Analysis of Different Factors Related to the Process of Customer Relationship Management Implementation - Research Proposal Example

?Running Head: Research Proposal Research Proposal [Institute’s Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 3 INTRODUCTION 4Research Objectives 4 Research Statement 5 LITERATURE REVIEW 5 CRM Implementation in a Saudi Arabian Organization 7 METHODOLOGY 10 Research Questions 11 Research Plan 13 REFERENCES 14 ABSTRACT The research proposal is an attempt of the research to indicate intention to conduct a qualitative research on the process of CRM implementation. In particular, the proposal has indicated identified research statement and objectives of the proposed research that will be focusing two particular banking organizations in Saudi Arabia to identify and investigate factors that play a crucial role in successful implementation of CRM. The proposed comprises of preliminary literature review as well that will be beneficial in creating fundamental framework before carrying out the research. Lastly, the research proposal includes methodology section that specifies selection of secondary, as well as primary research methodology that will be very effective in efficient acquisition of data. INTRODUCTION The focus on forming valuable associations with clients is not a fresh approach within the field of business. The growing competition in addition to lessening customer loyalty have created the need for applying innovative tools to facilitate businesses to do well in the competition and win customers’ loyalty by offering more modified products. Fast development within ‘information systems applications’ that allow business-client communication along with the boom of ‘internet technology’ have given companies with additional potential to manage increasing understanding obtained by clients along with the varying nature of their requirements for particular products (Finnegan & Willcocks, p. 94, 2007). Whereas, the mainstream of companies attempt to apply CRM systems, they come across the upsetting reality of the large percentage of collapse within their CRM implementations. As a reply to the need of dealing with the issue of the high failure ratio of CRM ventures, various researchers have created a range of frameworks for CRM implementation. In this regard, the proposed research is an attempt to analyze different factors related to the process of CRM implementation. Research Objectives Before carrying out research, it is very imperative that the researcher ensures clarified understanding of aims and objectives, as it is an observation that vague objectives often result in unproductive outcomes, and thus, the research proposal will now include aims and objectives of the proposed research: Identify and examine various internal and external factors that play a determining role in ensuring success of CRM implementation Inspect the level of impact of identified factors in banking institutions in Saudi Arabia Investigate the impact of identified CRM implementation factors in the case study of a two banking organizations in Saudi Arabia Recommend strategies that may ensure successful implementation of CRM in banking institutions and organizations globally, and particularly, in the corporate society of Saudi Arabia Research Statement In this regard, the researcher will focus on the following research statement to fulfill the aims and objectives of the research: “To identify and investigate the implementation of CRM in Saudi Arabia, and evaluate different factors that ensures successful ERM implementation” LITERATURE REVIEW There is a common recognition among researchers about the classification of CRM constituents. CRM involves three key constituents, which are information technology, individuals, and business traditions. The involvement of every part differs in accordance with the level of CRM implementation. Technology means computing potential that let a business to gather, arrange, save, and utilize records regarding its customer. Technology is the facilitator for CRM systems to successfully attain their goals of collecting, categorizing, and saving important information on customers. Integration tools let businesses to build improved rapport with customers by offering a broader aspect of the customer actions (Nykamp, p. 129, 2001). As a result, it is necessary for businesses to incorporate information technology to develop the potential of knowing customer actions, generate analytical models, build successful interactions with customers and deal with those customers with immediate action and precise information. For a business to incorporate information technology, “concepts such as data warehouse, software customization, process automation, help desk and call centres, and internet influence should be addressed” (Buttle, p. 293, 2008). Workers and customers are a most important part of successful CRM implementation. CRM is formed around customers to supervise valuable associations by getting information on various features of customers. The major goal of CRM is to ‘translate’ the customer data into modified products according to the varying requirements of customers with the intention of achieving their loyalty. However, a complete dedication of the business's employees and administration is indispensable for a successful CRM implementation to best serve customers in accordance with their needs. CRM is a business policy that has its idealistic foundation in ‘relationship marketing’. CRM success needs an alteration of business procedures towards customer-focused approach. As such, every business procedure that involves both direct and indirect dealings with clients should be analyzed and measured. Even though CRM has a business wide influence, procedure that has direct dealings with clientele should be handled with as a main concern while incorporating and computerizing business procedures. The key business procedures that should be tackled in CRM implementation are “marketing, sales, and