Dynamic CRM planning based on data availability

Abstract

Due to the advances of information and communication technology with increased importance of customers, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the talk of the town in business society. But the benefits of CRM are arguable because very few CRM projects have reported success yet. This is mainly due to the fact of that many companies often build CRM capabilities by implementing a powerful IT system without sufficiently considering business strategy. To succeed in CRM project, a company needs proper CRM planning methodology, which links the business strategy with CRM implementation. In planning the CRM, company’s data availability is important factor because the CRM is composed of many applications and each of which requires different data items. Therefore, we suggest a dynamic planning framework for CRM based on data availability. To support this CRM planning methodology, we provide knowledge representation form as matrix and mathematical model with some new operators. The mathematical model helps complex calculation for analyzing the relationship between requirements and data availability including complicated cost structure. We have implemented a prototype of Dynamic CRM Planning Assistant system, which dynamically shows the difference of data availability among CRM requirements to support CRM planning.