artikel SI 5

Management (CRM) and Data

Warehousing (DW)

What Does CRM Do?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) puts the business focus back on the
customer, where it should belongs. CRM combines business processes and
technology to create a better understanding of customers. Specifically, it helps a
company to identify and retain customers, improve sales management, and
customize relationships. For example,
· Identify new customers and retain existing customers.
Who are your customers? What do they like? What do they expect from you?
CRM helps identify new customers and retain existing customers. To reach
consumers who will truly benefit from your services, it is important that
marketing campaigns define clear objectives and goals directed at an
appropriate audience. This audience is defined through CRM. Furthermore,
CRM can help you identify commonalities among clients. With this
information, the company's marketing strategy can become more focused and
effective.
· Improve sales management by streamlining information exchange.
Think about all the employees involved in ensuring customer satisfaction such
as marketers, advertisers, salespeople, Web designers, accountants,
customer service representatives, etc. CRM can improve customer service by
streamlining information exchange among employees in these departments.
With a flow information exchange, every department works dependently to
ensure customer needs are met. Most people appreciate a personal approach
to customer service, and CRM can help you create that approach.
· Customize relationships with individuals.
CRM also allows you to customize relationships with individuals to provide a
higher level of service. An effective CRM system will help you exceed your
customers' expectations by offering them what they need, when they need it
before they have to ask for it.

The Objective of Implementing a CRM System
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies are designed to accomplish
three important goals: to increase profit, to create top quality service and to instill
loyalty in customers. Understanding these goals will help you to keep your CRM
system on track and ensure a successful outcome.
· Use customer relationships to increase profit.
The first goal of implementing a CRM system is use existing customer
relationships to increase profits. You can do this by up-selling, cross-selling,
and repeat sales. Understanding who your customers are and knowing their
needs will help you maximize the potential for profitability with each
individual customer.
· Integrate information to create top quality service.
The second goal of implementing a CRM system is to use integrated
information to create top-quality service. CRM focuses on enhancing service
to exceed your customers' expectations. How is this accomplished? By giving
all departments access to the same information. You'll save time and
minimize customer frustration by sharing information internally. Working
together and integrating sales, marketing, and customer service is key.
· Instill loyalty in customers.
The third goal of implementing a CRM system is to instill loyalty in your
customers. An effective CRM system benefits the customer by maintaining
contact with them. You can use CRM to identify the proper time to approach
clients about replacement parts or refills. The rapport you build with your
clients will keep them coming back time and time again.
Successful CRM systems rely on knowledge of your customers and their needs,
coordinated team efforts, and information sharing. To ensure that your CRM strategy
will meet with success, you must keep the goals of implementing a CRM system
constantly in mind.

What is Data Warehousing?
The concept of data warehousing is really quite simple. Data from older systems is
copied into a new computer system dedicated entirely to analyzing that data.
Normally, the data warehouse will store a substantial amount of historical data.
Users of this system are able to continuously ask or query it to retrieve data for
analysis.
Or in general, a data warehouse is a collection of data copied from other systems
and assembled into one place. Once assembled, it is made available to end users,
who can use it to support different kinds of business decision support and
information collection activities. That's it. It's that simple.
Of course, building a data warehouse is not as simple as the concept. Like every
other technological implementation, a data warehouse implementation needs to align
with the needs and goals of the organization. Ordinary project deliverables,
milestones, timelines, project management, other components still apply to the
construction of the data warehouse

Data Warehousing and the CRM System
I have mentioned it above that data warehousing is a method of storing business
information gathered from customers, suppliers, and other vendors in databases for
easy access.
The information is then used to identify customer trends, solve business problems,
and gain a clearer picture of your business practices. The benefit of data
warehousing and CRM is that you don't have to understand the technical aspects of
data mining and warehousing to perform simple analyses of your customer
information.
Query tools enable even the most inexperienced user to use a data warehouse.
However, you should have an understanding of how data warehousing works within
the CRM system. Details are provided below.

· Planning. Before data is stored in the warehouse, it is placed in a temporary
location where it is "cleansed or hygiene." The warehousing system manages
the information by rectifying any potential system errors that might occur
during data processing.
· Conversion. A data warehousing system includes applications that ensure
customer data can be stored to work with any format. This data is
manipulated to create consistent records for later queries.
· Extraction. The data is managed by applications that point search tools in
the proper directions when running a query. If any information is changed,
extraction and transformation tools are updated. This enables you to quickly
search for key words or organize information by specific data fields.
· Delivery. Data warehousing applications retrieve, display, analyze, and
control information for your CRM needs. This information can be shared
through all types of computer systems, from handheld computers to
mainframes, so everyone can access it.
Data warehousing is an important component of an CRM system and ultimately is
critical in providing a system you can use to maintain and access valuable
information about your customers, suppliers, and other vendors.

References:
· Westerman, Paul. Data Warehousing - Using the Wal-Mart Model. Kauffman Morgan
Publisher, 2001.
· Gosney, John. Customer Relationship Management Essentials. Premier Press, 2000.
Written By:
· Jimmy Ardiansyah, MS-IT. [Solution Developer @Acxiom Corporation]