Value of CRM - Woolworths Homeshop Company - Essay Example

CRM Project Paper Rubric Spring Semester Executive summary The marketing field is driven by an effective relationship. Marketing is about the customer and to achieve effective marketing customer relationship management is the key to success. Good customer relationship management is achieved through the use of marketing principles, formulation of other mechanisms to handle this aspect and more so by applying technology. The most intriguing aspect in the field is how the use of information technology and information systems can immensely contribute to marketing. There are several ways of using these technologies and information systems. The common applications include the customer relationship management systems, electronic marketing, and social networking among others. The field of customer relationship management presents a lot of opportunities. The systems and operations of CRM implement the company’s goals and objectives for customer access, interactions sales and other services. With the developments in the field of information technology, there is the possibility to merge the CRM and other technologies such as social networking. This provides a greater opportunity for marketing and customer interaction at a cheaper and more affordable cost. Organizations and businesses are increasingly adopting customer relationship management (CRM) systems in order to improve their interactions with customers (Rigby et al. 2002). The CRM systems management application is used to manage customer interactions by integration of processes that are customer oriented like customer service and sales. The CRM systems are not only used in automation of these processes for cost reduction but also collection and analysis of customer information with the aim of better fulfilling customer needs and improve customer satisfaction(Karimi et al. 2001). However, different businesses have experienced different outcomes in the business by investing in CRM. Some have been successful in leveraging CRM systems to facilitate their operations, and customer relationships, cost efficiency, product and service quality, which increases company profitability. Other businesses have not realized the benefits that come with CRM in their businesses; this could be attributed to poor research before the implementation of the system. More importantly it is due to the drawbacks that come with the use of CRM systems and poor implementation. It is necessary to research more into this field to identify these pitfalls and to identify the benefits of using CRM and how long these benefits can be realized. Introduction This paper focuses on the suitable tools that can be used to design, build and implement the customer relationship management system. Woolworths Homeshop Company. Human resource information system is a system that is used to automate the activities that are carried out the human resource department in an organization. During this process the objective of the business and plan is converted into suitable enterprise conversions through building and exchange; and embracement of the primary needs, principle and forms that explain the company’s development state and facilitate transition. The proposal is to launch an integrated CRM for Woolworths Homeshop. Woolworths Homeshop Company sells high quality fast food delivering all around the city. The company needs to manage its business operation using a computerized CRM. The company wants to implement a CRM as an initial step towards achieving e-business (Chaturvedi 65). E-business is a business which allows the customers to sell trade and barter over the Web. The company’s policy, operations, technology and ideology define its business model. Woolworths Homeshop is a company is based in Dubai. The services that are offered by this firm include selling headphones and other sound product The Company has been operating at average. This applies the technology that has the first in the field of e-business Tanner et al notes that the advancement in technology have resulted in more advanced methods and ways of tracking customers, creation of more robust knowledge management and the improvement in customer interaction. Many sales intensive organizations have had the need to implement the Customer relationship management strategies. Tanner et al proposes a framework for implementing a CRM in an organization. This framework distinguishes between strategic, analytical, and operational aspects of CRM. The Strategic CRM is involved with utilizing the operational CRM which entails business process and strategy, culture and supporting technology model. It also utilizes the analytical CRM that involves business strategy, customer data and information and the transaction patterns. Tanner et al identifies that at the core of the firm’s strategic CRM model, is the definition and the implementation of right customer, strategy, organization, channel, people and rewards. This is in the end enhances its longer-term competitive advantage and success The decision making in the strategic CRM is fuelled by both operational and analytical CRM Analytical CRM is the firm-level processes that are involved in analyzing customer and market-level information so as to provide the intelligence and information that will guide the company’s strategic marketing. Value of CRM The operational CRM is designed to implement the company marketing and customer relationship goals in terms of customer interaction access, sales, choices and customer learning. The operational CRM focuses or emphasizes on: Marketing automation, sales force automation and service automation. With the increase in technology use and change, the customer relationship and interaction is bound to change in the future. Most organizations and companies are moving from the basic customer interaction to more complex methods of customer relationships, therefore, the operational CRM will be a critical aspect in the implementation of the customer relationship management in the business. The business benefits that will accrue due to implementation of Customer relationship system include lowering of the overhead costs that are brought about by manual processing. Human errors that are likely to be committed due to stress and fatigue decrease drastically. In addition, there is more accuracy and efficiency dealing with thing such as auditing, billing, and approval. In Woolwoths, an integrated CRM will connect the system used when ordering to the customer service, procurement, finance, delivery