Week 6 ---- CRM in Organizations.

Week 6 ---- CRM in Organizations.
Lecture this week discussed about CRM in organizations. How important is to integrate the data mining tool with the business and how important is to implement it effectively. We also looked at how an organization should select the appropriate right CRM software for its functionalities and needs.
Two case studies which described how a CRM project can fail did give more real time knowledge. In the case of Birmingham city council it was obvious that it wasn’t going in the right track but interestingly IBM was another company that had issues with CRM. If a company of that nature has had issues with implementing right product for its own use then no wonder the city council had issues as well. In my opinion the companies which want to use CRM software first should understand customer needs and behavior, the type of process that they use and how can they be substituted to be achieve more customer focused relationship. As the IBM case study disclosed user commitment is the most important factor for a company to succeed. In the case study of the council the main objectives of CRM - that is integration for better performance – was not achieved.
An article – CRM: An organizations best friend. An organization must wisely choose CRM to be effective in using that. It explains how CRM is making positive changes in the company and in turn increasing revenue. Another interesting aspect is that the companies outsource the CRM aspect to a third party vendor. The organization should consider the reputation and credibility of the vendor before accepting or giving them the job to do.

To conclude I think CRM is very important in a company’s perspective and in today’s competitive market a company can survive only with its present customer database and to maintain and improve customer support and loyalty the company should display the same to the customers. CRM can be a mediator between the organization and its customers and it relationship depends on how well an organization uses CRM

Venkat
20105169

Week 5 – Data Mining and Neural Networks

Dr. Ilona spoke about the various techniques about data mining that including decision trees, neural networks it was really interesting to know how companies use them in real time to improve or maintain their customers database. Many approaches are used but in the end it seems they get to almost same result.
It was quite interesting to know that they are used in financial industry where credit provided based on its decision and humans. I still wonder the accuracy of the neural networks and if they are down to earth rather than following the written algorithm. Although these system are thoroughly tested, at a one point of time depending much on neural networks seems too “technological “rather that really understanding and assessing customer needs. The example given by Ilona where Mobile Phone Company uses to segment and identify what customer needs are and try changing approach, in this example the company uses it for back end monitoring and analyzing results and not to decide the customer’s ability. Artificial intelligence as the name states it is Artificial and not natural. The companies as of now at least relay too much on computers. This also leads to fraud creeping in. and again I believe AI or neural networks can’t do anything to prevent them unless a human identifies and corrects it. I do agree with the video that discussed some ethical issues like invading privacy. If companies get to access all the information (though customer’s consent is obtained but I believe that is just too good) in the past and predict the future, then that is inacceptable. A simple example of this if a customer applies for credit of company X and declined, he applies at company Y and approved, what justification does this give?. I assume either one fo them should be wrong or both the companies might be wrong.
To conclude using AI and neural networks should be balanced and used in such instances where it will help to get the most positive influence in customer rather that just adopting for all the processes. This in a long run will help companies to understand the customer’s needs and serve them better which will lead to strong relationship with customers.
Venkat 20105169

Week 3 - Are more choices making life worse?

This weeks lecture covered topics that are more into the designing aspects of effecient CRM.

Data ware housing architectures , the ETL process , customer data base design. The end users are not, to be quite hosnest, bother about what we poeple ( at leats subjects perspective) design as long as they get what they want and satisfied.

But the scenario which was beautifully explaned by Barry Schwartz, are peoples life made miserable with more choices. I would like to point out in this instance the Doctor - Patient example that he gave in his seminar. This is one situation where a patient cannot afford to choose an option. If people are left with difficult choices like this choosing right medication,nothing worse can happen by more choices.

His main idea was that more choices leads to dissatisfacation. Its very true ( at least in mycase ). The moment I pay for a product i get an impression the other one might be better that what i just paid for. How many of us are content with what we have? . I believe the answer " yes " to this is very less. Barry also mentioned this leads or fuelles suicidal tendency.

Now how many companies are concerned about this and customers perspective. They in the name of "giving more choice to customers make our life harder". In my understanding companies cash in the oppurtunity at the cost of customers. Let me give you an example here - have any one found or baught a laptop of their intended configuration. Trust me you cant. If you look for high speed/configuration either its screen size will be larger or you wouldnt get enough storage - if some one looks for more multimedia kind of a system you wouldnt get enough speed - some thing or the othr should be compromised in this instance. My question here is if a company can manufacture a system with different configuration why cant they build a system that has everything in it?.

One more thing I wanted to mention before I conclude is that more choices also puts financial pressure on individuals. Of course we wouldnt be buying two laptops for use but the example Barry gave us that we may be provoked to buy two Jean's - so it adds financial pressure or mental pressure if we cant afford to buy two of them. This in case of kids and children is much more dangerous.Either parents are put under financial pressure if not the kids are affected.

To conclue I strongly agree with Barry Schwart's argument that More choices definetely make life worse and I would like to add a saying that " Honey over and above he limit becomes poision " and tha is what happening at the present time.

Please post you comments and we will have an healthy discussion about this

Thanks,
Venkat