Customer Data Integration

ABC wishes to create an enterprise resource planning (ERP) management system that will support and coincide with its business objectives.  In order to accomplish this, it must ask crucial questions that demand factual and documented answers.  These types of answers will provide managers with tools they need to assess their distant and direct partners.  The two most important sets of data for an ERP system are customer and external environment data.

The goals of customer data collection are to create a single, accurate and complete view of the customer, and to utilize that intelligence through each customer interaction at every touch point enterprise-wide.  The types of data that need to be collected on the customer should be found in either the customer relationship management (CRM) system or in the backend details of ABC’s financial and accounting system.  When the information in these two systems is combined, the ERP infrastructure is in place to begin answering the critical questions of the operational agenda.  The data that needs to be collected on the customer are listed below:

• Personal data
• Products and services bought
• Billing data
• Company-wide services being ordered on a growing basis
• Inside notes on issues, complaints and resolutions

Once this customer data integration (CDI) is entered into a single database that is then used to answer the pertinent business objective questions on a company-wide basis, ABC’s ERP system is the ending result.  However, ABC still lacks the information that a complete knowledge management (KM) system can provide.  In order to accomplish its KM goals, ABC must answer certain questions with regard to its external environment.

A company’s external environment can be broken down into three segments:  1.  The surrounding environment consisting of economic, social, political, technological and ecological issues; 2. the market environment consisting of entry barriers, supplier power, buyer power, substitute availability and competitive rivalry; and 3. the operating environment consisting of competitors, creditors, customers, labor and supplies.  Each one of these segments must be thoroughly investigated and questions must be answered for all of these areas in regard to ABC’s operational goals.  Once the company is educated on the external environment, this information can be combined with the CDI and ERP data to create the KM system.  This KM system will provide ABC with a 360° view of its customer and external environment.  Now ABC can begin focusing on profitability.

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Branding and Positioning

Pay-per-click advertisements on major search engines, direct mail and e-mail campaigns, trade journal advertisements, or e-newsletters to customers and targeted potential customers would be a way for ABC to create a powerful brand awareness campaign, while positioning itself in key areas where potential customers are most likely to find it and become a qualified lead. Next, ABC must look at its internal realties. That is to say, it must ask itself key fundamental questions regarding the way it does business internally and what connections it must make on the outside to secure competitive advantages in the future.

Internal Realities

ABC must answer many questions about its internal realities. It must answer how it plans to integrate Internet leads into its CRM program. It must also answer how it plans on tracking these leads into profits once they are entered into the back-office accounting system. Some companies combine the two systems into what is known as an ERP or enterprise resource planning system. Some companies take it a step further and add trends analysis information and other information into one central database called a knowledge management system.

Sizing Up the Competition

ABC must answer what it means to be a customer-focused company. It must answer questions regarding product pricing, placement, inventory, distribution, competition analysis and ethical concerns such as security and privacy issues. One point to keep in mind when studying the competition is to pay close attention to how the competitor structures its products and services while analyzing the following areas of the competition:

• Technical
• Sales
• Distribution
• Manufacturing
• Marketing
• Financial
• Legal

This information should be used to plan for the future with ones' competition in mind. Relationship analysis effectively drives more intelligence into strategic decision making, which will give one’s company a competitive edge. Understanding how one’s competitors relate to and work with other organizations provides a more accurate picture of one’s competitive landscape. Finally, ABC needs to measure the effectiveness of its efforts and answer whether or not it accomplished its strategic goals.

Creating the e-Business - Part 1: Success Determinants

ABC Company
 

E-business is more that just selling products and services online. E-business runs the gamete from e-commerce sales to inventory management. E-business also encompasses operations, marketing and finance. The reality is e-business touches, in some way, every department within an organization. This is what makes e-business so complex. This is also what makes e-business so powerful. Over the course of this ‘blog, we will paint a picture of the many facets of e-business and thoroughly examine each of these facets in order to help the reader comprehend the vast nature of this beast. The first step to creating a successful e-business is to form a strategic plan based on the long-term goals of the organization.

ABC Company has a vision to grow its business into new industries, new product markets and increase overall sales via the Internet. It has begun these efforts by creating a functional e-commerce site. This site has a goal of becoming the preferred source for engineers and purchasing agents for sourcing, procuring and applying cogs. ABC’s hope is that along with increased sales, the site will allow its customers to self-service themselves around 50% of the time, if they so choose. This will allow its sales and customer service personnel to spend more time researching and contacting new potential customers.

Success Determinants

In order for ABC to succeed in its efforts to increase sales, break into new markets and industries, and create an environment wherein customers can self-service their selves, ABC needs to accomplish some major objectives. First, it must work to integrate its core business functionality into the site. The site must answer the types of questions that a typical customer or potential customer would ask, and it must give the user the power to research products, procure products and check on their orders after the purchase. These are the main functions that customers demand in ABC’s sales and customer service personnel.

Another success factor would be to integrate the information received online into ABC’s customer resource management (CRM) software program. The information obtained from online users could then be transferred to the larger enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The results from online leads and sales could thereby be measured, studied and refined. The information from these studies could be used to market the site differently, allocate more or less resources to the site, change the functionality or usability of the site, etc. This phase of information integration is a key determinant to the future success of the program. A further review of internal and external environments is necessary in order to move forward with creating a successful e-business.

The analysis in question would come in the form of a SWOTT analysis. SWOTT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and trends. The SWOTT analysis forces the company to look at its internal vision and the external realities that await it. If ABC wants to enter new markets and new industries, it must first understand the competitive nature of these environments and the buying nature of the customers.

In Part 2 of this "lecture" we will discuss this fictional company's goals and determine what role e-business plays in those goals.

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