system and the warehouse. In addition, it enhances the process and employee management. For those of you from foreign shores Australia, basically, has two supermarket chains (Woolworths and Coles). Both offer online shopping and delivery (for a charge). I use Woolworth’s Homeshop and while, in my experience, the range is a little more limited, the costs are a little higher and the quality a little inferior, relative to the physical stores, the benefits of time saving and convenience outweigh the negatives. To find out the current state of the customer management in the company, the following steps are used? The customer makes an order and chooses the delivery method. The goods are sorted out fro the warehouse and dispatched. The delivery is made. The analytic summary of the weakness present in the current system of process and delivering orders is as follows The delivery of goods and processing orders always delay. Though the CRM cannot eliminate this issue completely, it will contribute a lot in terms of enhancing and speeding up the processing of orders. The CRM system will assist to report the customer complains and determine the genesis. An effective and efficient system of capturing the complaints and generating report via business intelligent system is crucial. The system will simplify the process of identification and consolidating of an effective remedy by reviewing the methods used. The company should strive to ensure that the level of dissatisfaction on the side of the customers is minimized. There is no systematic monitoring of the delivery process There was a mixture of the events in the call center due to inconsistent functioning of the system used therein. The process escalation has never been reliable. Incompliance with correct order specification due to errors in the ordering details processing. Description of Customer Retention Programs The company uses strategic planning as a customer retention program. According to Armstrong (2010), strategic planning is where the strategic plan s of an organization is identified and executed through integration of the organization’s demand capability in the business environment. It is determining or projection your future business needs through definition of current business mission, formulation of new mission statement, audit performance and formulation of strategic-oriented goals. The definition of current business and mission entails definition of services and products offered and deciding the terrain that will accomplish it. Performing both internal and external audits entails determination of the position of the company through analysis of internal and external conditions. The most prevalent method of audit is performing SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis determined the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the company. Translation of mission into strategic goals entails identification of goals and new mission that targets the improvement of shareholders rates and values of returns and development of strong balance sheets. The company has been using strategic human resource management to retain customers. SHRM (strategic human resource management) is defined by Armstrong as the connection of strategic objectives and goals with human resources to better performance of a business and formulate culture in the organizations that embrace innovation, competitive advantage and flexibility. There is a relationship between SHRM and various processes such as selection and systems of rewarding employees. It is also concerned with the methods of achieving the strategies of an organization via management of people. The key activities undertaken by SHRM are the improvement of staff efficiency and motivation at a cost effective manner. The company also uses good organizational culture to retain customers. Organization’s culture as per Wilkins (2011) is a set values, policies, traditions attitudes and beliefs that make up a context of what is done in an organization. The key components of culture are the formality of the organization’s structure, style of management, the type of staff, legends, symbols, and attitudes towards customer, technology and corporate myths. Organizational culture consists: how formal the organizational structure is, management style, the type of people employed, symbols, legends, corporate myths, attitudes to customer, quality, technology and risk. For instance, Microsoft has embraced inter -employee communication giving space for purpose. The environment of an organization in terms of regions, nations’ business types and occupations differs. CRM design and how it works digitally The major objectives of the project would be first to come up with a CRM system to replace the current card file system for better service delivery and efficient data storage the system should be able to allow access for students and customers to more information regarding the food held within the library. Especially the type of food with high demand. Second is that since the information system will be at first intranet based, the intranet would contain web pages that give web based help with regard to the database operations to both staff and customers. Such information would factor in data relating to new users, basic functions instructions and problem troubleshooting help. Finally, the CRM should contain a file server containing three distinct directories namely accounts, staff details and reports. The directories should only be accessible to staff due to the sensitive information they carry. The operational CRM is designed to implement the company marketing and customer relationship goals in terms of customer interaction access, sales, choices and customer learning. The operational CRM focuses or emphasizes on: Marketing automation, sales force automation and service automation. With the increase in technology use and change, the customer relationship and interaction is bound to change in the future. Most organizations and companies are moving from the basic customer interaction to more complex methods of customer relationships, therefore, the operational CRM will be a critical aspect in the implementation of the customer relationship management in the business. This brought the need for Human resource information system to address the issues that the human resource department have as far as maintaining information concerning the employees in the entire company. To facilitate this, there are three major components that need to be in place. These are the hardware, software