eCRM Gap Analysis

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eCRM Gap Analysis

An eCRM gap analysis applied on Atos Origin TUM client groups

E. J. Wiersema University of Groningen

Faculty of Management and Organisation student number: 1405632 email: e.j.wiersema.1@student.rug.nl Version 1.0 Status: final 10-4-2007 Supervisors Ir. R. K. Rabbers

Atos Origin TUM S & D

Prof. dr. ir. J.C. Wortmann

Faculty of Management and Organisation University of Groningen

Dr. T. W. de Boer

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MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

The subject of this report is customer relationship management (CRM). The definition of CRM is a

management approach that enables organisations to identify, attract and increase retention of profitable customers, by managing relationships with them (Bradshaw & Brash, 2001). In other

words, CRM aims at integrating business processes as marketing, sales and customer support in order to build long-term relationships with customers. While multi-channelling is possible in the CRM process, this research focuses on CRM via internet; electronic CRM (eCRM). With eCRM, a (potential) client of Atos Origin TUM is able to generate a customer profile and track customers by means of self-service technologies. The benefit of eCRM is that it can be used to enhance the customer loyalty by offering personalised products and services, which are related to customer profiles. This paper aims at describing an eCRM infrastructure for (potential) clients of Atos Origin TUM. To be able to achieve this objective, a desk research (literature review and a review of Atos Origin TUM client websites) was conducted, to create such infrastructure. Further a field research was conducted in the form of interviews with Atos Origin TUM consultants. The outcome of the research indicated opportunities for Atos Origin TUM to fill the gap between the current eCRM infrastructure and the to-be infrastructure. The gap analysis indicated several functionalities are missing in the current eCRM infrastructure, as the absence of customer-to-customer

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SHORT TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...4

1 INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH CONTEXT...7

2 CRM PROCESSES: eTOM ...13

3 eCRM INFRASTRUCTURE ...20

4 eCRM AS-IS ...28

5 eCRM TO-BE ...35

6 GAP ANALYSIS ...40

7 CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS...47

8 DEFINITIONS...49

9 REFERENCES ...50

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1 INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH CONTEXT

This chapter provides the background for the research on the eCRM Gap Analysis conducted at Atos Origin TUM Groningen. Further, it formulates the description of the project context and the research structure.

1.1 Atos Origin TUM

Atos Origin is an international company delivering ICT services and consulting. The research and the results of this research were created at Atos Origin, within the department of Telecom, Utilities & Media (TUM), the section of Solution & Design, in Groningen. This report and the conducted research were supervised by this company as employer, whose responsibility it was to draw requirements and guidelines. Atos Origin TUM is a department within Atos Origin, which is presently setting up an IT-laboratory in co-operation with the University of Groningen, to ensure the intake of new technology, knowledge and new talent to Atos Origin TUM. The research subject of 2006 in the IT-laboratory is the Sales Support System in an all IP based digital lifestyle. The Sales Support System unites the supply and demand on the virtual sales market. The Sales Support System is part of the company’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions.

1.2 Context description

The context in which this research took place is described in this section, starting with the topic, then the research question, the objectives and finally the scope of the research.

1.2.1 Topic

Customer relationship management is a management approach that enables organisations to

identify, attract and increase retention of profitable customers, by managing relationships with them (Bradshaw & Brash, 2001). CRM is important for a company to maximise the profit in the

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its customers and vice versa. This retention can help companies to reduce costs and stay competitive, since some Atos Origin TUM clients will not be able to keep up with their

competitors if cost reduction is not obtained. Another way of reducing costs and increasing profit by CRM is cross and up selling. Further CRM is useful for capturing market share and creating customer loyalty (for example by raising the barriers for customers to prevent them to change to a competitor). Next to the benefits, several disadvantages can occur in the deployment of CRM. One is the possibility of failures in the implementation and another one is a possible lack of

management strategy and finally the loss of customers.

CRM as described above, can only be useful by implementing a strategy of alignment and integration of marketing, sales and customer support processes. On the other hand, optimising customer contact and the gathering of customer data from business processes and functions within a company, is a part of CRM which needs to be realised in order to reap the aforementioned benefits. The gathering of data is done by means of CRM application infrastructures, which are used by Atos Origin TUM´s clients. This report will address the latter side of CRM, the gathering of customer data and customer contact. The gathering of customer data can be achieved by addressing several channels, such as call centres, mail or internet. For example, the CRM

application infrastructure as used by call centres, allows call centre agents to access opportunities for cross and up selling. Other functionalities of these infrastructures are order entry, sales, reporting of interruptions and billing, based on customer data. Further CRM application infrastructures are used by dealers for ordering products. Since Atos Origin TUM is strongly focussing on an IP-based lifestyle, this research focuses on IP-based CRM or electronic CRM (eCRM). The concept of an eCRM infrastructure is part of the CRM application infrastructure and approachable by customers via the internet.

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eCRM domain Call centre Internet Shop Customer CRM infrastructure

Figure 1: CRM and eCRM

With eCRM, a (potential) client of Atos Origin TUM is able to generate a customer profile and to track customers by means of self-service technologies. Once a customer profile is created,

companies are able to create customer loyalty. The loyalty in the eCRM field is called eLoyalty; generating customer binding in an online environment. The eLoyalty is created by offering personalised products and services, which are related to customer profiles.

1.2.2 Research question

Since Atos Origin TUM believes in the growing importance of eCRM, the department is interested in future opportunities of software development in this field. These opportunities should help Atos Origin TUM to ensure their position in the providing of eCRM software. To be able to indicate the opportunities, this paper aims at describing an eCRM infrastructure that can be used by Atos Origin TUM as a framework to design eCRM software for (potential) clients. The eCRM

infrastructure is a description of what eCRM software should be able to conduct and what it looks like. The opportunities of such infrastructure can be reaped by Atos Origin TUM when the

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describing the current situation of the existing eCRM infrastructure at several of Atos Origin TUM´s clients.

