case4 customer relationship management heads to the cloud

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Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1 CASE STUDY 4.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT HEADS TO THE CLOUD INTRODUCTION Salesforce is the worlds' first and most popular CRM system headquartered in San Francisco with more than 82,000 companies and over 100,000 customers rely on this dynamic, web-based, low- cost CRM platform. It was founded in March 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16 different languages and currently has 82,400 regular customers and over 2,100,000 subscribers. Salesforce CRM provides a complete solution for that includes feature-rich solutions for marketing, sales, services, partner management and community management. 1 MBA_Batch2_UMK_Kch/M7/GST5803/Information System and E-Commerce/P14D397P

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Page 1: Case4 customer relationship management heads to the  cloud

Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1

CASE STUDY 4.1

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT HEADS TO THE CLOUD

INTRODUCTION

Salesforce is the worlds' first and most popular CRM

system headquartered in San Francisco with more than 82,000

companies and over 100,000 customers rely on this dynamic, web-

based, low-cost CRM platform. It was founded in March 1999 by

former Oracle executive Marc Benioff. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16

different languages and currently has 82,400 regular customers and over 2,100,000

subscribers. Salesforce CRM provides a complete solution for that includes feature-rich

solutions for marketing, sales, services, partner management and community management.

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Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1

SALESFORCE CRM

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing leader. Their social and mobile cloud

technologies - including flagship sales and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

application which help companies connect with customers, partners, and employees in

entirely new ways. Salesforce CRM technology can streamline and automate their business

processes with the cutting edge, logistical advantages of cloud computing technology.

Synchronization across all channels, optimized internal collaboration and better access to

proven data provide a greatly enhanced customer experience. It is low cost, low risk cloud

based solution software service. Complete solution includes feature-rich solution for

marketing, sales, service, partner management and community management. It produced fast

result because it drain resources on high value, low cost and focus on innovation.

Salesforce is divided into different sets of tools referred to as "clouds” :

(i) Sales Cloud

• Sales Cloud helps to sell products and Services, manage connection with customer,

and close more deals. Sales Cloud include Chatter, Social Contact, Marketing and

Leads, Data.com, Opportunities and quotes, Approval and Work process, Files and

Libraries, Analytics and Forecasting, Partner Management, AppExchange, Email and

calendaring

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Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1

(ii) Service Cloud

• Service cloud increase agent productivity, reduces service costs, and gain better

visibility into Service Organization. It includes Customer Portal, Live Agent, Contract

and entitlement

(iii) Collaboration Cloud

• Collabration cloud consist of Salesforce Chatter and Radian6 service cloud which

helps to connect with co-workers, customers, and partners to share experience and

information across.

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Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1

(iv) Custom Cloud

• Custom Cloud is infrastructure used to for building customized cloud application

development for automation, analytics and approval processes.

Types of applications

• Partners built ERP on Salesforce

• Human oriented size

• Structured Data

• Like approval process

• Internet & Portal type of applications

• Long-tail apps

HOW SALESFORCE IS USEFUL

Salesforce.com offers a conclusive concept to deliver an easy to use CRM Software as a

service using a dynamic, scale free cloud computing approach. This satisfies the customer

demand and leverages cost benefits for the customers of Salesforce.com. Salesforce does a lot

to create a productive, collaborative CRM environment. The success of Salesforce.com is

based on an excellent management, a clear company strategy and a business model, which

uses cutting edge technology combined with a developer community and an easy to use

platform, which is delivered in a very cost effective manner.

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Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1

QUESTION 1What type of companies are most likely to adopt cloud-based CRM software services?

Why? What companies might not be well suited for this type of software?

The types of companies that adopt cloud-base CRM software service is small businesses that

find the on demand model especially appealing because there are no large up-front hardware

and software investments or lengthy implementation on corporate computer system.

Saleforce’s e-mail and Web-to-lead capabilities helped company quadruple new sales leads.

A task feature automatically generate specific task based on the type of lead and the stage in

the sales process. The system automates customer service functions including order

confirmation, follow up customer satisfaction surveys and shipping notification. Cloud base

software service also appeals to large companies. The system with automated reports and

dashboards monitoring key performance indicators, sales calls, and sales volume. 

