INTRODUCTION

The CRM is a new technique in marketing where the marketer tries to develop long-term relationship

with the customers to develop them as a lifetime customers. CRM aims to make the customer climb

up the ladder of loyalty.

The company first tries to determine who are likely prospects i.e. the people who have a strong

potential interest in the product and ability to pay for it. The company hopes to convert many of its

qualified prospect into first time customers and then to convert those first time customers into repeat

customers. Then the company tries to convert these repeat customers into clients – they are those

people who buy only from the company in the relevant product categories. The next challenge for the

company is to convert these clients into advocates. Advocates are those clients who praise the

company and encourage others to buy from it.

The ultimate challenge is to convert these advocates into partners where the customers and the clients

work actively together to discover ways of getting mutual benefit.

Thus in CRM the key performance figure is not just current market share but share of lifetime value

by converting customers into partners.

In CRM, a company tries to identify that small percentage (20%) of key account holders whose

contribution to the company revenues is high (80%). Therefore, from this point of view, CRM can

also be called as Key Account Management.

 Objectives of Study

1. To study the current practices of CRM.

2. To find out the impact of CRM on the profitability of the organization.

3. To study the factors affecting the CRM practices.

4. To study the role of information technology in CRM.

Eight ways to keep customers for life -

1. Every part of the company’s marketing effort should be geared towards building lifetime

relationships.

2. People want to do business with friendly people. To have effective relations a friendly attitude

must permeate in the organization.

3. Information technology developments should be positively used to serve the customers.

4. The company should always be flexible to bend its rules and procedures in the client’s favor for

client’s benefits.

5. The company should communicate with its customers even when it is not trying to sell something.

6. The company can communicate and develop stronger customer bonding by providing financial and

social benefits.

7. The company should try to know all its customers including their lifestyles, hobbies, likes and

dislikes etc.

8. The company should make it a point to deliver more than what is promised.
 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Review of the existing literature

With the available literature we can summarize CRM in the words of various authors (citations) as
follows-

According to Shani and Chalarani – Customer Relationship Management marketing can be

defined as “ an integrated effort to identify, maintain and build up a network with the individual
customers and to continuously strengthen the network for the mutual benefit of both parties,
through interactive, individualized and value added contracts over a long period of time.

In the words of Lekha “CRM aims at delivering better products and value to the customers through
better understanding of his needs.”

Conceptualization

A firm in the industry has to maintain good relations with its customers. They have to retain the
customers for a long time to avail the benefit of their relations. The customer relationship
management is one of the effective tool to identify, establish and maintain relationship with the
customers.

Focus of the problem

Through this study, we are going to identify the importance of CRM in the retail industry. How it
benefits from CRM? Is there any relevance of implementing CRM? In addition, what role does
information technology can play in CRM?

There are many aspects of CRM, which were mistakenly thought to be capable of being implemented
in isolation from each other.

From the outside of the organization, a customer experiences the business as one entity operating
over extended periods of time. Thus piecemeal CRM implementation can come across to the
customer as unsynchronized where employees and web sites and services are acting independently of
one another, yet together represent a common entity.

CRM is the philosophy, policy and coordinating strategy connecting different players within an
organization so as to coordinate their efforts in creating an overall valuable series of experiences,
products and services for the customer.

The different players within the organization are in identifiable groups:

