Cloud-Based Computing: Providing an Advantage to a Small New Zealand Wine Business

B eing asked to make a short speech as part of accepting the award inevitably leads to some introspection and reflection on major factors that have influenced one’s career, be they events or individuals. Past recipients of the award have been very influential in putting management accounting on the map. Some have been instrumental in developing the way we think about management accounting and teach the subject; some have developed important perspectives such as information economics, combining economics with psychology, the importance of national culture, activity-based cost management, and balanced scorecards. The way these recipients developed their thoughts is well told in their acceptance speeches and collectively provides a wealth of ideas and a historical perspective on the development of our discipline. I commenced my studies in economics, and I maintain a keen interest in economic approaches to management accounting. However, early in my academic career, I was pressed into considering an organizational approach to management accounting, not because it was an easier option; rather it addressed the world of management accounting within which I found myself. In this address, I will share with you some personal reflections on the process of my discoveries in the area of organizational approaches to management accounting from the mid-1960s. The backdrop to this address is that research is something of a growth model. Stage 1: starting from a baseline of skills and knowledge gained at undergraduate studies; stage 2: progressing through refinement of skills with more graduate study; and stage 3: consolidating through work toward publications and other academic outputs. Stages 1 and 2 are somewhat planned and incremental, while stage 3 is more often associated with less ordered processes, often stumbling across potential research areas by way of reading and personal interactions. Research projects can be focused around existing ideas, sometimes being somewhat formulaic, sometimes highly innovative. Often ideas can be serendipitous and develop in unpredictable ways. The key is to recognize when there is a management accounting angle that will relate to an important organizational or social issue.

Factors affecting customer relationship management practices in Thai academic libraries

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) plays a crucial role for businesses as technology advances and consumer demands continue to rise. However, CRM implementation faces challenges from both external and internal factors within an organization. Ineffective CRM implementation can lead to customer dissatisfaction, decreased loyalty, reduced profitability, and missed business opportunities. This research aims to improve the MILKY CRM loyalty program by identifying the key root causes and proposing alternative solutions, ultimately determining the best alternative to enhance the program. The methodology includes in-depth interviews and analysis using the Kepner-Tregoe framework, which involves problem analysis, decision analysis, and potential problem analysis. Supported by external and internal analyses such as Porter’s Five Forces, Customer Journey Mapping, and an Integrated CRM Scorecard, the results are then utilized for a SWOT analysis. The problem analysis identified 21 attributes as the root causes affecting MILKY CRM loyalty program performance. These attributes include Consumer Behaviour Change, Aggressiveness of Competitors, CRM Agency Capability, Healthcare Apps Strategic Partnership, Potential New Segments generated by New Entrants, CRM Differentiation, Strong Brand Reputation, Content Management, Ability Services Program, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience Improvement, Win Back Lapsed Customers, Incomplete metrics tracking on CRM scorecard, Financial Budget Constraints, Personalization Services & Rewards, Digital Acquisition Transition, Segmentation & Tiering Review, Balancing Strategy on Customer Acquisition & Retention, IT System Capabilities, and Human Capability on CRM. In the decision analysis section, alternative solutions were generated through TOWS analysis, and the best alternative was determined using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) tool. The top chosen strategy, Strategy #2: Optimizing CRM & Organizational Strategies for Enhanced Customer Engagement & Operational Efficiency (W/O Strategies), is recommended for future improvement. Focus areas include communication, resources, technology, and KPI metrics to mitigate potential problems. Overall, this research provides valuable insights and recommendations for enhancing the performance of the MILKY CRM loyalty program, ensuring its effectiveness in meeting customer needs and driving business success.

Customer relationship management (CRM) entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customers, whether it is marketing, (pre-)sales or service related. In the last decade companies more and more recognized the importance of CRM, especially in dynamic industry sectors like telecommunications. However, companies did not always achieve the anticipated benefits of implementations of CRM strategies through, for example, information technology (IT-)deployment. In this paper we present a CRM framework for telcos which is based on the concepts of maturity and business/IT-alignment and which provides directions for a company's CRM strategy in order to obtain CRM performance benefits. The framework was applied to and validated at a Caribbean telco. The telco of study was in the phase of starting a CRM IT-deployment. The telco adopted the (from the framework) resulting CRM strategy by incorporating the identified gaps and suggestions in the project planning. More cases should further validate the soundness of the framework

