Assessment Front Sheet

IMPORTANT: Your assignment will not be accepted without the FRONT SHEET.
Campus: HYDERABAD Stream: mr
Level: PCL-2 Year/Semester 2009-11
Assignment Weekly
Module Name: CRM
Type: Assignment
Assessor’s
Student’s Name: Veeresh nirni
Name:
Reqd.
Issued on: Submission
Date:
Actual Submission
Submitted to :
Date:
Higher Level Skills
Students are expected to develop the following skills in this assignment:
• Cognitive skills of critical thinking, analysis and synthesis.
• Effective use of communication and information technology for
business applications.
• Effective self-management in terms of planning, motivation, initiative and
enterprise.
Certificate by the Student:
Plagiarism is a serious College offence.
I certify that this is my own work. I have referenced all relevant materials.
______________________

EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Ability to understand the basic of
branding process.
Ability to innovatively plan the branding
process
( additional for higher grades)
(Student’s
Name/Signatures)
Assessment Criteria – To achieve Achie
each outcome a student must ved
demonstrate the ability to : (Y/N)
Understand and explain the steps
involved in branding process
Must be able to critically analyze
key success factors for the brand,
and able to innovatively articulate
the same, from strategy intent
Assignment Grading Summary (To be filled by the Assessor)
Achieved
Grades Grade Descriptors Yes/No (Y /
N)
A Pass grade is achieved by meeting all the
P
requirements defined.
Identify and apply strategies to find appropriate
M1
solutions.
Select/design and apply appropriate
M2
methods/techniques.
M3 Present and communicate appropriate findings.
Use critical reflection to evaluate own work and
D1
justify valid conclusions.
Ability to anticipate and solve complex tasks in
D2
relation to the assignment.
Demonstrate convergent, lateral and creative
D3
thinking.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT GRADE:

TUTOR’S COMMENTS ON
ASSIGNMENT:
SUGGESTED MAKE UP PLAN
(applicable in case the student is
asked to re-do the assignment)
REVISED ASSESSMENT GRADE
TUTOR’S COMMENT ON REVISED
WORK (IF ANY)
Date: Assessor’s Name / Signatures:

1 ans:

Business Process Improvement (BPI) employs a systematic approach to help any organization
make significant changes in the way it does business. BPI aims for a complete transformation of
an organization’s performance, not simply a series of incremental adjustments.

Ramco’s Business Process Improvement methodology takes a holistic approach, first examining
how a company’s key processes align with the Company Strategy. Next we analyze business
processes to learn how each Process is supported by the Organization and enabled by its
Systems.

With this knowledge, Ramco’s BPI experts design new Processes that will maximize Customer
Value and Operate Efficiently. Implementing these Processes will revolutionize the organization
and its systems. Benchmarking Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) tracks and provides
measurable results for all aspects process improvement.
Real-world Business Processes:

One of the most important ways in which business and IT can be closely aligned is through the
definition of real-world business processes in terms of discrete, reusable, scalable, and highly
functional components. Ramco and others identify these as business services that can be part of a
business process modeling environment and can make use of standard Web services technology.
While many offerings, particularly from platform vendors, tend to downplay or ignore this
requirement, the ability of these technologies to deliver genuine customer value rests on the
availability of business processes wrapped in Web services that lend themselves to this
deployment opportunity. These business services or processes must represent a functionally rich
environment that can – with relatively little direct change – meet specific customer requirements
in a variety of industries. The need for a broad range of business services specific to industry and
user deployments Requirements cannot be overemphasized. Modeling generic, one-size-fits-all
processes yields generic, one-size-fits-all solutions that impart limited strategic value to the
enterprise. Indeed, this ‘generic” solution model is precisely what has defined much of the early
stages of the modern enterprise software market. This in turn led to a customer backlash against
the requirement that enterprises adopt the software vendors’ way of “doing business – or else.”
Customers are increasingly requiring that their enterprise software deliver strategic value that
makes them competitive in their markets and not just at a par with all the other users of the same
generic processes A Comprehensive Business Process Modeling Environment The
comprehensive repository of business processes discussed above requires an equally
comprehensive business process modeling (BPM) environment that can support ad-hoc, “what-
if” modeling and the orchestration of internal, pre-packaged business processes. This BPM
environment needs to also support the integration of external processes and services that support
an acceptable Web services interface. These two requirements allow business users to extend the
repository of existing services in three key directions: the first is to modify the existing services
in order to meet specific business or user goals. The second is to include external processes and
services as part of the overall business process environment, thus supporting legacy and other-
pre-existing services that can add significant functional value to the user experience. The third
extension comes from the ability of the BPM to support the creation of entirely new or highly
modified services that further support the deployment of a customer-specific, highly competitive
IT environment. Again, having these extensions and new functions as part of the core BPM
environment provides a further return on investment potential for the customer.
A Business Process Platform Deployment Environment
Finally, this combination of an extensible business process repository to catalog usable services
and business process modeling realizes its greatest potential when deployed in the context of a
fully model-driven, integrated services environment (ISE). The key functionality of the ISE in
this regard is to link deployment directly to the underlying applications model, built using the
BPM tools. This means that changes to the model, which can be necessitated by changes in
business or user requirements, are automatically reflected in the newly revised application. The
promise of rapid re-configuration and deployment provides one of the most important
components of customer ROI: business changes can be rapidly reflected in process and model
changes that, in turn, lead to a dynamic business/IT alignment process that lowers overall IT
costs while significantly improving business responsiveness.

