- Customer Relationship Management is a very important system for companies that have to keep in constant contact with the customers. Customer relationship management is about managing the interactions with the customers in order to retain them and provide them with valuable experience. Marriot Hotel has recently implemented a CRM system for advance group bookings and streamlines operations. It is also done to make the operations more efficient and eliminating any kind of waste from these processes (Information Week, 2001).
Marriot is using the Siebel Systems package and has given the software to 2000 sales people. The CRM system was implemented to make sure that the staff is able to book the properties owned by Marriot Hotels and allow the cross sell functionality services. For example, if certain properties are booked, then it allows the sales people to sell the other similar properties. The previous system used by Marriot did not allow any cross selling, whereas other hotels are already using the CRM systems with cross selling functionalities.
The implementation of the new system is going to increase the Marriot’s revenue. The sale from this channel in the year 2000 was estimated to be $570 Million and the online channel accounted for 75%. The system is going to help the company by catching up on the previous projects that have been in the pipeline for previous nine months. It will also help Marriot Hotels to streamline its inventory, and other supplies. This will reduce the operating costs, and will increase the overall profitability of the company.
It was a very profitable investment as the growth in the business has been increased by 75%. This investment is likely to yield returns for long time and will help the company to sell to a wider audience and reduce the slack by suggesting the available properties, if the properties demanded by the customer are booked.
- Strategic Feedback: It shows the current position of the company and where it aims to be. It allows the companies to develop new methods, practices and processes to achieve the goals and hence leads to innovation. This innovation is very beneficial for the company as it helps the company achieve its goals
- Diagnostic Feedback: Constant diagnostic feedback help to reduce the slack or wastage from the process and suggest new ways which are innovative and efficient and reduce the overall wastage in the organization
- Trends: Trends in performance tells the organization where it is heading. If these trends are not up to the market, then changes are enforced which leads to innovation and growth of the company.
- Feedback: Feedback is often necessary to enforce changes. Sometimes feedback from employees and outside audience of the company such as suppliers, helps the company to use new and more innovative methods.
- Quantitative Inputs: Methods like forecasting and future need analysis help the companies to develop new system in response to the forecasted changes. This encourages the organization to put new systems in place and develop new processes to meet the changes forecasted.
- The worst example of supply chain failures can be seen in the case of UPS. UPS is a courier service and the problem that occurred to them was the late ecommerce deliveries. The problem was so bad that they announced that the Christmas deliveries will not arrive for the customers. The major problem for the company was that they were short on the number of aircrafts. The company was wrongly forecasting its sales to increase at 8%, whereas it actually rose by 32%. This last minute peak in demand went unnoticed and the company’s operations could support such a large number of deliveries with the resources in hand. The major problem that occurred for the company was lack of resources due to wrong forecasting of demand. As a result of which, the company was not prepared to meet the rise in demands. Despite, two runs by each of the airplanes that UPS had at its deposal, it could not meet the increased demand and as a result the company could not deliver the goods, parcels and couriers. In the end, the company resort in using 23 extra chartered planes to solve the crises and to bring down the bottle neck which was growing to due to large number of shipments in the holiday’s season. After this issue was resolved, the company did not have enough resources in road logistics to deliver the products and ended up using the services of contracted truck and mail delivery system.
The company learned its lesson the hard way. The problem can occur again. In future, UPS should try to avoid such problems by developing a better supply chain model. This model should take into account the unexpected rise during Christmas and other holidays and festivals. It should also buy more planes and road logistics to solve any bottleneck that appears in the system. (scsdigest, 2014)
References
Information Week,. (2001). Marriott Uses CRM Application To Boost Sales. Retrieved 6 November 2014, from http://www.informationweek.com/marriott-uses-crm-application-to-boost-sales/d/d-id/1010910?
Scdigest.com,. (2014). Supply Chain News: The Factors Behind the UPS Failure to Deliver Christmas Goods. Retrieved 6 November 2014, from http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/14-01-06-2.php?cid=7717