 Customer Facing Operations - The people and the technology support of processes that affect
a customer's experience at the frontline interface between the customer and the organization.
This can include face to face, phone, IM, chat, email, web and combinations of all media.
Self-service kiosk and web self-service are doing the job of vocals and they belong here.
 Internal Collaborative Functional Operations - The people and technology support of
processes at the policy and back office which ultimately affect the activities of the Customer
Facing Operations concerning the building and maintaining of customer relationships. This
can include IT, billing, invoicing, maintenance, planning, marketing, advertising, finance,
services planning and manufacturing.
 External Collaboration functions - The people and technology support of processes supporting
an organization and its cultivation of customer relationships that are affected by the
organization's own relationship with suppliers/vendors and retail outlets/distributors. Some
would also include industry cooperative networks, e.g. lobbying groups, trade associations.
This is the external network foundation which supports the internal Operations and Customer
facing Operations.
 Customer Advocates and Experience Designers - Creative designers of customer experience
that meet customer relationship goals of delivering value to the customer and profit to the
organization (or desired outcomes and achievement of goals for non-profit and government
organizations)
 Performance Managers and Marketing Analysts - Designers of Key Performance Indicators
and collectors of metrics and data so as to execute/implement marketing campaigns, call
campaigns, Web strategy and keep the customer relationship activities on track. This would
 be the milestones and data that allow activities to be coordinated, that determine if the CRM
strategy is working in delivering ultimate outcomes of CRM activities: market share, numbers
and types of customers, revenue, profitability, intellectual property concerning customers
preferences.
 Customer and Employee Surveyors and Analysts - Customer Relationships are both fact
driven and impression driven - the quality of an interaction is as important as the information
and outcome achieved, in determining whether the relationship is growing or shrinking in
value to the participants.

Technology considerations

The basic building blocks:

A database for customer lifecycle (time series) information about each customer and prospect and
their interactions with the organization, including order information, support information, requests,
complaints, interviews and survey responses.

Customer Intelligence - Translating customer needs and profitability projection into game plans for
different segments or groups of customers, captured by customer interactions (Human, automated or
combinations of both) into software that tracks whether that game plan is followed or not,and whether
the desired outcomes are obtained.

Business Modeling Customer Relationship Strategy, Goals and outcomes: Numbers and description
of whether goals were met and models of customer segments and game plans worked as
hypothesized.

Learning and Competency Management Systems - Customer Capacity and Competency Development
- Training and improving processes and technology that enable the organization to get closer to
achieving the desired results. Complex systems require practice in order to achieve desired outcomes,
especially when humans and technology are interacting. Iteration is the key to refining, improving
and innovating to stay ahead of the competition in Customer Relationship Management. (Successful
tools, technology and practices will be copied by the competition as soon as they are proven
successful.) The building blocks can be implemented over time separately, but eventually need to be
dynamically coordinated. The ongoing alignment of the basic building blocks distinguishes an
elegant seamless CRM implementation which successfully builds mutually valuable relationships.

Operational CRM

Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes, including sales, marketing
and service. Each interaction with a customer is generally added to a customer's contact history, and
staff can retrieve information on customers from the database when necessary.One of the main
benefits of this contact history is that customers can interact with different people or different contact
channels in a company over time without having to describe the history of their interaction each time.

Consequently, many call centers use some kind of CRM software to support their call center agents.

Operational CRM processes customer data for a variety of purposes:

 Managing Campaigns
 Enterprise Marketing Automation
 Sales Force Automation

Criteria for creating value for customers:

Technology for relationship marketing:

Technologies can be regarded as our efficient and reliable friend. But technology, if inappropriately
applied, it can effectively push a customer away. However, technology has come to stay. Companies
are investing heavily in technologies associated with computing and communication-within their
enterprises, between themselves and their customers, distribution channel, intermediaries and
suppliers. Data warehouses are proliferating. Companies of all size strive for computerizing all their
activities and thus making the process more uniform.

In this digital era, there are 11 C’s of relationship marketing that can come together simultaneously to
create the value for the customers. These 11 Cs are.
Criteria for creating value for customers:

These are explained below:

1. Customer:

Technology provides the computing and communication capabilities that help the relationship
marketer decide on which customers to focus and facilities the interactions needed, both with the
enterprise and with its customers and suppliers, to deliver customer value. Without technology,
marketers would still be thinking in terms of serving the mass market or market segments. They
would still be thinking in terms of serving the mass market or market segments. They would still be
thinking in terms of broadcast, one-to –one communication. They would be thinking in terms of long
production runs of standardized products, one size fitting all. With technology, the specific customers
with whom the company wishes to do business can be identified and further evaluated for their
worthiness to pave way for a long term relationship. If the data warehouse is built appropriately, the
marketer should be able to ‘slice and dice’ the data a number of ways, so that even people who are
not trained in technology can use it easily.

