Prepare a report that critically examines the customer relationship management of an organisation of your choice, in the light of current CRM thinking-as evidence in the literature, and makes carefully argued recommendations about how to improve these rel

CRM Magnified : Assessing its Effectiveness and Applicability

Table of Contents

TOC \o "1-3 " \h \z \u HYPERLINK \l "_Toc5 " Introduction PAGEREF _Toc5 \h 3

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc6 " What is CRM ? PAGEREF _Toc6 \h 5

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc7 " CRM 's Advantages and Disadvantages PAGEREF _Toc7 \h 6

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc8 " CRM in Focus : Cisco PAGEREF _Toc8 \h 9

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc9 " CRM Working At Cisco PAGEREF _Toc9 \h 10

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc0 " Current Problems PAGEREF _Toc0 \h 13

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc1 " Solutions and Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc1

\h 14

HYPERLINK \l "_Toc2 " Bibliography PAGEREF _Toc2 \h 16 Introduction

In the current upsurge of information and the globalisation of trade companies need to adopt strategies that would best suit them to have an enormous advantage in the competitive market . It is a stark reality that businesses have been subjected to strong and rapidly changing environments . Environmental change has been a business focus for decades . Now , a well-established newcomer is changing the traditional business environment even more : e-business , the Internet and the Web and electronic commerce are the new players that are causing more disruption in the business environment . Given these changes , businesses have rediscovered that , more than ever , in the face of increased competition , mature markets , and ever-demanding customers , treating existing customers well is a better source of profitability and sustained growth . In other words , keep your customers and do all that you can to develop business with them . Retaining customers is a lot cheaper than trying to attract new ones - by a ratio of one to three in sales and marketing expenditures

The implementation process behind relationship marketing is Customer Relationship Management (CRM . Over the past decade businesses have been transformed : where they once sold products or services on a transaction basis and behaved as if they were constantly in a customer acquisition mode , they now strive to retain customers to ensure increased spending on products and services

According to Roberts (2004 , it was in the 1980s when CRM gained prominence in the emergence of database marketing , which was simply a catch phrase to define the practice of setting up customer service groups to speak individually to all of a company 's customers . For example , Moriarty and Schwartz (1989 ) mentioned that marketers in the 1980s needed a way to make their field sales forces more efficient without risking their ability to grow sales . They turned to sales force automation in an attempt to offer more cost-effective service to customers while decreasing their overall sales costs . According to Moriarty and Schwartz (1989 , some of the sales force automation tools are

Sales force productivity tools such as call reporting and checking and inventory status

Sales lead generation via direct mail campaigns that include mail fulfilment of product information

Telemarketing , often to follow up the sales leads generated by direct mail

Sales and marketing management tools including sales forecasting and reporting

In agreement , Singh and Agrawal (December 2002 ) deemed that , as a philosophy CRM , is the most significant development in the evolution of marketing...