INFORMATION STRATEGY

POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS AND FINANCE 2014

Session 7 : Information Systems

Tharaka Tennekoon B.Sc (Hons) Computing, MBA (PIM - USJ)

CRM

CRM - Customer Relationship Management systems

Managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.

CRM - Features

1. Customer Support Automation features used to centralize and manage customer service requests. This can be achieved through case management tools, and the ability to create solutions and share them internally or with customers through a knowledge base. Case Management - can create, track, and manage customer cases. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) - this allows you to manage

incoming and outgoing calls. Email-to-Case - capture a customer case from email. Knowledge Base - publish a knowledge base to contain solutions to be

shared with users in your organization and customers. Self-Service Portal - provide online support for your customers through a

self-service portal. Service Contracts - create, track, and manage service contracts ; i.e.

which is an agreement between you and your customers. Solutions - create, view, and manage solutions used to solving customer

cases. Web-to-Case - capture a customer case online through web forms on

your website.

CRM - Features

2. Marketing Automation A key functionality is the ability to create marketing campaigns. Most CRM systems will have advanced features such as campaign cloning, campaign activities, and a campaign wizard to create and manage campaigns with ease. Campaign Activities - create activities, hierarchies within a marketing

campaign. Campaign Cloning - clone or copy an existing marketing campaign. Campaigns - plan, create, track, and manage marketing campaigns

through the CRM application. Campaign Wizard - step-by-step guidance in creating marketing

campaigns. Email Templates - utilize pre-defined email templates or create your

own. Mass Emailing - send a mass email message to multiple recipients. Web-to-Lead Forms - create and publish forms on your organization's

website to gather information and capture new leads.

CRM - Features 3. Reporting and Analytics Reporting and Analytics contains the essential features required to monitor and report on key performance indicators. The best CRM software products will enable a real-time view into sales, marketing, and customer service performance and metrics. This is typically achieved through the use of dashboards, which often can be customized. Other features include charts that have drill-down capabilities and a selection of pre-built reports. Most top CRM software products will enable custom reporting as well as scheduled reports, which will automatically generate and send reports to individuals or teams. Analytic Snapshot - report on and view historical data. Campaign Metrics Reporting - reporting on campaign metrics such as: ROI, bounce emails, unique

emails open, total email click-throughs, unique email click-throughs, and click-to-open rate. Charts - create, edit, and view charts with data from the CRM application. Customizable Dashboards - customize dashboards. Custom Reporting - create, edit, and view reports with data from the CRM application. Dashboards - can view data through dashboards. Drill-Down Capable - drill down on a report or chart to see the data set used. Export Reports - run and export reports from the CRM application. Typical report formats are CSV, PDF,

and XLS. Multiple Report Types view a report in different formats. These formats include tabular, summary, or

matrix. Pre-Built Reports - The product comes stocked with pre-built reports. Report Builder - set up new reports or existing ones through a report builder. Sales Reports - report on opportunities and leads. Scheduled Reports - schedule a report to run daily, weekly, or monthly. Some products also have the

functionality to email the report to you automatically. Support Reports - report on cases and solutions for your organization.

CRM - Features 4. Sales Force Automation Sales Force Automation (SFA) contains a set of features used to streamline the sales process and is an integral part of any full-featured CRM software. This includes automation of such business tasks like contact management, opportunity tracking, sales forecasting, and the entire lead management cycle from routing and scoring to qualifying and converting. The top CRM software products will have robust functionality when it comes to Sales Force Automation, which will help drive sales performance due to data sharing across multiple teams and improved efficiencies from task automation. Account Management - create, track, and management accounts. Activity Tracking and History - track current and historical activities for a record, such as accounts,

contacts, and leads. Competitor Tracking - track competitors' strengths and weaknesses for your opportunities. Contact Management - create, track, and management contacts. Contract Management - create, track, and management business contracts. Customizable Sales Forecasting - customize sales forecasts. Customizable Sales Process - customize sales processes for your organization. Document Library - store files in the document library. These are files that are often shared with your

contacts and accounts. Lead Management - Leads are potential customers. Create, track, and manage leads in the CRM system. Lead Routing - route leads to the appropriate person or team. Opportunity Tracking - track and manage opportunities, which are sales or pending deals, for your

organization. Product Catalog - create, track, and manage products and price lists. Quota Management - set and monitor sales quotas for your sales representatives. Quotes - create and share quotes for customers. Sales Forecasting - create and generate sales forecasts to see what your expected sales revenues are.

