Investigating the deployment of electronic customer relationship management readiness and maturity models in the Iranian banking industry

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of the main priorities for almost all organisations, particularly in the banking world. However, Information technology (IT) has changed ways of interacting with customers, resulting in the appearance of the concept of Electronic Customer Relationship Management (eCRM), which has caused a shift from offline CRM to eCRM. ECRM aims to attract and retain customers (especially valuable ones), to improve customer service by creating a strong relationship with them, and to provide the required financial product at the right time. Thus, it is vital to identify readiness factors in any organisation to prevent eCRM failure. Due to the current gap in the eCRM readiness and maturity assessment area in banks, this research attempts to fill this gap by developing a conceptual framework for eCRM readiness/maturity and accordingly create a tool for banks to assess their eCRM readiness and maturity. This tool helps banks to prevent any eCRM failure before and after implementation which is an essential concern for any organisation in order to gain competitive advantages. In addition to practical implications, the present study contributed to existing literature. This study contributed to the current understanding of eCRM readiness and maturity in banks and helps decision makers to assess their eCRM. This study explores the social and technical aspects of eCRM in the Iranian banking industry. Hence, a pragmatic research approach using mixed methods with a range of stakeholders, such as employees, and managers, was employed in this research. As the purpose of this research is to identify the main eCRM readiness dimensions in Iranian banks and to assess eCRM readiness and maturity, an eCRM readiness/maturity framework was developed. The proposed framework was tested by devising and distributing a structured questionnaire and conducting a semi-structured interview in an attempt to survey a large number of bank employees, and decision makers at five different and well-known private and state banks in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. This survey provides an excellent penetrating study of the Iranian banking industry. Regarding eCRM readiness, data collected from a quantitative approach was analysed statistically using the Software Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The qualitative data was interpreted using NVivo, which is a qualitative data analysis computer software package. Findings from the triangulation of data of qualitative and quantitative approaches were evaluated in order to determine the main eCRM readiness dimensions in Iranian banks. Furthermore, from these findings, a case study bank was assessed in regarding eCRM readiness using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). Regarding assessing eCRM maturity, an eCRM maturity model was developed, and a case study bank was selected. Based on the proposed eCRM maturity model, the maturity level of the selected bank was assessed using RADAR logic approach. In addition, this model was based on critical success factors (CSFs) and adapting the CRM3 maturity model. The findings of the empirical research were evaluated against the initial framework, which was generated by integrating the proposed models for eCRM readiness and maturity. This framework consists of three dimensions for eCRM readiness (Organisational culture, corporate strategy, technology) and five level of maturity. Dimensions, factors, and levels in this framework were derived from a literature review. Finally, a revised framework was generated and based on stakeholder’s perceptions, a conclusion was derived, and a recommendation to Iranian banks was made. An eCRM readiness/maturity assessment tool was created to help banks to determine whether they are ready or mature enough for the use of eCRM. The result from this assessment tool can be easily communicated amongst key members, which would help the Iranian banks to improve and promote their eCRM. In addition, this study attempts to fill the current gap in assessing banks eCRM readiness and maturity

Edge-guided image gap interpolation using multi-scale transformation

This paper presents improvements in image gap restoration through the incorporation of edge-based directional interpolation within multi-scale pyramid transforms. Two types of image edges are reconstructed: 1) the local edges or textures, inferred from the gradients of the neighboring pixels and 2) the global edges between image objects or segments, inferred using a Canny detector. Through a process of pyramid transformation and downsampling, the image is progressively transformed into a series of reduced size layers until at the pyramid apex the gap size is one sample. At each layer, an edge skeleton image is extracted for edge-guided interpolation. The process is then reversed; from the apex, at each layer, the missing samples are estimated (an iterative method is used in the last stage of upsampling), up-sampled, and combined with the available samples of the next layer. Discrete cosine transform and a family of discrete wavelet transforms are utilized as alternatives for pyramid construction. Evaluations over a range of images, in regular and random loss pattern, at loss rates of up to 40%, demonstrate that the proposed method improves peak-signal-to-noise-ratio by 1–5 dB compared with a range of best-published works