CRM software service also help to create more successful marketing campaign. Not all

companies experience gains of that magnitude and cloud computing does have drawback.

Companies that manage their CRM apps with a cloud infrastructure have no guarantees that

their data will be available at all time, or even that the provider will still exist in the future.

Companies which might not be well-suited for this type of software are those companies from

small to middle-sized companies. Large firms in fast paced evolving industries are also not

suited for ERP and CRM cloud-based software. Employees must learn how to perform a new

set of work activities. This requires new organizational learning and provides training for

them. Companies that are unable to accept the changes and also provides training for their

employees will be not be suggested to use this type of software. For the vast majority of

businesses, modern commercial cloud applications provide exceptionally high levels of

security, including data protection and back-up, and are usually more secure than the majority

of on-premise applications. 

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QUESTION 2What are the advantages and disadvantages of using cloud-based enterprise applications?

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Cost Efficiency

This is the biggest advantage of cloud computing, achieved by the elimination of the investment in stand-alone software or servers. By leveraging cloud’s capabilities, companies can save on licensing fees and at the same time eliminate overhead charges such as the cost of data storage, software updates, management.

Security and privacy in the Cloud

Security is the biggest concern when it comes to cloud computing. By leveraging a remote cloud based infrastructure, a company essentially gives away private data and information, things that might be sensitive and confidential. It is then up to the cloud service provider to manage, protect and retain them, thus the provider’s reliability is very critical.

Backup and Recovery

The process of backing up and recovering data is simplified since those now reside on the cloud and not on a physical device. The various cloud providers offer reliable and flexible backup/recovery solutions. In some cases, the cloud itself is used solely as a backup repository of the data located in local computers.

Limited control and flexibility

Since the applications and services run on remote, third party virtual environments, companies and users have limited control over the function and execution of the hardware and software. Moreover, since remote software is being used, it usually lacks the features of an application running locally.

Increased Storage Capacity

The cloud can accommodate and store much more data compared to a personal computer and in a way offers almost unlimited storage capacity. It eliminates worries about running out of storage space and at the same time It spares businesses the need to upgrade their computer hardware, further reducing the overall IT cost

Increased Vulnerability

Related to the security and privacy mentioned before, note that cloud based solutions are exposed on the public internet and are thus a more vulnerable target for malicious users and hackers. Nothing on the Internet is completely secure and even the biggest players suffer from serious attacks and security breaches. Due to the interdependency of the system, If there is a compromise one one of the machines that data is stored, there might be a leakage of personal information to the world.

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Dependency and vendor lock-in

One of the major disadvantages of cloud computing is the implicit dependency on the provider. This is what the industry calls “vendor lock-in” since it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to migrate from a provider once you have rolled with him. If a user wishes to switch to some other provider, then it can be really painful and cumbersome to transfer huge data from the old provider to the new one. This is another reason why you should carefully and thoroughly contemplate all options when picking a vendor.

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QUESTION 3What people, organization and technology issues should be addressed in deciding whether

to use a conventional CRM system versus a cloud-based version?

People will provide firm wide information to support decision making. They also will enable

rapid responses to customer requests for information or products. Besides, removing

hardware and its complications are companies not suited for ERP and CRM. People also can

made large investments on traditional and customized solutions that already work. Here are

the issues that should be addressed in deciding whether to use a conventional CRM system or

a cloud-based version:

(i) Management:

Service Level Agreements (SLAs): there is lack of SLAs concerning ERP and CRM

cloud based solutions and of methods to ease their respective verification.

Risk Assessment: it is hard to assess the risk when the company does not own the

infrastructure that supports the ERP and CRM systems.

Dependability: companies using cloud based CRM and ERP solutions might become

dependent of their providers since they do not store the data, and might not be able

to easily export it to another system if required.

(ii) Organization:

Human Resource Optimization: while traditional ERP and CRM solutions demand

for technical staff, cloud based solutions allows to optimized HR to focus on

operation.

(iii) Technology:

Security; using the web as infrastructure, cloud based ERP and CRM solutions

suffer have difficulties in offering security comfort to companies that own sensible

data.

Availability; due to the web failure tolerant model, cloud based ERP and CRM

solutions suffer from availability issues that might cause business operation failures.

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