Read and Analyze the below given case and answer the questions at the end of it This is the first time in the history of industry

13 Sep

Customer Relationship Management

Q1. With Jio now entering even the mobile handset space, Nokia, the latest re-entrant is a bit worried. It feels that it needs to tighten its laces well in advance before Jio goes for Intensive sales and marketing. It feels that CRM is the best way forward and plan to utilize the benefits of the same but don’t know how to implement the same. Can you please guide them on the same as there is no scope of error?

Q2. Samsung Mobiles off late post the Note Series fiasco is facing troubled times. The sales have dropped and customer complaints are on the rise. They are not able to handle customer issues and are slowly losing out to competition. Can you help them find a way out of this problem?

Q3. Read and Analyze the below given case and answer the questions at the end of it This is the first time in the history of industry that the spending on customer relationship management tools is going to outdo enterprise resource planning tools. Analysts say that the spending on CRM will be $36.5 billion next year, $1.5 billion more than ERP. One would wonder why the sails of CRM took so long to capture glory. One would also wonder why corporations have taken so long to make this happen. In the digital world traditional CRM does not cut it, and that’s the reason why over the last five years CRM has clearly sailed with wind. For the first time, corporate houses feel insights can increase their sales in the long run. This is just a phenomenon in the West. Just when you thought consumer suffering had ended, Indian consumers will continue to suffer because corporate and government alike have ignored CRM services. No wonder Indian services are the worst the world over.

Indian automobile, telco and banking services are yet to understand the power of the data that they have mustered over the last decade. These companies are so sales driven that they almost forget the events after the sale. They think a post sales call makes the cut in the digital era.

Even government services do not invest in CRM and therefore they have no way of telling whether the quality of life for a citizen has gone up. They love citizen apathy and in this digital age consumers still suffer from the lack of data when it comes to government services. Our CRM is in the hands of politicians and companies that worry about the next election or the next sale.

According to the United Nations, India ranks 118 in the happiness index. Although the happiness index has other indicators such as social capital and freedom of life, it also indicates that Indians suffer quietly as all services do not match up to improve the quality of life of its people

The opportunity

CRM is no longer about subjecting people to satisfaction calls and sending home coupons to be redeemed in the weekend. The customer has truly moved digital in developed markets and in India the story is no different in at least major cities. In the consumer world, the narrative with corporate is about understanding the customer from the moment he browses on product or catalogue. It is about taking this experience and matching it with the customer behaviour in the offline world. For example, if a brand wants to know why its product sold well on “Amazon” or “Flipkart”, then it must also work out the metrics to understand how people walked in to its offline stores and explored other products. They can then use this data to match it to work out their supply chain strategy and by doing so they can even streamline the entire manufacturing process. These consumer goods companies and retailers also must take the loyalty and rewards programmes to a whole new experience.

The business to business companies (like manufacturers) invest in CRM to understand their dealers, their component manufacturers, and their sales teams. ERP tools captured processes and schedules. But it never offered components to understand the entire customer ecosystem. Data were always there, but corporations focussed on delivery cycles based on sales data rather than understanding the nuances beyond these sales.

Unfortunately, CRM is passé in India – barring a few companies like Amazon India and Flipkart – and it will be sometime before it becomes important. Until then let us suffer silently like we always have.

a. What according to you is the reason behind the sorry state of affairs of CRM in India?

b. What steps should be taken to improve the same?

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