Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A Comparative Study between U.S.A. and Spain

This paper surveys the marketing executives of the top companies in Spain with more than 100 million euros on net sales and reports the status of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions in their companies. The results are compared with the U.S.A. status reported by a previous study developed by InformationWeek Research in 2000 with a sample based on Fortune 500. One hundred and thirty-six companies participated in this study. The data provides insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the CRM in Spain in comparison with USA. Some viable actions are recommended to improve the usage of CRM and to reshape the future of these systems. INTRODUCTION Although there are few major companies today who would not agree that CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is vital to survival, defining its essence is proving to be a difficult task. If one were to ask what CRM means, one would obtain many different definitions. All over the world, the term CRM is used to refer to strategies, processes, and solutions related to customers, formerly represented by concepts such as Direct Marketing, One-toOne Marketing, Mass Customization, Micromarketing, etc. CRM is about forming a relationship with customers. CRM is about customer loyalty. The aim of this study is to explore the current status of CRM in Spain’s top 600 companies. The results are then compared with a previous U.S. study conducted by InformationWeek Research in 2000. Specifically, this latter study used a sample based on Fortune 500. This will allow us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of CRM usage in Spain, as well as in the U.S.A. It might also help the top management in Spain to reshape the future of CRM in their companies, as well as serving as a reference point for the Spanish companies to effectively formulate their CRM competitive strategy. LITERATURE REVIEW The implementation of CRM to support marketing, sales and services functions may be traced back to the 1990’s. Marketing was the first functional area to embrace the concept of CRM and tailor it to the needs of its managers. In the early nineties, technologies such as Enterprises Resource Planning (ERP) and data warehousing applications have played an important role in optimizing and reengineering business processes, which is familiarly called “back office” (Sower et al., 2001). Nowadays, technologies as supply chain management and CRM close the circle into the front office management. What makes CRM so attractive is its ability to increase the revenues of those companies using it. Enterprises implementing CRM are pulling ahead of their competitors in terms of customer satisfaction and retention, new business development, and profitability. Not only is customer contact more efficient, but it is also more effective. Particularly important is the ability of multiple business units −marketing, sales, service, support, and product development− to share and leverage the same set of customer, product, and service information. A review of CRM literature reveals that there are various models and surveys of CRM in the U.S.A. and Western Europe. Recently, International Data Consultancy (IDC, 1999) proposed a comprehensive CRM model, as shown in Figure 1. In this model, IDC depicts a CRM as a process with four main activities: (1) analyzing data contained in the enterprise data warehouse, (2) modeling the data through data mining techniques, (3) adjusting the model into an operational field, and (4) tracking the results and closing the circle of CRM strategy. Figure 1. CRM Model