2) Ans:

CRM systems frequently fail because they are too difficult or too complex to use. They don’t
provide enough value to the sales staff for the effort it takes to use them. Required fields and
sales stages don’t match the process that the salesperson follows to close the deal. We have
found that there are four key ways to help align your sales process with your CRM to increase
sales:

1. Define your process before you implement CRM

Define the current steps of your sales process before you start. This is akin to not putting the cart
before the horse. Microsoft Dynamics CRM can support whatever your process, whether it is a
standard sales process or your own invention.

2. Keep the end game in mind

Think about how you want to present the data to all stakeholders, like sales managers, CEOs, and
Board Members – as well as the salespeople themselves – before you start. Work backwards
from those reports to make sure that the information you need is easy to access.

3.Involve Management
All of the stakeholders mentioned above care about how sales information is gathered and
reported. Ask for their input. Defining the sales process with executive involvement helps
provide clarity and transparency. The project should be viewed as a strategic one rather than
simply a tactical effort. Goals need to be articulated up front in order to give focus to the
project. Projects are more likely to succeed with at least one executive sponsor on the team.

4.Stay realistic
Create a realistic sales process and keep it simple. Once the sales process is defined, focus on
the top factors that will make the project a success. Communicate realistic expectations and
timelines to your staff and the stakeholders. Achievable targets help ensure user adoption and
overall project success.

A sales process is a structured methodology and process to help move a prospective customer
through to a sale. Generally a sales process will be customized for your specific business and
industry, under the assumption that most of your customers will be going through the same
process for buying. There are a number of sample sales processes available for different “selling
models”, but the most successful process for your business should be based on your own selling
experience. You should be able to identify which elements have helped close the most deals for
you in the past, and use that to guide your process. You should also be able to track, from your
historical information, which stages of the sales process make the most sense, as well as the
probability a deal will close at any given point. Again, the idea is consistency, both of your
process, and of your target customers – because your customers are all going to have similar
elements to their business (hence their interest in your offerings) you should be able to maximize
your effectiveness in selling to them.
If your business sells across a variety of customer types, it may be necessary to have different
processes for each customer type. However, it is recommended to maintain the same sales stages
across all of your processes to ensure your pipeline reporting is consistent and meaningful.
Having a defined sales process can benefit an organization in a number of ways. First of all, it
will provide a consistent company image and customer experience in the marketplace. When
every salesperson is following the same process, all of your customers (and prospects) will
receive the same treatment. Additionally, should one salesperson need to step into a deal already
underway, they will understand where the prospect is at based on the sales process stage, and
handling the sale that someone else started will be much easier. A structured process will also
help the delivery portions of the company, because they will know exactly when in the sale they
can expect to either be involved or be needed to deliver something to complete the sale. For
example, in a service organization like OTT, a structured process can help define when a project
manager will need to be alerted to a pending project, or when a consultant might need to be
scheduled for a demo. Without a sales process defining when these steps take place, only
minimal advanced planning can take place.
Another key benefit of a sales process is the ability to consolidate sales reporting in a useful and
meaningful manner. As mentioned above, sometimes multiple processes may be needed to
handle different types of customers, or different product lines. However, as long as the processes
share the same stages and probabilities (even if the activities required for each are dramatically
different), a sales pipeline report across the entire organization will still be able to give a good
picture of forecasted revenue and expected resources.
Finally, a sales process will dramatically help in training new sales staff when they enter the
company. Each organization does things differently, and when coming into a new company, a
salesperson will need to be educated on the way the new company does things and expects sales
to be made. When this is structured within the sales tool, such as a process built right into CRM,
training is much easier because the tool the salesperson uses to manage the sale will help guide
them through the steps they need to take.
These guided steps usually take the form of a workflow, which automatically creates new tasks
to advance the sale, and updates the opportunity automatically with the current sales stage
information. In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the versatile workflow engine allows us to generate
the task or tasks that need to be completed in the current stage and wait for those activities to be
complete. Once completed, the workflow will advance to the next stage – updating the
opportunity to the new stage, increasing the probability of a sale for weighted revenue
forecasting, and creating the next task or tasks that need to be completed. Through this process,
the salesperson is guided through making the sale and the information that is automatically
updated keeps management apprised of the current status of all pending deals.
Once you have your sales process designed and ready to use in CRM, you will encounter the
largest hurdle – getting people to use it. This is frequently more difficult than actually designing
or implementing the sales process, and is also the most critical component. The best-designed
process won’t do you any good if nobody is using it after 3 months. Here are some keys to
consider to gain buy-in for your sales process:

1. First and foremost, make sure it is easy to use, and that it will actually assist the sales staff in
managing their opportunities. If it takes too much time to keep CRM up-to-date (or even if it is
perceived as taking too much time), staff will resist doing it and fall back on whatever methods
they were using in the past. The process should help them out and make their lives easier by
providing ways to keep track of their pipeline, the current status on opportunities they are
working, and things they need to do. Once they realize that following the sales process is helping
them stay organized (and once their sales numbers improve through repeated use of the process),
they will be your biggest supporters.

2. Second, drive all reporting out of CRM, and the sales stages within the process. When a
salesperson is meeting with the sales manager to discuss their current deals, the reports they are
looking at should be CRM reports, and those reports should be utilizing information from the
sales process. This helps the salesperson, because they don’t need to compile any extra reports
for their meeting, and it helps their manager because he or she can check out what’s going on
anytime they want by just looking in CRM. The better the reporting in CRM, the less time is
needed to individually review each deal, saving time for both sales staff and management – time
that can then be used to close deals. Additionally, if the credit a salesperson gets for a sale is
determined by the data available in CRM, they will strive to keep that data up-to-date. Consider
basing commissions information on the sales that are tracked in CRM and the accuracy of that
data. The best way to get a salesperson to do something is to tie it to their commission check. If
they can get credit for a completed sale that was not entered in CRM and did not follow the
process, they will quickly learn that they don’t need to use CRM, and you will lose the value of
the process and the reporting.

3. Third, you need to have the support of upper management to enforce usage of the system and
the process. Again, if the salespeople are not required to use the sales process in CRM by their
managers, they will avoid it. If the managers are not viewing the data and reports in CRM, and
are checking their own spreadsheets instead, the sales staff will be more concerned with the
spreadsheets than CRM. Their job is to sell, and to prove they are selling they need to keep their
managers aware of their actions. So they will only put their pipeline data in one spot – the
spot where their manager looks for it. If the manager isn’t looking in CRM for that data, they
have no reason to put it there.
Having a sales process in place can help drive additional sales and revenue for your company,
and managing your sales cycle within a tool like Microsoft Dynamics CRM makes it easier for
salespeople to keep track of their pending opportunities. Additionally, Microsoft Dynamics CRM
excels at providing better and easier reporting and data mining, and helping salespeople stay
organized and selling. By combining the tool and the process, the organization as a whole gains
additional insight into the sales pipeline, driving company growth and long-term success.

3 Ans:

The benefits of CRM solutions are multi-faceted and range from optimization of customer
service response times and satisfaction to reduction of operational cost. Employees can manage
their own 401(k) plans online, employers can manage project schedules and organize employees
remotely, travelers can get flight times and transportation updates automatically, and financial
transactions are immediate and seamless. The goal of CRM solutions is to establish relationships
with customers on an individual basis, and then use that information to treat different customers
differently. The exchange between a customer and a company then becomes mutually beneficial.

CRM benefits are multiple - both quantitative and qualitative - and as unique as the businesses
using them. Any organization that suffers from information overload, whether it's keeping track
of clients, transactions, or providing efficient customer service, will benefit from implementing a
CRM Solution. CRM works to organize all aspects of the vendor-customer relationship into one
easily navigable format.
Small businesses suffering from large amounts customer paperwork - due to things like credit
cards and credit accounts - can use Customer Relationship Management software to keep track of
transactions, and link that to their inventory. Call centers can use CRM to identify a customer
before the call is taken, and quickly access their purchase history as well as any previous
customer service transaction notes, thereby saving time and money. Medium size businesses can
integrate CRM solutions with their accounting records, automate quarterly customer reports and
eliminate third party services. CRM can significantly cut the amount of outsourcing any business
has to do for most aspects of Customer Relationship Management, and greatly reduce overhead
costs.

CRM has also helped to increase access to and reliability of company, market, and client
information. CRM solution enables investment firms to significantly increase investor activity by
providing current and reliable investment information - including complete customer portfolio
information - online. Consumers are more confident and comfortable making purchases online
because they are able to read and access product reviews. People get better medical care because
health organizations have accurate and immediate access to drug and health information. The
benefits of CRM solutions - financially and sevice-wise, are both immediate and long-term for
vendors and their customers.

