F.

Dretske8 (2000) in his study on Knowledge and the Flow of Information has studied the role of
technology in the implementation and its requirements and concluded that business intelligence and
analytical capabilities, unified channels of customer interaction, support for web-based functionality,
centralized repository for customer information, integrated workflow, integrated with ERP
application were the major essentials needed for the implementation of the CRM programme that
resulted into increase in customer satisfaction, increased customer loyalty, decrease in customer
defection, ability to identify profitable customers, measuring customer profitability and measuring
customer lifetime value. 35 Hemachandra Murlidhar Padukar9 (2000) in his book entitled, Working
Knowledge had seen that the CRM as a strategy used to learn more about customer needs and
behaviours in order to develop stronger relationships with them There were several electronic
components used to support CRM that had made the concept as e-CRM. According to him the
electronic components were very significant as it provided better customer service, cross sell
products more effectively, helped sales staff close deals faster, simplify marketing and sales
processes, discover new customer and increase customer revenue. Deepali Singh10 (2001) in his
article titled Information Technology enabled Customer Relationship Management had found that
the development of information technology and opening up of digital market enabled the marketers
to provide customized products/services and thereby develop value-based long lasting customer
relationships. The only strategy that was perceived to make sense in the emerging marketing
environment was that the marketers should learn and practice customer relationship management.
Joe Peppard 11 (2001) in his article entitled, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Financial
Services has stated that many financial services organisations are rushing to become more
customer focused. A key component of many initiatives was the implementation of customer
relationship management (CRM) software. His study had highlighted that most institutions take a
rather narrow view of CRM and as such, benefits were limited. While second generation CRM
demerged to embrace the total organization, success in general was still not widespread. He had
presented a framework, which was 36 based on incorporating e-business activities, channel
management, relationship management and back office/ front-office integration within a customer
centric strategy. Lynette, Ryals and Adrian Payne12 (2001) in their article titled, Selectively pursuing
more of your customers business have summarized that relationship marketing is concerned with
how organizations manage and improve their relationships with customers for long-term
profitability. Customer relationship management (CRM), which is becoming a topic of increasing
importance in marketing, is concerned with using information technology (IT) in implementing
relationship-marketing strategies. They further reported the adoption and use of CRM in the
financial services sector. K.Ramachandran13 (2001) in his article entitled, How customer
relationship management can be strengthened beyond the hype had suggested that since customer
needs are dynamic, new dimensions have to be added to the set of customer relationship
management tools based on information technology. T. Shainesh and R.Mohan14 (2001) in their
book entitled, Status of CRM in India- A Survey of Service Firms has discussed that Customer
Relationship Management: Emerging Concepts, Tools and Applications had revealed that aspects
such as business processes, information technology, employee empowerment, quality assurance and
customer knowledge strategies should be made more customer-centric. M.P Gupta and Sonal
Shukla15 (2002) in their article titled, Learning from Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Implementation in a Bank, have stated that the customer relationship management was gradually
picking up and is definitely 37 considered as a viable proposition by banks in improving services to
their customers. Since there is resistance to change, while implementing the customer relationship
management, high commitment is required in those who are implementing it. S.T.Ramachandran16
(2002) in his article entitled, Customer Relationship Management Emerging Strategies has
concluded that for laying the right foundation for a better customer relationship management, the
banks should be customer-centric and give importance to the retention of existing customers than
acquiring new ones for promoting cross-selling and re-purchase of products. M.L.Agarwal17 (2003)
in his article entitled, Customer Relationship Management and Corporate Renaissance has
recommended a line of action for an effective CRM implementation towards a quicker corporate
renaissance. He also urged business schools of South Asia to incorporate CRM in their teaching
curricula so that the business and academics can continue to stay relevant to each other. J.Injazz
Chen and Karen Popovich18 (2003) in their article entitled, "Understanding Customer Relationship
Management (CRM): People, Process and Technology" have stated that customer relationship
management (CRM) is a combination of people, processes and technology that sought to understand
a company's customers. It is an integrated approach to managing relationships by focusing on
customer retention and relationship development. CRM has evolved from advances in information
technology and organizational changes in customer-centric processes. Companies that successfully
implement CRM would reap the rewards in customer loyalty and long run profitability. However,
successful implementation of CRM was elusive to many 38 companies, mostly because they did not
understand that CRM required company-wide, cross functional, customer-focused business process
re-engineering. Although a large portion of CRM was technology, viewing CRM as a technology-only