The paper is written in the Atos Origin TUM IT-laboratory, in cooperation with the University of Groningen. The input of the university ensures the input of scientific methodologies and theories and scientific validation of the provided framework. The relevance of the research from a scientific point of view is the construction of an eCRM framework, which enables a company to automate processes and to lower the costs. For defining the direction of the research conducted at Atos Origin TUM, the research question as defined by the employer and the researcher is:

Which eCRM infrastructure should (potential) clients of Atos Origin TUM use and what is their current eCRM infrastructure?

The research question is divided in the following sub questions:

- What is the as-is Atos Origin TUM clients’ eCRM infrastructure? - What is the to-be Atos Origin TUM clients’ eCRM infrastructure?

These sub questions are applicable to a certain number of Atos Origin TUM clients, as investigated in this paper. The answers to these sub questions are clarified throughout the following chapters of this paper.

1.2.3 Objectives

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1.2.4 Scope

This research focuses on Atos Origin TUM clients. The object is eCRM, as implemented for and used by clients of Atos Origin TUM as a means of business-to-consumer communication. These clients are active in the telecom (telephone, internet and television), utilities (energy) and media (radio, TV and publishers) businesses. ECRM can also be implemented as a means of business-to-business communication, which is not in the scope of this research.

1.3 Research structure

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Table 1: objective and type of research

Objective Research type

Describe CRM processes Desk research: literature review concerning CRM processes Draw requirements for eCRM infrastructure Desk research: literature review concerning eCRM

infrastructures Describe the characteristics of the different Atos

Origin TUM client groups

Field research: interviews with Atos Origin TUM experts on client groups

Describe the as-is Atos Origin TUM client groups´ eCRM infrastructures

Desk research: web analysis

Field research: interviews with Atos Origin TUM experts on client groups

Describe the to-be Atos Origin TUM clients groups’ eCRM infrastructures

Field research: interviews with Atos Origin TUM consultants and analysis of annual reports of Atos Origin TUM clients

Describe differences between as-is and to-be eCRM infrastructures of Atos Origin TUM client groups (gap analysis)

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2 CRM PROCESSES: eTOM

To be able to offer clients a complete eCRM infrastructure, Atos Origin TUM should build an eCRM infrastructure that can support at least the current CRM processes of their clients. To describe the business processes which such an eCRM infrastructure should support, the Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) model is explained. This model is designed by the

TeleManagement Forum and used as a standard by companies in the telecommunications industry to describe the layout of their business processes. Since the telecommunications market is the most important client of Atos Origin TUM and part of the eTOM model contains a description of the business processes that are indicated as CRM processes, the model is used to indicate the CRM processes. The layout of the eTOM model is displayed in figure 2.

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The processes used for this paper are the processes from the functionally related CRM process grouping. This view is displayed in figure 3. The processes within the CRM process grouping are described in the following sections, as defined by the TeleManagement Forum.

Figure 3: eTOM CRM process grouping

2.1 Operations support & readiness

The operations support & readiness process area describes the business processes needed to manage and support the process areas of fulfilment, assurance and billing. This process area describes the processes that are performed by company management. In the case of the CRM functional grouping, the operations support & readiness process is called CRM support & readiness.

2.1.1 CRM support & readiness

The employees working in the CRM support & readiness process are managing the availability of products, materials, resources and capability for supporting the CRM processes. Further they control and monitor the other CRM processes in the fulfilment, assurance and billing process areas. This process will require interaction such as entering new product data and ensuring the

availability of staff.

2.2 Fulfilment

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2.2.1 Customer interface management

Customer interface management is the process in which employees manage the interfaces between a company and (potential) customers. The employees analyse the reasons of inbound and outbound contact and redirects the contacts. The customer interface management covers the fulfilment, assurance and billing process areas. The goals of this process is to:

- Manage contacts between the company and customers. This function can identify

customers and monitor the status in which a customer is situated.

- Manage requests between a company and its customers. The function can carry out a

request by a customer or, if necessary, forward a request.

- Analyse and report on a customer to create reports on customer requests.

- Mediate & orchestrate customer interactions to manage the structure of interaction

between the company and its customers.

2.2.2 Retention & loyalty

Employees responsible for retention & loyalty within a company deal with retaining the existing customers. The process is carried out by employees who analyse data in a company. The aims of this process are to:

- Establish & terminate a customer relationship to create, manage and end customer

relationships.

- Build customer insight to build insight of a customer, by analysing a customer profile and

customer history.

- Analyse & manage customer risk to identify and prevent risk by applying a risk analysis on

customers.

- Personalise customer profiles for retention & loyalty to provide personalisation to a

customer in order to lower the customer churn rate.

- Validate customer satisfaction to check whether customers are satisfied with the provided

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2.2.3 Marketing fulfilment response

The marketing fulfilment response process describes the necessary responsibilities to generate leads by marketing and guiding these leads to the selling process. The objectives of the employees responsible for marketing fulfilment response are to:

- Issue and distribute marketing collaterals to customers, in order to lead them to the selling

process.

- Track leads to identify and track leads and guide them to the selling or ordering process.

2.2.4 Selling

The selling process is described for employees who are responsible for creating a match between the customer’s demand and the company’s supply. The aim of this process is to:

- Manage prospects to link up leads with fitting products, based on customer needs and the

supply of an enterprise.

- Qualify and educate customers to take care of educating the customer on the agreement

between the company and the customer.

- Negotiate sales to close a sales deal and to forward this deal to the order handling process.

- Acquire customer data to record personal customer data.

- Conduct cross and up selling to sell more valuable or a larger amount of products or

services to a customer.

