Page 392 -

Chapter 9 Achieving Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy: Enterprise Applications 391

is able to distinguish itself among competitors and drive immediate business activities and also analyze
Internet travel services by providing an outstand- high-level business issues.
ing customer experience. Thomas Cook France had Not all companies experience gains of that mag-
been using pen and paper to track most of its calls nitude, and cloud computing does have drawbacks.
and other customer interactions, so its customer data Many companies are concerned about maintaining
were fragmented and redundant, and could not be control of their data and security. Although cloud
used by management to analyze agent productivity computing companies are prepared to handle these
and revenue opportunities. issues, availability assurances and service level
SugarCRM monthly subscriptions range from agreements are not always available. Companies that
$30–$100 per user. Thomas Cook France found manage their CRM apps with a cloud infrastructure
SugarCRM to be a user-friendly yet scalable sys- have no guarantees that their data will be available at
tem that could be customized, deployed quickly, all times, or even that the provider will still exist in
and managed without a large internal information the future, although CRM vendors have taken great
systems staff. With the help of Synolia consultants, pains to address these issues.
Thomas Cook had its SugarCRM system up and run-
ning within 15 days. Cook’s agents are able to man- Sources: “Salesforce.com Inc. 10-K Report,” March 9, 2012; Ziff
Davis,” SMB On Demand CRM Comparison Guide, January 2012;
age leads with integration and importation into their “Fireclay Heats Up Its Small Business as a Social Enterprise,”
system. The system allows for team and role-based www.salesforce.com, accessed July 17, 2012; “GRT Hotels & Resorts
access and the ability to attach documents to con- Increases Productivity by 25%, Improves Customer Service and
Resource Allocation with Centralized CRM System,” www.oracle.
tacts. In addition, Thomas Cook France is using the
com, May 1, 2012; www.sugarcrm.com, accessed July 17, 2012; and
CRM software for high-level outbound e-mail mar- “Thomas Cook Begins a Successful CRM Voyage with SugarCRM
keting efforts, FAQ modules, and dashboards that and Synolia,” SugarCRM, 2010.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. What types of companies are most likely to adopt 3. What management, organization, and technology
cloud-based CRM software services? Why? What issues should be addressed in deciding whether to
companies might not be well-suited for this type use a conventional CRM system versus a
of software? cloud-based version?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of
using cloud-based enterprise applications?

The major enterprise application vendors also offer portions of their products
that work on mobile handhelds. You can find out more about this topic in our
Chapter 7 Learning Track on Wireless Applications for Customer Relationship
Management, Supply Chain Management, and Healthcare.

LEARNING TRACK MODULES

The following Learning Tracks provide content relevant to topics covered in
this chapter.
1. SAP Business Process Map
2. Business Processes in Supply Chain Management and Supply Chain
Metrics
3. Best-Practice Business Processes in CRM Software

MIS_13_Ch_09 Global.indd 391 1/17/2013 2:28:58 PM