 |
|
|
Customer relationship management (CRM) encompasses the capabilities, methodologies, and technologies that support an enterprise in managing customer relationships. The general purpose of CRM is to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes and procedures. Implementing CRM Customer relationship management is a corporate level strategy which focuses on creating and maintaining lasting relationships with its customers. Although there are several commercial CRM software packages on the market which support CRM strategy, it is not a technology itself. Rather, a holistic change in an organization’s philosophy which places emphasis on the customer. A successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by simply installing and integrating a software package and will not happen over night. Changes must occur at all levels including policies and processes, front of house customer service, employee training, marketing, systems and information management; all aspects of the business must be reshaped to be customer driven. To be effective, the CRM process needs to be integrated end-to-end across marketing, sales, and customer service. A good CRM strategy needs to: • Identify customer success
factors When setting up a CRM segment for a company it might first want to identify what profile aspects it feels are relevant to its business, such as what information it needs to serve its customers, the customer's past financial history, the effects of the CRM segment and what information is not useful. Being able to eliminate unwanted information can be a large aspect of implementing CRM systems. When designing a CRM's structure, a company may want to consider keeping more extensive information on their primary customers and keeping less extensive details on the low-margin clients Purposes of CRM CRM, in its broadest sense, means managing all interactions and business with customers. This includes, but is not limited to, improving customer service. A good CRM program will allow a business to acquire customers, service the customer, increase the value of the customer to the company, retain good customers, and determine which customers can be retained or given a higher level of service. A good CRM program can improve customer service by facilitating communication in several ways : • Provide product information,
product use information, and technical assistance on web sites that
are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Improving customer relationships CRM programs also are able to improve customer relationships. Proponents say this is so because: • CRM technology can track
customer interests, needs, and buying habits as they progress through
their life cycles, and tailor the marketing effort accordingly.
This way customers get exactly what they want as they change. << back ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) integrate all data and processes of an organization into a single unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a single, unified database to store data for the various system modules. The term ERP originally implied
systems designed to plan the utilization of enterprise-wide resources.
Although the acronym ERP originated in the manufacturing environment,
today's use of the term ERP systems has much broader scope. ERP
systems typically attempt to cover all basic functions of an organization,
regardless of the organization's business or charter. Business,
non-profit organizations, non governmental organizations, governments,
and other large entities utilize ERP systems. The introduction of an ERP system to replace two or more independent applications eliminates the need for interfaces previously required between systems, and provides additional benefits that range from standardization and lower maintenance (one system instead of two or more) to easier and/or greater reporting capabilities (as all data is typically kept in one database). Examples of modules in an ERP which formerly would have been stand-alone applications include: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, CRM, and Warehouse Management. Advantages In the absence of an ERP system,
a large manufacturer may find itself with many software applications
that do not talk to each other and do not effectively interface.
Tasks that need to interface with one another may involve: Change how a product is made, in the engineering details, and that is how it will now be made. Effectively dates can be used to control when the switch over will occur from an old version to the next one, both the date that some ingredients go into effect, and date that some are discontinued. Part of the change can include labeling to identify version numbers. << back WHAT IS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE? Business intelligence provides organizational data in such a way that the organizational knowledge filters can easily associate with this data and turn it into information for the organization. Persons involved in business intelligence processes may use application software and other technologies to gather, store, analyze, and provide access to data, and present that data in a simple, useful manner. The software aids in Business performance management, and aims to help people make "better" business decisions by making accurate, current, and relevant information available to them when they need it. Some businesses use data warehouses because they are a logical collection of information gathered from various operational databases for the purpose of creating business intelligence. Reasons for Business Intelligence Business Intelligence enables organizations to make well informed business decisions and thus can be the source of competitive advantages. This is especially true when you are able to extrapolate information from indicators in the external environment and make accurate forecasts about future trends or economic conditions. Once business intelligence is gathered effectively and used proactively you can make decisions that benefit your organization before the competition does. The ultimate objective of business intelligence is to improve the timeliness and quality of information. Timely and good quality information is like having a crystal ball that can give you an indication of what's the best course to take. Business intelligence reveals to you: • The position of your
company as in comparison to its competitors You can then deduce from the
information gathered what adjustments need to be made. Benefits of BI BI provides many benefits to companies utilizing it. It can eliminate a lot of the guesswork within an organization, enhance communication among departments while coordinating activities, and enable companies to respond quickly to changes in financial conditions, customer preferences, and supply chain operations. BI improves the overall performance of the company using it. Information is often regarded as the second most important resource a company has (a company's most valuable assets are its people). So when a company can make decisions based on timely and accurate information, the company can improve its performance. BI also expedites decision-making, as acting quickly and correctly on information before competing businesses do can often result in competitively superior performance. It can also improve customer experience, allowing for the timely and appropriate response to customer problems and priorities. Factors Influencing Business Intelligence Customers are the most critical aspect to a company's success. Without them a company cannot exist. So it is very important that you have information on their preferences. You must quickly adapt to their changing demands. Business Intelligence enables you to gather information on the trends in the marketplace and come up with innovative products or services in anticipation of customer's changing demands. Competitors can be a huge hurdle on your way to success. Their objectives are the same as yours and that is to maximize profits and customer satisfaction. In order to be successful you must stay one step ahead of your competitors. In business you don't want to play the catch up game because you would have lost valuable market share. Business Intelligence tells you what actions your competitors are taking, so you can make better informed decisions. Business Partners must possess the same strategic information you have so that there is no miscommunication that can lead to inefficiencies. For example it is common now for businesses to allow their suppliers to see their inventory levels, performance metrics, and other supply chain data in order to collaborate to improve supply chain management. With Business Intelligence you and your business partners can share the same information. Economic Environment such as the state of the economy and other key economic indicators are important considerations when making business decisions. You don't want to roll out a new line of products during an economic recession. BI gives you information on the state of the economy so that you can make prudent decisions as to when is the right time to maybe expand or scale back your business operations. Internal Operations are the day to day activities that go on in your business. You need an in depth knowledge about the internal workings of your business from top to bottom. If you make an arbitrary decision without knowing how your entire organization works it could have negative affects on your business. BI gives you information on how your entire organization works. Designing and implementing a business intelligence program When implementing a BI program following are the important considerations: • Goal Alignment queries:
The first step determines the short and medium-term purposes of
the program. What strategic goal(s) of the organization will the
program address? What organizational mission/vision does it relate
to? A crafted hypothesis needs to detail how this initiative will
eventually improve results / performance (i.e. a strategy map).