2.2.5 Order handling

The order handling process is describing the way the orders, as placed by the employees or customers in the selling process, are handled. The employees handling this process are also responsible for tracking an order and updating customers about the status of the order. Further, the employees can perform a credit authorisation. The goals of the order handling process are to:

- Determine pre-order feasibility to determine whether providing a product to a customer is

feasible.

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- Validate customer orders to determine if all necessary information is on hand to deliver a

product or service.

- Track order & manage jeopardy to verify if an order is delivered and to react if a deadline

is in danger.

- Complete order to deal with possible changes as requested by a customer.

2.3 Assurance

The assurance process area contains the processes which aim at managing and monitoring the performance and services as provided to customers. The processes in this area for CRM are customer interface management, retention & loyalty (see section 2.2), problem handling and customer QoS / SLA management.

2.3.1 Problem handling

The problem handling process describes the necessary tasks to receive problems and questions from customers and supply them with answers or solutions. The problem handling process should be able to:

- Isolate problems & initiate resolutions to register problems, to find the source of problems

and come with necessary resolutions.

- Report problems to report an existing problem to the necessary responsible employees or to

the customer.

- Track & manage problems to track the status of problems. When a problem keeps existing,

a solution has to be found.

- Close problems to close the problem by asking a customer whether or not the problem was

solved.

2.3.2 Customer QoS / SLA management

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- Assess customer QoS/SLA performance to manage the performance and quality of the

company concerning the interaction with the customer.

- Manage QoS/SLA violation to react if the quality is below company standards and to

improve the quality.

- Manage reporting to report on the general QoS/SLA quality.

2.4 Billing

The billing process area describes the necessary processes in which employees produce customer bills and collect and register payments. The processes in this area for CRM are customer interface management, retention & loyalty (see section 2.2) and billing & collections management.

2.4.1 Billing & collections management

The employees working within the billing & collections management process carry out tasks to check payments and collect them. This translates to:

- Manage customer bill inquiries to handle questions and problems from customers

concerning their bills.

- Apply pricing, discounting & rebate to provide bills and reductions to customers.

- Create & deliver bill to create bills for customers.

- Manage customer billing to manage an effective billing process.

- Manage collection to collect payments from customers and to check if the payments are

right.

2.5 Conclusion

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3 eCRM INFRASTRUCTURE

After describing the CRM processes defined by eTOM, this chapter describes the eCRM infrastructure which should be able to support the CRM processes. The goal of this chapter is to create an infrastructure based on the eTOM model and on eCRM literature. This infrastructure can be used by Atos Origin TUM as a framework for the design and creation of eCRM solutions for their (potential) clients.

The gathering of theory to construct the eCRM infrastructure was started by addressing papers and books concerning CRM technologies. It appeared these papers described the technologies of self-service in a general way of voice response, internet and interactive applications, whereas this research aims at generating an infrastructure for customer self-service through internet. Therefore specific information on eCRM infrastructures was gathered. This leaded to information on the proposed benefits and general functionality of eCRM infrastructures. The found applications which an eCRM infrastructure should contain are the operational, analytical and collaborative

applications. These applications are described by the research of Karimi et al. (2001), Rietdijk & Steenbakkers (2003) and Lorenzon et al. (2005). The applications as described in these papers are chosen for this eCRM research, since they cover the complete process of data gathering, analysing of and interacting with customers.

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Figure 4: eCRM infrastructure

To be useful to Atos Origin TUM customers, the currently existing CRM processes as described in the previous chapter, are placed in this eCRM infrastructure. The first eTOM process, CRM

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analytical application conducts the analysis of customer behaviour. The selling, order handling, problem handling and billing & collections management can be retrieved in the operational application, which carries out daily processes. Customer QoS / SLA management is handled by employees, since this process is carried out to monitor the general quality of the CRM process or in this case, the eCRM infrastructure. The summary of the support of the eCRM infrastructure for eTOM processes is displayed in table 2.

Table 2: CRM to eCRM

CRM ECRM

CRM support & readiness eCRM support & readiness Customer interface management Collaborative application

Retention & loyalty Analytical application

Marketing fulfilment response Analytical application

Selling Operational application

Order handling Operational application

Problem handling Operational application

Customer QoS / SLA management Customer QoS / SLA management Billing & collections management Operational application

To be able to make the applications relevant to Atos Origin TUM, this chapter will further explain the applications in more detail.

3.1 Analytical application

The analytical application predicts and analyses customer behaviour, which can lead to new sales. It is able to define customer profiles and customer behaviour. The analysis is based on data warehousing and data mining. The output of this application is only visible by the company employees and is also sent to the operational application. The output is created by analysing the available in the data warehouse data to generate a complete picture of the customers and to be able to know the customers. Since analysing customers is a broad definition, the requirements for the analytical application are defined by the paper of Cunningham et al. (2004). This paper is chosen, because it covers all necessary functionalities which are used in the processes of sales and

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Table 3: Required functionalities analytical application

Functionality Description

Customer profitability Ability to determine profitability of each customer Product profitability Ability to determine profitability of each product Market profitability Ability to determine profitability of each market

Campaign analysis Ability to evaluate different campaigns and responses over time Customer retention Ability to track customer retention

Customer attrition Ability to identify root causes for customer attrition Customer scoring Ability to score customers

Household analysis Ability to associate customers with multiple extended household accounts Customer segmentation Ability to segment customers into multiple segmentations

Customer loyalty Ability to understand loyalty patterns among different relationship groups Demographic analysis Ability to perform demographic analysis

Trend analysis Ability to perform trend analysis

Product delivery performance Ability to evaluate on-time, late and early product deliveries

Product returns Ability to analyse the reasons for and the impact of products being returned Customer service analysis Ability to track and analyse customer satisfaction, the average cost of interacting

with the customer, the time it takes to resolve customer complaints, etc.

