CASE STUDY Established in 1998, McKenzie Group Consulting offers a wide range of consulting and approval services in the building industry. With changes to state-based building legislation opening up opportunities, the company has expanded to Brisbane-3 staff and Sydney- 11 staff. The business employs 32 staff across the three states with headquarters in Collins Street, Melbourne. As the business expanded interstate, the issue of sharing client files and knowledge became a critical one. There was duplication of material and administration which led to difficulties in the management of day-to-day operations. To resolve this issue, management implemented a real time dedicated broadband link to significantly increase the bandwidth between the Melbourne and Sydney. This allowed the McKenzie Group to centralise documents on one server in Melbourne as well as a number of applications including email, the customer relationship management (CRM) database and financial reporting systems. The McKenzie Group moved from a simple excel spreadsheet that held details to an electronic customer relationship management system that staff from all offices could update. This allowed the directors of McKenzie Group to more easily run reports on sales and marketing activities as well as keep the client files updated easily. The eCRM system integrates the contact management elements of the previous database. With greater functionality and the ability to grow the sales force more effectively. As a result, management has greater control of their daily customer needs, being able to prioritize service requests from clients within Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Additionally, as the McKenzie Group offers a wide range of consulting and approval services in the building industry, they are often required to log into websites to download large documents. This can be done efficiently with the broadband internet connection. (What is electronic Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? The integrate sales, marketing and service strategy that is used to identify, attract and retain an organisation's customers through innovative internet-based methodologies. CRM aims to maximise customer lifetime value and return on investment to a business.) Q.No. Marks 11. How did technology play an important role in centralizing documents of the McKenzie Group? 7.5 12. What can be the probable challenges faced by the McKenzie group? Also state some important future plans which can be initiated to make the online system more robust and effective. 10 13. Discuss the CRM implementation life-cycle and list out the benefits achieved by implementing the same with reference to McKenzie. 7.5