Is CRM the answer to Minitrex's customer problems? Why or Why not.

MINI CASE CRM at Minitrex4 Georges Degas, Director of s sympathy as the man unprofessional! It phoned was alread Director of Sales at Minitrex, looked at his salesman with concern and 6 the man described another sales call where he had been made to look ssional! It was bad enough that he didn't know that the company he'd just was already a Minitrex customer, but being told that he was the third caller this from Minitrex was horrible. "I'd be better off with a Rolodex and handwritten notes than this system," he grumbled. To keep track of customer information, salespeople use the Customer Contacts system, the brainchild of Degas's boss, Jon Bettman, VP of marketing. Bettman's posi- tion was created eighteen months ago in an effort to centralize sales and marketing activities at Minitrex. The sales and marketing team is responsible for promoting and selling an array of products to its customers. There are two distinct product lines, each developed by a separate division (insurance and financing) that also pro- vides after-sale customer service. The idea behind having a department dedicated to sales and marketing was to create opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling that didn't exist when salespeople were tied to just one of the company's product categories. The insurance division, led by Harold Blumfen, VP of insurance, is a major profit maker for Minitrex. Blumfen's group is divided into industry-specific teams whose goals are to develop deep industry knowledge and design short-term insurance products to meet clients' needs. Irascible and brilliant, Blumfen believes that comput- ers are good for billing and other accounting functions but cannot replace people for customer knowledge and support. His division uses a credit administration system (developed more than twenty years ago) to track customer billings and payments and general management system to keep track of which products a customer has bought what services the customer is entitled to. Both are fundamentally back-end systems. austry teams keep front-end customer knowledge in their own documentation and in their heads. des after-sale loped by a sducts to its ing services that are division, its products and own industry-specific teams. However Minitrex about with alacrity, was to Hopkins, is an IT enthusiast. Hop w hich she hasbility. To do t essful banking career. Her na a mall company center application financing The mission of the financing division is to provide business sectors with financ- vices that are competitive with those of the big banks. As with the insurance its products and customer service are designed and delivered through its ustry-specific teams. However, unlike Blumfen, the VP of financing, Mariella is an IT enthusiast. Hopkins lined Minitrex about four years ago after a sus career. Her mandate, which she has undertaken with alacrity, was to " banking services with small company flexibility. To do this, her division development of a management business center application, which acts as customer self-service system. Customers can obtain statements and financing "combine big bankin funded the develop an online customers Shool of Business, January 2005. 244 ervice representatives stomer transactions Decas, but when it mercentric seems to hile, salespeople can't do of having out much success. To Section III . IT-Enabled Innovation online and often can get credit approved instantly. Customer service ren use the same basic system, with additional functionality, to track customer and to provide customer support as needed. "The company is always promising better systems, 'thought Degas,'hu comes down to it, no one can agree on what to do. Being customercentric depend on whose view of the customer is being used. Meanwhile, salespeople their jobs properly. Just imagine what our customers think!" Bettman has been trying to get the company to see the importance of he timely, accurate, and integrated customer information without much suis give his sales force a better way to keep track of sales prospects, he develop Customer Contacts system, which schedules sales calls on a periodic hael provides mechanisms for generating and tracking new leads, it also forms the bas on which the marketing department pays the salespeople's commissions. Real-time information on sales by product, salesperson, and region gives Bettman and his team excellent feedback on how well their centralized marketing strategies are perform ing. For purposes of invoicing and servicing the accounts, the Customer Contacts system also feeds data into the insurance and financing divisions' systems after sales are made. "I'll see what I can do about this," Degas had promised his frustrated salesman, knowing that it would take a miracle to improve the situation. "I'll speak with the direc- tor of IT today and get back to you." Degas put in a call to Denny Khan, Minitrex's long-suffering director of IT. Khan, who reported to the CFO, was outranked by Bettman, Blumfen, and Hopkins. To his surprise, Khan answered the phone right away. "I was just leaving for lunch," he explained. "What can I do for you?" As soon as Degas began to explain what had happened that morning, Khan cut him off. "I know, I know. But the VPs would say, 'Our systems work fine for our needs, so why change them? We have a lot more urgent IT needs to spend our money on Blumfen doesn't want to spend a nickel on IT and doesn't want to have to work with Hopkins. Hopkins is open to collaboration, but she doesn't want to compromise her existing system, which is working well. And Bettman can't do anything without the cooperation. Furthermore, none of them will assign dedicated business staff to help us put together a business case and requirements. Their line is 'We don't have the budges for this. Of course, we'll answer IT's questions, but it's their job to give us the system we need.' "I see the same attitude in our business activities," agreed Degas. Our often doesn't know what services the business teams are providing to the cu don't see how management can expect to make informed decisions when they Sharing basic information. Isn't there some way we could at least get common data-even if we use the data in different ways? And surely, with each unit prioritizing, and paying for IT opportunities, the duplication of support sery cost an arm and a leg." Sure, Khan agreed, "but each unit developed its own terminology am ized data items over time, so these only work for their systems. Sharing is in unless everyone agrees on what information everyone needs about our I'd like to see something done about this, but when I take it to the Il pro is when they're not mmon customer with each unit identifying n of support services must ology and special- is impossible our customers e IT prioritization OldSN CRM at Minitrex committee, it always seems to get bumped off the list. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an effective business case to improve CRM. And anyway, I don't own this issue!" "You're probably right, but I'm not sure how to go about this." said Degas. "Let me think about it and get back to you." Discussion Que 1. Explain how