2. Categories of goods and services:

Technology can also help the company take two key strategic decisions; what categories and types of
goods and services should we provide to our customers and should we ourselves produce the goods
and services that customer want?

3. Capabilities:

Technology has vital roles to play in the advancement of a company’s capabilities. The
implementation of technology itself comprises the heart of the relationship marketing. Computing,
data warehousing, website or interactive voice response etc.

4. Cost, Profitability and Value:

Technology can help the company manage the costs of securing, serving and retaining customers by
allowing marketers to understand, in real time, the revenues and cost associated with each other. This
can obviously help the relationship marketer to control and focus the relationship.
Technology can also intercede and help manage the costs and value of the relationship, drawing upon
previously developed “business rules”. Business rules incorporate decisions that a management
makes to guide the administration of its business and interaction with customers.

5. Control of the contact to cash processes:

Whatever the role of technology, it must have a control function to ensure that value is indeed being
created for customers and for the company, and that bills are sent and payment received on time.
Most companies have invested heavily in information systems that have served well for company-
driven marketing, from the firm to the market. Now, with the boundaries of the enterprise blurring,
with customer framing the value that each want and initiating the purchase decision, dimensions of
control are becoming very tactical and strategic.

6. Collaboration and Integration

When the customer is invited into the process that creates value for her, she is more likely to increase
the level at which she is bonded to the company. The process which creates the value she seeks could
be in any or in all process. Thus, the customer could work with a vendor to collaborate in areas such
as product and service. Conceptualization, design, development , production to order, value
bundling, distribution and service/support.

Technology can help customers collaborate with their suppliers to create mutual value. Electronic
Data Interchange, in particular, has had significant impact on order –taking, shipping and invoicing
processes, causing improved turnaround of orders, cash flow and structural bonding.

7. Customization

Customization should not be confused with personalization. Customization allows the company or
the customer or both to develop a product, service or communication that reflects the value the
customer wants. Personalization is the process that enables communication, product and service to
bear the name of the customer, adding value to the customer as they position themselves with others.
When personalization is combined with customization, people start reaching for their wallets.
8. Communication, Interaction and Positioning:

Mass marketing required mass –promotional vehicles such as TV, radio, news papers and outdoor
media. In a Fragmented market, the promotion channels are much narrower and more highly targeted;
including specialized magazines, advising on everything from park benches to ski chair lifts, etc that
is broad casting first became “narrow casting” and has now become “Point casting”. When point
casting is interactive and real time, it may be termed conversing just as a conversation between
people. Conversing occurs at the initiation of either the customer or the company and can involve
technology such as call centre, the internet or interactive voice response and others. Other forms of
interactive communication has emerged, including interactive telephones-based communication,
using the call centre, for so –called Telemarketing or Telesales, and communication over the internet
that offers an opportunity to engage supplier ,called ‘web casting’

Technology can help the company to converse with individuals at a cost that reflects the value of the
communication, and can discriminate among the purpose of different communication assigning the
appropriate media to fulfill the each task.

Technology provides knowledge and insight to let the firm contact the customer at the right time i.e,
when they are ready to buy- and use the media each customer prefers to reach him/her. Using
‘intelligent agent’- a software that can search for information, customers can even specify the
information to be sent and then the agents can go on to the web to find the information wherever they
have been programmed and send information as specified to each customer.

