Module description Customer Relationship Management

Module description

Customer Relationship Management

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Module code W.MSCBA_CRM01.08

Central theme This module discusses CRM as a strategic approach that is concerned with creating improved shareholder value through the development of appropriate relationships with key customers and customer segments. From a strategic perspective, superior customer relationship management is a core competence and the basis for sustainable competi-tive advantage. In the module, the importance of a cross-functional, process-driven approach to CRM is stressed. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in the identification, selection, acquisition, growth and retention of desired customers. The integration of different functional units such as customer services, operations, marketing and IT is emphasised. In addition, the module discusses key concepts such as relationships, loyalty, experiences and customer value from the cus-tomer perspective. Experiential learning settings build an integrated part of the module and are designed to ensure that students apply the key concepts of CRM at the strategic level and develop skills at the operational level. The latter includes e.g. statistical cus-tomer data analysis.

The focus in this module is on customer relationships and how a company needs to organise and manage its internal processes and relationships in order to attract and maintain a profitable customer portfolio. This distinguishes the module from the parallel “Network Management” module which looks at inter-organisational rela-tionships and processes between organisations.

Type of training Business Administration

Course of Studies Master

Module type C (core module)

Module level Advanced

Initial competences The following initial competences correspond to the teaching objectives and con-tents of general economic bachelor studies.

Competences in the organisational sector

 Students understand the theoretical principles required to design organisational structures and processes.

Competences in the personnel sector

 Students know how to fulfil and assess their roles in leadership team situations.  Students are able to reflect on their own actions and to introduce them into the

work process in a profitable manner.

Competences in the controlling and finance sectors

 Students have mastered the most important methods of cost management  Students are able to undertake a computational assessment of real and corporate

investments

Competences in the information management sector

 Students are aware of the networking options of a corporation with regard to their information systems

 Students are aware of the role and importance of information and its correct pro-cessing in a corporate environment

 Students can implement a simple (relational) database using a desktop database management system

Follow-up modules W.MSCBA_CM02.08 – Change Management

 All Major Business Development and Promotion, Major Tourism and Major Online Business and Marketing modules, in particular Business Opportunity and Design as well as International Environment and Business Models Notes

Final competences / Basic objectives

Customer Relationship Management module graduates:

• have a strategic understanding of CRM, its concept and application of the principles in practice; • acknowledge customers as assets and equities for the company;

• appreciate the active role of the customer in CRM and distinguish between customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, customer value and customer experience;

• understand the linkage between analytical, strategic and operational CRM activities;

• critically evaluate customer relationship management strategies and assess their quality and applicability in a defined company context;

• set up a CRM project management plan; • design a CRM strategy for a defined company.

Objectives

Knowledge / area/s of expertise Complex decision-making or partial competence

Professional expertise Professional competence

Students:

 understand the central causal mechanisms be-tween customer, shareholder and process orienta-tion in customer relaorienta-tionship management  differentiate aims and strategies in designing

cus-tomer relationships

 know how the process for value generation for customers can be defined, analysed, optimised and automated

 recognise the vital importance of the integral and co-ordinated implementation of employee, organi-sational and IT-related measures to the success of the implementation of customer relationship man-agement

 understand how customer data have to be system-atically collected, stored, analysed and maintained so to be able to support the customer relationship creation

Students:

 are able to structure complex problems involved in customer-orientated corporate management with the aid of the conceptional and project-orientated level  are able to allocate and integrate different customer

relationship management strategies, methods, in-struments and measures to these levels

Methodic expertise Methodic competence

Students:

 know the most important methods of customer lifetime analysis and customer needs analysis  understand the complexity of segmentation in

customer relationship management

 are aware of the processes to analyse and opti-mise customer relationship management pro-cesses at the customer interface

 have an overview of the key tools and software involved with customer data analysis and cus-tomer management



Students:

 are able to undertake customer lifetime value computations using a variety of different methods  can work out proposals on the segmentation of a

customer base

 are able to analyse existing customer relationship management processes and deduce proposals for optimisation from these

 are able to sketch a project management plan suited to the situation, and to develop systematic proposals on how to approach the implementation of customer relationship management projects

Communications and social relationship expertise Social-communicative competence Students:

 know the different roles required to establish a successful project team

 understand how these roles interact in the im-plementation of customer relationship manage-ment projects

