existing customer refers a
friend and family member for purchasing products or services through the social media platform.
Authors Choudhury and Harrigan (2014) studied the success of Apple in the current
smartphone market that has been possible only because of the successful implementation of
CRM system. As per the authors, Apple uses CRM system for marketing of its products among
the potential buyers and as a result, the company is able sell a huge number of devices in spite of
high cost.
Diffley and McCole (2017) studied the CRM model of Apple and published in their
works that Apple utilizes suitable customer engagement techniques that convince the customers

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to spend high amount of money to purchase Apple devices even though there are multiple and
cheaper alternatives are available in the market. According to the authors, Apply uses product
based CRM system i.e. the company understands the psychology of the customers regarding the
devices they want to buy and exploit the market accordingly.
On the other hand, Nyadzayo and Khajehzadeh (2016) explored the CRM techniques
used by Samsung, another global smartphone giant, to engage customers and achieve high
amount of sales in the market. The authors said that unlike the technique used by Apple,
Samsung focuses on actual needs and requirements of the customers regarding a smartphone or
any other device.
Giannakis-Bompolis and Boutsouki (2014) also studied the CRM model of Samsung and
said that Samsung has extensive CRM network through which it connects with the customers and
receive feedbacks regarding the features they want. Accordingly, the devices are designed and
are made available for sale for the customers at reasonable prices.
Badwan et al. (2017) published in their works that the development and implementation
of CRM system would not have been possible without the rapid development of technology that
has provided various for successful implementation of CRM in business organisations. Going on
the same line of research, Navimipour and Soltani (2016) opined that the evolution of technology
as well as the customer relationship with the business organisations, most of the organisations
have invested big to engage their regular customers to ensure there is always a standard customer
base can be further enhanced by bringing in more potential customers.

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3.0 Research Aim and Research Questions
3.1 Aim of the Research
The primary aim of the research is to conduct a comparative study on the CRM models
that have been deployed by Apple and Samsung. Further, research will be conducted to
determine how the CRM models have helped Apple and Samsung in gaining success in the
global context.
3.2 Research Questions
The research questions that have been developed for this study are as follows.
RQ 1: What is the role of CRM in a successful business in the smartphone industry?
(Secondary Data Source: https://htqvn.wordpress.com/)
RQ 2: How does customer satisfaction gained through the CRM system affect
organisational success and performance? (Secondary Data Source:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
235317930_Customer_satisfaction_and_business_performance_A_firm-level_analysis)
4.0 Research Plan
4.1 Overview of Proposed Data Collection and Analysis Method
Since this particular project is focused two companies namely Apple and Samsung, the
most important data required for the research is secondary data. The secondary data will be
collected from various literary sources, annual reports published by both the companies and also

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other data sources published online. Hence, this research focuses solely on secondary data that
will be collected during the course of study from the online sites specified below.
 https://htqvn.wordpress.com/
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
235317930_Customer_satisfaction_and_business_performance_A_firm-
level_analysis
The field and topic of the research demand qualitative data analysis as there is very small
amount of quantified data here to analyze. Hence, in order to undertake the qualitative data
analysis, qualitative data will be collected from the various sources published online as well as in
literature. The theme of the qualitative data analysis will be the CRM system and its benefits in
the smartphone industry (with specific focus on Apple and Samsung). After collection of the
qualitative data from the online sources, NVivo software will be used for the analysis and
collection of results from the analysis.
4.2 Gantt Chart Schedule
The Gantt chart schedule showing the estimated time required for the project is shown in
the following table.
WBS Task Name Duration Start Finish
0 Research Schedule 144 days Mon 5/6/19 Thu 11/21/19
1 Research Initiation 23 days Mon 5/6/19 Wed 6/5/19
1.1 Requirement Gathering and Analysis 5 days Mon 5/6/19 Fri 5/10/19

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1.2
Approval of Research Topic from
Supervisor
5 days Mon 5/13/19 Fri 5/17/19
1.3 Development of Research Plan 3 days Mon 5/20/19 Wed 5/22/19
1.4 Development of Research Framework 5 days Thu 5/23/19 Wed 5/29/19
1.5 Prepare Draft Research Proposal 5 days Thu 5/30/19 Wed 6/5/19
2 Research Planning 26 days Thu 6/6/19 Thu 7/11/19
2.1 Formation of Research Team 2 days Thu 6/6/19 Fri 6/7/19
2.2 Analysis of Research Requirement 2 days Mon 6/10/19 Tue 6/11/19
2.3 Formulate Research Questions 3 days Wed 6/12/19 Fri 6/14/19
2.4 Identify Scope of Research 3 days Mon 6/17/19 Wed 6/19/19
2.5 Identify Research Gap 10 days Thu 6/20/19 Wed 7/3/19
2.6
Allocation of Resources and Time for
the Research
4 days Thu 7/4/19 Tue 7/9/19
2.7 Initiation of Research 2 days Wed 7/10/19 Thu 7/11/19
3 Research Development 33 days Fri 7/12/19 Tue 8/27/19
3.1 Determination of Research Problems 6 days Fri 7/12/19 Fri 7/19/19
3.2 Access to Necessary Media 2 days Mon 7/22/19 Tue 7/23/19

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3.3 Access to Online Library 2 days Mon 7/22/19 Tue 7/23/19
3.4 Select Literature Sources for Review 5 days Wed 7/24/19 Tue 7/30/19
3.5 Conduct Literature Review 10 days Wed 7/31/19 Tue 8/13/19
3.6 Collection of Necessary Data 10 days Wed 8/14/19 Tue 8/27/19
4 Data Analysis 30 days Wed 8/28/19 Tue 10/8/19
4.1
Analysis of Data Collected from
Literature
15 days Wed 8/28/19 Tue 9/17/19
4.2 Analysis of Secondary Data 15 days Wed 9/18/19 Tue 10/8/19
5 Research Evaluation 13 days Wed 10/9/19 Fri 10/25/19
5.1 Reaching Conclusion using the Data 5 days Wed 10/9/19 Tue 10/15/19
5.2 Reflection on Research Undertaken 3 days Wed 10/16/19 Fri 10/18/19
5.3 Documentation of Learning Outcomes 4 days Wed 10/16/19 Mon 10/21/19
5.4
Issues Identification and Future
Planning
4 days Tue 10/22/19 Fri 10/25/19
6 Signing Off 19 days Mon 10/28/19 Thu 11/21/19
6.1 Complete All Activities in Research 1 day Mon 10/28/19 Mon 10/28/19

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6.2 Documentation of Entire Research 15 days Tue 10/29/19 Mon 11/18/19
6.3
Validation of the Research and
Learning
2 days Tue 11/19/19 Wed 11/20/19
6.4 Team Sign Off 1 day Thu 11/21/19 Thu 11/21/19
4.3 Data Sources
Both Apple and Samsung have published their CRM related data online that will act as
the main sources of secondary data for this research. In addition to their own websites, some
other online sites have also published very useful information on the same topic. The main data
sources that will be used in this research are listed as follows.
[1] https://htqvn.wordpress.com/
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
235317930_Customer_satisfaction_and_business_performance_A_firm-
level_analysis
Conclusion
This research focuses on the CRM application in business with special emphasis on the
CRM systems deployed by Samsung and Apple – two supergiants in the field of smartphone
business. CRM systems have been very successful in most of the business organisations who
have conducted international venture but at the same time want to connect with the customers