9. Customer Measurements:

Technology can assist the company to understand current and emerging customer issues while there
is still time to address the problems without damaging the relationship. For example, measurements
can be maintained on time liners of delivery, waiting time before customer calls are answered, and
time to address customer complaints. All this can be done in the background, using technology to
manage the information and provide management reports. Technology can also be used to track
measurement such as customer profitability, share of customer expenditure and the customer’s state
of mind , with research data logged into database. Once compensation is linked to customer
measurements, such as these, this area will assume unprecedented importance and attention.
10. Customer Care:

Technology has a major role to play in providing customers with the attention they seek. The internet
can be particularly cost effective in shifting cost structure from human operation.

11. Change of Relationship:

A chain of relationship comprises the series of linkage between the end –customers and all the stake
holders which contribute to the value they receive. These stake holders include suppliers, distribution
channel intermediaries, employees, customers and others, such as investors and the board of
directors. They are all to be forged into strong chains that will all ever increasing value to the end-
customers relationship. The relationships the company forms with end-customers will be only remain
as the weakest link in the chain. All efforts are needed to maintain and deepen the relationship with
the end-customer.

Technology has a important role in the structural bonding among all the components of the chain of
relationship. For years, companies have used independent and often proprietary solution-those that
they develop themselves to achieve this bonding. They put this software and/or hardware on their
customer’s premises to give them power to initiate paperless ordering.
 Customer

Categories

Capabilities Planning

Cost profitability & value Innovation

Control of the contact to cash Demand Cycle

Memory processes

Storage Collaboration Integration Contact to Cash

Bandwidt
h Customer Acquisition
Customisation

Customer Value
Communication, Interaction, Positioning
enhancement

Customer Measurements

Customer Care

Chain of relationships

Technology 11c’s pf Relationship Marketing Mega-processes

Technology the key to Relationship Marketing Process

CRM Technology tools:

I. Integration of CRM with ERP:

An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system allows to integrate engineering, customer service,
planning materials, manufacturing, finance and human resources across a single facility or across
multiple locations.

Need to integrate CRM with ERP solutions:

There are number of reasons why business should integrate CRM and ERP solutions. Companies
with high volumes of sales transactions see almost immediate benefits in order-to-cash process.
Specifically, the cost savings come from reducing errors in order entry, implementing approval
workflows for discounts, and reducing the manual labour required to enter orders in both CRM and
ERP. Even organizations with relatively low order volumes can experience significant cost reductions
through improved order accuracy.

There are several marketing benefits associated with integrating CRM and ERP, such as greater
insights into customer base. ERP systems store customer’s financial relationship with the company.
CRM solutions store their buying patterns and marketing demographics. Unifying these two stores of
customer data can help organizations ensure that their sales, marketing and service expenditure are
targeting their most valuable customers and prospects.

To make integration successful, it is important to work with business-solution expert who will
provide the company with the insight needed to select an integration architecture and development
plan, based upon functional needs and technical suitability.

II. Using the Internet in CRM:

The Internet is already being used to great advantage in CRM. It is indeed an ideal medium for
effective customer contact and customer care/service in several businesses. Many companies in these
businesses thrive by opting for the Net in handling customer relations and providing service to the
customers.
Forming “Virtual Customer Communities”:

Today, customers everywhere are forming self-servicing, tight –knit virtual communities. Internet
chat rooms a part of this process. The chat rooms are easy to start, join and participate. And they
accommodate people with different personalities. These virtual communities exercise a powerful
influence on the market in respect of several products. The power becomes all the more significant in
view of the speed with which they can be mobilized. Words spread fast on the Internet. Marketers can
form their own virtual communities as a part of their CRM programmes.

Impact of the Internet:

Communicating well online is becoming more important than communicating well over the
telephone. That may sounds like a contrived exaggeration but consider the transitory nature of the
phone call and the permanence of an e-mail.

Whether a company grants a refund to a customer based on a misunderstanding over the phone has to
do with company policy and the relative status of the particular customer, than with the actual content
of the call.

On the other hand, email stands as testimony to the words that were exchanged. An email can be
saved by both sides, without worrying about the legality of recording a telephone call. “Some calls
may be recorded for training and quality purposes” is very different from “All Calls can and will be
recorded, tabulated, indexed and stored in case of disputes”. Email however can much more become
part of customer’s ‘permanent record’ along with invoices and packing lists.