Up-selling analysis Ability to analyse opportunities for customers to buy larger volumes of a product or a product with a higher profitability margin

Cross-selling analysis Ability to identify additional types of products that customers could purchase, which they currently are not purchasing

Web analysis Ability to analyse metrics for web site

Data maintenance Ability to maintain the history of customer segments and scores, to integrate data from multiple sources and to update and maintain data

(Source: Cunningham et al. 2004)

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3.2 Operational application

The operational application should be able to support selling, order handling, billing and problem handling. These processes are described in more detail in the previous chapter and are nowadays (partly) handled by the applications as present at the clients of Atos Origin TUM. However, the processes as presented in this model need to be additionally automated to support eCRM, which happens in the operational application. This application gets information from the analytical application to make specialised offers to individual customers. Further it interacts with the collaborative application, to make the output of the application visible. The collaborative application allows the customer to interact with the eCRM infrastructure.

3.3 Collaborative application

The collaborative application contains a customer interface, which integrates functionalities into one menu structure on a website. It uses intelligent functions to provide customers with

personalised offers and messages and to receive messages from customers. The application is customer centric and brings people, processes and data together.

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Table 4: eCRM technologies

Passive Active Interactive

Cookies Chat rooms Email

Chat rooms Bulletinboards Forums

Bulletinboards and fanclubs Forums Online focus groups

Mailinglists Internet surveys Interactive online interviews

News groups Product-related discussion groups

and lists

Survey panels

Observation studies through virtual reality and simulated environments

Recommender Software Auctions

Product-related discussion groups and lists Online trade shows Shopping agent

(source: Romano and Fjermested 2003)

These technologies can help to enhance customer interaction and to inform customers. For example, the mailing lists and news groups can inform customers about new products or services. The recommender software can recommend a customer a certain product, based on the customer profile. Further, forums and chat rooms can enhance problem handling and problem solving for customers. This on one hand because customers can help each other, and on the other hand the company can monitor the arisen problems, which their customers are discussing.

3.4 Data warehouse

After depicting the three applications in the eCRM infrastructure, information about the underlying data warehouse was gathered. For the analytical application to be able to gather user data, analyse this data and turn this data into specialised offers or predictions, an underlying data warehouse is needed. A data warehouse is a collection of data, collected from the databases in the

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The data warehouse contains information from the collaborative application and operational application such as the customer interaction, such as the reason for contact, the time of the contact, the selling, ordering and the closing of the contact. Further it contains the customer profiles with data as name, address and preferences. Also the company portfolio is stored in the data warehouse with relationships between the different products. For example, if a product is a supplementary to another product. Additionally, the records contain product specifications such as prices, availability and accompanying warranty.

This information in the data warehouse is gathered from the eCRM infrastructure as well as existing ERP systems within a company. The latter connection is not relevant for this research and therefore left out of the scope. The records which the data warehouse should keep track of are proposed by the paper of Cunningham et al. (2004), as displayed in table 5.

Table 5: eCRM technologies

Record Description

Customer dimension Stores the static information about the customer Customer behaviour Stores the dynamic scoring attributes of the customer

Customer demographics Stores the dynamic demographic characteristics of the customer Customer existence Tracks the periods in which the customer is a valid

Customer market Tracks changes in the relationship between the customer and market dimensions

Comments dimension Stores the reasons for customer attrition and product returns Company representative Stores the company (sales) representatives

Household Represents the fact that the customer may belong to one or more households

Market dimension Stores the organizational hierarchy and regions in which the customer belongs

Product Represents the products that the company sells

Product existence Tracks the periods in which the product is valid Promotion dimension Represents the promotions that the company offers

Scenario Used to analyse hypothetical up-selling and cross-selling scenarios Supplier Represents the vendors that supply the products

Time Indicates the times used throughout the database

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3.5 Conclusion

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4 eCRM AS-IS

The goal of this chapter is to describe the as-is infrastructure of the eCRM at Atos Origin TUM clients. Information on these companies was first gathered from Atos Origin TUM consultants. The list of these interviewees is shown in appendix I. Further, the websites of several Atos Origin TUM clients were analysed, to discover the currently existing functionalities of their eCRM

infrastructures. The first section of this chapter describes the eCRM situation as present at the telecom clients of Atos Origin TUM, the second section the eCRM infrastructure of clients in the utilities market and the third one the media segment. These sections are first explaining the background in which the Atos Origin TUM clients find themselves, to indicate to which kind of companies the analysis is applicable. The second part of these sections explains the existing eCRM infrastructure for each client group. An important remark in this matter is the fact that the accent within Atos Origin TUM is on telecom, therefore the information gathered on the clients was concentrated on the telecom segment.

4.1 Telecom

This section aims at analysing the clients of Atos Origin TUM in telecom market and their eCRM infrastructure. Firstly the telecom market is described and the customers as serviced by this market. Subsequently a description of the current eCRM infrastructure follows.

4.1.1 Background

As found in the interviews with Atos Origin TUM consultants in the telecom market, the telecom companies on one hand traditionally started as phone companies and moved towards different markets, such as providing television and internet services. On the other hand, some companies in the telecom segment started as producers and providers of energy and nowadays provide television and (mobile) phone services too. Another development is the migration from the traditional

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providing mobile telephony or content such as games and news. The offering of more services through the portal of companies is possible, since a relationship with the customer already exists and companies can sell more products based on loyalty. For short, the companies in the telecom segment are providing:

- Access; which is interpreted as providing access (bandwidth) to networks by way of cable, phone lines or wireless technologies.

- Broadcasting; which is providing video (such as TV) or audio (such as radio). These are live or on demand and based on one-to-many technologies.

- Communication; providing SMS, email, chat, voicemail, phone and/or videophone services. These services are based on one-to-one communication.

