While on-demand or hosted CRM solutions can provide organizations an easier way to meet its business objectives, there are four key challenges that must be addressed to successfully leverage on-demand solutions.
1. Evaluating Data Ownership and Security
Security is one of the primary fears that companies encounter when evaluating an on-demand solution. In reality, the average service provider has more than sufficient security processes in place. A good service provider will have extensive policies, procedures and technology in place to ensure around-the-clock, optimal performance of the solution. Utilizing a combination of security measures that provide robust, system-wide protection and reliability allows clients to focus on the application and its uses rather than the security infrastructure.
On-demand solutions represent some of the most reliable and scalable applications on the market based on years of internet application development. To achieve expected client results, a service provider must maintain a robust network environment with extensive data redundancy, application monitoring and pre- and post-production quality assurance procedures. Moreover, a multi-tiered operations team is needed to employ industry best practices for disaster recovery and operations support, ensuring quick resolution of client issues including:
Risk-sensitive disaster recovery systems and processes
Tiered software quality assurance process
Co-location and redundancy
Fault-tolerant system components
24x7 application monitoring and technical support
2. Leveraging Existing IT Investments for Seamless Integration
A core architectural philosophy of on-demand solutions is to facilitate a deep legacy/enterprise integration capability that allows organizations to leverage existing application and system investments. The focus of the integration framework is to enable an organization to span multiple systems in order to see a single view of a customer across the enterprise with all of the information that is necessary to effectively handle, manage and report against any interaction, transaction or transaction exception while meeting the following goals:
Enable customers and partners to integrate the on-demand solution with the existing IT infrastructure without expensive and time-consuming systems integration work.
Facilitate secure and seamless integration across firewalls.
Provide minimal impact on customer and partner system.
Leverage the EAI/B2B integration tools that are available in the market.
The web-based framework leverages data that resides in existing front-end and backend systems versus replacement or integration. This framework and system collaboration process eliminates the integration challenges of data replication and associated data currency and accuracy issues. By doing this, the creation of a relevant and accurate transactional and interaction view is completed in days, not months or years.
3. Customizing On-Demand Solutions to Meet Unique Requirements
Service providers have a couple of different approaches to the way they host CRM solutions. End-users should be aware of which approach would suit their needs the best.
The traditional approach to designing and implementing an on-demand CRM solution for a group of clients involves several procedures that are repeated for every client. The activities include the following:
1. Procure and install hardware into a data center.
2. Configure hardware to meet new client data and communications needs.
3. Procure needed software applications for such functions as sales, service, contact management, knowledge management and CTI.
4. Configure software applications based on each client’s individual needs.
5. Integrate software applications with existing infrastructure.
6. Maintain client-specific infrastructure.
These activities are necessary because each client has different software requirements and varied hardware needs. The service provider has to master multiple hardware technologies and establish a new server cluster for every client. Configuring software to meet specific client needs requires installing multiple application instances and often involves intensive programming.
A next-generation approach to designing and implementing the architectural infrastructure follows a simplified process:
1. Install hardware and multi-tenant software in a data center.
2. Configure a dedicated client program for the customer by leveraging the single application and database instance.
3. Maintain a simplified infrastructure across client accounts without compromising client data or application security.
In contrast to traditional solutions, an on-demand internet application framework functions as a next-generation, interaction-management overlay for legacy applications and business-process integration. Telephony, hardware and software are pre-integrated. The service provider’s only task is to apply template-driven configuration components such as CTI, knowledge management, queuing and routing/workflows, e-mail, chat, analog and digital phone and fax communication tools.
4. Streamlining Implementation and Maintenance
A true, Net-Native J2EE™ solution eliminates the need for client/server applications on user desktops, saving in initial installation and ongoing maintenance costs. Plus, this solution utilizes the internet as a global delivery system for maximum uptime and flexibility while ensuring full security. Moreover, some on-demand solutions can provide an environment that can be customized and extended with additional fields and tabs from the configuration console, without development work. Not only does this result in quick implementations, it also eliminates additional work when upgrading or moving customizations or data schemas during version upgrades, migrations or standard certification to production processes.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Saturday, June 2, 2007
क्रम info
CRM and Technology
CRM is an acronym for ‘Customer Relationship Management’. CRM is a set of strategies, processes, metrics, organizational culture and technology solutions that enhance an organization's ability to see the differences in its customers’ and prospects' behavior and needs, track new opportunities to better serve their customers and act, instantly and profitably, on those differences and opportunities. Recently CRM has taken a center stage in the business world with businesses concentrating on saving money and increasing profits by redefining internal processes and procedures. It costs a company dramatically less to retain and grow an existing client, than it does to court new ones. It is said that “It is seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one”, therefore the value of customer information and management should never be underestimated.
Customer relation management analysts says CRM is "a buzzword that's really not so new. What's new is the technology is allowing us to do what we could do at the turn of the century with the neighborhood grocer. He had few enough customers and enough brainpower to keep track of everyone's preferences. Technology has allowed us to go back to the future to this model." The aim of CRM is optimize the use of technology and human resources for the business to gain insight into the behavior of costumer. Seeing the new market (CRM) emerge, the world’s leading business software vendors have reinvented themselves to focus on CRM, and there has been a fierce competition for the dominance in this market. Technology is now an essential part of CRM nowadays but buying technology before defining CRM business goals, is a recipe for disaster. It is important to remember that technology used for CRM should be ‘tailor made´ depending on the type of consumer base of the company and the business goals. Companies need to understand CRM in relevance to customers and customers only. Technology like call center services and software’s will prove helpful only if they improve the customer services and relation, otherwise all fancy technology is useless if it fails to benefit the customer. The CRM services consist of the following major segments:
Consulting services
Implementation services
CRM Outsourcing services
Training services
There are various technical components of CRM like customer information, sales, marketing trends and marketing efficacy that act in tandem to improve relationship between companies and consumers. From a technological perspective, it involves capturing customer data from across the organization and consolidating all internally and externally acquired customer-related data in a central database. This data is then analyzed and the results of the analysis are distributed via customer touch points like mobile sales force, inbound and outbound call centers, web sites, point-of-sale, email, etc., for use while dealing with customers at these very touch points. The Internet has revolutionized the way business is done and has virtually taken the enterprise information system within the reach of the customer. It can be accessed through the call centers, through the Internet and increasingly through mobile devices.