Students:

 are able to support change-orientated tasks inside a project team, e. g. by openness towards new per-spectives, the mutual search for a variety of solu-tions for any given problem and by supporting an error culture

Self-knowledge Self-competence Students:

 recognise their personal willingness to subordi-nate their professional interests to the mutual vi-sion of a cross-functional project team

Students:

 handle customer information in a respectful man-ner and put ethical-moral considerations above any methodical options for customer data analyses Learning content

Introduction: CRM from the customer and company perspective (5%) - Positioning CRM in the corporate context

- Key terms in CRM Analytical CRM (20%)

- Customer lifetime value analysis - Customer perceived value analysis Strategic CRM (20%)

- Strategic goals, contact strategies, service strategies, distribution channel strategies - Individualised and/or segment-orientated strategy development

- Customer experience management - Touchpoint management

Operational CRM (20%) - Campaign management - Sales and service processes

CRM Implementation (20%)

- Roles in CRM projects, management competences and responsibilities, project team leadership, assess-ments, internal communication

- Coordination of project organisation, process organisation and structural organisation - Integrated CRM business cases

Trends in CRM: Social Media and Technological Trends - CRM and social networks

- CRM with big data

- CRM and mobile data devices

Real-time network based case study project ( 15%)

Teaching method Specialist / problem-orientated Teaching and learning

forms

Objectives and contents

Contact studies Classical forms of teaching such as teaching discussions, lectures

Discussing real-time case study problems in the presence of corporate representa-tives

Analysing the development stages of customer relationship management inside the corporation of selected students

Self-study Literature studies, research, resolving case studies

Teaching language German / English

Proof of Proficiency

Learning team assignment: “Real time CRM case study project” (40%)

Each student will be assigned to a group of 4 to 6 students. All groups will prepare a written report in which they develop a CRM strategy for a real time case study. The aim is to demonstrate the problem solving skills in a real business context. Please refer to the separate briefing document for details.

Final written exam (60%)

The students shall pass a 90 minutes, case-study based written exam.

Bibliography Payne, A. (2006), Chapter I: A Strategic Framework for CRM, Handbook CRM, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, pp. 4-38.

Nelson, S. (2003): The Eight Building Blocks of CRM, Gartner Research.

Peppers, D., Rogers, M. (eds.) (2004): Managing customer relationships, chapter 5, Differentiating customers: Some customers are worth more than others, pp. 115-135 and chapter 11, measuring the success of customer-based initiative” 299-315.

Woodruff, R. Customer Value: The next source of competitive advantage, in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 138-153.

Olson, Jerry C. and Thomas J. Reynolds (2001), "The Means-End Approach to Understanding Consumer Decision Making," in Understanding Consumer Decision

Study duration per semester ECTS Credits Contact studies (Lessons) Contact studies (hours) Supervised studies (Lessons) Supervised Self-studies (hours) Independent self-studies (hours) Total (hours) Scope 6 56 42.0 50.0 88.0 180 Proportion 23.3% 27.8% 48.9% 100%

Reynolds and Jerry C. Olson, Eds, pp. 3-20.

Berry, L. L., Carbone, L. P. und Haeckel, S. H. (2002), "Managing the total customer experience", MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 85-89.

Frow, P. & Payne, A. (2007, “Towards the “perfect” customer experience”, in: Brand Management, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 89-101.

Kumar, V. and Reinartz, W. (2006): Customer Relationship Management – A Database Approach, Chapter 11, Campaign Management, pp. 211-244. Reinartz, W. and Kumar, V. (2002) The mismanagement of customer loyalty, Harvard Business Review, July, pp. 4-12.

Womack J. P. and Jones, D. T. (2005): Lean Consumption, in: Harvard Business Review, March, pp. 1-11.

Iyengar, R.; Sangman Han, S.; Gupta, S. (2009); “Do Friends Influence Purchases in a Social Network?”, http://bit.ly/sPUZE

Gupta, S. (2009): “Social Network Marketing: What Works?”, http://bit.ly/dOZpB Light, B. (2001): A review of the issues associated with customer relationship management systems, Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Information Systems Bled, Slovenia, June 27-29, pp. 1232-1241.