1 Customer relationship management systems help firms achieve customer

profiling and personalizing? Explain, How?

Managing good customer relationship in an organization refers to the concepts,

tools, and strategies of customer relationship management (CRM). CRM as a tools with
Web/Apps technology provides organizations ability to understand customers or
potential customers its usual practices and thus deliver a particular activities that might
convince them to make transactions and decisions [1]. CRM has been discussed in
many fields such as business, health care, science, and other service industries. The
massive adoption of big data in any sectors has triggered assessment of frontend
perspective especially managing customer relationship [2]. It is pivotal to examine the
role of big data within CRM strategies.

Many organizations have invested in expensive CRM infrastructure which is mostly

focused on sales and call center operations; that is, operational CRM which can fulfil a
wide variety of functions, including marketing automation (campaign management,
cross-selling, customer segmentation, customer retention), sales force automation
(contact management, lead generation, sales analytics, product configuration) and call
center management (integration of multiple contact channels, problem escalation and
resolution, metrics and monitoring.). This kind of operational CRM has been
implemented and connected with customer touch points, and has worked effectively to
simplify, organize and manage customer information to create a customer database that
presents a consistent picture of the customer’s relationship with the organization, as
well as provide specific application information. However, the inability of the data
warehouse to discover valuable information hidden in the data prevents the
transformation of these data into insightful, meaningful and actionable knowledge. Also,
the challenge is to transform the data into a set of customer-specific behavior
measurements and use detected customer behavior patterns to analyze and choose
channels to target customer marketing; further, to enhance the performance of front line
communication and help organizations to leverage their existing investments and boost
their return on investment.
 Data mining has played a key role in achieving this and has enjoyed great
popularity in the CRM area. In fact, data mining is a process that applies a variety of
data analysis and statistical techniques to discover patterns and relationships in an
enormous database that may be used to make accurate predictions. Analytical CRM
uses data mining with certain built-in advanced analytics functions, such as predictive
analytics and campaign optimization, within the existing CRM system. Analytical CRM
takes a holistic view of customers: it encompasses all the measures for understanding
customers and exploiting this knowledge to design and implement customer marketing
activities, align production and coordinate the supply-chain. It has been proven that
analytical CRM is particularly useful in measuring customer profitability and value, which
can be built on a historic, potential or lifetime basis. This is an important part of
customer analytics because, presumably, marketing investments increase customer
value over time, and one way to 3 measure the effectiveness of marketing is to
understand what impact it has on customer value. Customers today increasingly contact
organizations via email and Web, thus more and more organizations are implementing
e-business applications and CRM strategies using the Internet. It is therefore necessary
to provide an integrated solution for the centralization of customer contact methods into
a single enterprise system, such as a data warehouse.
Electronic CRM (eCRM) is an efficient operational CRM system that integrates
online sales, marketing and service strategies, enabling the identification, attraction and
retention of customers. Basically, eCRM involves all front-end, back-office, and third-
party processes that ‘touch’ customers, from the contact center that handles a
customer’s orders, for example, to the customer’s bank for credit card authorization, to
the inventory system to check for product viability, and the warehouse for fulfilment and
delivery. It improves and increases communication between an organization and its
customers by creating and enhancing customer interaction through innovative
technology. The eCRM system works as a process to enable customers to do business
with the organization in the way the customer wants, at any time, via any channel, and
to make all customers feel that they are dealing with a single, unified organization that
recognizes them at every step of the way. At the same time, eCRM concerns all forms
of managing relationships with customers by making use of IT; it is an enterprise that
uses IT to integrate internal organization resources and external marketing strategies to
understand and fulfil customers’ needs.

2 Implementation of ERP systems are challenging”. How could some of the

significant failure of ERP systems be avoided?
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) refers to a type of software that organizations use
to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting, procurement, project
management, risk management and compliance, and supply chain operations. A
complete ERP suite also includes enterprise performance management, software that
helps plan, budget, predict, and report on an organization’s financial results. ERP
systems tie together a multitude of business processes and enable the flow of data
between them. By collecting an organization’s shared transactional data from multiple
sources, ERP systems eliminate data duplication and provide data integrity with a single
source of truth. ERP systems are designed around a single, defined data structure
(schema) that typically has a common database. This helps ensure that the information
used across the enterprise is normalized and based on common definitions and user
experiences. These core constructs are then interconnected with business processes
driven by workflows across business departments (e.g. finance, human resources,
engineering, marketing, and operations), connecting systems and the people who use
them. Simply put, ERP is the vehicle for integrating people, processes, and
technologies across a modern enterprise.