- Equipment; which is used to access services. Examples are modems, set-top boxes or phones.

The currently used customer interaction channels by telecom companies are call centres (voice response systems and call centre agents), shops, dealers and the internet portal (eCRM). According to the interviews with Atos Origin TUM experts, the choice of a customer for one of these channels depends on several factors. It is important for Atos Origin TUM to know what moves a customer towards eCRM, so that the company can offer a more customer centric eCRM infrastructure to their clients.

According to five of the seven interviewees, the most important reason of customers using eCRM, in comparison with call centres and shops, is the convenience of not having to leave the house and the ease of use. Three of the interviewees indicated the speed of the channel, since no waiting time exists, which allows quick problem solving, access to products and ordering. One addressed consultant indicated a reason for making usage of eCRM is the ability of getting specific offers from a company or specific information (on products or bills). Another consultant indicated the anonymity of this channel as a reason for eCRM usage. A potential customer can look for products and information without having to talk to a salesman or call centre agent.

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with the image that is connected to a certain brand as well as the feeling of belonging to a certain community. Further the younger generation will use the channel that is the closest and the older generation will tend to use the traditional channels. The opinions are divided on this subject, since another expert claimed that also the older generation adapts to the internet.

Factors of why customers prefer channels other than the internet are also indicated. One consultant indicated that the severity of the topic is an important matter for choosing another channel than eCRM. For example, a call centre mostly takes care of the problem handling process, since customers are unable to specify a problem well enough for a website. In addition, the call centre handles complex matters and “unwanted products” (such as cancelling a subscription). These processes can currently not be initiated by eCRM. A second expert indicated that a reason for not choosing eCRM is the faith in the technology. Where customers do not trust the eCRM technology, a different channel is addressed.

Concluding this section on the usage of the CRM channels, presently the call centre is the most used for ordering items, after that the shops and the dealers. The least used channel for ordering is internet, although the usage of this channel is vastly increasing. For informing themselves, internet is the most used channel by customers. A shift towards internet is currently happening because internet does not have a waiting time, in contrast with a call centre.

4.1.2 eCRM infrastructure as-is

After describing why customers do or do not use eCRM, this section describes the current eCRM infrastructures and the eTOM processes which this infrastructure is currently able to support. The current infrastructures mainly provide identification and authentication which results to a static customer interaction. For example, one interviewee explains the relationships between several products and customers are unknown and there is no specific offer to a customer, because this is technically and organisationally too complicated. Further, in case a customer buys several products, multiple logins can be required because incoherent systems exist.

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information from multiple systems and retrieve up-to-date data. Since companies never invested in a clear infrastructure, nowadays the layout is unknown.

Operational application

For being able to establish the current state of the operational application in the telecom segment, a web analysis is performed. This analysis is based on the eTOM processes as described in chapter 2. For a certain number of websites of Atos Origin TUM telecom clients, eTOM processes were checked for availability. For each process a score is calculated, based on whether or not a certain process is supported by the clients´ website. The complete analysis can be found in appendix II: Analysis operational application. The analysis revealed that the selling, ordering and problem handling processes are currently not fully supported, with a scoring of 0.40, 0.50 and 0.50 out of a maximum of 1.00, whereas the billing process is fully supported.

Collaborative application

The proposed collaborative application from section 3.3 is analysed by comparing the

functionalities of the proposed application with the current collaborative application at the telecom companies’ websites. The analysis of this application can be found in appendix III: Analysis collaborative application. The customers of the telecom companies can use this channel to orient themselves on certain products or services or change settings for a certain product. The outcome of this analysis indicates the possible technologies as described in section 3.3 are not all implemented, since the scorings for the passive, active and interactive technologies are respectively 0.29, 0.17 and 0.25 out of the maximum score of 1.00.

4.2 Utilities market

In this section, clients of Atos Origin TUM in the utilities market are analysed. These companies are active in providing their customers energy in the form of electricity or gas. The companies create, transport or deliver energy. The utilities area is highly competitive and rapidly changing. For this market only one interview was conducted, so more research on this market is

recommended.

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According to the Atos Origin TUM consultant in the utilities market, the call centre is the most used channel for customer contact, but internet gains importance. The usage of this channel depends on the amount of information on the website. The more information eCRM offers to a customer, the less the call centre will be addressed. In this market, customers use eCRM because of the ease of use and speed. Nonetheless, personal contact remains important.

According to the interview concerning the utilities market, the eCRM infrastructures are an important topic. However, currently some opportunities concerning this topic are missing.

The current state of the operational application in the utilities market is analysed based on the eTOM processes, which the operational application currently supports. The results of the analysis can be found in appendix II: Analysis operational application. This analysis indicates more support of the eCRM infrastructure can be implicated in the selling, ordering and problem handling areas.

The analysis of the collaborative application is displayed in appendix III: Analysis collaborative application. This analysis is used to identify the collaborative technologies used in the current eCRM infrastructure in the utilities market. The current used infrastructure does not make use of all possible technologies, as can be seen by the scoring of 0.29, 0.17 and 0.25 out of 1.00.

4.3 Media market

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Since the focus for Atos Origin TUM lies on the telecom market, one consultant was interviewed for describing the media market. This consultant explained that in the media market expensive CRM systems exist. These systems should help companies to know their customer, but in fact they do not know them. The companies have information about their customers, but this is not sufficient for personalisation. Further, a lack of vision on CRM exists.

4.3.1 Background

According to the interview, every magazine or newspaper (every brand) has its own portal. However, no alignment between the different channels of one brand is obtained. The primary channel is the offline version of newspapers and magazines. Hereby eCRM can be used for

customer profiling (where customers can indicate their preferences). Further eCRM can be used for supplementary services (for example mobile services), where eCRM is supplementary and not replacing the existing channels.

