CRM and Customer Life Cycle
By Bruce Zhang
Customer Relationship Management or CRM is a combination of enterprise strategies, business processes and information technologies used to learn more about customers' needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. CRM software systems automate many customer-related business tasks.
CRM applications are traditionally developed as client-server software which incurs higher initial cost of ownership. The proliferation of the Internet and the Web has fueled the rapid growth of Web-based CRM or online CRM applications. Web CRM systems are widely deployed for web based call center, contact management, trouble ticket, personal information manager and scheduling.
The life cycle of CRM consists of three phases - customer acquisition, customer relationship enhancements and customer retention. CRM software streamlines CRM activities at each phase of customer relationship management.
Customer Acquisition
Contact management module and direct marketing module of CRM allow companies to effectively promote and market their products and services to prospects. Those modules help speed up the acquiring processes and reduce the cost of acquiring new customers.
Customer Relationship Enhancements
CRM helps companies better understand existing customers' needs and behaviors and enhance the profitability from existing customers by cross-selling. They can customize their products and services to individual customers' needs and preferences.
Customer Retention
Customer service module of CRM system gives the organizations the edge in customer support and call center services. They can increase customer satisfaction while reducing the cost of support. Customer retention is critical to the overall profitability of an organization. A customer you spend hundreds of dollars and months to acquire may leave you in seconds as a result of poor customer services.
Copyright 2005, Bruce Zhang
Bruce Zhang has over 10 years experiences in developing and implementing ecommerce and ebusiness systems in various industries. He has created a news aggregator http://www.sysoptima.com/newsbot/crm.php that automatically extracts CRM news and new articles from over 50 sources daily to help corporate executives, IT professionals and consultants to keep up with the latest development in enterprise software market. The website offers a knowledge base for understanding CRM software from a systems perspective.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bruce_Zhang
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Enterprise Resource Planning Overview
Enterprise Resource Planning Overview
By Vamseedhar Sane
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Overview covers What is
ERP, Brief history of ERP, Why is it necessary, Market
Leaders and the future of ERP.
What is ERP?
Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP is an industry term for
integrated, multi-module application software packages that
are designed to serve and support multiple business
functions. An ERP system can include software for
manufacturing, order entry, accounts receivable and payable,
general ledger, purchasing, warehousing, transportation and
human resources. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry,
ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than
proprietary software written by or for one customer. ERP
modules may be able to interface with an organization's own
software with varying degrees of effort, and, depending on
the software, ERP modules may be alterable via the vendor's
proprietary tools as well as proprietary or standard
programming languages.
Brief History of ERP
The focus of manufacturing systems in the 1960's was on
Inventory control. Most of the software packages then
(usually customized) were designed to handle inventory based
on traditional inventory concepts. In the 1970's the focus
shifted to MRP (Material Requirement Planning) systems that
translated the Master Schedule built for the end items into
time-phased net requirements for the sub-assemblies,
components and raw materials planning and procurement.
In the 1980's the concept of MRP-II (Manufacturing Resources
Planning) evolved which was an extension of MRP to shop
floor and Distribution management activities. In the early
1990's, MRP-II was further extended to cover areas like
Engineering, Finance, Human Resources, Projects Management
etc i.e. the complete gamut of activities within any
business enterprise. Hence, the term ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) was coined.
Why is it Necessary?
By becoming the integrated information solution across the
entire organization, ERP systems allow companies to better
understand their business. With ERP software, companies can
standardize business processes and more easily enact best
practices. By creating more efficient processes, companies
can concentrate their efforts on serving their customers and
maximizing profit.
Market Leaders
The top five ERP vendors, SAP, Oracle Corporation,
Peoplesoft, Inc. (now Oracle Corp.), JD Edwards & Company,
and Baan International, account for 64 percent of total ERP
market revenue. These vendors continue to play a major role
in shaping the landscape of new target markets, with
expanded product functionality, and higher penetration
rates. SAP dominates the $6.7 billion ERP applications
market in Europe with 39% market share. Oracle and
PeopleSoft come second and third respectively, followed by
SAGE Group and Microsoft Business Solutions.
The Future of ERP
Industry analysts expect that every major manufacturing
company will buy the software, which ranges in cost -- with
maintenance and training -- from hundreds of thousands of
dollars for a small company to millions for a large company.
AMR Research of Boston says consolidation among the major
players will continue and intensify. ERP vendors are
expected to put more effort into e-commerce, CRM and SCM
initiatives, with leaders redirecting between 50% and 75% of
their R&D budget to these projects.