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.

Using wise and forward-looking ideas when implementing ERP, it is definitely

possible to get a return that is something much more appreciable than a simple change
in format of data or an updated user interface. This is a real challenge, but at the same
time it is a great opportunity to refresh the business and bring new ideas as well as
laying a strategic foundation for the organization’s future. The system itself is a non-
living and logical entity that follows logical steps and processes as it has been
programmed to, but the users of the system are humans who were used to processes
being one way and will more than likely find it hard to switch to a new way of doing
things, especially if the benefits of adopting new methods are not immediately obvious. 

3 Identify the essential processes of an e-commerce system and give examples of

how they are implemented in e-commerce applications that adds business value.

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.

Essential e-Commerce Processes:

The nine essential ecommerce processes required for the successful operation or management of
e-commerce activities consist of:

Access Control and Security:

E-commerce processes must establish mutual trust and secure access between the parties in an
ecommerce transaction by authenticating users, authorizing access, and enforcing security featu
res.

Profiling and Personalization:

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 and Catalog Management:

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:

E-business workflow systems help employees electronically collaborate to accomplish structured

work tasks within knowledge-based business processes. Workflow management in both e-
business and ecommerce depends on a workflow software engine containing software models of
the business processes to be accomplished. The workflow model expresses the predefined sets of
business rules, roles of stakeholders, authorization requirements, routing alternatives, databases
used, and sequence of tasks required for each e-commerce process.

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.

Collaboration and Trading:

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.

Electronic Payments Processes:

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:

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.

Secure Electronic Payments:

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.

• Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) - software encrypts a digital envelope of digital

certificates specifying the payment details for each transaction. SET is expected to become the
dominant standard for secure electronic payments on the Internet.
4 Discuss the difference between a MIS and DSS with respect to the information
processed by two systems, the information consumed by stakeholders. Provide
suitable example and use case of MIS and DSS system.

Management Information System (MIS) The Management Information System (MIS) is

a concept of the last decade or two. It has been understood and described in a number
ways. It is also known as the Information System, the Information and Decision System,
the Computer-based information System. MIS is defined as a system which provides
information support for decision making in the organization. The MIS is defined as an
integrated system of man and machine for providing the information to support the
operations. MIS is useful in the area of decision making as it can monitor by itself
disturbances in a system, determine a course of action and take action to get the
system in control. It is also relevant in nonprogrammer decisions as it provides support
by supplying information for the search, the analysis, the evaluation and the choice and
implementation process of decision making. Stressed the need for MIS in decision
making as it provides information that is needed for better decision making on the
issues affecting the organization regarding human and material resources

