Case : Customer Relationship Management Heads to the Cloud

1. Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1
1 MBA_Batch2_UMK_Kch/M7/GST5803/Information System and E-Commerce/P14D397P
CASE STUDY 4.1
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
HEADS TO THE CLOUD
INTRODUCTION
Salesforce is the worlds' first and most popular CRM
system headquartered in San Francisco with more than 82,000
companies and over 100,000 customers rely on this dynamic, web-
based, low-cost CRM platform. It was founded in March 1999 by
former Oracle executive Marc Benioff. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16
different languages and currently has 82,400 regular customers and over 2,100,000
subscribers. Salesforce CRM provides a complete solution for that includes feature-rich
solutions for marketing, sales, services, partner management and community management.

2. Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1
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SALESFORCE CRM
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing leader. Their social and mobile cloud
technologies - including flagship sales and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
application which help companies connect with customers, partners, and employees in
entirely new ways. Salesforce CRM technology can streamline and automate their business
processes with the cutting edge, logistical advantages of cloud computing technology.
Synchronization across all channels, optimized internal collaboration and better access to
proven data provide a greatly enhanced customer experience. It is low cost, low risk cloud
based solution software service. Complete solution includes feature-rich solution for
marketing, sales, service, partner management and community management. It produced fast
result because it drain resources on high value, low cost and focus on innovation.
Salesforce is divided into different sets of tools referred to as "clouds” :
(i) Sales Cloud
• Sales Cloud helps to sell products and Services, manage connection with customer,
and close more deals. Sales Cloud include Chatter, Social Contact, Marketing and
Leads, Data.com, Opportunities and quotes, Approval and Work process, Files and
Libraries, Analytics and Forecasting, Partner Management, AppExchange, Email and
calendaring

3. Customer Relationship Management Heads To The Cloud CASE 4.1
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(ii) Service Cloud
• Service cloud increase agent productivity, reduces service costs, and gain better
visibility into Service Organization. It includes Customer Portal, Live Agent, Contract
and entitlement
(iii) Collaboration Cloud
• Collabration cloud consist of Salesforce Chatter and Radian6 service cloud which
helps to connect with co-workers, customers, and partners to share experience and
information across.

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(iv) Custom Cloud
• Custom Cloud is infrastructure used to for building customized cloud application
development for automation, analytics and approval processes.
Types of applications
• Partners built ERP on Salesforce
• Human oriented size
• Structured Data
• Like approval process
• Internet & Portal type of applications
• Long-tail apps
HOW SALESFORCE IS USEFUL
Salesforce.com offers a conclusive concept to deliver an easy to use CRM Software as a
service using a dynamic, scale free cloud computing approach. This satisfies the customer
demand and leverages cost benefits for the customers of Salesforce.com. Salesforce does a lot
to create a productive, collaborative CRM environment. The success of Salesforce.com is
based on an excellent management, a clear company strategy and a business model, which
uses cutting edge technology combined with a developer community and an easy to use
platform, which is delivered in a very cost effective manner.

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QUESTION 1
What type of companies are most likely to adopt cloud-based CRM software services?
Why? What companies might not be well suited for this type of software?
The types of companies that adopt cloud-base CRM software service is small businesses that
find the on demand model especially appealing because there are no large up-front hardware
and software investments or lengthy implementation on corporate computer system.
Saleforce’s e-mail and Web-to-lead capabilities helped company quadruple new sales leads.
A task feature automatically generate specific task based on the type of lead and the stage in
the sales process. The system automates customer service functions including order
confirmation, follow up customer satisfaction surveys and shipping notification. Cloud base
software service also appeals to large companies. The system with automated reports and
dashboards monitoring key performance indicators, sales calls, and sales volume.
CRM software service also help to create more successful marketing campaign. Not all
companies experience gains of that magnitude and cloud computing does have drawback.
Companies that manage their CRM apps with a cloud infrastructure have no guarantees that
their data will be available at all time, or even that the provider will still exist in the future.
Companies which might not be well-suited for this type of software are those companies from
small to middle-sized companies. Large firms in fast paced evolving industries are also not
suited for ERP and CRM cloud-based software. Employees must learn how to perform a new
set of work activities. This requires new organizational learning and provides training for
them. Companies that are unable to accept the changes and also provides training for their
employees will be not be suggested to use this type of software. For the vast majority of
businesses, modern commercial cloud applications provide exceptionally high levels of
security, including data protection and back-up, and are usually more secure than the majority
of on-premise applications.

