CRM

1.Concept and history:

Back in the 90s, the concept of customer relationship
management has emerged in the business domain, and
since that time, many organization are becoming more
and more interested in this concept and how to apply such
concept

within

their

(Giannakis-Bompolis
Bompolis

and

businesses
&

Boutsouki,

Boutsouki

(2014)

for

many

purposes

2014).

Giannakis-

defines

customer

relationship management as is considered an approach

that consists of a set of processes for the purposes of
maintaining as well as acquiring and partnering with a set
of customers for the purposes of creating some value for
the organization as well as the customer. Customer
relationship management is concerned with the requires of
the organization to get involved in marketing, sales,
customer service, and the supply-chain functions for
achieving efficiencies and effectiveness when it comes to
customers service. Although there are many different
definition for customer relationship management , there is
a general agreement on the aim and focus of customer
relationship management which is concerned with the
development and retention of relations with profitable
customers through value creation processes (Sigala,
2011).
2.CRM Activates

According

to

literature,

customer

relationship

management involves that organizations are required to

go

through

functionalities
enhanced

many
for

activities
better

relationships

and

include

customers

with

their

other

services

customers.

and
Major

customer relationship management functionalities are

focused around three areas, namely marketing, sales and
services (Mohan, Choi, & Min, 2008). With respect to sales,
customer

relationship

management

can

help

the

organizations with many processes such as opportunity

management,

order

management,

and

activity

management. On the services side, customer relationship

management can help the organizations with service
order, management service contract, and management
warranty

management

(Mohan

et

al.,

2008).

Other

functionalities involves customer acquisition, customer

retention, customer loyalty and customer profitability
(Giannakis-Bompolis & Boutsouki, 2014; Patil, 2014). Other
functionalities that are attainable through the use of
information technologies include capturing, analyzing and
disseminating current and prospective customer data in
order to identify customer needs more precisely and to
develop insightful relationships (Alt & Reinhold, 2012).
3. CRM Goals and Benefits
Customer relationship management has many goals. The
ultimate objective of customer relationship management
is to help organizations succeed by achieving their
objectives and improve their competitive advantage by

employing

CRM

as

tool

within

the

organization

environment (Abd El Kader, 2012). It also aims at making

use of customers information, which provides a valuable
resource for assessing organizations relationships with
their customers. On the financial side, such long term
relationships will end up with increases profits and
revenues

for

the

organizations

(Cappuccio,

Kulkarni,

Sohail, Haider, & Wang, 2012). In addition, customer

relationship

management

is

concerned

with

many

different activities that can help organizations improve

their products and services, such activities include but not
limited to retains existing customers as well as acquires
new one (Abd El Kader, 2012; Harrigan et al., 2015; Mohan
et al., 2008; Ye, Wang, Wu, Wang, & Ieee, 2008), enhance
customer service (Alt & Reinhold, 2012; Cappuccio et al.,
2012), maximizes customers lifetime value (Patil, 2014),
communication and share information within and outside
the organization (Cappuccio et al., 2012), and marketing,
sales and services (Alt & Reinhold, 2012).
4. CRM and IT
Technology is playing a major role in any organizations as
it

help

these

organization

to

achieve

competitive

advantages in different ways. With the advances of

information technologies, it is necessary to consider the
alignment of customer relationship management with
existing technologies, especially social media. As a result,
a real successful customer relationship management
should

integrate

information

technology,

information

resource, as well as organizational resource in order to

help organizations meet their objectives and expectations
when it comes to satisfying the needs of their customers.
Jafari

and

Darvishi

(2014)

have

defined

customer

relationship management form an information technology

perspective, where customer relationship management
constitute

set

of

methodologies

that

integrates

information technologies within business process and

selects profitable customers and defines the relationships
with them.