December 16, 2005

Use Business Process Management Thinking To Evaluate CRM Solutions

by William Band

with John Ragsdale, Ian Schuler

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Customer demand, market dynamics, and technology are driving the convergence of CRM functionality to be more easily integrated with the capabilities associated with enterprise resource management (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) to better support end-to-end business processes. Today, CRM-oriented solutions are offered primarily in four categories of functional capabilities: marketing, sales, service, and customer data and analytics. These categories form the traditional basis for software vendor feature/function comparisons. However, CRM solution buyers should move away from this framework and evaluate CRM capabilities using a customer process management perspective. There are nine customer-facing processes to consider when evaluating solutions to create a differentiated, "branded" experience for your customers. Companies shopping for CRM software should determine which vendor best supports the business processes being addressed by current initiatives as well as how well the vendor solution can support business process improvements anticipated for the future.

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