Case Study Two. Customer Relationship Management Head To The Cloud. Sifei Liu & Yaqing Ma

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1 Case Study Two Customer Relationship Management Head To The Cloud Sifei Liu & Yaqing Ma

2 2 Question 1 Types of companies are most likely to adopt cloud-based CRM software services are companies that want to share complete customer data to every organization so that organizations can function as a group; to track and collect real time data so that the company can performance well, and to spend less money on software so that the company can save money on personal, electricity, and operating. As can be concluded from this case, companies that are struggling with numerous of real-time data, inadequate of capital costs, and tons of customers information will absolutely adopt cloud-based CRM software. Cloud-based CRM can help these companies to operate successfully, to achieve customer intimacy, and to reduce the fixed costs effectively. According to the case, Fireclay Tile, a 37-emplyee environmentally friendly sustainable time manufacture, uses Salesforce to share complete data from all customers departments so it can help employees track orders and work closely together to meet customer needs (Laudon and Laudon). As a customer-centered business, the company has to meet the customers wants and needs. The best way to do that is to share all the information and data to every department of the company. In this way, can every group gain basic idea of customers and function better than individually. Fixed costs are the most important financial aspect to a company. All companies are trying to save costs. Cloud-based CRM cost 65 percent less than the company s own software. What s more, companies, especially small businesses, will find the on-demand model especially appealing because there are no large up-front hardware and software

3 3 investments or lengthy implementations on corporate computer systems (Laudon and Laudon). According to this case, not all companies are suitable for this type of software. Many companies are concerned about maintaining control of their data and security (Laudon and Laudon). Cloud computing does drawbacks which is it cannot make sure the data will exist all the time. If the company cares about its safety issue and control of its data, the company should have its own software independently. Question 2 Cloud-based enterprise applications are really based on cloud computing. Therefore, every advantage or disadvantage for cloud computing is the advantage or disadvantage for cloud-based enterprise applications. Actually, there are a lot of advantages for cloud-based enterprise applications, but cloud computing still has a lot of disadvantages as a new technology for business. Overall, a business will benefit a lot from the advantages of using cloud computing. According to Ilias Tsagklis article advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Cloud computing pros and cons, he list cost efficiency, convenience and continues availability, backup and recovery, cloud is environmentally friendly, resiliency and redundancy, scalability and performance, quick deployment and ease of integration, increased storage capacity, device diversity and location independence and smaller learning curve for advantages (Tsagklis). He also list security and privacy in the cloud, dependency and vendor lock-in, technical difficulties and downtime, limited control and flexibility and increase vulnerability for disadvantages (Tsagklis).

4 4 Cost efficiency, in most cases, this is the biggest advantage for cloud-based enterprise application. The cloud is in general available at much cheaper rates than traditional approaches and can significantly lower the overall IT expenses, in another word, we are saving amount of money by using cloud computing especial for some small companies. As for our case, salesforce.com is one of the most successful cloud-based enterprise software. According to our experience, we could tell that it is cheap to compare this one to other software, and this software is really useful for this business. Therefore, cloud-based application is cost efficiency. Convenience and continuous availability is the second advantage. Cloud computing is really convenience because people could use all computers or mobiles that connect to the Internet to use the cloud-based application. To do so, people could work everywhere no matter where you are. Backup and recovery is the third advantage for cloud-based CRM. Cloud-based application could download or upload the data from everywhere. Moreover, people will never lose the data in a certain time. For example, I always delete some files or data that I do not need any more. However, I might need that data or file someday in the future. By using cloud-based software, it will never be a problem anymore. Additionally, cloud technology is environmentally friendly, according the article, The cloud is in general more efficient than the typical IT infrastructure and it takes fewer resources to compute, thus saving energy (Tsagklis). In our mind, it is true that the cloud computing could save energy because people are work more efficient than before or using traditional software, and it really make sense to us.

5 5 Smaller learning curve is cloud-based CRM s last advantage. Cloud-base software is easy for people to learn how to use it. Comparing to other traditional software, cloudbased system needs less time to learn how to adapt it in the future business. In conclusion, cloud-based software will save both the money and time of learning for the company. Everything has two aspects just like a coin has two sides. Due to the advanced technology, in this case, the con is less than pros. Security and privacy in the case, is the biggest disadvantage. It is a serious problem of cloud-based applications. As most people know, Internet is not a safe place. There is a lot of hackers will attack your cloud for some iniquity income, but we believe that as the technology had developed more this problem will be solved. Technical difficulties and downtime, because this is a new technology, the cloud-based application still has a lot of technical problem to be solved in the future. The downtime is one of the problems, the cloud might be shut down for some reason, and people could not use cloud-based application during this period of time. This might influence the company a lot. Question 3 In order to decide whether to use a conventional CRM system or a cloud-based, we need to analyze three issues which are management, organization, and technology. It is hard to manage the company when all the people are not in the same education level. As a result, using cloud-based CRM can be tough to some staffs who are ill-trained or lack of education. If this situation happens, then the company may consider switching to a conventional CRM so the employees won t face complex and large data and information. Another issue of management should be taken into consideration which

6 6 is the dependability. When people are used to cloud-based CRM, they will rely heavily on the cloud-based software rater than use other system. However, if some day, the managers decide to change to another CRM software, people will not be able to adapt to another cloud-based CRM software. As for organization, information privacy is very important. Companies don t want to share private information with their competitors. When people want to keep their privacy, cloud-based CRM may be their choice. Although people concern the safety of cloud-based system, Cloud-based CRM ensures that confidential data, such as promotion plans, cannot be removed (Laudon and Laudon) by employees when they leave the organization. To build and maintain a customer database, computer hardware, software, and analytical program are functioning together to support the cloud-based software. Additionally, communications skills are needed. As a result, the risk in cloud-based software is higher than regular software, so if a company cannot deal with technology issue. It should consider using conventional CRM. Question 4 Saleforce.com is the most successful enterprisecale software. As can be found in the latest Wallstreet Journal, an article called SAP to Enhance Cloud-Based Sales Support Application praised the increase of CRM field. The worldwide CRM market grew 13.7% to $20.4 billion in 2013, from $18 billion in Of that market, more than 41% of 2013 spending went to cloud-based applications (Norton). Salesforce.com is the leader of CRM with 16.1% share.

7 7 Salesforce has Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Exacttarget Market Cloud, Salesforce1 Platform, Salesforce Chatter, Data.com, Salesforce Communities, Pardot, and Work.com. Many features are useful to sales and marketing, such as social marketing and Sales Cloud. Social marketing is a way to get in touch and gather insights from customers. To reach out the target customers and to highlight the target content via social media are very important in social marketing. In marketing, promotion and place are two of the vital aspects. Social marketing, as one of the feature of Salesforce, can help companies gain customer intimacy. Also, employees can use Salesforce to track the leads that come in and see what the best leads are and who is interested in their product. The marketing team can take that data and market to those people to increase sales

8 8 For sales it would be our Sales Cloud. That gives the sales team a way to manage their leads, sales opportunities, pipeline and accounts. They will be able to have full visibility into their sales cycle. Also, managers can pull reports from their data so they can see how their reps are doing and where their numbers are at.

9 9 Works Cited Laudon, Kenneth C. and Jane P. Laudon. Information Systems in Global Business Today. 13th. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc., Norton, Steven. SAP to Enhance Cloud-Based Sales Support Application. 27 May July Salesforce. ExactTarget Marketing Cloud July 2014 < Tsagklis, Ilias. Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing Cloud computing pros and cons. 23 April July 2014.