It has been predicted that the total worldwide market for CRM services will grow to US$ 125.2 billion by 2004. With a vast talent pool India is fast becoming an important development base of major CRM companies. Indian companies are jumping into the CRM bandwagon to seize a chunk of the global market, both products as well as services. Call centers, catering primarily to the American and European markets are coming up in and around the metros. With the easing of infrastructure constraints, India is likely to emerge as a significant player in this segment. India even has a CRM Foundation in New Delhi, founded with the purpose of assessing and improving CRM practices. Although many Indian call centers have come up that cater to international market, there are only a few Indian companies that have actively taken up CRM. The CRM enabled companies include Tata Telecom, TVS Electronics, HP India, Tata Infotech, Carrier Refrigeration, Tata Teleservices, Satyam Infoway, Planet M, and Epicenter Technologies among many others. Recently some of the mobile phone companies in India have started to integrate CRM services to increase the consumer satisfaction. For the big mobile operators, customer care is becoming the differentiator. Other sectors like Banking and Insurance services are also deploying CRM solutions. ICICI bank and ICICI prudential (insurance) along with several other large banking and insurance companies are adopting CRM solutions.
Vendors and analysts agree that the need to acquire, retain and support customers will stimulate greater investment in CRM. Like all other IT enabled services, CRM is likely to grow at a rapid pace in India during the next few years.
CRM is an acronym for ‘Customer Relationship Management’. CRM is a set of strategies, processes, metrics, organizational culture and technology solutions that enhance an organization's ability to see the differences in its customers’ and prospects' behavior and needs, track new opportunities to better serve their customers and act, instantly and profitably, on those differences and opportunities. Recently CRM has taken a center stage in the business world with businesses concentrating on saving money and increasing profits by redefining internal processes and procedures. It costs a company dramatically less to retain and grow an existing client, than it does to court new ones. It is said that “It is seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one”, therefore the value of customer information and management should never be underestimated.
Customer relation management analysts says CRM is "a buzzword that's really not so new. What's new is the technology is allowing us to do what we could do at the turn of the century with the neighborhood grocer. He had few enough customers and enough brainpower to keep track of everyone's preferences. Technology has allowed us to go back to the future to this model." The aim of CRM is optimize the use of technology and human resources for the business to gain insight into the behavior of costumer. Seeing the new market (CRM) emerge, the world’s leading business software vendors have reinvented themselves to focus on CRM, and there has been a fierce competition for the dominance in this market. Technology is now an essential part of CRM nowadays but buying technology before defining CRM business goals, is a recipe for disaster. It is important to remember that technology used for CRM should be ‘tailor made´ depending on the type of consumer base of the company and the business goals. Companies need to understand CRM in relevance to customers and customers only. Technology like call center services and software’s will prove helpful only if they improve the customer services and relation, otherwise all fancy technology is useless if it fails to benefit the customer. The CRM services consist of the following major segments:
Consulting services
Implementation services
CRM Outsourcing services
Training services
There are various technical components of CRM like customer information, sales, marketing trends and marketing efficacy that act in tandem to improve relationship between companies and consumers. From a technological perspective, it involves capturing customer data from across the organization and consolidating all internally and externally acquired customer-related data in a central database. This data is then analyzed and the results of the analysis are distributed via customer touch points like mobile sales force, inbound and outbound call centers, web sites, point-of-sale, email, etc., for use while dealing with customers at these very touch points. The Internet has revolutionized the way business is done and has virtually taken the enterprise information system within the reach of the customer. It can be accessed through the call centers, through the Internet and increasingly through mobile devices.
It has been predicted that the total worldwide market for CRM services will grow to US$ 125.2 billion by 2004. With a vast talent pool India is fast becoming an important development base of major CRM companies. Indian companies are jumping into the CRM bandwagon to seize a chunk of the global market, both products as well as services. Call centers, catering primarily to the American and European markets are coming up in and around the metros. With the easing of infrastructure constraints, India is likely to emerge as a significant player in this segment. India even has a CRM Foundation in New Delhi, founded with the purpose of assessing and improving CRM practices. Although many Indian call centers have come up that cater to international market, there are only a few Indian companies that have actively taken up CRM. The CRM enabled companies include Tata Telecom, TVS Electronics, HP India, Tata Infotech, Carrier Refrigeration, Tata Teleservices, Satyam Infoway, Planet M, and Epicenter Technologies among many others. Recently some of the mobile phone companies in India have started to integrate CRM services to increase the consumer satisfaction. For the big mobile operators, customer care is becoming the differentiator. Other sectors like Banking and Insurance services are also deploying CRM solutions. ICICI bank and ICICI prudential (insurance) along with several other large banking and insurance companies are adopting CRM solutions.
Vendors and analysts agree that the need to acquire, retain and support customers will stimulate greater investment in CRM. Like all other IT enabled services, CRM is likely to grow at a rapid pace in India during the next few years.
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