Software Proposal the Contemporaneous Business

Software Proposal

The contemporaneous business climate presents the modern day manager with a multitude of challenges. Despite the difficulties however, the social, economic and technological backgrounds, also offer solutions. It is nevertheless important that each organizational leader adapts the general solution to the unique needs of his company. The technological field provides a myriad of solutions for the small, medium and large size entity, through which organizations can better achieve their pre-established goals. A reputable organization offering software solutions to all size entities is SAP. This report strives to present the opportunities SAP's software solutions offer in enhancing our organization's relationship with the customer base.

Executive Summary

In an age in which the economic agent faces incremental pressures from both micro and macro environments, the satisfaction of the customers plays a pivotal part in the accomplishment of the business objectives. In order to satisfy the emergent demands of the more pretentious customer base, organizations implement various customer relationship management solutions. This report reveals the benefits of implementing the CRM solution from SAP, the leading provider of software solutions to all size businesses.

The element which trigged the possibility of an existing problem was that of reduced levels of sales. This was first attributed to the internationalized financial crisis, but a deeper analysis revealed that a strong factor was also constituted by the low levels of satisfaction revealed by our customers, which were adjacently pegged to the poor relationship between the company and our clients. The SAP customer relationship management software solution can resolve the problem by creating three major advantages -- a flexibility in creating a strong customer-organization relationship; a consistent and reliable relationship with the customer base; and third, an enhanced possibility to create customer satisfaction at all levels of the business process.

An improved relationship with the customer would be achieved due to the seven methods ensured by the CRM software platform. At the first level, the application addresses the marketing needs of the company; then, it approaches sales issues. Third, it focuses on improving the quality of the services offered, as well as the final retail price. Fourth, the software solution improves the relationships with the business partners, to then go on to enhance the results retrieved by the customer interaction center. Sixth, SAP's CRM solution focuses on increasing the role of the organizational website, to eventually bring all efforts together in an enhanced process of business communications management.

The implementation process is rather complex, and constructed on a set of ten specifications. They generally deal with the adequate allocation of resources, the creation of a proper infrastructure, the training of the staff members and the creation of an environment which values and promotes change, communications and the importance of customer satisfaction. If we find ourselves overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation, a possibility arises in that of contracting the services of third party management consultancy specialized firms.

The budget to be allocated to this endeavor revolves around the estimate of $230,000. Evaluation processes ought to occur throughout the entire implementation process and they ought to focus on the role played by the CRM solution in reaching overall organizational objectives, as well as the extent to which the results of the CRM implementation coincide with the pre-established objectives.

3. Introduction

The incremental forces of globalization have materialized in a multitude of effects upon the business community. For instance, they created a climate in which the companies are able to transcend boundaries and benefit from the comparative advantage of numerous global regions. This however translated into incremental levels of national and international competition. To the customer base, the impact was that of a significantly increased access to wider product and service offerings. This virtually transformed the customers from the force purchasing whatever items the company manufactured, into the force demanding what items to be produced and sold. In a different formulation, the customers became more pretentious and the economic agents are facing increased challenges in attracting and retaining them.

A solution to addressing the difficulties raised by the changing features and emergent demands of customers is that of developing and integrating a strong CRM strategy. The acronym stands for customer relationship management and refers to a myriad of strategies organizations employ in interacting with their customer base. SAP is one of the companies which created a CRM software solution plan that supports economic agents in improving their relationship with the customers.

SAP is the world's leading provider of software solutions for businesses, and in this quality, they have understood the impending need for companies to rapidly adjust to the changing characteristics of the micro and macro environments. In this order of ideas then, SAP's intention is that of supporting an accelerated process of organizational innovation, which will have the ultimate outcome of better developed companies, industries and overall world. With an existence and expertise of nearly four decades, SAP has crated and customized software solutions for all small size, medium size as well as global corporations. Their clients are spread out across 120 countries, and benefit from the support of various applications. Today, SAP's software offering is composed from two sets of solutions -- the SAP Business Suite and the SAP Solutions for Small Businesses and Midsize Companies. Alongside with product life cycle management, supply chain management, supplier relations management, manufacturing and others, the SAP customers relationship management is an integrant part of the SAP Business Suite (SAP Website, 2009).

4. Problem Statement/Needs Assessment

A generic look at the company's financial statements reveals a significant decline in the sales revenues. It holds true that the main culprit for this situation is the internationalized financial crisis, which has reduced the purchasing powers of customers across the entire globe. Nevertheless, a deeper look at the financial results of competitive entities reveals that their levels of sales decline are lower than ours. In this context, a conclusion is being reached in that the recent revenue declines are not only to be blamed on the financial crash, but also on our own lack of an adequate customer strategy. Following this line of thoughts, a more attentive analysis has been conducted on the company's analysis with our customer base. The conclusion indicated that a major part in the sales decline is based on the poor customer relationship management. Its limitations are summarized below:

- Our customers feel that they are not listened to; they have sent in numerous complaints on the quality of some of our products, but they have yet to receive an official answer; additionally, we have not considered the customer complaints in the future development of products

- Whenever they want to communicate with us, we make them jump through the hoops of pressing buttons and listening to music and pre-recorded messages. As David H. Rylander and Tina Provost (2006) best put it, "we ask customers to jump through voice-activated hoops or press buttons through phone-activated menus while their frustration grows"