Highlighting the emerging issues of ethical buying in a growing global market

The basic purpose of this report is highlighting the emerging issue of ethical buying in a growing global market. Ethical consumption is very popular in Western societies as compared to the developing countries. The Western consumer is well aware of the ethical responsibilities of companies, but despite the debates about ethical consumption, this issue remains unpopular in developing nations. This report probes the developments during the last century in relation to ethical consumerism and highlights the advances in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of various organisations around globe. The fair-trade concept, which is of great relevance to ethical consumption, is considered in depth and subsequent recommendations put forward that will improve on the current practices of CSR

Investigating the impact of social customer relationship management in higher education

CRM is a new paradigm of marketing [13] [34] and is all about managing customer data to better understand and serve their needs [41]. Also CRM defined as an integration of technologies and business processes that are adopted to satisfy the needs of a customer during any given interaction [11] and building a long-term relationship with customers. On the other hand, social CRM is a different thinking about customer relationship management and just emphasizes on enhancing customer engagement through using social media [7]. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation of social CRM and identifying the critical success factors in higher education. As higher education stakeholders such as existing and prospective students, employees, alumni, and parents are vital and consider as an important asset for the organization so it is necessary to identify CSFs and help organization to move forwards attract, retain, and better customer service that is the purpose of social CRM. The authors have investigated the role of CRM within a learning context by assessing how social media (and in particular Facebook), has been used by students engaged in individual and group learning activities. The paper provides detailed discussion on analysis from pilot studies involved social CRM in student groups. The paper also explains how the investigation of social media use has helped to identify a number of factors that can be used to assess the maturity levels for the deployment of CRM solutions. Finally this paper describes the current work relating to the use of social media (in particular Facebook), for building relationships between HE stakeholders. The study reflects on the relationships between students acting in CRM scenarios within an educational context. The proposed approach identifies a range of dimensions and associated factors that can be used for evaluating the implementation of social CRM in higher education

The role of Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: a case of teaching customer relationship management concepts

The use of Web 2.0 technologies in education has been established for several years and there are numerous successful examples in the relevant literature. The development of tools, practices and supporting pedagogies helped shifting the role of the World Wide Web from a repository and information retrieval mechanism towards social mediation and user-generated content as advocated by Conole and Alevizou (2010). Similarly we have witnessed the introduction of the education 2.0 and e-learning 2.0 concepts, referring to the integration of Web 2.0 technologies in learning settings, integrated with institutional systems as described by Lwoga (2012). The authors have been engaged in research studies emphasising the importance of social media as enablers for teaching and learning tasks. More specifically, the authors’ research is focused on the use of social media and in particular Facebook for simulating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) scenarios in learning teams. The scope of the research is to investigate whether competencies, skills and understanding can be developed through scenario-based social media integration. The authors’ hypothesis is that the introduction of a maturity model classifying the readiness of learning groups and subsequently organisations in CRM adoption helps the identification of key learning and training areas that need further development and support. This paper describes current work relating to a creative approach in using Facebook as an instruction tool for teaching and learning in the field of CRM. The proposed approach identifies key dimensions and associated factors affecting the learning process in structured scenarios. The work presented in the paper covers two pilot studies conducted in two subsequent years over eight-week periods. The first pilot involved 35 learners, while the second pilot involved more than 50 residing both in the UK and UAE. The paper presents the method followed for the utilisation of social media in the learning process and discusses findings from data analysis (learning analytics using NVIVO and SPSS) as well as social media use patterns (NODEXL). The paper also describes possible use of the proposed method as a guiding mechanism for establishing teaching and learning support with integrated social media functionality and subsequent analysis of the learning process and student interaction patterns