Sustainable Competitive Advantage of Internet Firms - A Strategic Framework and Implications for Global Marketers

Purpose – At the core of an international marketing strategy is the internet firm’s goal of building and sustaining a competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative framework to explain the role that customer behavior and customer relationship management (CRM) play in developing a profitable, sustainable competitive advantage for internet companies. Design/methodology/approach – The integrative framework utilizes existing theoretical concepts from the areas of strategy and internet marketing and develops a framework to provide firms with insights into how they can gain the competitive advantage. Findings – This paper links global customer behavior to the firms’ business value chain and provides guidelines for strategic implications. In this conceptual paper, it is discussed that understanding consumer decision-making behavior on the web and managing these relationships are critically important to achieve a superior performance. Research limitations/implications – This is not empirical research. A theoretical model is presented for future testing by researchers using statistical techniques such as structural equation modeling. Practical implications – The framework provides managerial insights into building and sustaining a competitive advantage using a consumer-centric approach, coupled with CRM technology on a global scale. Managerial value is derived by providing an understanding of the link between a sustainable competitive advantage, customer-focused strategies, consumers’ needs and wants, the firm’s performance, and shareholder value. Originality/value – It is important for global marketers to understand how consumer decision-making on the web affects strategic and financial performance. This paper extends the current literature by integrating consumer decision behavior on the web, CRM, and the firms’ performance. This framework explains the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage using customer-focused strategies to develop customer loyalty for superior firm performance

Sustainable Competitive Advantage of Internet Firms - A Strategic Framework and Implications for Global Marketers

Purpose – At the core of an international marketing strategy is the internet firm’s goal of building and sustaining a competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative framework to explain the role that customer behavior and customer relationship management (CRM) play in developing a profitable, sustainable competitive advantage for internet companies. Design/methodology/approach – The integrative framework utilizes existing theoretical concepts from the areas of strategy and internet marketing and develops a framework to provide firms with insights into how they can gain the competitive advantage. Findings – This paper links global customer behavior to the firms’ business value chain and provides guidelines for strategic implications. In this conceptual paper, it is discussed that understanding consumer decision-making behavior on the web and managing these relationships are critically important to achieve a superior performance. Research limitations/implications – This is not empirical research. A theoretical model is presented for future testing by researchers using statistical techniques such as structural equation modeling. Practical implications – The framework provides managerial insights into building and sustaining a competitive advantage using a consumer-centric approach, coupled with CRM technology on a global scale. Managerial value is derived by providing an understanding of the link between a sustainable competitive advantage, customer-focused strategies, consumers’ needs and wants, the firm’s performance, and shareholder value. Originality/value – It is important for global marketers to understand how consumer decision-making on the web affects strategic and financial performance. This paper extends the current literature by integrating consumer decision behavior on the web, CRM, and the firms’ performance. This framework explains the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage using customer-focused strategies to develop customer loyalty for superior firm performance

Integrating Organisational Change Management and Customer Relationship Management in a Casino

This research aims to solve the problem: how can casinos manage organizational change programs, and internal and external customer relationship management (CRM) programs? To find a solution, it uses two stages of qualitative methods: convergent interviewing and case research about four departments of a casino in Australia. After a thorough data analysis of documents and interview data, 12 themes were identified and they led to the development of a model of how organizational change management and CRM can be integrated to improve initiatives in organisations such as casinos. The model has seven core elements: vision, key challenge, objective, measure, strategy, initiative and outcome. A contribution is the development of this evidence-based model of links between the both types of CRM and organisational change management, with an action checklist for managers. Analytic generalisation beyond the research setting was done in this research, but more external validation could be done in future research. Managers could use the checklist of actions about this research\u27s integrated model, to reduce the high failure rate of change initiatives

CRM Framework for Higher Education in Mauritius

This research paper provides a conceptual CRM framework that may be used by public universities in Mauritius for managing student relationships. Several important components have been identified for improving relationships with students based on a survey carried out with students and staff in the different public universities in Mauritius. The research findings show that people integrity and trust, communication and adaptation, facilitation and support, technological support and student engagement activities are the most important factors for improving relationship building. The rationale of the study is built upon the increasing number of student complaints and problems in the public universities. The research outcome will be highly beneficial for the different stakeholders in higher education

A cultural approach to study customer relationship management (CRM) systems

As this paper takes new approach to defining and studying CRM, it defines CRM as a business strategy that seamlessly integrates every aspect of business that touches customer. Going through CRM literature, the authors notice that, there are different objectives for CRM systems i.e. retains customers for long, increase sales to existing customers and candidate customers, and others. Over the last decade there has been a dramatic growth in the acquisition of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems. However more recently, there has been an increase in reported CRM failures, suggesting that the implementation issues are not just technical, but encompass wider behavior and cultural factors. Multinational organization is faced by that problem, how they build a relationship with different customer in different culture contexts. The literature on culture provides a set of general concepts and ideas as a way of looking at the world. However, the typologies of culture have inherent weaknesses e.g. they do not reflect the variety of values and attitude that may exist in a country, nor do they explain how cultures have developed over time. These limitations will need to be borne in mind, as we consider potential culture impact on the use of information systems, particularly customer relationship management systems. The authors try to highlight the interaction between cultures in macro and micro level in the context of CRM systems. The authors conclude that social and cultural issues of the main area related to studying of CR

Motivations, Capability Handicaps and Firm Responses in the Early Phase of Internationalization from Emerging Economies: A study in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry

This paper identifies and analyses the motivations, capability handicaps and responses of a sample of Indian pharmaceutical firms in the early phase of internationalization. It distinguishes between the experiences of two types of internationalisers –initial internationalisers and later internationalisers - in the industry. It argues that the initial internationalisers face several discontinuities vis-a-vis the experience of meeting the needs of domestic market. They need to cultivate new capabilities by leveraging on whatever is available within the firms and the external environment. Their capability to cultivate depends on their internal processes to absorb the new experiences. The later internationalisers do not experience these handicaps. They can benefit from the industry experience and congregate capabilities to move faster. Their capability to congregate depends on the initial endowments of the founders. Based on its findings, the paper outlines scope for further research in capability building for internationalization in the context of emerging economies.