CRM makes doing business online much faster and easier. Businesses small and large have
found CRM solutions to be beneficial - and essential - to their success, growth, development, and
return on investment (ROI).\ The standard CRM definition that includes better serving existing
customers and developing services for new ones can also include CRM as a business practice
that combines software solutions with business objectives to develop company-client
relationships. When CRM is effective, it improves internal processes within the business and
personalizes the organization's external relationships. The overall benefits of CRM software
include extending the company's value across the firm through data integration, increasing
customer retention and loyalty, and responding effectively to competition in the marketplace.

Listed below are seven specific CRM software benefits that result from superior customer data
collection that in turn helps better manage relationships with customers. Acting together, they
form the right framework for a successful CRM solution. Examples of CRM software vendors
include SAS and Oracle for larger corporations and SalesForce.com and Sales Pro CRM for
smaller organizations.

Top seven CRM software benefits

1: Increased revenue and profits -- Finding the right CRM software that matches companies'
strategies and objectives allows management to develop a plan for increasing sales and profits
for the long term. CRM software makes sales data and forecast information all immediately
accessible and permits decision-makers to accurately study revenue and expenses to decide
where to cut costs, decide how much inventory to stock, and determine what discounts may be
allowed.

2: Improved capture of sales leads -- When companies generate a large amount of leads, they can
then increase their sales and revenues. With an automated workflow system that includes set
timers, CRM software enables the sales team to view leads on the computer screen and then see
those leads disappear when they become customers. In addition, CRM software creates specific
sales territories so that the sales team can manage their areas via CRM generated reports that
give complete, concise information.
Flexibility through scalability -- Scalability is an especially important factor for expanding small-
and medium-sized businesses who wish to develop their customer offerings in the near future,
but don't wish to outlay a great deal of money for their CRM software solution. Many CRM
solutions, like SalesProCRM offer a package that requires no software installation on the user's
computer and gives new users the confidence to slowly build their system to match their needs.

Other CRM vendors allow smaller companies to rent licenses and to then have that vendor
manage and maintain their CRM solution, which leaves small companies free to perform other
day-to-day tasks. Once the business gains more customers and wishes to expand their CRM
capabilities, the CRM vendor can offer the company user licenses, which require yearly
maintenance fees, but give the company complete autonomy from the CRM vendor. Having a
license may give the company a greater sense of security, since vital customer data is now only
housed in their IP network.

Some CRM software solutions for small businesses use web-based solutions to share data with
other applications such as Microsoft Outlook and ACT! which helps these companies integrate a
CRM solution into their business plan, while lessening their administrative time.

1) Improved customer service -- The CRM software should include access to centralized
customer data as well as e-mail templates that allows CRM associates to quickly key in
on important customer details and communicate effectively with those customers when
they need assistance with their services or products. This customer information has been
captured from either point-of-sale (POS) systems or through sales and purchase data.
2) Increased cross-selling and up-selling opportunities for existing customers Businesses
make money when they keep their customers through loyalty, more than by depleting
their resources trying to find new customers. With "A-list" sales leads in hand from call
centers, surveys, and other inquires, along with the existing customer data, customer
service reps or the sales team can offer expanded services to their customers.
3) Accessible decision-driving information -- When the CRM software solution contains a
competitor tracking function, management and the sales team can access these reports to
identify trends, measure and forecast sales, track sales processes, and evaluate their own
business performance. The CRM software also includes access to important resources
such as brochures, white papers, and competitor reports.
4) Improved customer profiling and target marketing -- In order to know customers and
serve their needs, the CRM software system must be able to capture customer details like
present accounts, pending orders, and payment history. The centralized database is also
integral for customer profiling and for predicting what services that customer may need
in the future.

Making customers count and stay

The concept of CRM has existed in the business world for a long time, but in recent years CRM
use has grown because of better technology access and database integration. Companies should
investigate CRM solutions to keep their existing customers and serve their unique needs. If
companies focus on delivering exceptional service that is tailored for these customers, then, they
will build loyalty, which will in turn build revenue.

Finding the right CRM solution is an investment for the company and the company's executives
need to wholeheartedly support the new CRM solution. This solution must fit within the
company's objectives and staff must be trained, or the CRM solution will go to waste if sales
leads aren't captured correctly, or if additional customer windows of the CRM software aren't
accessed by the right people in a timely fashion. Although somewhat costly, businesses know
that when they lose a customer due to inefficiency or delays, they will lose revenue and potential
revenue when that upset customer tells ten or more associates of his or her negative experience.

A CRM solution used by a trained staff with the company's goals in mind will promote shorter
sales cycles, reduce administrative costs, require less time to track down information, improve
reporting and give quicker issue turnaround time, increase sales closing rates, and improve
customer retention. As a result, CRM software solutions allow companies to escape revenue
plateaus by capturing new customers, retaining existing ones, and by better managing their
business.