White Paper BPM Capabilities i CRM Ladscape Customer Relatioship Maagemet (CRM) is all about maagig the relatioships you have with your customers. It s a overall strategy to help you lear about your customers ad their behavior so you ca develop stroger, lastig relatioships that will beefit both you ad your customers. CRM applicatios ca be used to maage your customer accouts, cotacts, opportuities, products, marketig et al but past CRM iitiatives that focused o sales, customer service or marketig activities have left may compaies with soloed, disjoited processes istead of a holistic process flow. CRM workflow capabilities would eable simplified automatio of ed-to-ed busiess processes. For example, a workflow ca be used to take a holistic approach to sales by eforcig best practices from begiig to ed, defiig a commo sales methodology ad streamliig executio. Orgaizatios ca model each stage i the sales process, defie a ideal flow, ad esure that all criteria are met ad data captured before a deal advaces to the ext stage. Busiess process maagemet workflow capabilities eable orgaizatios to streamlie time-cosumig customer-related processes such as sales budget approvals, campaig executio, lead qualificatio, lead routig, Request For Proposal (RFP) submissios, sales follow-up, referece maagemet ad case routig. The more processes that ca be automated, the more employees ca focus o their core competecies.
Ultimately, streamliig ad automatig busiess processes allows orgaizatios to eforce so-called best practices ad free employees to cocetrate o highervalue activities. By aligig CRM strategy ad BPM iitiatives, compaies ca deliver better customer value. Moreover, it is recogized that traditioal customer-facig applicatios are beig superseded by process-drive applicatios from BPM vedors. Further, this chage is drivig faster decisio-makig ad flexible iformatio processig while esurig compliace with corporate policies ad reducig the cost of chagig applicatios. BPM workflow eablemet ca also take the guesswork out of more complex processes via the settig up of Busiess Rules Maagemet (BRM). For example, leads ca be automatically distributed based o sales territory or iformatioal mailigs ca be set out based o predefied triggers. There was oce a simple choice i CRM software - buy off the shelf. Today however, there is a third optio, BPM egie-drive CRM. As CRM systems usually cosolidates data from differet source systems with the help of data warehousig tools (Extract Trasform Load), this paper primarily describes capabilities of these tools ad whe to adopt BPM egie-drive CRM or itegrate processes with stadaloe BPM or BRE. 2
About the Author Prashath Varuri Prashath Varuri is a cosultat with Tata Cosultacy Services for over a year with more tha 4+ years of work experiece primarily i the bakig, pharmaceutical, isurace ad maufacturig domais. His techological forte is Pega, Cordys BOP4, Savvio, ilog Rules, Siebel EIM, Oracle, SQL Server, Iformatica, Java, Uix (Shell Scriptig), SOA/ BPM, web based techologies ad is proficiet i all areas of SDLC. 3
Table of Cotets 1. Itroductio 5 2. Problem Statemet 5 3. Solutio 6 4. Where To Start Usig BPM For CRM 7 5. Coclusio 7 6. Abbreviatios 7 7. Refereces 7 4
Itroductio There are various types of CRM solutios available i market viz strategic, operatioal, aalytical ad collaborative but they all focus o the customer-cetric busiess culture ad are typically product, productio, sales-, customer or market orieted. CRM applicatios are customer-focused busiess strategies desiged to optimize reveue, profitability, ad customer loyalty. By implemetig a CRM strategy, a orgaizatio aims to improve the busiess ad techology solutios aroud sellig, marketig ad servicig fuctios across all customer touch-poits (for example: web, e-mail, phoe, fax, i-perso). Problem Statemet Although CRM provides a 360-degree view of the customer, there are several challeges whe adoptig it. For example, givig sales represetatives access to ivetory data through a CRM solutio allows the sales perso to tell customers immediately exactly whe a order will be delivered, thereby icreasig customer satisfactio. Itegratio with billig systems ca allow maagers to istatly idetify ad follow up o deliquet accouts ad improve aligmet betwee the sales ad accoutig orgaizatios. But meaigful itegratio does t stop with data. It should also iclude processes. A eterprise-level CRM solutio should eable workflows ot oly withi the base CRM applicatio but also across multiple systems. For example, a orgaizatio could create a process likig e-commerce with CRM systems so that whe a product shipmet is delayed, the system checks the customer lifetime value ad either seds a e-mail otificatio or, for a high value customer, creates a service icidet for the call ceter aget or customer service represetative to persoally call the customer. As aother example, a maufacturig compay could create a process so that whe a high probability large deal is forecast i the CRM system, a workflow automatically takes that iformatio ad iserts it ito a capacity requiremets plaig (CRP) system. Ay chages to the progressio of the deal are automatically reflected i the capacity plaig system ad whe the deal is closed, the ivetory maagemet system esures that capacity