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Customer care, Marketing, Systems development, Decision support systems Abstract
This article is directed towards information technology (IT) and marketing managers considering implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) solution. The goal of this article is not to provide an all-inclusive tutorial on CRM, but rather to provide a high level insight of the fundamental principles behind CRM and critical aspects of the IT development process. The article begins with an IT manager's introduction into the basic CRM business and marketing principles. At the heart of the article is a proposed system development lifecycle that highlights the aspects unique or critical to CRM. Finally, it concludes with some final thoughts for long-term success. After reading this article, the reader will be mindful of the major issues needed for success and be equipped to discuss primary development matters with vendors, staff and management.
What Is CRM?
One of the most dynamic information technology (IT) topics of the new millennium is the area of customer relationship management (CRM). At the core, CRM is an integration of technologies and business processes used to satisfy the needs of a customer during any given interaction. More specifically, CRM involves acquisition, analysis and use of knowledge about customers in order to sell more goods or services and to do it more efficiently. It is important to note that the term "customer" may have a very broad definition that includes vendors, channel partners or virtually any group or individual that requires information from the organization.
In IT terms, CRM means an enterprisewide integration of technologies working together such as data warehouse, Web site, intranet/extranet, phone support system, accounting, sales, marketing and production. CRM has many similarities with enterprise resource planning (ERP) where ERP can be considered back-office integration and CRM as front-office integration. A notable difference between ERP and CRM is that ERP can be implemented without CRM. However, CRM usually requires access to the backoffice data that often happens through an ERP-type integration.
CRM principally revolves around marketing (Kotler, 1997) and begins with a deep analysis of consumer behavior. It uses IT to gather data, which can then be used to develop information required to create a more personal interaction with the customer. In the long-term, it produces...