QUESTION ONE: Problems in the acquisition of the CRM and reasons the problem arose
In the first instance, the project seems to lack project charter, which is a statement of the scope, objectives and participants of the CRM project. The charter could have assisted in the provision of preliminary definition of roles and responsibilities therefore making it easy to come up with an awareness of which a party that has been assigned with a given task is identified with much ease, thus reducing confusion that had arisen (Burkey, & Breakfield, 2000). The other task of the document is outlining the CRM project objectives, on this task; the document clearly highlights the key purpose of undertaking the project hence the staff operates within a certain scope. Moreover, it assists in identifying who the main stakeholders are and in this case are the customers and also related sales representatives. Helping identifying duties and responsibilities of different levels, Jordan Robinson being a project manager would have clearly known her role thus working tirelessly to achieve efficiency (Cesarani, 2006).
Generally, the CRM project charter would have assisted in highlighting why the project is undertaken, objectives and limitations of the project, the high level risk management plan, communication plan, target project benefits, high level budget and spending authority
The key element in a project and also considered step one either in business, home, or education, is outlining major objectives, basing on this, the CRM goals and objectives were not clearly outlined. Goals and objectives that are poorly defined, or goals without direction, leads a project into overruns as evidenced in the CRM. Due to lack of adequate goals, frustrations were accumulated, ignorance and negative attitude towards the whole project started to rise.
Jane who was the new National Marketing Director was suppose that she get access to project management personnel from the consulting company. Unfortunately, such did not happen as it ended up that all the project managers were assigned to other external clients which resulted to Jane appointing one of her own marketing staff (Desbarats, 2005).
The fact that Jordan was appointed by Jane though had no knowledge on IT projects, forced him to fully rely on what Jane handed to him through the books. In addition, he had taken project management as his career and was only aware of projects through the theories that he had learnt.
It is true that the Head of Strategic Projects of KATG resigned, thereby leaving the company on that same day.
It clear to say that Jane was not concerned of her job that she was undertaking, it is evidenced on the way she keeps her documents, she even further claims that documentation was not a big deal and that it had not caused the problem. From the way she communicated clearly indicated that she was trying to escape from the reality as evidenced in this excerpt, “I guess that this now your problem-I won’t say anything more!” (Hart-Davidson, William et al 2008)
We also see the staff involved in the project having a negative attitude in doing their work this is clearly shown when they say that certain tasks are difficult and then they maintain silence.
Jordan Robinson gave a realization to the CRM project although he had not informed the IT infrastructure leader that any project was ongoing. Basing on this scene, Jordan is to liable for any problem that arose as a result realizing that his knowledge in IT was little (Mak, et al 2009).
QUESTION TWO: The problems that The Analyst faces on customer records and data issues and the difficulties experienced
One of the key problems here is the fact that the CRM is relatively difficult to work with; this can even be worse is a case where a person employed to work with CRM lacks IT knowledge, some large-scale CRMs have moved an extra mile to hiring professionals to train their employees in groups. Training is a time consuming activity which otherwise would have been used in other tasks in the need to achieve productivity, this operation is tiresome and eats up organization’s resources including time, labor and money (Mervana & Le, 2002).
In some other cases CRM has been realized to attempt accommodate large, complex group of data which may make it unpleasant for an ill-user during training. Furthermore, CRM’s effectiveness is majorly affected by those interfaces which are not easily understood or navigated; this will lead to a situation where users select those areas of the systems that they are familiar with pushing aside the rest. The items required and workflows can also be complicated in one way or the other, especially in a case where there is a lot of data (Parnell, Driscoll & Henderson, 2010)
Another issue here is the fact that the analyst is granted the responsibility to interpret, edit, and customize the CRM in respect to the needs of the company. Another major issue is the difficulty that is experienced during integration of CRM with other management information systems mainly because it is complicated and unpleasant thereby making the whole process to be difficult. Through a point of suggestion, CRM should be maintained on a regular basis, given the fact that updating information and upgrading the system is in itself costly. In this view, the whole process is quite laborious basing on the fact that information continuously flows in, on the other hand, new data being constantly inflowing (Portugal, & Sundaram, 2006).
With the CRM application it appears to be a hard work to populate a database; especially in a case where there are many customers and there is a lot of data. The data availability may also lead to slowing down of the whole system of the organization in a case when they are numerous data the need attention. The most probable way to handle the issue seems simple but costly in some way where measurement must be made when hiring casual workers. The reason behind this in most situations there are individuals who prefer short-term employment to long-term. This is basically because short term workers will be slightly cheaper that hiring workers on a permanent basis. The organization will be in a position to manage stress by minimizing tasks which otherwise would have been done by permanently hired teams.