The eCRM as-is infrastructure in the media market characterises itself as an infrastructure with a low amount of functionalities.

For analysing the operational application in the media market, websites of Atos Origin TUM clients active in this market are focused on. The result of the analysis can be found in appendix II: Analysis operational application. To summarise the analysis, the selling scores 0.40, order handling 0.25, problem handling 0.50 and billing 0.67. Compared to the telecom and utilities market, these processes can be further supported by a future eCRM infrastructure.

The analysis of the current collaborative application in the media market is displayed in appendix III: Analysis collaborative application. The results for the passive, active and interactive

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4.4 Conclusion

This chapter provided a description of the current eCRM infrastructures at Atos Origin TUM clients. The resume of the web analysis is displayed in table 6. It appears the telecom segment has the highest average score, concerning the amount of support for the eTOM processes, together with the utilities market. The lowest score is for the websites of the media markets.

Table 6: Summary analysis operational application

eTOM process Segment

Telecom Utilities Media

Selling 0.40 0.40 0.40

Order handling 0.50 0.50 0.25

Problem handling 0.50 0.50 0.50

Billing & collections management

1.00 1.00 0.67

Average score 0.60 0.60 0.46

The analysis of the used technologies for the collaborative application is displayed in table 7. It appears the used technologies in the distinguished markets are practically the same. However, more technologies can be introduced.

Table 7: Summary analysis collaborative application

Technology Segment

Telecom Utilities Media

Passive 0.29 0.29 0.36

Active 0.17 0.17 0.08

Interactive 0.25 0.25 0.25

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5 eCRM TO-BE

After describing the current eCRM infrastructure of Atos Origin TUM clients, this chapter will provide the to-be eCRM infrastructure to be able to construct the gap analysis with the

accompanying opportunities for Atos Origin TUM. The to-be situation is based on the interviews with Atos Origin TUM consultants, who indicate why future solutions of eCRM should be taken into account by Atos Origin TUM (or their clients) and which parts of the theoretical infrastructure of chapter 3 should be used in the future. Further this chapter describes the business trends in the sectors in which Atos Origin TUM clients find themselves, to define the future markets in which eCRM can be interacting. These trends are found by analysing the annual reports of these clients. The expert views on the to-be eCRM infrastructure and the business trends for the three segments are discussed in section 5.1 and the to-be infrastructure is discussed in section 5.2. This chapter concludes with a final word on the to-be eCRM infrastructure for Atos Origin TUM clients.

5.1 Expert views & business trends

This section describes the future possibilities for the three markets concerning eCRM infrastructures.

5.1.1 Telecom

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According to three of the seven interviewees, the goal of future eCRM is to create more customer centric infrastructures, instead of business or technological centric eCRM infrastructures. This should be executed by showing a range of products or services by customer preferences, instead of showing all available products or services. This way a better offer to a customer is made, with the use of customer data and a highly customised and personalised service is provided. Within these future eCRM infrastructures, all interviewees indicate that one item that should at least be implemented is cross and up selling. This functionality can for example be activated when a customer encounters problems and an offer for another subscription or product can be made. However, before implementing any extra functionality, the consultants agree first the current infrastructures should be working properly.

The trends in the telecom market are based on more usage of the internet and internet becomes a normal commodity. Three of the interviewees indicate that telecom companies will try to implement more functionality and will also try to stimulate their customers to use the internet, away from the other channels, so that the internet usage increases. Further an increase in the use of eCRM based on mobile technologies will be a more common. Also in shops and houses, eCRM can be implemented by using new technologies. Theoretically everything is possible to implement, but to be able to shift the usage of CRM (call centres, shops) to eCRM (self-service), one condition is that an eCRM infrastructure should behave more human. This is important to enhance the human-machine interaction.

However, eCRM is not always suitable for handling customer requests. For example, a call centre agent can deviate from rules, where an eCRM infrastructure cannot. Complex matters such as specific problems or after sales support, can be partly suitable for being handled by eCRM, but it is impossible to implement all problems into a web based problem handler. Problem handling should be more intelligent and until that time, the call centres or employees in a shop should remain available as a second help line. Additionally, another reason for telecom companies to keep all their service channels, is that they want to stay recognisable to customers and keep all touch points to promote a brand.

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TUM´s clients) as pull (from the customers) concerning the functionalities of an eCRM

infrastructure. Atos Origin TUM or their clients think about what a customer wants, but there is no clear image of the customer. Clients address Atos Origin TUM with a request but mostly, the wishes for an infrastructure are wishes from the companies and not the end-user. The opportunity for Atos Origin TUM is to offer companies a customer centric instead of service or technology centric instead eCRM solution.

Another item for Atos Origin TUM to take into account while creating an eCRM infrastructure for a client, stated by two interviewees, is the fact that the consumers will be completely different in the next five or ten years. New generations will use the internet as self-evident and will expect more. Different generations will come along with eCRM and products and infrastructures will have to adapt to new users. To be able to attract all consumers, spread throughout different generations, the technology should be without high barriers of entry (for example by introducing user friendly IPTV in the living room).

The eCRM infrastructures to accompany these business trends will have to be flexible, but also the existing products and services as offered by the telecom market will ask for a revision. Every product should be analysed and have its own business case, to find out whether it is suitable for selling via eCRM. This way a company can find out whether or not the offering of online services for such product is paying.

5.1.2 Utilities

According to the utilities expert, in the future all the eTOM processes should be implemented into an eCRM infrastructure. This means a change of infrastructures and business processes from CRM tot eCRM. For some complex matters and problems, eCRM will never be suitable for customer interaction and personal contact will remain. To be capable of keeping up with the competition, utility companies gather feedback, test the usability of infrastructures and organise customer panels to be able to know their customers.