Decision Support System (DSS) Decision-making is an essential component of

organizational life. Decision makers receive and analysis information using many
different media, including traditional print, group and interpersonal information
exchanges and computer-based tools Decision support systems (DSS) is a generic
concept that describes information systems that provide analytical modelling and
information to support semi-structured and unstructured organizational decision making.
Common characteristics of DSS include:
-Problem structure, used in semi-structured and unstructured decision context
-Intended to support and augment decision makers not replace them
-Supports most phases of decision-making process
-Uses underlying data and model
-Interactive: DSS is designed to be an interactive decision aid
A decision support system (DSS) is an integrated set of computer tools allowing a
decision maker to interact directly with computer to retrieve information useful in making
semi structured and unstructured decisions The Decision support system are able to
help groups to make the decision .It should not be responsible for individual decision
making .The Decision support system is easy to use .A user should not be required to
be computer operator to generate reports .It should be convenient for the user to use
DSS
Difference of MIS and DSS
MIS and DSS are two abbreviations that are often heard in the field of Business
Management. They differ in a few aspects. It is important to know that MIS stands for
Management Information Systems whereas DSS stands for Decision Support Systems.
It is interesting to note that MIS is a type of link that assists in the communication
between managers of various disciplines in a business firm or an organization. On the
whole it plays a very important role in building up communication among the corporate
people. DSS on the other hand is an improvement of the concept of MIS. It is true that
both of them differ in terms of their focus. DSS focuses more on leadership. It is all
about senior management in a firm providing innovative vision. On the other hand MIS
focuses more on the information gathered and the information that has poured from
different quarters. Experts on managerial behavior say that DSS focuses more on
decision making. MIS on the other hand focuses more on planning the report of various
topics concerned with the organization that would assist the managers to take vital
decisions pertaining to the functioning of the organization. One of the finest differences
between MIS and DSS is that MIS focuses on operational efficiency whereas DSS
focuses more on making effective decision or in other words helping the company to do
the right thing. Flow of information is from both sides, up and down in the case of MIS.
On the other flow of information is only upward in the case of DSS. In the case of DSS
the report can be flexible whereas in the case of MIS the report is usually not flexible.
MIS is characterized by an input of large volume of data, an output of summary reports
and process characterized by a simple model. On the other hand DSS is featured by an
input of low volume of data, an output of decision analysis and a process characterized
by interactive model. Experts would also say that MIS is a primary level of decision
making whereas DSS is the ultimate and the main part of the decision. This is one of
the most talked about different between the two. As a matter of fact MIS is all about
theory whereas DSS is all about practice and analysis. An organization should employ
both the systems effectively
5. What do you understand by Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) ? Discuss
the importance of BPR during IS implementations.
Business process re-engineering is the radical redesign of business processes to
achieve dramatic improvements in critical aspects like quality, output, cost, service, and
speed. Business process reengineering (BPR) aims at cutting down enterprise costs
and process redundancies on a very huge scale BPR amounts to making radical
changes to one or more business processes affecting the whole organization. It also
requires a cross-functional effort usually involving innovative applications of technology.
Reengineering is an attempt to change the way work is performed by simultaneously
addressing all the aspects of work that impact performance, including the process
activities, the people's jobs and their reward system, the organization structure and the
roles of process performers and managers, the management system and the underlying
corporate culture which holds the beliefs and values that influence everyone's behavior
and expectations. With BPR, rather than simply eliminating steps or tasks in a process,
the value of the whole process itself is questioned. Reengineering makes a significant
break with previous performance improvement approaches by requiring a high level of
state-of-the-art information technology awareness among the entire reengineering team
prior to, rather than after, the definition of process changes or improvements. Some
technologies (i.e. imaging systems and expert systems) can provide substantial
opportunities for the redesign of business processes. Again, for each technology
application, success is far from guaranteed. Indeed, a thorough understanding of a
particular technology's success factors is critical to reduce the risk of project failure,
particularly in the fast pace, high pressure usually associated with BPR projects.
 Many organizations that have undertaken reengineering projects reported
significant benefits from their BPR experience in several areas such as: customer
satisfaction, productivity and profitability. The expected improvements vary dramatically
by company: productivity, quality, profits and customer satisfaction are expected to
improve from 7 percent to 100 percent, depending on where the company is starting
from and the extent of its efforts. Improvements forecast in costs, inventory, cycle time
and response time range from 10 percent to as much as 400 percent. Other benefits
include reduced floor space requirements; reduced labor requirements, particularly
indirect labor; reduced material handling; improved employee empowerment and
morale; improved communications between operations; and improved quality. An
extensive list of BPR benefits has been compiled and empirically rated by the author
elsewhere.

According to CSC Index, approximately one fourth of 300 reengineering projects

in North America are not meeting their goals and the authors speculated that the figure
may be closer to 70 percent. Many CIOs say that the actual benefits of the projects fall
short of their expectations along the dimensions of customer service, process
timeliness, quality, cost reduction, competitiveness, new/improved technology and
sales/ revenues. A Deloitte & Touche survey showed reengineering projects
consistently fall short of their expected benefits. The up-front costs are high, particularly
in the areas of training and consultant fees, with a time consuming learning curve. For
some companies, creating an environment in which reengineering will succeed may be
exceedingly difficult. Some argue in favor of more gradual departures from traditional
practices since managerial innovations take time and induce substantial strain on the
organization. As discussed in the context of organizational change in general, there is
much business organizations can do to reorganize for fast changing environments. The
changes often fail because worker habits are not addressed during implementation.
Succumbing to the pressure to produce quick results, many managers implementing
BPR tend to ignore the massive changes in organizational structure, have alienated
middle managers and lower level employees, sold off solid businesses, neglected
important research and development, and hindered the necessary modernization of
their plants. An extensive collection of implementation problems encountered in practice
has been tested by this author elsewhere.