services” (Goldenberg, p. 173, 2008). The CRM success aspects are embedded in information technology, individuals, and business traditions. The plan of involving the anticipated success factors to the recognized constituents of CRM is to guarantee that every success factors is fully connected to the CRM. It as well plans to offer an apparent path for directors from various levels for implementing and retaining these factors in their scope of continuation as well as their extent of accountability as there is no confirmation of success factors linking to ‘operationalization’ and supervision of these factors. However, it plans to facilitate supervisors to have power over such factors with a clear idea (Gamble et al, p. 191, 2007). The successful framework begins by a pre-implementation point where the business has to get the support of ‘top management’ for implementing CRM ahead of connecting the real implementation procedure. Supported on achieving adequate assurance by top management the procedure could continue to measuring the inclination of the business with respect to its human resources, technical and organizational potential to apply CRM. As a result, the CRM plan should be “developed, aligned, and communicated to staff” (Saenger et al, p. 211, 2010). Therefore, the CRM plan should be put into action by implementing CRM project concentrating on the achievement factors inside every constituent of CRM. As a result, implementing every success factors must be evaluated to guarantee successful implementation of CRM plan. The final stage of the framework focuses on assessing the influence of CRM implementation monetarily and on advertising practices to guarantee realising the goals of CRM strategy as well as to measure the result of other potential outside factors. The business could utilize the response to re-plan and re-consider its implementation procedure. CRM Implementation in a Saudi Arabian Organization The program was developed as an exceptional incentive and appreciation system for frequent fliers of a Saudi Arabian organization. It is another approach to show gratitude to customers for staying devoted with this organization. This program is named as Alfursan. Alfursan members get exceptional custom-made services with inherent chances to get free trips, free upgrading and free vacations. Alfursan associates offer members with a range of advantages that attach value in their traveling experience, together with the “hotel bookings, car rentals, credit card and phone-card related services” (Ravi, p. 93, 2007), without any additional charges. The Alfursan program was started with the main plan of gathering travellers’ information for making a database for the program. They did well in gathering more than 4500 contacts and provided cards for these members. Even though this was believed to be incentive format program, no incentives could be presented to its members. From the year 1981 until the year 1993, the card offered no additional advantages apart from the use of the first class traveller lounges on domestic airports. During the year 1993, the administration chooses to start the Alfursan program by focusing more into it and surveying other loyalty plans within the market. “This resulted in the full-fledged beginning of the Alfursan program during 1995. Even at this time, the program was not made accessible for the common public. The program goes on to stay a closed membership program, entrance to which was just by call. This phase lasted up to the year1998 when the program decided to go public by providing application forms to all customers, and this was accompanied by blitzkrieg advertising on the program and soon almost everyone became aware of it” (Chorafas, p. 203, 2001). During the year 2005, the Program went on a ‘dedicated website’ where online request forms were made accessible to complete and submit. The database of Alfursan is an individual database and is related to the core system of the airline. As soon as records are changed in the central system, they are altered within the Alfursan database as well and vice versa. Every part of this process is completed in real-time. “Alfursan members enjoy privileges, which grow in relation to their frequency of travel with Saudi Arabian Airline. These benefits begin as soon as members are upgraded to silver and gold. All members are eligible to earn Alfursan frequent flyer miles. Members earn Alfursan reward miles, which can be saved and exchanged for free flights, upgrades and even holidays” (Chorafas, p. 203, 2001). Each member has a documentation of flights mileage as well as points collected. There is a refined mechanism that computes the entire miles along with the points granted. ‘Type of cabin, mileage and regularity of travel’ all control the rank that the member is in. A lot of segmentations facilitate to target various incentives to Alfursan members in addition to representing the stage of incentives they might be given. Such as a value-segmentation is utilized to calculate how much a recent client might be valued in the future and to guarantee that the most important ones are called quickly (Raab et al, p. 284, 2008). The Alfursan group has two professionals who are in charge for analyzing as well as supervising customer records. These professionals give comprehensive reports to supervisors to clarify the position of the system. The main benefit of applying this program is that as a customer makes a call to confirm a reservation, the worker of the airline generally asks questions from the customer and gets information regarding this customer, for instance, name, contact details, nationality, selected seat, chosen food along with other particular requirements, if any, which must be answered in depth. In the scenario, where the same customer is a part of Alfursan, all he has to give is the number of his membership card and each and every detail of this customer will appear in the member’s record on the computer screen. This