is aliged with demad. Effective customer maagemet does ot always occur whe usig CRM software, eve whe accompaied by a well-developed strategy. CRM tools are powerful frot office applicatios that eable sales, marketig, ad customer service professioals to effectively collaborate ad gai isight all i the ame of buildig a better customer experiece. Customer maagemet, however, is ot merely a frot-office activity. You caot maage a complex customer relatioship without timely ivolvemet from fiace, legal, supply chai ad others i the back office that do ot ad will ot have a CRM applicatio o their desktop. Processes like deal maagemet, order fulfillmet, ad exceptio hadlig may be triggered iside a CRM applicatio, but they require a orchestrated effort betwee the frot office ad the back office to be performed properly. So, how do you get everyoe to participate i a CRM-triggered process without sacrificig cotrol ad visibility? The aswer lies i presetig a busiess case for joiig BPM techology with CRM software. 5
Solutio BPM is the defiitio, executio, ad maagemet of busiess processes. BPM is ot a syoym for workflow (which is process maagemet aroud a documet) or EAI (which is process maagemet aroud data itegratio). BPM brigs the best of workflow ad EAI ad additioally itegrates maual labor ito a edto-ed eterprise process. BPM's emphasis o the process itself rather tha a etity (i.e., documet, data, or perso) gives process owers the ability to defie the process first ad the determie effective iteractios betwee the various steps withi a process. BPM is ot married to a specific applicatio (like embedded workflow), which allows it to facilitate a myriad of busiess processes that spa both people ad disparate systems across the eterprise, icludig those that impact effective customer maagemet. Puttig CRM o everyoe's desktop is impractical. The otio of requirig back office persoel ad C-level executives to lear ad proactively use a applicatio that was ot desiged with them i mid is a strategy doomed for failure. Aside from the software, the objective is timely, orgaizatio-wide participatio i maagig customer relatioships. This is achievable by bledig CRM with BPM software. Iovative BPM software eables everyoe with a crucial role i a CRM-triggered process to participate without eedig to lear a ew software package. As most people has Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader, ad Iteret access o their desktop, BPM facilitates effective iteractio because the learig curve is so low ad, i most cases, people do ot eve kow they are iteractig with a BPM techology. Let's say a sales represetative is workig o a deal for a big customer that depeds o a ability to icrease maufacturig output. The opportuity is captured i the CRM app, the fiace people eed to the cruch umbers ad fially the maufacturig sector eed to determie if they ca do it. BPM would orchestrate this collaboratio with the back office by extractig pertiet iformatio out of CRM ad routig it to the right people via email ad populated excel spreadsheets, a method largely used today, but i a cotrolled eviromet that yields full visibility ito the process. The value that BPM brigs to CRM is a ability to deliver cost-effective solutios with low barriers to adoptio ad a o-existet learig curve to each user. The marriage of CRM with BPM empowers compay-wide owership of the customer experiece from your umber oe resource: people. CRM DMS Fiace Sales System BPM Suite (Exceptio Processig) 6
Where to Start Usig BPM for CRM Oe of the greatest challeges for orgaizatios is idetifyig the busiess processes that most affect the customer experiece. We have therefore idetified key customer-facig busiess processes to make them more customer-cetric. Audit the processes that affect customers. Idetify the processes customers care most about. Prioritize the customer-selected processes with those that have the most impact o growth. Give each process a ower, cross-departmetally if required it does t have to be a Vice Presidet (VP) or a director, but should be someoe resposible for the ed-to-ed process. Implemet chages i the back-office ad frot-office that affect customers. Set up a Service Level Agreemet (SLA) for customer-selected key processes. Measure the success ad refie the process chages for differet customer segmets. Coclusio Most moder CRM products are highly flexible usig local SOA-based solutios with extesible workflow capabilities. However, these are ot eough to maximize the value of existig systems ad CRM ivestmets aloe might ot bridge ed to-ed customer process maagemet gap. By aligig CRM strategy with Busiess Process Maagemet (BPM) iitiatives compaies ca deliver better customer value at lower costs. Abbreviatios Sr No. Abbreviatio Name Descriptio 1 CRM Customer Relatioship Maagemet 2 BPM Busiess Process Maagemet 3 BRM Busiess Rules Maagemet Refereces [1] http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/crm/crm-itroductio.html [2] http://www.erpweb.com/crm.htm [3] http://buttleassociates.com/doc/chapter1crmbook2e.pdf [4] http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/ews/1330899/crm-ad-bpm-come-together-at-garter-summit [5] http://www.bpm.com/gettig-started-with-bpm-itroductio.html 7
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