SAP Customer Relationship Management Application Essay

The management of Baderman Island should implement the SAP customer relationship management application. This will enable the management to attract a greater market share through greater facilities for information sharing. The company is currently adding more products and services such as transportation facilities, access to grounds and an all-season business model.

Therefore the management needs to get the message across to potential segments of the market.

The best way to do this is to have a website operational. This website will automate the process of answering questions from the customers.

Therefore the management could free up additional manpower and use it for more strategic purposes. The use of the CRM application will also facilitate greater access to customer-related information, such as segment-specific preferences for products and services and this will improve the quality of the decisions made. Additionally, employees will be able to interact with customers in real-time and therefore the employees will be in a position to cross-sell.

This is a critical success factor given the growing range of products and services.

Implementing the Application

By implementing the CRM application, the management at the resort could also conduct external benchmarking and transfer best practices from in the industry and out. This will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing resource management. Another benefit from implementing the application is that the management will be in a position to maintain alignment with the strategic focus of the company.

The strategic alignment process involving IT strategy, business strategy, organizational issues and information systems issues will be attended to by experts from SAP. Since they have already installed the CRM applications in other companies across industries, they will be in a position to suggest business strategy to align with IT strategy. They can also identify relevant organizational issues which will have to be addressed in order to make the IT strategy effective.

One particular issue in this respect will have to be to develop the necessary skills sets.

Currently the employees in the marketing department lack exposure to IT systems.

Therefore the management will have to undertake training and development programs in order to develop the necessary expertise in its current organizational structure. In this respect as well, experts from SAP will be in a position to help as they can anticipate the issues that employees are likely to face when operating the system. Therefore, the management can rely on the effectiveness of the training and development programs.

The last component of the strategic alignment process is information systems. In this respect, the information system will have to be flexible as the company is growing in terms of its organizational structure and its product and service offerings.

The advantage with the SAP application is that it is modular in structure. Therefore additional features can be added as required. With all features installed, the system is able to support e-commerce, e-marketing, e-service and web channel analytics. In the initial stages, the management should install e-commerce as it is easy to operate, and web channel analytics as this will enable the management to develop greater understanding of the market.

The installation of e-commerce facilities will enable the management to reduce paperwork to a minimum as the ordering process will be taken online. As a result, this will reduce transaction costs and speed up the process of documentation. As employees develop a grasp of the operational aspects involved, they will be ready to migrate to e-marketing and e-service which can be installed in the later phases.
As a result of implementing the CRM application, Baderman Island will have SAP as one of its channel partners in the marketing program and therefore it will have greater access to marketing expertise. Therefore the CRM application will not only enhance the breadth of marketing at the company but also enhance the depth by enabling the company to benchmark against best practices as documented by SAP while dealing with other companies.

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References

Aaker, David A. (2004). Strategic Market Management. McGraw Hill/Irwin.