is a lot more time saving and it was calculated that almost 84 percent of the calling time during booking procedure can be saved in that way. The board of Alfursan arrange regular meetings with members of the program to talk about the problems they are facing or any constraints they might have. The objective of arranging such meetings is to please the customer and ‘make him feel wanted and respected’ and to resolve any difficulties as well. Moreover, Alfursan carries out an assessment by a form, which they mail to all of their members each year with the intention of evaluating the system and the facilities being offered by it (Sharp, p. 212, 2002). Saudi Airline has finally shifted this loyalty program to a complete CRM system during the end of year 2006. After that, the Saudi Airline tailored the success in Alfursan and implemented CRM at organizational level, which proves to be very successful. METHODOLOGY Along with recognizing specific research statement and objectives, another important component of every research is its methodology that facilitates researchers in acquisition of appropriate data and information, as it is an observation that selection of improper methods often result in wastage of time and resources. For this purpose, the research proposal will now include description of methodological approaches of the proposal research that will be depending primarily on the secondary research method to fulfill identified aims and objectives of the research. The researcher will put efforts to identify different books, journals, articles, etc related to CRM implementation, and particularly, implementation in banking organizations in Saudi Arabia that will create a fundamental basis for next phase of the research. It is an understanding that a huge number of experts have endeavoured on the process of CRM implementation, and thus, secondary method will be very effective in acquiring quality resources for the analysis and investigation of different successful CRM implementation factors. However, besides secondary methodology, the researcher has planned to identify two banking organizations in Saudi Arabia that will be subjects for primary research methodology during second phase of the research. The researcher will put efforts to interview selected employees from the organizations who will facilitate the researcher in acquisition of data related to the identified research statement. In this regard, data from the interview will then be under evaluation and investigation along with results of analysis from the secondary method. Moreover, the researcher will attempt to acquire data from reports and records of selected banking organizations that will be very beneficial for the proposed research. Lastly, it is an understanding that besides collection of data, analysis is a major part of research process that plays a crucial role in the success or failure of the project. In this regard, the researcher has identified that both qualitative and quantitative analyses have different and various advantages. It is an observation that qualitative analysis allows the researcher to acquire a broad and deep aspect, and at the same time, it allows a conceptual understanding of the results that enables practical implementation of the findings in organizational settings. On the other hand, quantitative analysis provides generalization to the findings, and focuses more on accuracy and enables utilization of standard means. For this reason, the researcher will put efforts to utilize both methods to analyze the data to benefit from advantages of both analyses. Research Questions In particular, the researcher will use the following questions while carrying out interviews: What do you think are the reasons of need of CRM implementation in the organization? Is there existence of any specific organized plan for the implementation of CRM? What is the role of top executives in process of CRM implementation in the organization? What is your motivation during the process of CRM implementation? Is there any strategy for monitoring the CRM implementation process? In addition, who is responsible for the creation of such strategy (if any)? Does organisation have any practice of carrying out assessment before implementing CRM? What do you think is the role of CRM in organizational success? What do you think are the factors of successful CRM implementation? From the abovementioned questions during the interviews, the researcher will acquire data that will allow integration with data acquired from secondary research. Briefly, primary research method will be very helpful in reducing identified gap between theoretical and practical knowledge of the process of CRM implementation, specifically, in Saudi Arabia. Research Plan REFERENCES Buttle, Francis. 2008. Customer Relationship Management. Butterworth-Heinemann. Chorafas, Dimitris S. 2001. Integrating ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management, and Smart Materials. Finnegan, David and Willcocks, Leslie P. 2007. Implementing CRM: From Technology to Knowledge. Wiley. Gamble, Paul. Tapp, Alan. Marsella, Anthony and Stone, Merlin. 2007. Marketing Revolution: The Radical New Approach to Transforming the Business, the Brand, and the Bottom Line. Kogan Publications. Goldenberg, Barton J. 2008. CRM in Real Time: Empowering Customer Relationships. CyberAge Books. Nykamp, Melinda. 2001. The Customer Differential Complete Guide to Implementing Customer Relationship Management CRM. AMACOM. Raab, Gerhard. Ajami, Riad A. Gargeya, Vidyaranya B. and Goddard, Jason G. 2008. Customer Relationship Management. Ashgate. Ravi, Vadlamani. 2007. Advances in Banking Technology and Management: Impacts of ICT and CRM. Information Science Reference. Saenger, Jeff. Koehler, Tim and Peters, Louis. 2010. Oracle CRM on Demand Deployment Guide. McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. Sharp, Duane E. 2002. Customer Relationship Management Systems Handbook. Auerbach Publications. Read More