Enhancing Collaborative CRM with Mobile Technologies

Mobile technology offers a high potential to significantly transform the ways how a company can interact with their customers and even with own employees. In recent years researchers started to analyze those potentials from the perspective of customer relationship management (CRM) but mainly concentrated on traditional business-to-customer (B2C) relationships. The concept of collaborative CRM extends this view of traditional CRM to virtual organizations and networked businesses. While the concept of collaborative CRM has been discussed by several authors already, the impact of mobile technology is still open to research. This paper investigates the role of mobile technology in collaborative CRM based on existing research, scenarios and supporting systems. The goal is to increase insight about the current role of mobile devices such as smartphones or personal digital agents (PDA) in collaborative CRM business scenarios and the support of these scenarios by CRM systems. From the broad scope of collaborative CRM the focus of this research is on collaboration with customers. The findings show that current mobile scenarios merely incorporate the collaborative CRM concept and that CRM systems provide only basic functionalities for incorporating mobile devices in collaborative CRM processes

e-Business management assessment: framework proposal through case study analysis

Purpose – This paper proposes an e-Business assessment framework for organizations that aim to enhace the effectiveness of their online presence and maximise the benefits that result from it. The framework is based on three main pillars derived from academic literature research: emarketing strategies, CRM strategies, and business model strategies. Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews literature from e-Marketing, CRM and business model strategies, leading to the generation of a e-Business assessment framework. Secondly it takes 19 case studies and analysis them using Atlas.TI, through qualitative content analysis, to validate that framework. Findings – Pragmatic advice for practitioners derives from research results considering that this framework enables managers to characterise the company in terms of its e-Business approach, making it possible to determine the level of depth of competitive online strategies. Lessons for an improved e-Business approach can be derived from this paper. Originality/value – This study proposes a novel e-Business framework to assist organizations that want to to have an on-line presence. Its original since it is comprised of the factors identified in a literature review that contribute to define and scope that on-line presence. The framework is then validated through the collection of 19 case studies of companies that have this on-line presence, validating the theoretical findings.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

From MCom Visions to Mobile Value Services

The first papers on mobile commerce were offered to the Bled conference commencing in 2000. Initially, they were not received with enthusiasm; the reviewers were rather sceptical as to the research methods used and the visions of a global m-commerce offered. Nevertheless, the first panel sessions were overcrowded and the eBled organizers quickly recognized a new and exciting movement taking shape. The rest is – as the saying goes – history. There are around 6 billion mobile phone users in the world but the mobile services in actual use are – besides voice calls and SMS – rather few (at least in comparison to the hype around smart phones). Based on our experience from annual series of consumer studies we argue that there are fundamental misunderstandings in relation to both the mobile service concept and the basis for building user value. By following the development of mobile technology over a 10 year interval we have found out – much to our surprise - that not much has changed in the actual use of mobile services despite the fact that we have had about three generations of mobile phones during these 10 years. We have summarized insight from panels run at the eBled conferences and from a number of papers presented at the conference and worked out a description of the development of mobile commerce and mobile services

10. Interuniversitäres Doktorandenseminar Wirtschaftsinformatik Juli 2009

Begonnen im Jahr 2000, ist das Interuniversitäre Wirtschaftsinformatik-Doktorandenseminar mittlerweile zu einer schönen Tradition geworden. Zunächst unter Beteiligung der Universitäten Leipzig und Halle-Wittenberg gestartet. Seit 2003 wird das Seminar zusammen mit der Jenaer Universität durchgeführt, in diesem Jahr sind erstmals auch die Technische Universität Dresden und die TU Bergakademie Freiberg dabei. Ziel der Interuniversitären Doktorandenseminare ist der über die eigenen Institutsgrenzen hinausgehende Gedankenaustausch zu aktuellen, in Promotionsprojekten behandelten Forschungsthemen. Indem der Schwerpunkt der Vorträge auch auf das Forschungsdesign gelegt wird, bietet sich allen Doktoranden die Möglichkeit, bereits in einer frühen Phase ihrer Arbeit wichtige Hinweise und Anregungen aus einem breiten Hörerspektrum zu bekommen. In den vorliegenden Research Papers sind elf Beiträge zum diesjährigen Doktorandenseminar in Jena enthalten. Sie stecken ein weites Feld ab - vom Data Mining und Wissensmanagement über die Unterstützung von Prozessen in Unternehmen bis hin zur RFID-Technologie. Die Wirtschaftsinformatik als typische Bindestrich-Informatik hat den Ruf einer thematischen Breite. Die Dissertationsprojekte aus fünf Universitäten belegen dies eindrucksvoll.