<< back Knowledge Management refers to a range of practices and techniques used by organizations to identify, represent and distribute knowledge, know-how, expertise, intellectual capital and other forms of knowledge for leverage, reuse and transfer of knowledge and learning across the organization. Knowledge management programs
are typically tied to organizational objectives and are intended
to lead to the achievement of specific business outcomes such as
improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of
innovation. Of recent years Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)
practice has arisen by which individuals apply KM practice to themselves,
their role in the organization and their career development, • intellectual capital
and the knowledge worker in the knowledge economy While Knowledge Management programs are closely related to Organizational Learning initiatives, Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organizational Learning by its greater focus on the management of specific knowledge assets and development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge flows. Approaches to knowledge management There is a broad range of thought on knowledge management with no agreed definition current or likely. The approaches varying by author and school. For example, knowledge management may be viewed from each of the following perspectives: • Techno-centric: Focus
on technologies, ideally those that enhance knowledge sharing /
growth, frequently any technology that does fancy stuff with information.
Key concepts in knowledge management Tacit versus explicit knowledge A key distinction made by the majority of knowledge management practitioners is Nonaka's reformulation of Polanyi's distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge. The former is often subconscious, internalized, and the individual may or may not be aware of what he or she knows and how he or she accomplishes particular results. At the opposite end of the spectrum is conscious or explicit knowledge - knowledge that the individual holds explicitly and consciously in mental focus, and may communicate to others. In the popular form of the distinction tacit knowledge is what is in our heads, and explicit knowledge is what we have codified. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) argued that a successful KM program needs to, on the one hand, convert internalized tacit knowledge into explicit codified knowledge in order to share it, but also on the other hand for individuals and groups to internalize and make personally meaningful codified knowledge once it is retrieved from the KM system. A third kind of knowledge is embedded knowledge. Embedded knowledge is a knowledge that is embedded in a physical object but not in an explicit way, that is, it requires other knowledge to be extracted. For example, the shape and characteristics of an unknown device contain the key elements to understand how that device can be used. Knowledge capture stages Knowledge may be accessed, or captured, at three stages: before, during, or after knowledge-related activities. For example, individuals undertaking a new project for an organization might access information resources to learn best practices and lessons learned for similar projects undertaken previously, access relevant information again during the project implementation to seek advice on issues encountered, and access relevant information afterwards for advice on after-project actions and review activities. Knowledge management practitioners offer systems, repositories, and corporate processes to encourage and formalize these activities. Similarly, knowledge may be captured and recorded before the project implementation, for example as the project team learns information and lessons during the initial project analysis. Similarly, lessons learned during the project operation may be recorded, and after-action reviews may lead to further insights and lessons being recorded for future access. Ad hoc knowledge access One alternative strategy to encoding knowledge into and retrieving knowledge from a knowledge repository such as a database is for individuals to instead access expert individuals on an ad hoc basis, as needed, with their knowledge requests. A key benefit of this strategy is that the response from the expert individual is rich in content and contextualized to the particular problem being addressed and personalized to the particular person or people addressing it. The downside is, of course, that it is tied to the availability and memories of specific individuals in the organization. It does not capture their insights and experience for future use should they leave or become unavailable, and also does not help in the case when the experts' memories of particular technical issues or problems previously faced change with time. The emergence of narrative approaches to knowledge management attempts to over a bridge between the formal and the ad hoc, by allowing knowledge to be held in the form of stories. Drivers of knowledge management There are a number of 'drivers',
or motivations, leading to organizations undertaking a knowledge
management program. Considerations driving a knowledge management program might include: • making available increased
knowledge content in the development and provision of products and
services IT in Knowledge Management As Witten above Knowledge Management as a practice exists since a long time. It is only recently that Information technology has starting aiding this practice. IT brings in a new revolution in knowledge management, by acting as a catalyst to the organizations knowledge management practices. << back |
|
©2007 FirsteService. All
rights reserved. Sitemap |