solution was likely to fail. Managing a successful CRM implementation requires an integrated and
balanced approach to technology, process, and people. Jain and Dhar19 (2003) in their article titled,
Measuring Customer Relationship Management have discussed that customer relationship
management emerged as a core business process for maintaining and enhancing the competitive
edge in modern business affairs. In the area of bank services, the issue of customer relationship
management had held much importance. Many a time, it is the CRM that became the deciding factor
in the selection of services. Customer loyalty is directly related to the CRM efforts made by the
service sector companies. Peer Mohamed and Elgina Sweetline20 (2003) in their article titled, Call
Centres and Strategic Tools for Customer Relationship Management have attempted making a cost-
benefit analysis. The authors proved that web based call centres were much more cost effective. It
was further found that organizations were evolving strategies to attract and retain customers, who
desire to be listened to, recognized, cared for and responded to by the organization. Call centres
emerged as strategic tools in building such customer relationship. K.Tapan21 (2003) in his study on
Creating Customer Life-Time Value through effective Customer Relationship Management in
Financial Services Industry has stressed the importance of the customer relationship management
in financial services 39 industry. Customer data management gave clues about the probability of
customer demand and the technology, helped in tracking the characteristics and categorization of
customers depending on their part behaviour. He has concluded that with increased competition
customers were moving very fast from one firm to another. It was essential to have an integrated
customer relationship management strategy across the whole organization for generating higher
customers life-time value. J.Werner Reinartz and V.Kumar22 (2003) in their article titled, The
Impact of Customer Relationship Characteristics on Profitable Lifetime Duration have stressed the
relevance and importance of establishing customer relationship management capabilities.
Customers were heterogeneous on an important life-time relationship. Under such condition, an
appropriate firm response should be made to develop customer relationship management
capabilities, which will help such firms to establish competitive advantage in the market. G. Ganesan
and D. Rajagopalan23 (2004) editors of the book titled, Service Excellence, Trends and Strategies
have highlighted that competitive environment, eroding margins, need to reduce costs and keeping
customers were the prime drivers for the organizations to embrace e-CRM. They have concluded
that a well executed e-CRM strategy could result in a number of quantitative benefits including
greater ability to sell and cross-sell, improved customer retention besides reduced cost of service. T.
Maria Salazar, Tina Harrison, Jake Ansell 24 (2004) in their study on CRM in the Insurance Industry:
An Attempt to Use Survival Analysis in Retention and Cross Selling have stated that relationship
marketing emphasized the benefits associated with 40 customer retention over new clients
acquisition. However, financial organizations were not still completely enhanced with this idea. In
order to improve the retention ratios of organizations, cross-selling has been identified as a very
effective strategy with positive benefits for companies. This identification of new business
opportunities depended on the detection of product acquisition and timing evaluation. Lynette
Ryals25 (2005) in her article titled, Making Customer Relationship Management Work: The
measurement and profitable management of customer relationships had demonstrated that the
implementation of the customer relationship management activities delivered greater profits. The
study finds that the changes in customer management strategies signified the value of the
customers. These changes lead to a better firm performance. The study suggests that the important
issue was not customer loyalty or customer retention but it was profitable customer retention and
profitable customer portfolio management. Satish et.al.26 (2005) in their study on The Role of
Relational Information Processes and Technology use in Customer Relationship Management have
showed that relational information processes played a vital role in enhancing an organizations
customer relationship performance. By moderating the influence of relational information processes
on customer relationship performance, technology used for customer relationship management
performed an important and supportive role. The study provided insights into why the use of
customer relationship management technology might not always deliver the expected customer
relationship performance outcome. 41 Rahman, Zillur27 (2006) in their article entitled, Customer
Experience Management - A Case Study of an Indian Bank has discussed that loyal customers were
considered to be the key to survival and success in many service businesses, in particular in the
hospitality, insurance and financial sectors. The assumption was that with customer satisfaction;
loyalty, retention and profitability will automatically follow. They explored the relationship between
experience and loyalty and concluded that, on average, a majority of customers were satisfied with
the present functioning of the banks but would definitely be delighted if the bank changed its
interface with the customers to become more cognitive (intelligent), emotional, physically pleasing
and well - connected. Timothy Bohling, Douglas Bowman, et.al.28 (2006) in their article titled, CRM
Implementation Effectiveness Issues and Insights have viewed that customer relationship
management (CRM) had been widely embraced by businesses. In practice, however, the diffusion of
CRM into organizations continues to be a slow process and/or where CRM implementation
