Assignment 1: Management Report

BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

What is CRM?
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management (Wailgum & Patton 2007). Every business
has one or more customers. Personal-development-training.com (2010) stated the quote from
Brian Tracy as Everyone is in the business of customer satisfaction. You keep customers by
delivering on your promises, fulfilling your commitments and continually investing in the quality of
your relationships.
Therefore, it is important for us to learn more about customer needs and behaviours in order to
develop stronger relationships with them (Wailgum & Patton 2007). Wailgum and Patton (2007)
suggested that good customer relationships are at the heart of business success. CRM is a
strategic process which consists of both business and information system components for
marketing, selling and providing services to our customers effectively (Wailgum & Patton 2007).

What is CRM System?

According to PC Magazine Encyclopaedia (n.d.), it is an integrated solution for planning,
scheduling and controlling all sales activities to better measure the return on investment and
feedbacks from customers in an organisation. It covers all aspects of dealing with potentials and
existing customers, including the call centres, sales & marketing, technical support and service (PC
Magazine Encyclopaedia n.d.).

Benefits of CRM
Wailgum & Patton (2007) stated that we can increase revenues with an effective CRM strategy.
Followings are the benefits of effective CRM.
Better relations with customers to increase customer satisfaction
Ability to identify specific customers requirements and enable us to deliver exact
products and services to customers (Wailgum & Patton 2007)
Permit us to cross sell services and products by highlighting the alternatives and
enhancement (Business Link n.d.)
Ability to retain existing customers and explore new ones (Wailgum & Patton 2007)
Provision of better customer service by utilising customers feedbacks effectively
(Wailgum & Patton 2007)
Better marketing of products or services to increase profit
Effectively target marketing communications at specific customers (Business Link
n.d.)

S3900652 Zay Yar Hlaing (George)

Assignment 1: Management Report

BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

A more customised approach with the development of new or improved products

and services to win more business in the future (Business Link n.d.)
Enable our sales people to close the deals faster (Wailgum & Patton 2007)
Ability to identify profitable customers and non-profitable customers (Business Link
n.d.)
Allow us to focus on profitable customers and deal appropriately with unprofitable
customers in cost effective way (Business Link n.d.)
Business Link (n.d.) mentioned that increase in customer satisfaction leads to retention of existing
customers and build up good reputation in the market.

Details about SAP CRM solution

Currently, we are using SAP R/3 ERP system in our organisation. SAP CRM is one of the
extensions to core SAP functional areas such as HR and Financials (Paull 2011).
SAP CRM provides the insightful analysis to foresee customer needs and construct profitable
relationships in the form of SAP solution roadmap (SAP n.d.). Furthermore, it enables integrated
industry-specific processes to support marketing, sales, and service areas (SAP n.d.). Hence, we
can get customer interaction points and channels together with powerful analytics (SAP n.d.).

Examples of companies implemented CRM application

In this report, I will present CRM system implementations at two companies. The first one is Varian
Medical Systems which implemented SAP CRM (Hoyt 2006). Below are the issues and relevant
solutions from the implementation.
SAP is a complex system with numerous views available to various customer facing
departments such as sales, marketing and service
Need to decide and prioritise business requirements ahead of time (Hoyt 2006)
Have a focused approach and implement SAP CRM in small pieces (Hoyt 2006)
Important to think big to have an overall view of end-state solution but it is practical
to start small (Hoyt 2006)
Ineffective collaboration from key users
Get key stakeholders and users engagement and involvement at very early stages
for early user adoption (Hoyt 2006; Solanki 2011)
S3900652 Zay Yar Hlaing (George)

Assignment 1: Management Report

BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

If key users can understand the features of SAP CRM, they can come up with
detailed requirements to meet their needs (Hoyt 2006)
Specific SAP CRM product related issues
Establish direct communication with SAP product developers as they can help in the
bottleneck situations of SAP CRM implementation if there are SAP product related
issues (Hoyt 2006)
No system is perfect when Go-live
No matter how much testing conducted, all bugs cannot be caught during testing
(Hoyt 2006)
Therefore, go for a pilot testing with a smaller group if possible to mitigate risks and
minimise the chance of business disruption (Hoyt 2006)
Additionally, users in pilot deployment can provide us with valuable feedbacks on
issues and bugs so we can fix before rolling out the new SAP CRM system to all
users. (Hoyt 2006)
SAP CRM implementation is business driven and IT supported (Katta 2007)
Implementation of SAP CRM needs to be business driven with successful
partnership between business and Information System (Hoyt 2006)
It is important to note that SAP CRM implementation should be viewed as a
business change not simply a technology implementation. (Solanki 2011)
Beal (2005) presented that BMW Canada implemented Siebel as a CRM system. As an overall
objective, BMW Canada aimed to treat customer as if each one were the only customer (Beal
2005). This requires some changes beyond just consolidating technology (Beal 2005). Followings
are the main challenges BMW Canada faced during CRM implementation.
Business process re-engineering
Make changes to existing business processes for all call centre operations to
provide the same experience to customers (Beal 2005)
Business Driven
Business owns CRM and BMW Canada shifted CRM from IT to Sales & Marketing
(Beal 2005)
Data accuracy and quality improvement
Consolidated all customer data into a centralised Siebel master customer database
and as a result, achieved a huge improvement in data quality and accuracy (Beal
2005)
Beal (2005) also pointed out that BMW Canada users are now able to access the
integrated customers, marketing campaign and relevant information easily due to
S3900652 Zay Yar Hlaing (George)

Assignment 1: Management Report

BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

the successful Siebel CRM implementation.

