Implementing a New CRM System - Admission/Application Essay Example

Application of CRM Solution Good relationship is key to success of any business organization. Therefore, different business organizations employ various strategists to learn and understand their customers’ needs and behaviors, with a goal to develop stronger relationships with customers. One such strategy is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). There are several technological components to CRM; however, thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a misplaced idea. It is important to view the application of CRM as strategic process that would help to better the understanding of customers’ needs and how such needs could be met. As such, CRM involves bringing together lots of pieces of information about customers and market trends to enable the business organizations sell and market their products and services more effectively. The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain understanding about the behavior of customers and the value of those customers. Effective CRM strategy can lead to increase in revenues by: offering better customer service, helping sales staff close deals faster, cross selling products more effectively, retailing existing customers and discovering new ones, and providing services and products, which suit customers’ needs and expectations (Wailgum & Thomas, 2013). The success of any business depends on proper conceptualization of project management. Project management refers to the application of skills, knowledge, tools, and techniques to achieve specific goals within specified time and budget constraints. It involves various activities such as planning the work, estimating resources required to accomplish the work, organizing the work, acquiring human and material resources, assigning tasks, directing activities, controlling project execution, reporting progress, assessing risk, and analyzing the results. Similar to any other areas of business, project management for IT must also consider the five major variables: time, scope, risk, quality, and risk. (Wailgum & Thomas, 2013). Therefore, application of CRM should consider such variables because they affect the results in terms of quality and quantity of production and services delivered. The quality and effectiveness of CRM is influenced by both time and cost, and the preference for its application hinges on the scope of the projects/business, quality, and the risk associated with its application. This implies that different businesses may apply different types of CRM packages. Small business firms may employ hosted CRM solution for a specific department, which is quick and relatively cheaper. However, larger firms may opt to use an on-premise CRM package to achieve sophisticated functionality and greater level of support. This may take relatively longer time and high cost. For example, one company or department might purchase sales-force automation application or an email marketing management application, where as a larger organization might require purchasing of an integrated package that includes database and applications for marketing, sales, and customer service and support. Selecting projects that deliver the best business value should be a priority to any business firm. The underlying principle is that despite the ramification of systems project ideas, their implementation is constrained by limited resources. The focus should therefore be on economic feasibility of each of the alternative strategy applied. Therefore, a number of considerations should be made before settling for a particular choice. The key factors that should be considered are costs and benefits of the projects. Benefits that may accrue from a particular project can either be tangible (can be quantified and assigned monetary value) or intangible (cannot be quantified, and thus cannot be assigned monetary value). Intangible benefits such as efficient customer service or enhanced decision-making cannot be immediately quantified; but still, systems that produce mainly intangible benefits may be good investments, especially if they could produce quantifiable gains in the long run (Wailgum & Thomas, 2013). There are two major different methods of determining the benefits of a particular solution: Sum Total Comparative Analysis and Capital Budgeting. STCA involves comparing the total costs and total benefits of a solution/project, while Capital budgeting methods, such as internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value, would typically be applied to evaluate economic viability of the proposed information system solution as an investment. No project is pristine of risks; therefore, the success of projects depends on the shrewdness risk skills and management by business firms. Project structure, project size, and the level of technical expertise of the information systems staff and project team influence the level of project risk. The level of risk tends to increase with the size of the project (indicated by cost, project team size, and extent of application of the new system). Large-scale systems projects present higher failure rates (between 50 and 70 percent higher). Such projects are highly complex and difficult to control. In addition, risks are also higher for systems where information requirements are not clear or the team must comprehend the new technology (Wailgum & Thomas, 2013). The presence of risks factors should not be a deterrent to application of a particular system solution. There are various strategies that can be used to ameliorate the risk factors to increase the chances of a successful system solution. However, the appropriate strategies depend on the level of technology being applied. For instance, if the new system entails challenging and complex technology, a firm can recruit project leaders with strong technical and administrative experiences, outsource or use external consultants. Appropriate use of formal planning and tools for documenting and monitoring project plans is a way of overcoming risks and realizing benefits from large projects. There are two major methods for documenting project plans, which include PERT charts and Gantt charts. A Gantt chart lists project activities and their corresponding start and closure dates. It visually represents the timing and duration of different tasks in a development project and human resource requirements. It does this by showing each task as a horizontal bar whose length is proportional to the time required to accomplish it (Wailgum & Thomas, 2013). Application of PERT charts fills the gap left by Gantt charts, that is, inability to depict dependencies (how one task is affected if another is behind schedule or how task should be ordered). PERT stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. It was developed by U.S. Navy during the 1950s to manage the Polaris submarine missile program. The chart graphically indicates project tasks and their interrelationships. It does so by listing the specific activities that make up a project and those that must be completed before a specific activity can begin (Laudon & Kenneth, 2013). Finally, there are commercial software tools like Project Management Software that helps in automating and creating of Gantt and PERT charts and facilitation of the project management process. PMS have features that make it possible to define and order tasks, assign resources to tasks, establish starting and ending dates for tasks, track process, and facilitate modifications to tasks and resources. The most commonly used project management tool today is Microsoft Office Project (Laudon & Kenneth, 2013). Work Cited Laudon , C. Kenneth and P. Jane Laudon. "Building Information Systems and Managing Projects." Essentials of Management Information Systems, Tenth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall, 2013. 367-403. Wailgum, Thomas . CRM Definition and Solutions. 2013. http://www.cio.com/article/40295/CRM_Definition_and_Solutions?page=2#5. 7 December 2013. Sinay, Damian. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Reporting. Birmingham: Packt Publishing, 2013. Print. Read More