and the network. The CRM system needs the hardware to support. The hardware includes all the personal computers, client server, printers, copiers, scanner bridges and hubs. All this provides connection of different network segments. Routers are used to connect and direct the information from one department to another while switches are used to slit a network in the whole organization to sub-network that can be controlled with a lot of simplicity. The CRM system will have a module for e-business. The major components of an e-business module are online catalog of the product they offer, online order processing, save payment and up to date order remittance. The major components of an e-commerce business are online catalog of the product they offer, online order processing, save payment and up to date order remittance. Basing the above analysis, the estimated number of customers that can see a product that is advertised in the social media can be obtained. This can relate to the possibility of those people going for those services. An advantage that social media has is the fact that accessing it is free therefore it is not expensive to use it in checking for something The software that is used includes salesforce CRM system that is used in human resource activities in the company, the office suite and protective software such as anti-virus. Enterprise resource planning is the key software that facilitates complete interconnection of different sections of the human resource department. In addition, it is shared with other department so that the data can be availed. ERP handle all the activities that are done in the human resource department using integrated software. Its primary function is to enable the exchange of information between all the sections in the department. It also gives an opportunity to the employees to check their status concerning payment, personal information, tax information and employment data. More so, the system has a user friendly interface which enables the user to complete the intended task with a lot of simplicity. In addition, the system is able to track all the details about the employee’s vacation automatically using a project planner (Porter, 2010). The role that is played by a good network in the company cannot be underrated since without it, different computers that support the system cannot communicate with each other and with the database server. There are three network components that are used to automate a business. These are the network operating system, the physical connection and the application components. Social media and networks also play a key role in the customer relationship management. Social networks are the best source of marketing ideas, customer information and consumption trends. The social networks provide three significant contributions and valuable impacts to the business. Through social networking, the company can create individual branding of the company, products and services thus creating a competitive advantage in the market. Tom Dickens has been successful in creating an individual brand through the use of the internet and social media and networking. Among the trend that businesses are facing is including the marketing of the product in the social blogs such as facebook and tweeter. The rise in use of social sites makes it very useful for companies to include their product in the social sites and also participating by having an account or a page where the customers can follow and drop comments about the service they get and even one can launch a complaint if he or she is not satisfied with the services. Social media and networking also enables executives and business managers to engage with a wide variety of contacts thus strengthening and solidifying relationships among several people. Through the social media, the company can also reach a wider scope of customers and users of products and services. The company uses the information from the social sites to determine the customer base and to satisfy customer needs effectively. Social media and networking also provide a learning function to the management. The management can obtain feedback from the customers, users and consumers and thus know the ratings and performance in the market. They can then use this feedback to enhance their performance and maintain a strong customer relationship. The use of customer relationship management in business enhances several business operations in organizations these include marketing, customer services and support, improves quality and efficiency, decision support and improved planning. Much focus has been directed on the benefits attributed to the use of CRM in business; however, the technology has various issues and challenges. Complexity: the implementation of the CRM technology especially in big enterprises will require one to use complex tools and workflows. Initially the tools used in CRM were uncomplicated and limited to operations such as recording of customer communication and interaction. Although this is the case, there has been a gradual change over time with the increase in customer relationship management demands. Poor usability: the key challenge faced by the users of CRM is usability. Due to the complex nature of the systems and user interfaces the use of CRM systems may be an issue to most business organizations. Harold Goldberg is of the opinion that, despite the positive aspect attributed to the implementation of the CRM in a business organization, there are indications that the implementations in most companies have yielded no returns on investment. Goldberg further proposes ten ways in which an organization can avoid the pitfalls in the process of implementing CRM He maintains that the CRM software should mould to your company's best practices, and not forcing one to use the best practices of the CRM vendor. The organization should understand its business processes before purchasing any CRM systems. The vendor should also be able to identify and align the business process with the CRM technology. There is a Vendor who can excel in all areas; therefore, f your main goal is to build a customer contact centre, do not pick a vendor that specializes in salesforce automation or marketing automation. It is also essential to examine how difficult it is or how easy it is to integrate the vendor’s product into the organization and the current systems. The Vendors always provide a small percentage of the CRM solution; therefore, this should be considered well. CRM should be adaptable to change that