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decreases the amount of customers loyal to one company. These developments will need a

changing of eCRM infrastructure. Another development in the energy market is the introduction of the so-called trading of emission rights, which makes the competition higher in this market.

The business trends in the utilities market, which is getting more competitive, indicates the utilities companies will have to lower costs. As well as in the telecom market, eCRM infrastructures can help to make customers loyal and to create barriers, which prevents them to switch to competitors.

5.1.3 Media

The companies in the media market as described by the Atos Origin TUM expert should

implement individualisation for their customers, which enables them to decide on which channel they want their content. Media is increasingly delivered by new communication technologies and in the end, most communication will shift towards the internet. The shift of content from papers and magazines to internet, mobile phones or TV will gradually occur. This does not mean the offline channels will disappear; all channels should remain simultaneously. For example, a trend that will not happen is the shift in replacing all physical newspapers to digital versions.

Hereby eCRM concepts are essential; the customer can use eCRM infrastructures to indicate the preferred content, the preferred time of receiving the content and the preferred channel. The choice of a preferred channel depends on the customer and on the needs of the customers on a certain moment. Customers can choose the preferred version and choose the time of receiving the physical version or the digital one and vice versa.

The responsibility of the infrastructures is to provide content based on the information from the eCRM infrastructure. In this matter, business integration as well as system integration are

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Not only based on the fierce competition eCRM should be (further) unrolled. Another reason is the fact that customers have more to spend on the type of leisure as provided by publishers. Capturing the value from customers is hard, since advertising through dispersed media is difficult. To capture this value, eCRM is a valuable technique for customer profiling, which creates options for a company to deliver customised commercials. This means segmentation in the media market is not arising by customer groups, but by individuals.

5.2 eCRM infrastructure to-be

From the theoretical eCRM infrastructure as described in chapter 3, several conclusions can be applied on the to-be eCRM infrastructure. Apparently, the experts on all three markets agree a higher level of eCRM functionalities should and can be achieved in future infrastructures, to be able to offer customers a higher service.

The interviewees indicated that the following should at least be implemented for the future eCRM infrastructure. For the analytical application, the cross and up selling analysis, the ability to analyse customer loyalty and a customer retention analysis. For the operational application the selling, ordering, problem handling and billing is important. Further the collaborative application should at least contain recommender software based on the customer profile in the data warehouse. The latter should further at least contain product information, information about the usage of channels and customer behaviour.

5.3 Conclusion

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6 GAP ANALYSIS

The previous chapters provided the current and future eCRM infrastructures at Atos Origin TUM clients in the telecom, utilities and media markets. When comparing both situations, several conclusions can be drawn as described in this chapter. This gap analysis can serve for a (potential) Atos Origin TUM client to see where they can or should go with an eCRM infrastructure.

Furthermore, the gap analysis is interesting for Atos Origin TUM, since it indicates the gap between the existing eCRM infrastructure which clients have (provided by the company, or by competitors) and what clients would like to have or should have. In other words, this gap translates itself into a business opportunity. The analysis is based on the previous chapters and on the visions of Atos Origin TUM experts.

6.1 Telecom

This section describes the gap analysis of the eCRM infrastructure for clients in the telecom market.

6.1.1 General

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6.1.2 eCRM infrastructure

The web analysis of the telecom market in chapter 4, shows this market already finds itself in a relatively high degree of eCRM functionalities. However, some functionalities can still be added. These are described in this section.

The current eCRM infrastructure is mainly used for selling and ordering, whereas it should also be aiming at building a customer relationship. To be able to accomplish this, the gap between the analysed operational application in the telecom market (section 4.1.2) and the future application should be closed. This can be done by implementing the missing functionalities as displayed in table appendix II: Analysis operational application.

One missing function is the possibility to suggest complementary and complimentary products (i.e. cross and up selling). Another difference between the proposed theoretical infrastructure and the current eCRM infrastructure is the ability for a customer to have direct interaction to problem handling solutions. According to the experts, improvements can be made on the side of problem handling and complaining, cancelling, changing or extending subscriptions, turning services on or off, changing customer data, marketing activities, detailed information on products, online

invoicing and creating of loyalty by savings or discounts.

The gap of the collaborative application in the telecom market is derived from the difference between the as-is situation (section 4.1.2 and appendix III) and the future collaborative application. The current collaborative application is mainly processing requests from customers or potential customers. It appears the future eCRM collaborative application could make more use of customer-to-customer (C2C) technologies. This can enrich the supplied information to (potential) customers and decrease the usage of the call centre for problem handling. Further customers can help each other and recommend products and services. The interviews indicate another important

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6.2 Utilities

This section describes the gap analysis for the eCRM infrastructure for Atos Origin TUM clients in the utilities market.

6.2.1 General

The utilities market is typified by a reasonable high-levelled eCRM infrastructure. The future infrastructure however, can be of a higher level. The liberalisation of the energy market and the splitting up of the energy market, causes customers in the utilities market have a greater choice of suppliers. Therefore, companies in the utilities market aim at maintaining their customers, by providing a higher service at lower costs. The existing eCRM infrastructure can be extended to accomplish this goal. An eCRM infrastructure can help informing potential customers about products, instead of the traditional call centre. Informing customers by eCRM is currently available, however the information is concise.

The analysis of the eCRM infrastructure of the companies in the utilities market shows some items in the infrastructure are missing, as described in this section.

The gap in the operational application for the utilities market is found by comparing the as-is operational application (section 4.2.2) with the future application. It appears the current operational application can be enhanced by adding some functionalities. First, the difference between the two is the unavailability of cross and up selling. Since the utilities companies sell different products and services, this can be useful. Another functionality that can be implemented is the ability to inform a customer of the payment options of services and the ability for a customer to report problems. This is also indicated in the interview, since decent solutions for selling, ordering, problem handling and billing are not available.

