CRM business Impact Survey

Hi friends, Sorry for no post in last couple of days....yeah busy with my Girl Friends..no one else but "Assignments".

By the way I was looking for Information on CRM business impact and I found this interesting survey done by ITtoolbox sponsored by ORACLE. Thanks to both of them I put some of results and describe them in my words.

Survey Time Duration: 28 February- 18 March 2007.
"This survey included specific questions such as:

• Has implementing a CRM solution improved your organization's overall business performance?
• How has CRM improved your overall sales / marketing / service / analytic performance?
• What kind of CRM deployment option does your organization use?
• If your organization has plans to expand CRM, which area(s) of the business does your organization plan to expand to?"

38% have implemented a CRM solution for over 5 years; over 68% have implemented a CRM company wide and over 69% have indicated the CRM solution has improved their organizations� overall business performance

Other findings include:

• The most commonly implemented CRM solution amongst partints in the survey is an Oracle-Siebel solution
• The top two sales drivers behind CRM implementation are improving sales pipeline visibility and improving cross sell/up sell.
• The top two responses as to how marketing performance was improved by CRM are improved lead tracking and lead follow up.
• The majority of respondents use an on-premise CRM solution.

How long has your organization been using CRM?

Figure 1: Length of CRM use

Is CRM used at the departmental level or company wide?

Figure2: Scope of CRM

Has implementing a CRM solution improved your organization's overall business performance?

Figure 3: CRM Impact

What was the key sales driver behind your organization's decision to implement a CRM solution?

Figure 4: "Reasons to have CRM"


Does your organization have plans to expand CRM to other areas of the business?

Figure 5: Future Expansion in CRM?"

If yes, which area(s) of the business does your organization have plans to expand CRM? (Choose all that apply)

Figure 6: "Where to expand CRM?"

Reflection:

Figure1: If you observe figure 1 very well, You must have noticed that Only 38% companies are using CRM more than 5 years. Rest of companies are still less than 5 years of CRM use. What I can intrepret is A) Either companies fail to recognize the fact of customer centeric approach in initial phase when over technology was growing. CRM coined in 1990. Internet and other technology was growing then after. But now it is 2007. After 17 Years of still 38% companies. Middle 3 graphs shows many companies are now 2 to 3 years of CRM use. That means in future they are going to develop more into CRM. What about 2.7% companies? Will be they still at Dont Know Approach..even if they have implemented CRM somewhere in their company structure.? Where will be OLD CRM companies after 15 or 20 years of CRM use?

Figure2:
68% companies said they have implemented CRM company wide..that means They understand to be successful in CRM area, You need to be focussed as a whole company wide. But still 3.4% companies still do not know which level they are after 17 years and Huge Technology development, awareness. There should be possibly three answers: Companywide, Deptwide or No Implementation At all. I am not sure whether survey used "Right" or "Wrong" word saying companies response as "Don't Know".

Figure3:
Surprised figure of 69.70%. Its amazing, isn't it? I doubt whether this much success factors are possible..Think about your last experience of Customer Service from "Well Known" "Big" "More than 5 years CRM use" company and look at figure again..and analyze it. I think as it is shown 22.1% companies do not know their improvement, many companies are still under such situation. Companies can not say we are successful after 2 to 4 years of CRM use (20.5+19.9 = 40.4 %) . The Surprised Figure should be less or near to 50%.

Figure4:

I think these graphs are pretty consistent and I think results are based on "Particular" organization's business and business precesses.

Figure5:

Wow 25.7% organizations do not know whether they are going to expand their CRM to other areas of business? True reality of business. Initially business thought yeah, CRM is very Important for our business..they started out CRM implementation as department wide (that means within 28.30% companies) and then either they have lost their path to go along with CRM, or Tired of CRM, Got burned by implementing CRM (but think about CRM success result 69.7%) (see very doubtful). 23.6% said No they will not..why? Might be same reasons as I said in last couple of sentences.

Figure 6:
Here they are good and I think thinking in right direction...First and Most Important they want to improve their Customer Service and Call Center Service..then they will improve their Marketing area and make it more strong and then it will bring sales to company. But what about Others 28.20 %...will it be.....I can not think about areas now..but will find it our sure..

Above are just my analysis and reflection to the survey..I really appreciate their work and looking for more research..You can read whole article on ITtoolbox site but you have to register your self..and its free...so far..May be their are More than enough "Customer Centric". The Article is here on: ITtoolbox CRM Business Impact Survey

Any way guys I will miss second train for writing this Post...now will do some newspaper reading till the next train which is about Half Hours later.

If you want to read and if you can read my mother tongue (Gujarati) newspaper then this is the site www.gujaratsamachar.com It works better in Internet Explorer..I think no need to install Gujarati Fonts in IE.

Thanks....and.......Enjoy

Anki

CRM Process

Hi friends, in last post we talked about areas where we can use CRM. In this post we will see how the CRM process works. Now CRM process means getting raw customer data from source....processing it...converting it into desired format....and use it for analysis and decision...finally to make profit.

1) Customer Data Collection:
It looks simple task but actually it is very hard task...like data warehousing data collection process. Here you have many source systems like touch points (Customer-Business Unit Interaction Points), external source like (Government, marketing, research companies), Business Operational Systems, Forms and other reports. all sorts of customer data source.

2) Integration:
Integrate sourced data for your special purposes,,,in a single, central repository system--Customer data warehouse..integration will be very hard and time consuming. I am not going in depth of Integration and properties of integration.