This case study is aimed at developing an understanding of the various aspects and issues concerning the implementation of a knowledge-enabled customer relationship management (KCRM) strategy at a telecommunications company in a developing country. The KCRM program was composed of three major parts: enterprise data warehouse (EDW), operational customer relationship management (CRM), and analytical CRM. The KCRM initiative was designed to automate and streamline business processes across sales, service, and fulfillment channels. The KCRM program is targeted at achieving an integrated view of customers, maintaining long-term customer relationship, and enabling a more customer-centric and efficient go-to-market strategy. The company faced deregulation after many years of monopoly. The company initiated a customer-centric knowledge management program, and pursued understanding customers’ needs and forming relationships with customers, instead of only pushing products and services to the market. The major result of the case study was that the KCRM program ended as an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) project. The company did not succeed in implementing KCRM as a business strategy, but did succeed in implementing it as a transactional processing system. Several challenges and problems were faced during and after the implementation phase. Notable among these was that the CRM project complexity and responsibilities were underestimated, and as a result, the operational CRM solution was not mature enough to effectively and efficiently automate CRM processes. Changing organizational culture also required a tremendous effort and pain in terms of moving toward customer-centric strategy, policy and procedures, as well as sharing of knowledge in a big organization with many business silos. Employees’ resistance to change posed a great challenge to the project. As a conclusion, the KCRM case study qualified as a good case of bad implementation.

Factors affecting customer relationship management practices in Thai academic libraries

This article is directed towards information technology (IT) and marketing managers considering implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) solution. The goal of this article is not to provide an all‐inclusive tutorial on CRM, but rather to provide a high level insight of the fundamental principles behind CRM and critical aspects of the IT development process. The article begins with an IT manager’s introduction into the basic CRM business and marketing principles. At the heart of the article is a proposed system development lifecycle that highlights the aspects unique or critical to CRM. Finally, it concludes with some final thoughts for long‐term success. After reading this article, the reader will be mindful of the major issues needed for success and be equipped to discuss primary development matters with vendors, staff and management.

This paper performs an investigation on measuring the effect of different factors on customer relationship management (CRM) for different branches of an Iranian banks located in various regions of city of Tehran, Iran.The proposed study selects a sample of 275 managers and using structural equation modeling examines the effects of five variables including CRM knowledge, employment's information technology skills, specialty, strategic use, CRM performance on the performance of CRM.Cronbach alpha has been calculated for the questionnaire as 0.881, which is well above the minimum acceptable level.The survey has concluded that there were meaningful relationships between all four mentioned variables and performance of CRM.In other words, knowledge and information technology influence on improving employments' skills, which increase strategic use of CRM components and this would improve CRM performance.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an old phenomenon. However, there is no consensus on the definition of the term. The absence of a universal definition cause organisations to struggle to decide on what constitute CRM. While we acknowledge the diversity in the term CRM, we diverge from the view that it is exclusively relevant for driving sales and retaining profitable customers in for profit organisations. In this study we diverge from that view and present a CRM narrative within the context of a not for profit public institution. Using a practitioner-based inquiry, we explored the various CRM initiatives which a Higher Education (HE) institution implemented to achieve effective Information Technology (IT) service delivery. We describe these different CRM initiatives and their implications to effective IT service delivery. Our findings contradict the norm that CRM is for profitability purposes. The study revealed that CRM is a significant part of effective IT service delivery in not for profit public institutions and in situations where clients are internal. In addition to that, our study present alternative CRM initiatives with potential positive outcomes which other not for profit public institutions can implement to resolve CRM difficulties and to improve IT service delivery.

3 - The Analyst's View of CRM

There is a growing body of academic and practitioner literature on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), most of the research in this field being conducted in the Western context. In the emerging countries of Asia, the difference is not only about the level of technology adoption and infrastructure, but also about the way decisions are made the and technology is used to form relations, and the deeply-rooted values of employees and customers who drive the competitive performance of CRM. These contextual peculiarities of CRM have got important implications for the sources of competitive performance in the process of CRM. It has been well accepted that CRM is a strategic initiative. But, surprisingly, the CRM literature is largely silent on the issue of competitive reaction in dynamic markets of emerging Asian economies. In such markets, the domain of CRM is characterized by lots of changes. Managers cannot rely on only static firm's resources that they have assembled to take CRM decisions and drive competitive advantage. Drawing from the theoretical argument in strategic management, i.e., dynamic capability approach, this study identifies sources of competitive performance for the process of CRM in dynamic capability. It is an organization's ability to continuously improve, innovate, and reconfigure resources to match the evolving environmental needs. Information technology (IT) competence has been considered as an important moderator of the relationship between dynamic capability and competitive performance. The study articulates the drivers of dynamic capability for CRM. Further, the study investigates the main effects, as well as the interaction effects of IT and dynamic capability on competitive performance of the CRM process. A questionnaire survey has been conducted, and data collected from a sample of 334 cross-functional executives of 29 organizations from Indian banking, telecom, and retail industry. Some of the important findings of the study are as follows: In the emerging markets of Asia, dynamic capability played a crucial role in gaining competitive CRM performance across all three industries. In the highly dynamic and competitive Indian telecom industry, the dynamic capability played the most important role. Important drivers of dynamic capability also include social networking capability with the other capabilities related to integration and market orientation. Contrary to the findings of the few studies in the Western context, CRM technology had positive effects on competitive CRM performance; it also enhanced the dynamic capability- competitive CRM performance relationships. In the absence of appropriate dynamic capabilities in the CRM process, the use of CRM technology might do more harm than good.