Options for Customer Relationship Management Solutions in a Service Industry Company

Tämän tutkimuksen aiheena on asiakkuudenhallinnan tehostaminen. Nykyajan yritysmaailmassa, jossa yritysten välinen kilpailu kiihtyy jatkuvasti ja asiakkaiden vaatimukset kovenevat, asiakkuudenhallinnan menetelmillä voidaan luoda tarvittavaa kilpailuetua. Työssä pyritäänkin selvittämään, miten asiakkuudenhallintaa voidaan tukea eräässä palvelualan yrityksessä oikeanlaisilla tietoteknisillä ratkaisuilla. Tavoitteena oli ensin ymmärtää kohdeyrityksen asiakkuudenhallinnan prosesseja ja nykytilaa, joiden kautta pyrittiin löytämään parhaiten niitä tukeva CRM-ratkaisu. Tutkimus koostuu kirjallisuuskatsauksesta ja tapaustutkimuksena toteutetusta empiriasta. Kirjallisuuskatsaukseen pohjautuvassa teoriaosuudessa tarkastellaan asiakastietoa, asiakkuudenhallintaa yritysten liiketoiminnassa sekä erilaisia CRM-järjestelmäratkaisuja. Keskeisenä viitekehyksenä tutustutaan lähemmin koko yritystä poikkileikkaavaan viiden prosessin malliin. Empiirisessä osuudessa aineistoa kerättiin tutkimuksen kohdeyrityksestä teemahaastatteluin. Kerätty aineisto analysoitiin sisällönanalyysin menetelmillä. Tutkimuksen tuloksena syntyi kuva kohdeyrityksen asiakkuudenhallinnan nykytilasta kahden esiin nousseen osa-alueen, asiakkuudenhallinnan prosessien sekä tietotekniikan ja tiedon, myötä. Näistä jälkimmäisellä osa-alueella ilmenivät yrityksen suurimmat haastekohdat, jotka liittyivät erityisesti tiedon laatuun, tietojärjestelmien integrointiin, manuaalisen työn määrään sekä yksityiskohtaisen asiakastiedon keräämiseen eri asiakaskanavissa. Lisäksi esiin nousi suuria eroja kun tarkasteltiin kuluttaja- tai B2B-puolen henkilöstön tarpeita. Yhdistämällä tutkimuksen teoriaa sekä kohdeyrityksessä esiin nousseita tarpeita, löydettiin kolme erilaista CRM-ratkaisuvaihtoehtoa, joilla asiakkuudenhallintaan liittyviä toimintoja voidaan yrityksessä tehostaa. Vaihtoehdot ovat B2B-puolelle operatiivis-analyyttinen CRM-järjestelmä tai pienempi raportoinnin automatisointiin keskittyvä CRM-työkalu sekä yhdistettynä tietovarastona toimiva laajempi CRM-järjestelmä. Ratkaisuehdotuksille löytyi tutkimuksen puitteissa useita perusteita, mutta ennen minkään vaihtoehdon käyttöönottoa tarvitaan vielä lisätutkimuksia erityisesti niiden integroitavuudesta kohdeyrityksen muihin tietojärjestelmiin

Skilling up for CRM: qualifications for CRM professionals in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The 4th industrial revolution (4IR) describes a series of innovations in artificial intelligence, ubiquitous internet connectivity, and robotics, along with the subsequent disruption to the means of production. The impact of 4IR on industry reveals a construct called Industry 4.0. Higher education, too, is called to transform to respond to the disruption of 4IR, to meet the needs of industry, and to maximize human flourishing. Education 4.0 describes 4IR’s impact or predicted impact or intended impact on higher education, including prescriptions for HE’s transformation to realize these challenges. Industry 4.0 requires a highly skilled workforce, and a 4IR world raises questions about skills portability, durability, and lifespan. Every vertical within industry will be impacted by 4IR and such impact will manifest in needs for diverse employees possessing distinct competencies. Customer relationship management (CRM) describes the use of information systems to implement a customer-centric strategy and to practice relationship marketing (RM). Salesforce, a market leading CRM vendor, proposes its products alone will generate 9 million new jobs and $1.6 trillion in new revenues for Salesforce customers by 2024. Despite the strong market for CRM skills, a recent paper in a prominent IS journal claims higher education is not preparing students for CRM careers. In order to supply the CRM domain with skilled workers, it is imperative that higher education develop curricula oriented toward the CRM professional. Assessing skills needed for specific industry roles has long been an important task in IS pedagogy, but we did not find a paper in our literature review that explored the Salesforce administrator role. In this paper, we report the background, methodology, and results of a content analysis of Salesforce Administrator job postings retrieved from popular job sites. We further report the results of semi-structured interviews with industry experts, which served to validate, revise, and extend the content analysis framework. Our resulting skills framework serves as a foundation for CRM curriculum development and our resulting analysis incorporates elements of Education 4.0 to provide a roadmap for educating students to be successful with CRM in a 4IR world