Conceptual Integrated CRM GIS Framework

Transcription

1 Conceptual Integrated CRM GIS Framework Asmaa Doedar College of Computing and Information Technology Arab Academy for science &Technology Cairo, Egypt Abstract : CRM system(customer relationship management) is sophisticated combination of smart components, which interacted together allowing corporates to maintain their relationships with customers through making good decision to increase their profitability. The data in CRM systems is the main engine in all corporates. And the power is analyze it and generate another useful data. In any CRM system its so difficult to analyze and preview thousands of data records in text format that s why the data visualization is one of the important CRM dimension. this is will be covered by this paper which representing proposed conceptual CRM GIS integrated framework. This framework aiming to spot the light on the importance of visualize the data with its locations on maps using GIS module (geographical information system). And how is locating data on maps leverages the efficiency of analyzing / previewing data and take vital decisions accordingly. The proposed conceptual framework explains how CRM system s components integrated with the GIS components in telecommunication corporate as a business case. This conceptual framework has been designed from the architectural point of view. This study will help researchers to increase their understanding of the impact of GIS integration within CRM system. Keyword s -Customer relationship management; Geographical information System; Business intelligence Data visualization; I. INTRODUCTION With the rapid development in information systems that help corporates and all firms to strongly manage their work aspects and keep their competitive levels in market. The CRM is one of the most important systems which help the firms in aspect of customers management. CRM main goal is to maintain relationships with customers to retain them and attract more of them as well. The data visualization is important CRM dimension. The data is the real challenge in any corporate or firm using CRM system [1], because the data is rich material which is used by all firm employees and decision makers in all departments. This is will be explained during the following sections in paper through discussing the proposed framework. CRM data is huge amount of daily data and historical data too. They are thousands of records and handling them as numbers and text format is really messy process. Hence, the importance of integrating GIS module has been raised to allocate the data on maps to have (spatial data), so that data will be readable, traceable, easier to recognize and faster in terms of decision making and data representation. First people who knew the importance of location factor in customers data were the marketers. And long time ago also many firms like CACI in the UK and Compusearch in Canada have built geo-segmentation Technologies ( ICCSISCT 2012 ) September 1-2, 2012 Bangkok Page 110

2 systems like PRIZM and MOSAIC. These systems were segmenting and targeting consumers. That was in 1980s before even inventing and development CRM and GIS. [2] After this time the business became rapidly developed and the massive data amount became needed to be analyzed smartly. The marketers became keen to focus on quality of data analytics which challenging economic conditions, the digital revolution and the availability of faster, better technology. [2] In very recent research, it has been mentioned that as much as the spatial information is comprehensive, as much as it leads to valid prediction of business development. [3] And this is because analyzing and manipulating spatial data is giving comprehensive picture of results rather than the text data. When we have spatial data in CRM system, so we have the data itself and where the data is too, which allow better taken decision. Only few studies talked about the integration between CRM and GIS. There is no study has represented a designed framework to clarify this integration. Not only describing it generally by text. In addition these studies didn t cover the aspects of the interaction between the main components of CRM and GIS, and the data flow as well. Hence, the proposed conceptual CRM GIS framework has been designed from the architectural perspective to be a bit deeper study about this integration. And it s illustrated by business case (telecommunication corporate) which may help many researchers to more develop this area after understand it more and more. II. FRAMEWORK COMPONENTS AND CORPORATE FUNCTIONS (DEPARTMENTS) The proposed integrated CRM GIS framework is conceptual one. And it has been designed from the architectural point of view. It aims to illustrate how the main components of both CRM and GIS interacted with each other s in telecommunication corporate environment. First we will list and discuss these main components and main corporate departments as well. After that there will be a discussion about the interaction between all of them, in addition some business cases to clarify the impact of this integration on reality within the business case. See Fig. 1 i. Frontline This function in telecommunication corporate is all about the direct interaction between the customer and his service provider. The target of this department is gathering customers data like their personal profiles, complaints and inquiries. This is through different available communication channels like 1) direct contact (call center), 2) online request and 3) mobile phone request (mobile portal). And this is so valuable function since the customers data is the main essence in any business firm as mentioned before. ii. Marketing This function in corporate is about designing the marketing campaigns after segmenting the customers and targeting them by suitable offers and advertisements plans. This is so important in order to retain the customers and attract more of them. iii. Sales Technologies ( ICCSISCT 2012 ) September 1-2, 2012 Bangkok Page 111

3 This function is about monitoring the customers response toward promotions and offers through monitoring the sales rates in both ups and downs cases. Sales people have direct contact with customers to keep eye on their satisfactions and demands. iv. workforce management This is the operational function in corporate. Its job is receiving the technical problems which have reported by the frontline department from customers complaints. And manage\ allocate the resources and technical teams to solve the problems. v. Executives and analytics Here we reach the top management section in corporate since managers are taking vital decisions related with: business strategy, revenues, costs, investments, agreements and expansions. These were the corporate Functions (departments). The following is listing of the main components of CRM and GIS. See Fig CRM Applications This is like entrance of the corporate s CRM system. Every department uses this entrance by different way than another department. This is according to the business roles of every dept. and its own privileges to access the CRM applications. All CRM applications have 1 common feature, which is map viewer with spatial analysis tools. And there is another feature existed in some of CRM applications according to its need and business role. This feature is access ability to BI (business intelligence) tools which are OLAP (online analytical processing) and data mining techniques. 2. GIS platform GIS platform acts as the translator middle layer between CRM applications and geographical database. So that it communicates with this geographical database to deliver the results to the CRM applications. c) BI (Buisness Intelligance) tools BI tools are the OLAP (online analytical processing) to answer the complex inquiries of the users in corporate. And the data mining techniques to find the hidden patterns and relations between data which is help in predicting issues and decision making. d) CRM database In this huge operational database we find every daily single transaction or activity made by any of the corporate departments. e) Geographic database This database contains substantial amount of maps represented in vector data format and massive amount of datasets viewed in many layers of roads, streets bridges, railroads, rivers, landmarks (ports, banks, malls, hospitals, police stations etc.), Populations, customers, corporate resources, base stations, corporate branches and offices, neighborhoods and all cities maps. Technologies ( ICCSISCT 2012 ) September 1-2, 2012 Bangkok Page 112

