CRM Strategy and the Main Advantages of Netbooks - Assignment Example

 CRM Part I and II Assignment One: Eli Bowen was able to deliver a voicemail to his boss with the help of real time communication as she was busy in a meeting and would not have been able to get in touch with her otherwise. Back in his hotel room, Bowen set up his personal virtual office and was able to meet his team in time for the rehearsal for the seminar with the help of video calling or conferencing. This way, he was able to meet with others from offices in different cities and thus set up his entire database and system to work with, right there in Hawaii, with the help of Microsoft Lync. Two: Using MS Surface, Bill Gates designed the snowboard with just his hands instead of using a mouse. He was able to show how only his fingers can be used and do the work of a mouse on the surface of the screen in order to design and customize objects on the software itself. Thus, only his hands were required to put his signature and design the snow board. Three: In a Sync enabled car, Steve Ballmer was able to select the music with the help of a small text display on the stereo unit of the car. It has a fully integrated flash memory and also helps in hands free calling while driving, making it easier to connect via Bluetooth. It also has the ability to copy contacts from the phone and also possesses voice recognition system to start up and work the mp3 player in the car. Four: According to Steve Ballmer, the main target market of Microsoft in the next several decades consists of the software developers, hardware manufactures and user, customers and partners. He says that it was with the collaboration, efforts and help of the 3000 engineers and 5000 partners that they were able to develop newer versions of the software for the consumers. Five: Steve and Ryan displayed a number of the thinnest laptops in the world created by them in the presentation. In order to display how thin the laptop exactly was, they compared the width and size of the laptop and it is just 9.99mm in width. Six: The Anatomy Book powered by the Blio Reader has its own advantages as the user can preserve typography, illustrations and color. The user can also view videos and make notes in the reader itself. One can also purchase books there, highlight pages, make changes in the books itself, as well as make the book read out to the user if he is not feeling up to reading himself. Thus, it has the features of traditional texts, newly authored and advanced reading books. Seven: According to Steve Jobs, the main criteria for creating the third category of devices between laptops and smart phones was the growing consumer market because of the considerable interest that it possesses due to the rich and widely accepted usage of applications all the time. He felt that it was necessary to create a device that could act as a laptop as well as a smart phone in one so that people would prefer it over having to carry two different systems with them. This has an advantage as it makes travelling easier, and also brings about the ease of portability. Therefore, he kept his consumers in mind while creating the third category devices. Eight: According to Steve Jobs, the main advantages of Netbooks are that they are mostly found in very small sizes and thus have ease of portability and do not take up much space while travelling. They can even be fitted inside a handbag. They are extremely light weight and the person does not have to worry about lugging a heavy bag around. Also, Netbooks are very cheap as compared to other laptops. However, there are certain disadvantages to having a Netbook as well. Steve Jobs says that they fall back in terms of some basic features that a laptop has and a Netbook does not. For starters, Netbooks have a very small screen as compared to a laptop and thus the person might have to squint their eyes or adjust their screens accordingly in order to be able to view with ease. Furthermore, they have fairly weak processors as compared to desktops or laptops. Also, Netbooks do not come with attached CD drives and these drives have to be purchased separately and be carried around if the person wishes. But even then, USB cables and pen drives are much easier to use these days and thus this has begun playing as an advantage to the use of light weight Netbooks. Nine: Information technology has developed extremely well over the last few years and decades. As per the video, Microsoft has been coming up with newer versions of the operating system for laptops, there is a need for creating a third category of devices that function as smart phones as well as laptops, and the main focus has been on creating more and more revenue by giving the customers what they want by creating a need in the market. For example, the gross revenue for sales of Xbox 360 games amounted to about 2 billion in 2010 for Microsoft. Thus, these are some of the new trends in the enterprise. Ten: There are two different types of Customer Relationship Management in a business enterprise. They are: a. Operational Management (for example in the case of creating Java Applet software for creating a proper and better customer friendly interface) b. Analytical Management (for example the use of Web analytics) Eleven: For Customer Relationship Management to be truly effective, the first thing that an organization needs to comprehend is who its customers are. It then needs to track down the needs of the target customers and find ways and solutions of hoping to achieve them by helping the customer be satisfied as per his needs and wants. This is one of the main aspects how the goodwill of a firm is raised as well with the help of a proper and efficient and effective system of CRM. Thus, the enterprise must find a way to track down the needs of all their customers. This may also be done by the use of the database that the company already has. This database will provide the company with all the required information regarding particular customers which then need to be siphoned out and checked accordingly in order to suit the personal needs of every different customer. Twelve: Since IT and CIO play a very important role in terms of advising the clients and customers, it is best to let business departments run the CRM projects as they use and run the software for the purpose of meeting the needs of the customers. Thus, there is no one division as such that should be running the CRM projects; instead it should be the business departments hand in hand with the IT and the CIO. Thirteen: In terms of implementing the Customer Relationship Management programs, financial and telecommunications industries are the most active because they have the maximum amount of customer interaction and most of the work is based on the feedback from the customers. Some other enterprises like customer retail and consumer goods firms are also not far behind. On the other hand, industries that do not put much emphasis on their customers are far behind implementing the CRM projects, like heavy duty industries that manufacture capital goods and machinery. Fourteen: Harrah’s Loyalty program is called Total Gold and was first begun in the year 1997. The main reason for its growth, development and working was the IT powered customer loyalty program that helps customers play casino games and gamble while providing them with certain incentives. The main reasons why it works and other programs do not are because it is designed in a way to appeal to both the small time spenders as well as the big gamblers. It properly watches customer behaviour and delivers what the customer wants unlike other loyalty programs that do not. Fifteen: WINET is the only integrated coast to coast system that allows real time communication between all of its properties, and a key to Harrah’s Total Rewards Program leading to an excellent strategy for CRM. Sixteen: To prevent others from copying its technology, Harrah’s is able to keep a track of each and every customer it is serving. It has a mark on the profitability of the total value earned in revenues by its integrated system and uses data from low rollers so that it is accessible to the customers as well as easy for keeping a check on. Works Cited “Microsoft’s Version of 2010” 25 November 2007. YouTube. 21 March 2011. “Microsoft CES 2010 Keynote - Part 2 (Microsoft In 2010)”. 10 January 2010. YouTube. 21 March 2011 “Microsoft CES 2010 Keynote - Part 3 (Windows Phone, Windows 7, All In One PCs etc)”. 10 January 2010. YouTube. 21 March 2011 “Microsoft CES 2010 Keynote - Part 4 (Gaming Laptops, DirectX 11, 3D Gaming, Form Factor PC)” 10 January 2010. YouTube. 21 March 2011. “Apple iPad: Steve Jobs Keynote Jan 27 2010 Part 1” 27 January 2010. YouTube. 21 March 2011. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBhYxj2SvRI> "CRM Strategy: Make Every Customer More Profitable." EWeek.com. 30 Dec. 2003. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. . Levinson, Meredith. "HARRAH'S ENTERTAINMENT - Jackpot! Using IT to Manage Customer Information." CIO. Verisign, 1 Feb. 2001. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. . Wailgum, Thomas. "CRM Definition and Solutions." CIO. Verisign. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. . Read More