INCREASING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE THROUGH A CRM APPROACH: AN IMPLEMENTATION SCHEME AND APPLICATION FRAMEWORK

It is clear in fact that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) projects often end up in failure and it seems that companies lack guidance for appropriate implementation practice. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (i) to present an efficient CRM implementation scheme and (ii) to develop an integrated application framework for a fully customized software system that integrates various day-to-day operations and provides CRM capabilities. The framework is applied to a practical real-life case study of a company offering a wide range of cosmetic products, focusing on increasing customer loyalty, enhancing sales taskforce productivity, and reducing customer management costs. The importance of this study lies in that it provides a systematic, practical and efficient approach of designing and implementing a CRM system. This approach is also directly applicable to any company operating through a network of sales representatives who promote and sell products utilizing outbound telephone communication.