3) Analysis
Careful and meaningful Analysis of customer database is very important, If we have customer database,,,but do not have "Specific"purpose on which we analyze customer than there is no point of having Analytical CRM. There are certain OLAP tools are available which make little bit easier for us to Analyze and interact with customer data...in a multidimensional views.

4) Actions
What will be actions? Marketing..not just blind marketing but Spot on Goal based marketing campaigns. Better strategic decision making..for the long term customer relationships, new products for each customers (We learned that each customer is unique and have unique needs after careful OLAP analysis. ) and most important action..we might develop "Closed-Loop"CRM.

It sounds like very simple and theoretical but actually it is very hard to do actually in the business.

I love comments....yeah BAD or GOOD....

Anki

Analytical CRM where to use?

Hi friends, well come again in the Analytical CRM Journey.

In last to last post: Analytical CRM we saw little about Analytical CRM. Some of you feel little strange but I am learning to make my self clear and I will come up with my views.

Meanwhile while looking for CRM use, I was looking where we can apply Analytical CRM?

DM Review Magazine article by Ron swift explores area where we can use Analytical CRM.

1) Value Segmentation of Customers:

Yeah business is all about making money. Now your customers are valuable to your business. so Analytical CRM is very helpful in finding out those valuable customers, Analise their buying pattern, their behavior for products and services, their end requirements, customers who are not more valuable and reasons why they are not valuable to company? These are some basic questions which can provide in depth analysis for value segmentation of customers.

2) Pin-Point (Spot-On)Direction

After reaching to value segmentation it is our job to show them pin-point (Spot-on) direction (this is the direction where we want our High Value Customers or Potential High value customer should be directed to) (i.e. In Hotel Resort Business To current limited area service taking potential high profit customers: offer them luxurious service by which in long term they become our High Profitable customers) to our business where business can make more profit and increase profitable customer base. For that we need to create target based marketing campaign which can attract profitable customers in accurate direction. Now choosing this direction is very difficult but not impossible with the help of knowledgeable marketing people.

Above are some of areas where we can apply Analytical CRM. It provides Unique Version of customer data thus Unique view of customer and like Data warehouse Unique truth of customer database for the business.

My Birthday

Hi, Friends. Below is my 23th Birthday celebration. Yeah first time in Melbourne. Last birthday celebration was in India, in Plane, as I came here in Melbourne on my Birthday. So great thing is Today I completed my 1 year in Melbourne. Yeah I enjoyed in Melbourne. Studying at Monash University is great experience and I am currently enjoying it. Its been beautiful time since I came here. Its my home where I live with my friends. We celebrated at 12 AM. Yeah sorry for my dress, I was in Pajama and T Shirt. You can see and come to the party for my Birthday celebration by clicking the below link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yr9lq60Wdc

Or Below is embedded Video of my Birthday Celebration.



Thanks,

Anki

Analytical CRM

In the last post I talked about Q "What is CRM?" In this post I am talking about Analytical CRM. I was shocked when I saw Three general types of CRM. Analytical, Operational and Collaborative CRM. I gave you reason for my shock at the end of talk. Analytical CRM: Analytical: It is the thing which requires our thinking to find the required status. Now Analytical CRM analyze the customers, customer data, what they like and dont like, it adds more analysis and then create a virtual wall which creates partitions in customers...now customers become segmented customers for company...these segment can be based on age, gender, living location, profitability, income of customers..To be more successful in it, we use different tools to use customer data base and find the solutions.

Now answer for my shock...as we have seen analytical CRM differentiat customer base but as we have seen the main philosophy behind CRM, no different in customer base. Thus analytical CRM is breaking underline pillars of CRM.

What is CRM?

As part of my course I have taken unit called CRM Systems. I am totally new in this area from technological aspect and deep understanding of CRM. so I started reading from scratch.

First of all I went through different websites, wiki, vendors like SAP, and forum such as ITtoolbox and my unit lecture slide. Now I could not find a single most comprehensive ans for the Q like What is CRM?

My Lecture slide says it is a strategy for getting and retaining "Profitable" customers. But when I looked at the case study: Get Inside the lives of your customers from Harvard Business Review I think three companies (they have taken case studies for three different companies) understand CRM as a tool to manage relationship with customers, They have developed customer based scenario to make their CRM philosophy successful. And based on reading I think to be more successful in Customer Relationships and Management of it; Company's Superiors must put their best efforts. In all cases CEO or superior level was behind the success of CRM. From SAP AG, 2001 Analytical CRM: White Paper I also discovered companies not see CRM as a strategy for getting and retaining "Profitable" customers. But actually see it as a fundamental philosophy to provide successful management in customer relationships.

From my point of view: CRM: Customer Relationship Management: It involves main three pillars; Customer; Now here we are considering customer as a whole customer; There are no categories, levels of customers like Profitable; Unprofitable, bad or good customers. Relationships. Now Being in a business sometimes company becomes customer (service receiver) or Provider. So relationships are much more important, not only for business but at personal and social level also. Management: You as a person and Company as a whole have to manage relationships while performing role of Customers or providers. In short CRM means it is the reaction of company (company's goal, aim and future direction) in response to customers preferences and opinions. Company which learns and adopts it quickly will be at higher level.

I do not know whether you agree or not with my views but please feel free to refine or guide me at any stage of this lovely CRM journey.