outcomes have fallen short of expectations. Successful implementation depends on a number of
factors such as fit between of a firms CRM strategy and programs and its broader marketing
strategy, and intra-organizational and inter-organizational co-operation and co-ordination among
entities involved in the implementation. Freimut Bodendorf and Andreas Schobert 29 (2007) in their
article on Enhancing e-CRM in the Insurance Industry by Mobile e-services have observed that
with customers increasingly demanding full-scale solutions, insurance companies were more and
more forced to continuously increase their portfolio of products and services. As 42 customers also
expect high quality and variety of services when needed, insurance companies had to find ways to
present the right service at the right moment and with the right quality. Madhu Jasola30 (2008) in
her study on CRM: A Competitive Tool for Indian Banking Sector has pointed out how CRM had
emerged as a popular business strategy in todays competitive environment. It is a discipline which
enables the companies to identify and target their most profitable customers. CRM involved new
and advance marketing strategies which not only retain the existing customers but also acquire new
customers. It was observed that customers in the CRM, rated its services far more favourably than
those in the non CRM, which was an indicator of the superior level of services in the former. This
could be further attributed to CRM a closer understanding (of) and individualized service to the
customer. There was a direct relationship between perception and satisfaction, commitment and
loyalty, which underlined the significance of CRM in service industry. For those planning to up-sell
and cross-sell, raising customer perceptions is all the more important. Mohammad Almotairi31
(2008) in his article titled, CRM Success Factors Taxonomy has stated that despite the promising
future and the attractive benefits expecting from CRM projects, the outcomes of many
implementations were still below these expectations and the failure percentage of CRM is still
relatively high. The author had focused on the success factors that could facilitate successful
implementation of CRM. The author had aimed to provide taxonomy for success factors based on
the analysis of the main components of CRM (People, Processes and Technology). 43 Tapal Dula
Babu32 (2009) in his article titled, An Analytical Study on Industry Perceptions on e-CRM has
revealed the customer classification and preference giving same priorities about the critical aspects.
Therefore, features of e-CRM (as it is rated number one) can be developed further with the latest
features to suit exactly the needs of market. Besides, in this dynamic competitive and technological
business world, every company should look for GCTC (getting closer to the customer). The e-CRM
helps very much in this respect to build an image and reputation for the company. S.S. Hugar and
Nancy H. Vaz, D'Costa33 (2010) in their article entitled, A Model for CRM Implementation in Indian
Public Sector Banks have declared that India is on the threshold of a stark global competition,
especially so for the banking sector with the likelihood of the economy opened for global banks
soon. The Indian public sector banks, which have come face-to-face with competition just since last
decade, are found wanting both with regard to performance as well as their customer orientation.
The CRM practices of the banks can help them in retention of their existing customers in the
competitive market. CH. Raja Ramesh34 (2010) in his article entitled, Customer Relationship
Management System with Actionable Knowledge Discovery Approach of Domain Driven Data
Mining has pointed out that customer relationship management is one of the newest innovations in
customer service today. CRM involves gathering a lot of data about the customer. The data is then
used to facilitate customer service transactions by making the information needed to resolve the
issue or concern readily available to those dealing with the customers. This results in more satisfied
customers, a more profitable 44 business and more resources available to the support staff.
Furthermore, customer relationship management systems are a great help to the management in
deciding on the future course of the company. CRM is a strategy and process used to develop
stronger relationship with customers, and CRM is the essential guide. Anand Deo Rai35 (2011) in his
article on CRM in Insurance Industry has observed that insurance industry is in a complex and
competitive environment tinged with little stability. This is due to the fact that the big fish in the
insurance industry dominates the sector, which had become increasingly difficult for this sector to
gain profits while curtailing costs. Customers tend to lose out as they were not buying from the right
provider. In addition to this, the internet had increased the pressure for insurance companies in
capturing the market. All this had succeeded in making the insurance world more complicated. CRM
helps insurance companies to ensure that the customer is understood better. . M.V.S. Srinivasa
Rao36 (2012) in his article entitled, Customer Relationship Management in India: An Empirical
Analysis on Implementation of Selected Industries has observed that CRM implementation differed
from organization to organization as there were many factors that could influence the success of
CRM implementation. In most cases the technology would have less to do with the CRM success.
Therefore it was important to focus as much importance on communication training and other
aspects as much as the technology involved. Employees implementing CRM and forming a part of
the CRM process ranged from the lower level right to the grade of management. It was 45
imperative that the business ensured that the CRM software chosen was easy to use and implement
by not only by a few employees but by everyone using the system