This study focuses on the influence of training courses, customer relationship and human resource management on customer focus among construction companies. This is due to the lack of information on its effectiveness. These problems may explain why the main players are less responsive to the implementation and practice of a mediating effect of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Human Resource management (HRM) on the relationship between Training Courses (TC) and Customer Focus (CF). It is essential that an appropriate model of CRM and HRM be used by administrators and professionals. The proposed model is based on the dependent variable, CF, and the independent variables, TC and mediator (CRM, HRM). This research is a descriptive-survey and inferential type based on the data collection method where parametric tests were used with the help of SPSS. The results of this research can be used in decision making, policy making, and also planning. In conclusion, it can be inferred that the relationship between CRM and HRM is still at its infancy stage, and as such, serious attention is needed among the players in the development of construction companies.

With the market shift toward a customer focused behavior, many companies have invested huge amounts in customer relationship management (CRM) technology and many of these investments have remained with little payback. Meanwhile other studies have shown the positive impact of customer orientation on firm performance. While many companies view CRM as an information technology (IT) solution, literature shows that IT in itself can not be held responsible for the ultimate success or failure of the business strategy. After classifying CRM resources as ldquotechnological CRM resourcesrdquo, ldquohuman CRM resourcesrdquo and ldquoOrganizational CRM resourcesldquo and based on resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, this study examines the relationship between CRM resources and CRM process capabilities and links it to performance. The results of the empirical study revealed that companies which have deployed the CRM resources more, have better process capabilities and also better financial performance.

In recent years, based on the current status and development prospects of social media technology applications, as well as the reality that enterprises are beginning to operate within the customer ecosystem, traditional customer relationship management （CRM）, which focuses on customer transactions and process automation, is no longer suitable to today’s business environment. Therefore, social CRM, which establishes the relationship between business and customers through social media in the form of two-way collaborative dialogue, came into being, and attracted extensive attention from the academic community. Scholars from different fields have explored social CRM from multiple perspectives. However, there are some problems in the study of social CRM at present, such as the divergence of conceptual understanding, the contradiction of some research conclusions, the relative dispersion of research and the existence of theoretical gaps, especially the exploration of local related problems by domestic scholars is in its infancy. In order to clarify the development of social CRM, this paper systematically reviews the existing research results of social CRM. Firstly, this paper expounds the necessity of transforming from traditional CRM to social CRM by analyzing the adaptability advantages of social CRM in constructing two-way communication channels between enterprises and customers, improving the insight of enterprises to social customers, and promoting the co-creation of enterprises and customer value. Secondly, by summing up the concept definition of social CRM by different researchers, this paper divides the three conceptual perspectives of social CRM: strategic strategy perspective, process integration perspective and technological innovation perspective, and shows the differences in conceptual understanding of existing research in the form of tables. At the same time, this paper summarizes the differences between social CRM and traditional CRM in terms of customer positioning, data mining, business focus, technical tools and value creation, and further defines the connotation definition and essential characteristics of social CRM. Thirdly, according to the different research priorities, this paper systematically demonstrates the influence of social factors, organizational factors and technical factors on the construction and implementation of social CRM, and analyzes the differences between the influencing factors of social CRM and the influencing factors of traditional CRM. Fourthly, through the comparison with traditional CRM, this paper shows the positive utility of social CRM to the employee level, such as the employee’s attitude, professional ability and service level, as well as its positive utility at the enterprise level, such as customer insight, business and customer relationship and market performance, and points out the theoretical gap of social CRM effect research at the customer level. Finally, this paper constructs a social CRM research integration model, which vividly presents the research status of socialized CRM, based on the deficiencies and gaps found in the literature review, prospects the future research directions of socialized CRM concepts, empirical studies and localization studies, and puts forward innovative and constructive thinking, hoping to provide reference for the follow-up research and practice.

Recent research and studies have shown that Information Technology (IT) has a significant impact on service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer relationship development. With the proliferation and penetration of technology in all aspects of life, organizations are responding to the implications and opportunities that IT creates in relation to customer services. The main objective of using information technology in organizations is to increase customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer relationship management, which the authors will focus on here. Enhancing service quality, improving customer satisfaction, and establishing close and sustainable customer relationships are key advantages of leveraging information technology in this field. This article examines the impact of information technology on service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer relationship development and provides strategies and models for organizations to improve customer satisfaction and establish closer connections with them through the use of information technology. Seventy individuals from the IT field were used to evaluate the proposed model. The proposed model was compared with three models: SEM, regression, and decision tree, and the results demonstrated better performance of this approach.