The first challenge for introducing Microsoft Dynamics CRM is to introduce what CRM is.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a broadly recognized, widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects (source: wikipedia.org).
The main purpose for implementing Customer Relationship Management is to increase ROI (Return of Investment).
Phases of CRM
The three phases in which CRM help to support the relationship between a business and its customers are, to:
- Acquire: a CRM can help a business in acquiring new customers through excellent contact management, direct marketing, selling and fulfillment.
- Enhance: a web-enabled CRM combined with customer service tools offers customers excellent service from a team of trained and skilled sales and service specialists, which offers customers the convenience of one-stop shopping.
- Retain: CRM software and databases enable a business to identify and reward its loyal customers and further develop its targeted marketing and relationship marketing initiatives.
Strategy
For larger-scale enterprises, a complete and detailed plan is required to obtain the funding, resources, and company-wide support that can make the initiative of choosing and implementing a system successful. Benefits must be defined, risks assessed, and cost quantified in three general areas:
- Processes: Though these systems have many technological components, business processes lie at its core. It can be seen as a more client-centric way of doing business, enabled by technology that consolidates and intelligently distributes pertinent information about clients, sales, marketing effectiveness, responsiveness, and market trends. Therefore, a company must analyze its business workflows and processes before choosing a technology platform; some will likely need re-engineering to better serve the overall goal of winning and satisfying clients. Moreover, planners need to determine the types of client information that are most relevant, and how best to employ them.
- People: For an initiative to be effective, an organization must convince its staff that the new technology and workflows will benefit employees as well as clients. Senior executives need to be strong and visible advocates who can clearly state and support the case for change. Collaboration, teamwork, and two-way communication should be encouraged across hierarchical boundaries, especially with respect to process improvement.
- Technology: In evaluating technology, key factors include alignment with the company’s business process strategy and goals, including the ability to deliver the right data to the right employees and sufficient ease of adoption and use. Platform selection is best undertaken by a carefully chosen group of executives who understand the business processes to be automated as well as the software issues. Depending upon the size of the company and the breadth of data, choosing an application can take anywhere from a few weeks to a year or more.
Some of CRM Applications those widely used:
1. Microsoft Dynamics CRM
2. Oracle Siebel
3. SAP CRM
4. SalesForce
Every Application must has 3 mininum modules in CRM:
1. Marketing Module
2. Sales Module
3. Service Module