Suggestion
From above mentioned examples, I would like to summarise that we need to consider the following
three key aspects in our CRM implementation.
People
Executive sponsors must set a clear CRM strategic vision and objective (Mudambi &
Ocker 2003; Solanki 2011)
Change organisational mindset that CRM is really owned and driven by business
(Katta 2007)
Gain support from key stakeholders including executives and users (Solanki 2011)
Manage change towards how external relationships and information is used (Solanki
2011)
Communicate clearly for early user adoption and involvement (Solanki 2011)
Provide consistent and effective training, hence resulting in lower costs (Solanki
2011)
Process
Standardised business processes with clear accountability and establish ownership
of end-to-end activities (Solanki 2011)
Technology
Minimise customisations to reduce development and deployment duration (Solanki
2011)
Establish a single source of consistent, reliable and accurate data which is to be
shared across the enterprise with proper data authorisation and role-based security
(Katta 2007; Solanki 2011)

As a conclusion, we need to understand CRM project implications to achieve our strategic

objectives such as increase in productivity, customer satisfaction and financial performance
(Solanki 2011). Once objectives are set, we need to align our customer-centric business
requirements to SAP CRM technology using the three key aspects of CRM implementation if we
are to go ahead with SAP CRM solution.
Word count: 1234

S3900652 Zay Yar Hlaing (George)

Assignment 1: Management Report

BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

Bibliography
1. Beal, B 2005, BMW puts Siebel in the drivers seat, SearchCRM.com, viewed 15th Jun
2011, <http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/1141458/BMW-puts-Siebel-in-the-driver-sseat?vgnextfmt=aiog&cc=5a4608233f261210VgnVCM1000000d00aa0aRCRD>

2. Business Link n.d., Business benefits of CRM, Business Link, viewed 15th Jun
2011,<http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detailitemId=1075422939&type=RESOU
RCES >

3. Hoyt, L 2006, Lesson Learned: Firm overcomes struggles with SAP CRM, SearchSAP.com,
viewed 13th June 2011, <http://searchsap.techtarget.com/news/1158560/Lessons-learnedFirm-overcomes-struggles-with-SAP-CRM?
vgnextfmt=aiog&cc=90fe0795d0888210VgnVCM1000000d01c80aRCRDKey >

4. Katta, S 2007, Will an SAP CRM implementation mean challenges for marketing
campaign?, SearchCRM.com, viewed 13th June 2011,
<http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/answer/Will-an-SAP-CRM-implementation-meanchallenges-for-marketing-campaigns>

5. Mudambi, S & Ocker, R 2003, VOICES OF MANAGERS ON CRM OBJECTIVES AND

METRICS, Victoria University, Melbourne, viewed 15th June 2011,
<https://ce6.vu.edu.au/webct/urw/lc9140001.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct >

6. Paull, S 2011, BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning System: Week 2 lecture notes
2011, Victoria University, Melbourne.

7. Patton, S & Wailgum, T 2007, CRM Definition and Solutions, CIO.com, viewed 15 Jun
2011, <http://www.cio.com/article/40295/CRM_Definition_and_Solutions>

8. PC Magazine Encyclopaedia n.d., CRM, PCMag.com, viewed 15th June 2011,

<http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=CRM&i=40485,00.asp >

S3900652 Zay Yar Hlaing (George)

Assignment 1: Management Report

BCO6603 - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

9. Personal-development-training.com, 2010, Brian Tracy Quotes on Customer Service,

Personal-Development-Training.Com, viewed 15 th June 2011, <http://www.personaldevelopment-training.com/2010_04_01_archive.html >

10. SAP n.d., Cross-Industry SAP Business Maps-Customer Relationship Management,

SAP.com, veiwed 14th June 2011,
<http://www.sap.com/solutions/businessmaps/DEE27EBB1D564D8C800231FE6D54325D/i
ndex.epx>

11. Solanki, N 2011, Tips on preparation for an SAP CRM implementation, Insider Learning
Network, viewed 14th June 2011,
<http://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/thetipdoctor/blog/2011/03/28/tips_on_preparing_for
_an_sap_crm_implementation>

S3900652 Zay Yar Hlaing (George)