The CRM application is employing a remote Internet connection in saving data that relates to a customer. The Sales force is one of the common CRM applications that are found through an Internet connection on the company's domain. The major problem of this type of CRM is the issue of troubling Analyst Felix Chan, this is when the organization does not have the full capacity to control information, and in a case where remote CRM system experience power shortage or power surge, the company will find it hard to retrieve its record (Shaw, 2007).
The customer relationship management systems encounter problem of poor usability; it is in fact quite uneasy for a user to navigate or even to interact with an interface. This will automatically lead the analyst into problems, especially when large quantities of data are to be entered.
The poor usability of the CRM can lead into employment of a fragmented interface. This is best explained as information getting separated and sited in different locations. In other words, the whole system lack unity therefore are in small fragments, hence coming up with a decision process which in real sense be in disunity and do not match any of the systems. Such a system cannot be used in any task as it is disastrous in nature and the information itself will be highly risk as there will be a high chance of displacement. One way of dealing with fragmentation by setting a rule of law within the organization in the sense that employees will be well able to realize the consequences from customer policing, making decisions and putting them into action. The nature of response that is issue by all levels of personnel within the organization will determine the effect the will be harnessed by the customer. A dissatisfied customer will have a negative impact to the organization as a whole.
The greatest challenge that is faced by developers and users when trying get a balancing point between achieving ease in using CRM and the compatibility of both features and security issues acceptance. Corporate investors who wish to use CRM software are optimistic in that they are sure that the system will remain secure and also customers’ requirements are fully met. These two phenomenons still remain a challenge in many organization, some have suggested that only one of the elements can be attain while the other being a threat to the whole system either in terms of usability of security.
QUESTION THREE: The process that would lead to the more successful acquisition and implementation of a packaged CRM application in the Professional Services practice at KATG in the future
One of the most important things is to have a skilled and competent CRM administrator; this is because he will be in charge of interpretation, edition and customization of data to meet the needs of the organization. Generally, a CRM administrator should have skills, confidence and competent with the post so as to deliver quality services to those who will be using it either directly or indirectly.
In addition to CRM system maintenance, the administrator must also train, coach and support the employees who use the CRM software so that they will be in a position to handle any problem that might arise when the administrator is not available.
Maximizer Software it also important to the organization, through a number of researches, the Maximizer line of products has been realized to be a necessity in helping companies develop more faster, personalized and more profitable with customer experiences. It is evident that the software is quite easy to use interface, it is supported by the fact that is has already been widely used by all classes of employees, the strength that is accorded to this interface is the fact that it is easy to be adopted by any staff because of its functionality and a user interface,, in addition, maximizer software can be installed and configure with a lot ease, thus providing that level of functionality that is recommended. Its impact is realized after the customer service department has gotten full knowledge on how Maximizer software actually operates, that is the when they would begin to determine the most beneficial Maximizer interface that ought to be customized. This being a strategy would assist reducing costs that might be attached to time.
It is equally important to consolidate data in a single database in order for sales and customer service department to find it easy when accessing the comprehensive data. This is mainly because a CRM relies majorly on customer database.
A newly data collected at these transactions is copulated into existing customer database. CRM technology uses information that is mined from the internet for the reason of potential customers’ identification, and also aid the company on how it should list its priority need. Through surveys, the company will get to understand through data analysis goods and services that best suit individual customers. CRM technology has the advantage that it can be transferred to portable devices such as the PDA. The fact that information is consolidated makes it easy for the organization to make forecast. An example that CRM supports is the ability to make solid decisions thereby avoiding guesswork (Shaw, 2010).
References
Burkey, R,E & Breakfield, V, 2000 Designing a total data solution: technology, implementation and deployment. Auerbach.
Cesarani, D, 2006 The final solution: origins and implementation, California: Routledge.
Desbarats, G 2005 "Usability: form that says function." Industrial Management & Data Systems Vol 95, Issue 5, pp 12-16.
Hart-Davidson, W, Grace B, Michael M, Martine R, and Jeffrey T, G 2008 "Coming to Content Management: Inventing Infrastructure for Organizational Knowledge Work." Technical Communication Quarterly 17, no. 1: 10-34.
Mak, G, Sipe, K, Long, J & Rubio, D, 2009 Spring web Recipes: A Problem-solution Approach. Apress.
Mervana, S & Le, C, 2002 Design and implementation of DSL-based access solutions. Cisco Press.
Parnell, G, Driscoll, P & Henderson, D,L, 2010 Decision making in Engineering and mangement, John Wiley and Sons.
Portugal, V & Sundaram, D, 2006 Business processes: operational soliutions for SAPimplementation. Idea Group (IGI).
Shaw, R 2007, Measuring and Valuing Customer Relationship, Business Intelligence, New York.
Shaw, R 2010, Computer Aided Marketing & Selling, Butterworth Heinemann, London.