4 f) Data warehouse It s the intelligent historical data storage which keep massive amount of corporate data since it has been founded. This data warehouse feed by the operational database (CRM database) plus previous recorded patterns. III. COMPONENTS AND FUNCTIONS INTERACTION There is a direct link between every function (department) and the combination of CRM and GIS platform. There is indirect link between some departments and BI tools since not all departments need to use BI tool. And it s indirect because they access them through the interfaces of CRM applications which linked directly with the BI tools. See Fig. 1 Both BI tools and the combination of CRM and GIS platform connected to the CRM database, Geographic Database and Dataware house through the enterprise network. Every department accesses its dedicated CRM application\s to retrieve or update information or generating reports. They can allocate the results on maps because of the connection between CRM applications and geographic database. See Fig. 1 The CRM applications are directly linked with the GIS platform which is linked with the geographic database to helping allocating the data on maps. The departments which need to use the BI tools; they can access them through their dedicated CRM applications and apply their complex inquiries and finding the patterns they seek. But this time the CRM application\s will access the dataware house and bring back the results plus the ability also to allocate the results over map. For example marketing team leader wants to design marketing campaign in summer to target youth people. He will access one of CRM applications and start to use data mining tool to find a cluster of youth people have some common characteristics. Or association pattern helps him too to make a decision that who are the people that the campaign will target. After applying this intelligent analysis over the marketing data mart, He will preview the results again in CRM application with locate these results over map. He may get pattern like (higher sales rates associated with the corporate branches and outlets in cities more than other cities in summer). this may lead him to decide that the location of the marketing campaign will be in City of X and the marketing campaign will target this segment of youth people by make suitable attractive promotions and open more temporary outlets in that city in summer. Technologies ( ICCSISCT 2012 ) September 1-2, 2012 Bangkok Page 113

5 IV. IMPLEMENTATION Implementing CRM software package then integrate GIS module in it needs big team of software engineers. And in order to simulate the data visualization issue in CRM system. It has been used the ArcGIS which is well known GIS software package, to execute some business cases using real data set and also using spatial analytics tools to clarify the capabilities we can get by using GIS. The results were great because of the smartness of analyzing and representing data as well in many various ways. Following section will be provided examples of some business cases in order to clarify the whole idea. Business Case1: if the manager in executives and analytics wants to take an expansion decision in area X by open new branch to serve more customers. He can access CRM application and apply some complex inquiries regarding the customers quantities locations. He can allocate results on map and he can read the situation visualized on this map and maybe he figured out that there is high quantity of customers and there is no near branch to serve them. Without spending much time in reading lot of reports and numbers, He will take a decision by just reading the map in less time than handling the ordinary data format. (The green square symbol is the location of already existed branch and the blue circles symbols representing the customer s quantities location). See Fig. 2 Figure 2 Data Representation Business case 2: A customer is calling the call center (in frontline function) to inquire about technical problem he faces with his network signal. The call center representative access the CRM application and retrieve his profile from the database. The representative makes search also for the existed technical problems in corporate. He finds the problems list with their location and by using customer s location, the representative apply spatial analysis tool called Buffering to know if the customer s location within one of the problem s location or not. See Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 Figure3 Previewing Customer and Problem locations and Data Technologies ( ICCSISCT 2012 ) September 1-2, 2012 Bangkok Page 114

6 Figure 4 Buffering Analysis V. CONCLUSION As much as the data visualization is smart in CRM systems, as much we make good decisions faster and correctly. And this leads to increase the profitability of the corporate. From the previous explanation of the proposed conceptual integrated CRM GIS framework, we can find how the GIS integration played important role in data issues. Spatial data not only gives good readable representation for the data. It also cost and time effective way to not let the user read lot and lot of records and get lost in them. Visualized data gives the user comprehensive picture of the situation and guarantees the fast right response which the corporate should give toward their different business issues. We can notice also how the visualized data on maps makes the decision making process easier and smarter because of having the data and the location of this data as well, which is strengthening the process of reading any situation from the map. And evaluate it deeply rather than having the regular text and numbers format. Spatial data in any CRM system gives the corporate capabilities to compete strongly in the market and keeping retain and satisfy customers and attract more because of the right data manipulation and right decision taken. REFERENCES 1. Efraim Turban, Jay E. Aronson and Ting Liang, Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems Book, Prentice Hall, Printed in United States of America, p , Zheng Hongjan, Xue Fei and Wang Chunxiu, Research on application of GIS technology in spatial mode customer relationship management system, Conference on innovation and management, 2011 Technologies ( ICCSISCT 2012 ) September 1-2, 2012 Bangkok Page 115