According to Gartner research group, the rapid evolution of
ERP has already lead to a new corporate must-have, ERP II,
which is supposed to help businesses gain more competitive
edge in the future. The major difference is that ERP II
involves collaborative commerce, which enables business
partners from multiple companies to exchange information
posted on eCommerce exchanges.
In the next tutorial we will talk about popular ERP Products
and the Modules and Application related to them.
For more visualization of this article along with the screen shots and more visit with step by step instructions, http://www.exforsys.com/content/category/17/260/342/
Exforsys is a community of developers specializing in C, C++, C#, Java, J2EE, .NET, PeopleSoft, SAP, Siebel, Oracle Apps., Data warehousing, Oracle/SQL Server/DB2 and Testing. Please visit http://www.exforsys.com for more tutorials, for IT Interview questions visit http://www.geekinterview.com, for articles and resources visit http://www.itquestionbank.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vamseedhar_Sane
By Vamseedhar Sane
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Overview covers What is
ERP, Brief history of ERP, Why is it necessary, Market
Leaders and the future of ERP.
What is ERP?
Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP is an industry term for
integrated, multi-module application software packages that
are designed to serve and support multiple business
functions. An ERP system can include software for
manufacturing, order entry, accounts receivable and payable,
general ledger, purchasing, warehousing, transportation and
human resources. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry,
ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than
proprietary software written by or for one customer. ERP
modules may be able to interface with an organization's own
software with varying degrees of effort, and, depending on
the software, ERP modules may be alterable via the vendor's
proprietary tools as well as proprietary or standard
programming languages.
Brief History of ERP
The focus of manufacturing systems in the 1960's was on
Inventory control. Most of the software packages then
(usually customized) were designed to handle inventory based
on traditional inventory concepts. In the 1970's the focus
shifted to MRP (Material Requirement Planning) systems that
translated the Master Schedule built for the end items into
time-phased net requirements for the sub-assemblies,
components and raw materials planning and procurement.
In the 1980's the concept of MRP-II (Manufacturing Resources
Planning) evolved which was an extension of MRP to shop
floor and Distribution management activities. In the early
1990's, MRP-II was further extended to cover areas like
Engineering, Finance, Human Resources, Projects Management
etc i.e. the complete gamut of activities within any
business enterprise. Hence, the term ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) was coined.
Why is it Necessary?
By becoming the integrated information solution across the
entire organization, ERP systems allow companies to better
understand their business. With ERP software, companies can
standardize business processes and more easily enact best
practices. By creating more efficient processes, companies
can concentrate their efforts on serving their customers and
maximizing profit.
Market Leaders
The top five ERP vendors, SAP, Oracle Corporation,
Peoplesoft, Inc. (now Oracle Corp.), JD Edwards & Company,
and Baan International, account for 64 percent of total ERP
market revenue. These vendors continue to play a major role
in shaping the landscape of new target markets, with
expanded product functionality, and higher penetration
rates. SAP dominates the $6.7 billion ERP applications
market in Europe with 39% market share. Oracle and
PeopleSoft come second and third respectively, followed by
SAGE Group and Microsoft Business Solutions.
The Future of ERP
Industry analysts expect that every major manufacturing
company will buy the software, which ranges in cost -- with
maintenance and training -- from hundreds of thousands of
dollars for a small company to millions for a large company.
AMR Research of Boston says consolidation among the major
players will continue and intensify. ERP vendors are
expected to put more effort into e-commerce, CRM and SCM
initiatives, with leaders redirecting between 50% and 75% of
their R&D budget to these projects.
According to Gartner research group, the rapid evolution of
ERP has already lead to a new corporate must-have, ERP II,
which is supposed to help businesses gain more competitive
edge in the future. The major difference is that ERP II
involves collaborative commerce, which enables business
partners from multiple companies to exchange information
posted on eCommerce exchanges.
In the next tutorial we will talk about popular ERP Products
and the Modules and Application related to them.
For more visualization of this article along with the screen shots and more visit with step by step instructions, http://www.exforsys.com/content/category/17/260/342/
Exforsys is a community of developers specializing in C, C++, C#, Java, J2EE, .NET, PeopleSoft, SAP, Siebel, Oracle Apps., Data warehousing, Oracle/SQL Server/DB2 and Testing. Please visit http://www.exforsys.com for more tutorials, for IT Interview questions visit http://www.geekinterview.com, for articles and resources visit http://www.itquestionbank.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Vamseedhar_Sane
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