CRM - Features 5. 3rd Party Integration

3rd Party Integration is how well the CRM software works with third-party applications. This can be as basic as creating mail merge Microsoft Word documents or exporting CRM data to Microsoft Excel for further analysis. In addition, the best CRM software often will integrate with social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Depending on the CRM software, this can include the ability to view customer profiles and get real-time activity feeds from within the CRM.

6. Customization Customization allows an organization to customize and personalize the CRM software to its own preferences. Not all companies are the same, and as such, the ability to customize fields, personal display, and tabs/modules is quite important. The top CRM software will also have a marketplace for users to download (either free or for a fee) applications to augment and further customize the CRM software. This can be important for companies who are looking for more robust features that did not come stocked in the CRM software.

7. Data Management Data Management indicates how equipped a CRM software is when it comes to dealing with data. This is as simple as the ability to import data in batches and deleting mass data. Most top CRM software will come with tools to de-duplicate data and merge records as well. Data Management is a fairly important category for CRM software as the data typically can be large and any features to automate the processing of data as well as maintaining quality would be important for any organization.

8. Email Integration Email Integration indicates how well the CRM software works with email applications. The most basic level of integration would allow users to access email from such applications as Gmail and Microsoft Outlook from within the CRM. A measure of success in implementing a CRM system is the ability to keep users inside the CRM - Email Integration allows for that. It will enable users to communicate with contacts without having to leave the CRM.

CRM - Features

9. Mobile Mobile is the ability to access data in the CRM system on a hand-held device. Most CRM software products allow access to accounts, cases, contacts, dashboards, leads, and tasks. The best CRM software products will enable edit abilities from a hand-held device. The more common devices are iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Mobile is especially important for companies that have traveling employees who require access to customer data while on the go.

10. Security and Administration Security and Administration contains the core features needed to effectively manage the CRM system from a security standpoint. Through user management, privileges can be set to control access to the CRM system and manage such things as who can see data and at what level, who can edit data, who can delete data, and who can create data. Other key features include field-level security, data sharing rules, and security groups. Security and Administration is fairly important as an organization would want to ensure the security of data that is typically stored in a CRM system, which is often of high value and sensitivity as it relates to customer and account information.

11. Work flow Management Workflow Management contains tools to further automate sales, marketing, and customer support processes. This may include rules to assign leads and cases to an individual. In addition, Workflow Management can be used to create auto responses for incoming emails and escalation rules for when customer cases are not solved within a certain period of time. Workflow Management can also be used to drive improvement and efficiency to business processes by automating what would otherwise by manual, repetitive steps in a workflow.

CRM - Benefits 1. More efficient and effective sales process

a. Data Driven Sales b. More time for Sales c. New Methods of Selling d. Innovate Products and services e. Recreate/ Realign Business Models

2. Better Management decision making

3. Higher quality leads from marketing activities

4. Performance hot spots identification

5. Workflow automation leads to efficiency and waste elimination

6. Minimize customer churn

7. Identify customer buying patterns

8. Business processes are aligned together

9. Reduced sales cycles

10. Cost minimization – cloud based

Social CRM – Best Practices

1. Right Resources

2. Engage Social Influencers

3. Reward Loyal customers

4. Respond in a timely manner

5. Use Lists and Groups

6. Two way communication

7. Consistent with brand image

8. Augment customer contact information by using Social Profile Data

9. Don’t Feed the Trolls

10.Centralize and unify customer communication (CRM integration)

ERP

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning

ERP – History

ERP – Why do they Fail?

1. Is it needed ? (Integration vs. Standardization)

2. Ineffective Stakeholder Management and Change Management

3. Bad data (GIGO)

4. No clear objective/ destination

5. Lack of a proper Project Plan/ Management

6. Customization

7. Under-estimating the resource requirement

8. Inadequate Internal resources

9. Insufficient testing

10.Insufficient Training and Education

ERP – Why implement?

1. To improve business performance

2. To replace an old ERP or legacy system

3. To better integrate systems across multiple locations

4. To position a company for growth

5. To better serve customers

6. To ensure reporting / regulatory compliance

7. To make employee jobs easier (Employee productivity increases)

8. To standardize global business operations

9. To reduce working capital

10.Because other companies have ERP

Tharaka Tennekoon, B.Sc (Hons), MBA (PIM - USJ)

+94 773403609

info@topmostline.com