may be needed in an organization. The system should support these enormous changes without many charges like hiring a hoard of highly trained-and expensive-technical staffers. Any CRM project that takes more than 90 days to implement runs the risk of failure. Total cost of ownership for a long period of time should include the whole strategy and not the individual piece of software. If these costs are not factored in, then it will not be possible to measure true returns on investment. Make sure that the CRM vendor is financially stable and can weather an economic down turn. Considerations should be cautiously made before adopting new technologies to be incorporated into the CRM system. The benefits to the end users should be considered before adopting the new technologies. CRM technology is useless if the employees are unwilling or untrained to use the CRM product. All parties should be informed and communicated to about the benefits of the technology thus gaining internal support Content model for brands, images and conversion will be used to lure customers. It is very evident that not all people are lured into the website by plain text. Incorporating pictures and videos will convince some individuals into wanting to know more about the picture and this eventually translate to making the product to be known by that person and at last becomes your customer. For a hospitality firm like the Woolworths, pictures of their product can be posted in the website The new customer retention strategies included in the CRM system includes: Publicity and WOM Some company which provide the search engine optimization strategy are hoax in that what they will provide to you does not meet the expectation, therefore you should go for effectively service providers like sunshine. They have all the skills of ensuring that what you wanted is availed in the right manner Online publicity This is facilitated using methodology such as creating an interactive websites, availing online chat, use of emails, use of blogs such as facebook. All this technique enables the administrator to get the feedback instantly. Another benefit is eliminated the cost of producing print marketing materials. On-line advertising This is product-price-promotion-positioning is used based on the process that has been proven by other people. The basis of this strategy revolves around the nature of business transaction that the company uses. All the activities that are carried out in the business such as reservation process and how the payment is availed are taken into consideration. It also touches on assessing the customer’s satisfaction basing on the feedback that they get from the customers. Link bait using social media Posting an event that worth being news such as wall posts, tweet or a picture that is amusing. This can catch the user’s attention. This is the best way of convincing the customers. The post made should not necessarily be about the product. It can just be an amusing message and a hint of the company for example giving a URL that will lead the user to the company’s webpage. The other one is having a fun page in facebook or twitter that can be used by the customer to encourage other to look for the services of a particular company. The fact that the social media are independent not controlled by the company gives the customer the freedom of using the media in any way he or she likes. Inform diary Learning from other people that have used the strategy is one way to come up with optimum search engine content, the specialist has to consult and check the methodologies that other people who have developed successful search engine optimization. The best way to achieve this is by learning from those companies that offer the same services as your company because you will realize that there a lot of things that resemble (Raab 345). Identify the technique that best serve the purpose for example if the rate of accessing their website is based on blocs, then your website should use this method since the likelihood of being visited to also is high. Google analytics The usability of the Google sites lures customers into spending more time in the web pages and hence can translate to the companies turn over. This makes it necessary for the company to ensure that the programmer that develops the website should have massive knowledge of software usability and flexibility Applying the above technology in the right way will solve the problem and at long run it will translate to increased efficiency of dealing with human resource activities employees will have good morale since automation will change all the business undertakings in the department that were manually done. CRM system interface Conclusion Every organization’s aim is to constantly improve the business with a view of achieving competitive advantage. CRM contributes significantly to achieving this goal since it has critical influence on maintaining organizational culture and corporate employees. The organization should take CRM as a critical tool of achieving the business goals. When there is stiff competition between different firms, the key asset of the company is the ways of operating the business. It is therefore important to have in place a well established CRM whose key responsibility is to embrace both customer and employee satisfaction by developing and motivating employees. In the modern, the process management that an organization has developed is an inherent aspect of an organization. The way CRM system organizes the activities create a competitive advantage in a particular field is very important in the company. The report has clearly portrayed how the customer relationship management system between human resource management, corporate culture and strategic objectives and goal in an organization (Pravin, 2012). I also found out that the combination of the management styles and strong organization’s culture is an uphill task for any management. Some methods or techniques applied can bring about benefits and drawbacks in various companies. Connecting HRM, corporate culture and strategies needs vast knowledge in the side of managers. The managers from different departments should be involved in the process to enable the business to compete favorably. Work Cited Chaturvedi, hinav. Customer relationship management. Excel Books India, 2009. Jha, Lakshman. Customer relationship management: A strategic approach. Global India Publications, 2010. Raab, Gerhard. Customer relationship management: A global perspective. Gower Publishing, Ltd, 2009. Read More