- The telephone calls made to us by customers are paid by the caller, not the company

- Whenever the customers offered their feedback, the information retrieved was either lost, either neglected

- Today, the costs of properly interacting with the customers and creating a strong and reliable relationship on which to capitalize are tremendous

5. Program Goals & Objectives

The ultimate aim of the program is that of aligning the company to the needs of the customer base, throughout a process which provides the specialized know-how to anticipate and serve the customers' needs and wants. This will eventually lead to the creation of a strong customer-organization relationship. More specifically, what the SAP CRM software solution strives to achieve is best organized under the following:

(a) Flexibility in creating a unique relationship between our organization and our customers -- this objective is attained through a wide array of end-to-end business processes, through which various issues of sales, marketing or product / service quality are addressed. The success rates of SAP's CRM are enhanced by the ease of implementation and flexibility with which the software solution adapts to the unique needs of our entity

(b) Consistency and relevant interactions across all channels and touch points -- this objective is achieved through sufficient data collection, storage and analysis of each individual customer interaction. The subsequent result is that the relationship with the buyers can be fruitfully maintained throughout the entire life cycle of the product purchased. In other words, it ensures that the relationship between the parties has a relevant meaning and is consistent through time.

(c) End-to-end processes within the value chain industry -- the final objective is achieved through an increased attention to satisfying customers' needs and wants throughout the entire business process. Otherwise put, the SAP CRM solution is that of combining industry-specific strategies with customer satisfaction strategies, in an effort that leads to organizational growth through customer satisfaction. "With best-in-class front-office functionality that complements industry-specific processes, SAP CRM turns the vision of customer-driven growth into reality" (SAP Website).

6. Method(s)/Strategies/Approaches

The CRM software solution from SAP is able to achieve the previously mentioned three goals -- which will then increase customer satisfaction, sales and consequently financial results -- by implementing a strong software application. The methods at the basis of the software project refer to the following:

1. At a marketing level, the CRM software platform enhances communication possibilities with the customers at all interaction points.

2. At a sales level, the software platform would allow our company to gather and process valuable information on productivity needs, such as size of product line or specific characteristics desired. The data would easily find applicability and functionality in sales planning, product configurations, pricing, purveyor contracts and so on.

3. At a service level, the CRM software would reduce for once the marketing costs, decrease which would then be reflected in the retail price, to eventually enhance customer satisfaction; the sales and marketing usages of the software would also enhance the quality of the services we offer, materializing once again in an increased customer satisfaction.

4. At the level of business partners, the CRM software would improve business processes through the empowerment of its collaborators. This would then materialize in improved partner management, improved communications with the collaborators, wider access to the market, a better diversified distribution and otherwise logistics and so on.

5. At the level of the customer interaction center, the CRM solution would reduce operational costs and would transform the interaction from a simple customer-organization dialogue (or monologue) into a strategic channel that delivers marketing gains.

6. At the level of the online channel, the CRM software application acts as a new source of revenues. It for instance reduces operational costs at this level, but it also uses the internet to promote the company, our products and services, but also our efforts to better communicate with the customer base (i.e. electronic marketing and electronic sales).

7. At the level of business communications management, the operational efficiency is also increased, in a context in which the costs are decreased. A particularity of this specific approach to CRM on the part of SAP is that their software application reveals the ability to route the individual contacting the company (regardless of the type of contact -- telephone, emails or others) directly to the person they need to talk, based on skills required to address the requirement of the external party. In other words, the CRM software solution from SAP "routes the contact to the right person with the right skills, whether the person is in the office or working remotely -- all without the need for costly, cumbersome hardware-based communications systems, significantly reducing total cost of ownership" (SAP Website).

7. Management Plan

The previous sections have revealed the mechanisms and benefits we could encounter through the implementation of the SAP customer relationship management software platform. Nevertheless, the actual mechanisms are not sufficient to achieve the pre-established goals, but the process must be based on extensive support from the management. In this order of ideas, the plan to implementing the novel CRM software solution is constructed on the following (all the below represent means in which the management introduces innovation -- in its business philosophy, its technological infrastructure, its organizational culture and its treatment of employees and customers):

1. The managerial team is advised to consolidate an organizational culture of change; this necessity is pegged to the fact that people could react in a negative manner to the implementation of the CRM software, as it introduces new variables to the equation. It is also of the utmost importance for the organizational culture to strengthen on the fact that the customer is the central element of any business operation and that all employees, at all organizational levels, should continually focus on ways to enhance product and service quality, or other means by which the company could increase customer satisfaction

2. The managers are expected to allocate sufficient resources to the implementation of the software platform

3. The creation of an improved technological infrastructure that best serves the needs of the new application

4. The implementation process ought to continue with the introduction of the staff members to the new techniques and technologies

5. The actual CRM software should be integrated within our company's business model

6. Training programs ought to be offered to the staff members in order to ensure that the company is able to 100% benefit from the advantages implied by the CRM software; the technical training sessions could be offered by representatives of the SAP entity. Nevertheless, it is also important to offer change training, and this could either be offered by the organizational leaders, or by a tertiary party specialized in change management training