CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

VARSHA PRASAD AMITY GLOBAL BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA, 4TH SEMESTER ENROLLMENT NO- A30901910018

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a companys interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processesprincipally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.

Importance of CRM
Important and awareness of customer relation is now increased and more and more businesses understand the value and importance of customer retention. This truth is not only for large enterprise businesses but also true for small and mid size businesses. Theory of keeping Customer Relationship on top of marketing expenses advocate that business should pursue long-term relationships with customers instead of adopting a short-term one time transaction related relationship. Long-term relationships with customers are lower the marketing expense, increase customer satisfaction and retention, and enhance revenues. It is known that customer is king and they have power. Strength of customer relationships, allows businesses to recover from occasional sub-optimal responses to customer needs. For customers, long-term relationships with businesses will provide economic and peace of mind. Overall, there is broad acceptance of the benefits of CRM. Importance of effective marketing campaign to reduce cost of sales and invest saving in customer relation by delivering services or products that customers really want is espoused by most businesses. Acceptance and enthusiasm for CRM has been increased.

CRM IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISE

Before deciding whether a CRM strategy is suitable for small enterprise, it should review all the potential benefits that are realized with its implementation. CRM can reduce costs related to communication with customers, optimize workflow, because of integration with other systems in the enterprise, enabling better market segmentation, enabling improved interaction with customers and relationships with them, and creating the opportunity for personalization. The goal of CRM systems is to improve customer service, to retain profitable customers and to create support in the provision of analytical capacity within the small enterprise. The biggest advantages of the successful implementation of CRM include the following examples Better sales/marketing information - user names, user history, their needs and competitive positioning are some of the types of data collected as a result of the implementation of CRM systems. Improved productivity - Effective identification of the targeted market, reduce the number of old management, the provision of accurate calculations on-site, rapid assessment of the availability of inventory and ordering directly from the field to help shorten the sales cycle. Increased concern about the user - There is more time for users due to reduced load of administrative work, the ability to monitor customer service levels and the possibility of emphasizing existing or potential problems on customer service and responsiveness to their needs. The implementation of CRM solutions that could entail considerable time and cost can be achieved by many potential uses. The greatest benefit may be to develop better relationships with existing customers, which can lead to increase sales through better times, and to anticipate needs based on historical trends; better identifying understanding of specific requirements of customers; cross-selling other products highlighting and suggesting alternatives to or improvements; effective targeted marketing communications to specific customer needs; more personal approach and the development of new or improved products and services in order to conquer; more jobs in the future, improved customer satisfaction and retention which would give them a good reputation in the market that is growing, the increased

"value" from existing customers and reducing costs related to supporting and "servicing" them; increase the overall efficiency and reduce total cost of sales. CRM applications, thanks to the great advantages of technological innovation allows small and medium enterprises to collect and analyze customer data, interpretation of customer behavior, develop predictive models, timely and effective communication and delivery of customized products and services to individual customers. Using technology to optimize interactions with customers of the company has a comprehensive view of customers to learn from past interactions to optimize future.

CRM IN LARGE ENTERPRISES

CRM can be the key competitive differentiator for the large enterprise. With lower barriers to entry into the marketplace causing more competition than ever, enterprises are constantly searching for ways to stand out. Differentiating around customer relationships provides the highest rate of return, no matter the industry or geography. Finding the right CRM solution is not just a business requirement for effective day-to-day customer-facing operations but also the key competitive differentiator to cut through the noise. Large enterprises should seek a CRM solution that: Delivers comprehensive functionality with flexible deployment options to meet the wide-ranging needs of modern global enterprises Integrates within your existing applications investment to reduce cost and provide support for end-to-end business processes Provides tailored functionality for your industry to reduce time to value and enhance user adoption Leverages standards-based technology to protect your IT investments Enables deep business insight through embedded analytics.

Effect of CRM in the companys balance sheet

Good customer relationships are now widely acknowledged to be an essential ingredient of business success. John McKean, author of the latest 'must-read' primer, Customers are People: The Human Touch, claims that as much as 70% of customer decision-making is based on how we are treated, and only 30% on the product itself. However, if customer management is so important, then it should be a prime indicator of a company's status and performance. Instead of relying mainly on sales and costs, stockbrokers and economists could also take account of customer relationship management (CRM) metrics when they assess its shareholder value. That might help provide fairer and more accurate valuations. CRM can help in increasing the revenues by increasing the number of customer, CRM can help in optimum utilization of assets by optimizing the capital invested and managing the business volumes.

Is large expenditure spent in CRM justifiable to shareholders?

CRM could be viewed as an asset and that it can be used to bridge the chasm between finance and marketing. CRM can be used as a tool to understand the concept of shareholders value. Shareholders value is created when a company generates earnings on capital invested in excess of the cost of capital adjusted for risk and time.CRM can be used as an efficient tool to increase the revenue of the company if managed properly since CRM helps in increasing the number of customers and retaining the existing customer, thus increasing the revenue of the company and benefiting the shareholders.