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QUESTION 2
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using cloud-based enterprise applications?
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
Cost Efficiency
This is the biggest advantage of cloud
computing, achieved by the elimination of
the investment in stand-alone software or
servers. By leveraging cloud’s capabilities,
companies can save on licensing fees and at
the same time eliminate overhead charges
such as the cost of data storage, software
updates, management.
Security and privacy in the Cloud
Security is the biggest concern when it comes
to cloud computing. By leveraging a remote
cloud based infrastructure, a company
essentially gives away private data and
information, things that might be sensitive and
confidential. It is then up to the cloud service
provider to manage, protect and retain them,
thus the provider’s reliability is very critical.
Backup and Recovery
The process of backing up and recovering
data is simplified since those now reside on
the cloud and not on a physical device. The
various cloud providers offer reliable and
flexible backup/recovery solutions. In some
cases, the cloud itself is used solely as a
backup repository of the data located in local
computers.
Limited control and flexibility
Since the applications and services run on
remote, third party virtual environments,
companies and users have limited control over
the function and execution of the hardware and
software. Moreover, since remote software is
being used, it usually lacks the features of an
application running locally.
Increased Storage Capacity
The cloud can accommodate and store much
more data compared to a personal computer
and in a way offers almost unlimited storage
capacity. It eliminates worries about running
out of storage space and at the same time It
spares businesses the need to upgrade their
computer hardware, further reducing the
overall IT cost
Increased Vulnerability
Related to the security and privacy mentioned
before, note that cloud based solutions are
exposed on the public internet and are thus a
more vulnerable target for malicious users and
hackers. Nothing on the Internet is completely
secure and even the biggest players suffer
from serious attacks and security breaches.
Due to the interdependency of the system, If
there is a compromise one one of the machines
that data is stored, there might be a leakage of
personal information to the world.

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Dependency and vendor lock-in
One of the major disadvantages of cloud
computing is the implicit dependency on the
provider. This is what the industry calls
“vendor lock-in” since it is difficult, and
sometimes impossible, to migrate from a
provider once you have rolled with him. If a
user wishes to switch to some other provider,
then it can be really painful and cumbersome
to transfer huge data from the old provider to
the new one. This is another reason why you
should carefully and thoroughly contemplate
all options when picking a vendor.

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QUESTION 3
What people, organization and technology issues should be addressed in deciding whether
to use a conventional CRM system versus a cloud-based version?
People will provide firm wide information to support decision making. They also will enable
rapid responses to customer requests for information or products. Besides, removing
hardware and its complications are companies not suited for ERP and CRM. People also can
made large investments on traditional and customized solutions that already work. Here are
the issues that should be addressed in deciding whether to use a conventional CRM system or
a cloud-based version:
(i) Management:
Service Level Agreements (SLAs): there is lack of SLAs concerning ERP and CRM
cloud based solutions and of methods to ease their respective verification.
Risk Assessment: it is hard to assess the risk when the company does not own the
infrastructure that supports the ERP and CRM systems.
Dependability: companies using cloud based CRM and ERP solutions might become
dependent of their providers since they do not store the data, and might not be able
to easily export it to another system if required.
(ii) Organization:
Human Resource Optimization: while traditional ERP and CRM solutions demand
for technical staff, cloud based solutions allows to optimized HR to focus on
operation.
(iii) Technology:
Security; using the web as infrastructure, cloud based ERP and CRM solutions
suffer have difficulties in offering security comfort to companies that own sensible
data.
Availability; due to the web failure tolerant model, cloud based ERP and CRM
solutions suffer from availability issues that might cause business operation failures.