1 Customer Relationship Management Systems Help Firms Achieve Customer Profiling and Personalizing
1 Customer Relationship Management Systems Help Firms Achieve Customer Profiling and Personalizing
1 Customer Relationship Management Systems Help Firms Achieve Customer Profiling and Personalizing
In looking at the data, the main reason is clear: The implementation of ERP software is
new territory for most medium-sized companies, who lack experience with large and
complex IT projects. Although competence with ERP systems is gradually being built up
throughout the course of an ERP implementation project, some of the most important
strategic steps happen at the beginning stages – before companies have developed the
ERP know-how. The consequence: mistakes at the early stages set the whole project
off on the wrong track. The truth is that most ERP projects do not fail because of a poor
selection process or the functionality of the ERP software. They fail because of the ERP
implementation process. The solution? Prepare the company and team for the
introduction of ERP to mitigate these risks
Before implementing any ERP system, an organization must first research what type,
size, and scope of system they actually require and how to choose the most suitable
solution among the hundreds of enterprise software options available on the market.
Many companies may consider themselves immune to these ERP challenges as they
have already decided what they need and want in a new system. Being careful about
coming to this conclusion without proper background work, though, as selecting a new
software system, especially one as all-encompassing as an ERP system, is one of the
most complex and important decisions your company will ever make.
Unless your company is adopting a cloud-based ERP system, it’s likely that servers and
other hardware will need to be revised and new and more modern ones may need to be
ordered, purchased, and installed. The internal network also has to be analyzed and
modernized if required, and the speed and bandwidth of the existing internet access
should be taken into consideration along with possible technical concerns about the
mobile devices being used. Plenty of “as a service” and cloud options have become
available, offering hosted infrastructure, data storage and software services, which now
allow the cost and headache of applications, hardware, network, and storage problems
to be minimized. These include software as a service (SaaS). SaaS enables companies
to run a software application hosted offsite, generally through a network interface like a
Web browser, but they have the choice of whether they want their data associated to
the offsite software application or not.
E-commerce means using the Internet and the web for business transactions and/or
commercial transactions, which typically involve the exchange of value (e.g., money)
across organizational or individual boundaries in return for products and services. Here
we focus on digitally enabled commercial transactions among organizations and
individuals. E-business applications turn into e-commerce precisely, when an exchange
of value occurs. Digitally enabled transactions include all transactions mediated by
digital technology and platform; that is, transactions that occur over the Internet and the
web. The term electronic commerce or e-commerce refers to any sort of business
transaction that involves the transfer of information through the internet. By definition it
covers a variety of business activities which use internet as a platform for either
information exchange or monetary transaction or both at times. For example, the
numbers of consumer brand retail sites like Amazon.com and Flipkart.com which
normally provides information about products and also allows monetary transactions to
happen over the internet. On the contrary there are the auctions sites like Quickr.com
and Ebay.com where the information about certain listed products and services are
provided but the monetary transactions normally happen physically. Apart from these
two categories of e-commerce sites, there are some sites which enable businesses to
exchange trading goods and also service between two or more companies. All of these
forms of internet based business platforms are known as e-commerce.
The nine essential ecommerce processes required for the successful operation or management of
e-commerce activities consist of:
Profiling processes gather data on an individual and their website behavior and choices, and
build electronic profiles of their characteristics and preferences. User profiles are developed
using profiling tools such as user registration, cookie files, website behavior tracking software,
and user feedback.
Search Management:
Efficient and effective search processes provide a top e-commerce website capability that helps
customers find the specific product or service they want to evaluate or buy.
Content management software helps e-commerce companies develop, generate, deliver, update,
and archive text data, and multimedia information at e-commerce websites. E-commerce content
frequently takes the form of multimedia catalogs of product information. Generating and
managing catalog content is a major subset of content management. Content and catalog
management may be expanded to include product configuration processes that support Web-
based customer self—service and the mass customization of a company’s products.
Configuration software helps online customers select the optimum feasible set of product
features that can be included in a finished product.
Workflow Management:
Event Notification:
Most e-commerce applications are event-driven systems that respond to a multitude of events.
Event notification processes play an important role in e-commerce systems, since customers,
suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders must be notified of all events that might affect their
status in a transaction.
This category of e-commerce processes are those that support the vital collaboration
arrangements and trading services needed by customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders to
accomplish e-commerce transactions.
Payments for the products and services purchased are an obvious and vital step in the electronic
commerce transaction process. Concerns of electronic payments and security include:
• The near-anonymous electronic nature of transactions taking place between the networked
computer systems of buyers and sellers, and the security issues involved.
• Electronic payment process is complex because of the wide variety of debit and credit
alternatives and financial institutions and intermediaries that may be part of the process.
• Varieties of electronic payment systems have evolved. New payment systems are being
developed and tested to meet the security and technical challenges of electronic commerce over
the Internet. Web Payment Processes: Most e-commerce systems on the Web involving
businesses and consumers (B2C) depend on credit card payment processes. Buy many B2B e-
commerce systems rely on more complex payment processes based on the use of purchase
orders. Both types of e-commerce typically use an electronic shopping cart process, which
enables customers to select products from website catalog displays and put them temporarily in a
virtual shopping basket for later checkout and processing.
Electronic funds transfer (EFT) systems are a major form of electronic commerce systems in
banking and retailing industries.
• EFT systems use a variety of information technologies to capture and process money and credit
transfers between banks and businesses and their customers.
When you make an online purchase on the Internet, your credit card information is vulnerable to
interception by network sniffers, software that easily recognizes credit card number formats.
Several basic security measures are being used to solve this security problem. They include:
• Encrypt (code and scramble) the data passing between the customer and merchant
• Encrypt the data passing between the customer and the company authorizing the credit card
transaction • Take sensitive information offline Security methods developed include:
• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) - automatically encrypts data passing between your Web browser
and a merchant’s server.
• Digital Wallet - you add security software add-on modules to your Web browser. This enables
your browser to encrypt your credit card data in such a way that only the bank that authorizes
credit card transactions for the merchant can see it.