Customer Relationship Management

If we look at the possible strategic directions of a market-leader, we will find that there are three possible directions to consider.

source: The Discipline of Market Leaders from Michael Treacy, Fred Wiersema

A market-leader has to focus on one of those three directions, without forgetting the other two.
If "product leadership" is the strategic direction and the
time-to-market is perfect, it is not necessary to consider CRM. The customers will come to you....

If you don't have this strategic advantage toward competition and you are not the only one providing products or services, CRM is a must to support either "operational excellence" or "customer intimacy".

Click on the direction of interest to get more details.

If CRM supports "operational excellence" the focus should be on the optimization of processes and the use of customer data to streamline operations. The main goal is to reduce costs, increase standards and therefore increase profitability.

If CRM supports "customer intimacy" the focus should be on gathering customer requirements and information to deploy the company as the best partner for the customer. The main goal is to increase customer satisfaction, adapt the portfolio and therefore increase revenue.

An interesting business case is this one within the transportation industry, where optimization of the entire value chain is an issue....more ->