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is the currently absent forums or chat rooms. These could help customers to help themselves by addressing problems or questions to a peer group.

6.3 Media

The last gap analysis is the analysis for the clients in the media market. The eCRM infrastructures in this market show the lowest degree of functionalities.

6.3.1 General

Comparing the as-is eCRM infrastructures with the to-be infrastructures for the media segment, several items can be noticed. First of all, the current infrastructure is not adequate for the changing market in which companies in the media market find themselves. The possible to-be eCRM infrastructure has to be applicable to a highly flexible customer and will need to be used to get knowledge about customers. This allows customers to enter their preferences about the media they consume. Nowadays the eCRM applications are unable to accomplish customer profiling and are only an online way of ordering products. The gap lies exactly in this field. Self-service portals need to be created to be able to retain a customer. Also in the field of personalised commercials, an opportunity for the media segment is present.

The web analysis of the media market showed the lowest score, which indicates much functionality can be built and implemented in the (near) future.

The current operational application in the media market is characterised by a low amount of functionalities (see section 4.3.2). According to interviews and business trends, these functionalities should increase. This increase can lie in the field of cross and up selling and

personalised information to customers. Appendix II indicates the opportunities for the collaborative application of companies in the media segment in more detail.

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As well as the operational application, the collaborative application from section 4.3.2 lacks certain possibilities. The to-be collaborative application for the media market uses much the same

technologies as the other two segments. To be able to improve customer relationships, more technologies can be implemented. As appendix III indicates, this could greatly improve when more technologies are implemented for the collaborative application in the field of C2C.

6.4 Opportunities Atos Origin TUM

The presented gap analysis for eCRM infrastructures is useful for Atos Origin TUM to keep up with the competition in the field of eCRM solutions. The analysis in appendix II for the operational application presents the functionalities that are currently not present. These can or should be available in future eCRM infrastructures as built and implemented by Atos Origin TUM for their clients. Appendix III shows the analysis for the collaborative application. This appendix shows which technologies are unavailable in the current eCRM infrastructures. These can be implemented for deepening the relationship with the customers. For example a C2C interface does not exist. This might be an opportunity for companies to let customers exchange information on products and help each other solving problems, to prevent customers contacting personnel via call centres or email. Another opportunity of C2C technologies lies in the ability of monitoring problems and monitoring (potential) customers. This is important, since customers tend to inform themselves by addressing an objective source of information, instead of letting themselves informed by the supplying companies. For short, the main items Atos Origin TUM could offer in the future, are the following:

- Customer profiling, for creating the ability of cross and up selling and build a customer relationship;

- Advanced means of problem handling; - Usage of C2C interface;

- Recommender software, to help customer make the choice of product; - Billing.

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concerning eCRM. Nowadays Atos Origin TUM delivers solutions for the ordering process via internet. This solution is used by legacy systems as present at the client, for example a call centre application or a web interface. The extension of the services as delivered by Atos Origin TUM can be in the field of presales and aftersales. Further the ordering application can deal with problem handling, since sending an order can be the same routine as sending a complaint, via the same application. Further Atos Origin TUM could implement systems to handle sales and billing via internet. Nowadays the core competition of Atos Origin TUM is not the user interface, but the dispatching of data. The ordering application is a product-based model to deliver orders. The user interface can be introduced in the future. For this interface, the focus should be on usability.

Additionally, the experts made some recommendations for Atos Origin TUM as a consulting company. For Atos Origin TUM as a consulting company, a business case minded view concerning eCRM should be developed. The opportunity lies in the promotion of the fact that eCRM is

cheaper and more efficient than the usual channels. Atos Origin TUM could provide a visionary model and provide the implementation of an eCRM infrastructure for supporting all CRM processes in the eTOM model. Further, it is important to think client centric instead of just start building. Client centric also means looking at the clients’ environment and be able to earn from the changes in the market in which the Atos Origin TUM clients operate. This includes helping

companies with introducing channel alignment. Atos Origin TUM should indicate opportunities for clients and indicate how they can obtain profit with knowledge about their customers. After that, the actual implementation can be rolled out.

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6.5 Conclusion

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7 CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

To conclude this paper, this chapter provides a conclusion and some recommendations for further research on eCRM. Section 7.1 provides a final remark and recommendations for further research are provided in section 7.2.

7.1 Conclusion

After conducting the eCRM research for Atos Origin TUM, the answers to the research question and sub questions are found. The first sub question, what is the as-is Atos Origin TUM clients´ eCRM infrastructure, is answered in chapter 4. This current infrastructure is based on the interviews with Atos Origin TUM consultants, a web analysis and on annual reports.

The second sub question, what is the to-be Atos Origin TUM clients´ infrastructure, is answered in chapter 5, the to-be eCRM infrastructure. All client groups find themselves in rapidly changing markets. For being able to keep up with the competition, the clients in these markets need eCRM infrastructures, which are able to follow customers and answer customer requests.

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7.2 Recommendations for further research

Since this research focuses on the telecom companies, recommendations for research to the utilities and media segments are recommended. A second limitation was the scope on Atos Origin TUM, therefore further research might be conducted for clients for Atos Origin in general. The third limitation was the limitation on the investigation of the operational application and the

collaborative application. Research on the analytical application and the underlying data warehouse is recommended. Another limitation to this study is the business-to-customer view. A possible research view can be business-to-business, since partner relationship management (PRM) can be based on the same concepts as CRM. The connection between companies and their suppliers is displayed in figure 5. This figure shows the mirroring of eCRM from customers towards suppliers.

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8 DEFINITIONS

Item Description

C2C Customer to customer

CRM Customer Relationship Management eCRM Electronic CRM (or IP-based CRM) eTOM Enhanced Telecom Operations Map IP Internet Protocol

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