1. Customer Relationship Management: Need,
Importance And Impact On Today's Business
Lets start up with an introduction to Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is an end to end system to manage a company’s interaction with its customers on
an ongoing basis for a win­win relationship. Technology is used to organize, automate
and synchronize different business units like sales, marketing, relations, reporting and
finance into a streamlined process to provide end to end customer support solutions. A
good CRM ensures storage, tracking, reporting, predictability, accountability and
sustainability of business processes.
Advantages of CRM ­
1. Competitive Advantage: An insight into customer requirements based on
historical data can help in forecasting customer demand and serving them at the
right time.
2. Storage: Storing customer information, data, emails, status and many more is
one of the other important advantages of having a system in place. This helps in
data centralization.
3. Security: A good CRM system can ensure that all important information is kept
safe and secure both from tangible and intangible losses.
4. Efficiency: Delivering the right solution at the right time is very important for
business continuity and gain a competitive edge in the market.
5. Customer Acquisition and Retention: CRM can support in identifying the target
audience and help in both acquisition and retention costs reduction to a great
extent.
6. Integration: CRM integrates all the applications, processes and interfaces to aim
at superior customer services and solutions.
7. Growth and Improvement: CRM systems can generate reports and metric based
on data using advanced intelligent methods to help know how the business is
doing and where it needs improvement or which processes to be streamlined.
Almost all businesses today have deployed a CRM system to support their business
growth and diversification.

2. CRM Needs Of SME
CRM as a customer service tool was earlier considered a luxury only that large
enterprises could afford. However,with cloud technology spreading its wings around, it
has become much easier for small and medium companies to leverage the benefits of
CRM. Having a valued CRM system can speed up their sales considerably and give
them faster results. Irrespective of which CRM system is implemented, it can bring a
number of benefits for small and medium sized organizations.
1. Client Management: A good CRM system gives visibility to the customer base
and encapsulated customer information to formulate long­term profitability plans.
2. Profitability Tracking: CRM system enables speedy book­keeping for these small
firms so that they can track revenue at each step.
3. Automation: Moving to an automated system from a manual system helps small
businesses to utilize their workforce productively.
4. Sales Strategy: Small businesses can use the data available from CRM to target
the right segment of customer.
5. Better Customer Service: Using a CRM system enables employees to serve
customers better and prevent wastage of time from repeated iterations.
Guidelines for selecting a good CRM:
Whether you want to implement a hosted or licensed CRM really depends on the size
and nature of your business.
1. Cost: Business should understand the cost vs return tradeoff before purchasing a
CRM system. Small businesses can opt for a simpler one rather than a high­end
system. It should be able to generate analytical reports to track the growth chart
and employee performance.
2. Business Objectives: A CRM system should match the business objectives and
needs rather than a generalist one. The CRM should be able to seamlessly
integrate with other business applications and processes of your organization m
3. Scalability: The purchased software should be able to grow with your business in
future. It should facilitate easy management and retrieval on customer contacts
by their name or company.
4. Vendor Reputation: Companies should try to purchase the best in the industry
system but within their budget.Businesses can opt for a simpler one rather than a
high­end system.