III. Full-Fledged e-CRM:

While practically all the firms use Internet in CRM to some extent, and some also promote
appropriate virtual customer communities, some of them go further step and carry out their CRM
entirely electronically, as their business lend for such an approach. Electronic CRM (e-CRM) simply
means ‘total online management of customer relationship’. e-CRM does electronically all the things a
normal CRM does offline.

Let us take Upselling and Cross selling as an example .Suppose a customer buys a couple of books on
a particular subject from a certain web book shop. The e-CRM system of the shop/site will take care
of up selling and cross selling requirement. The next time a new book on the subject or any related
subject is out, the customer will automatically and immediately get an intimation of it.

E-CRM enables web base customer interaction, automation of e-mail, call logs, website analytics,
partner relationship management and campaign management.

Survey Management Software: Survey Management software automates an enterprise to create

electronic surveys, polls, questionnaires and enables understand customer preferences and customer
service.

Contact Management Software: This enables an enterprise to create, track and manage partnerships,
contracts and agreements etc. It also enables to provide call centre service and help desk service.

Lead Management Enterprise: Lead management Software enables an organization to manage, track
and forecast sales leads. It also helps to understand and improve conversion rates.

Factors behind the big growth in e-CRM:

Mainly, it is the proliferation of e-businesses /click and mortar businesses that has led to the big
growth of e-CRM. Besides their proliferation, their coming under competitive environment too has
been a reason. In these businesses, e-CRM fills this void. To an extent, the non e-businesses too have
contributed to e-CRM’s growth, as a good part of their customers could be approached through the
Internet.Expansion in iInternet penetration and proliferation of portals has been supporting the
growth.

Data warehousing :

A data warehouse is a repository of an organization’s electronically stored data. Data Warehouse are
designed to facilitate reporting and analysis. This classic definition of the data warehouse focuses on
data storage. However, the means to retrieve and analyze data, to extract, transform and load data,
and to manage dictionary data are also considered essential components of a data warehousing
system. An expanded definition of data warehousing includes business intelligence tools, tools to
extract, transform, and load data into repository, and tools to manage and retrieve metadata.

Benefits of Data warehousing :

Some of the benefits that a data warehouse provides are as follows:

1. A data warehouse provides a common data model for data, regardless of the data’s source.
This makes it easier to report, analyze information than it would be if multiple data models
from disparate sources were used to retrieve information such as sales invoices, order receipts,
general ledger charges etc.
2. Prior to loading of data into data warehouse inconsistencies are identified and resolved. This
greatly simplifies reporting and analysis.
3. Information in the data warehouse is under the control of data warehouse users so that, even if
the source system data is purged over time, the information in the warehouse can be stored
safely for extended periods of time.
4. Because they are separate from operational systems, data warehouses provide fast retrieval of
data without slowing down operational systems.
5. Data warehouses facilitate decision support system applications such as trend reports (e.g.
Items with the most sales in a particular area within the last two years), exception reports, and
reports that show actual performance versus goals.
6. Data warehouses can work in conjunction with and hence enhance the value of operational
business applications, notably customer relationship management systems.
Call Center Process:

The Call center is the real operation theatre in telemarketing. In a CRM call center, customers
communicate in many ways that include phone, e-mail, web chat, personal sales representative, Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and a host of others. Several telecallers are hired for tele call
operations.
CRM call centers help companies realign their entire organization around customers. And thus, it is a
strategic business initiative sales, marketing and services as well as other groups are connected and
coordinated through the CRM applications. Before a call is made to the customer, all recent activity
with that customer should be reviewed. Then a sales strategy needs to be planned , based upon
observed opportunities. The use of CRM software in the Call centre allows the assignment of a value
to each customer if the culture supports that philosophy.

How the Call Center works?

It usually has a manager in overall charge, a few supervisors and the required number of tele-callers.
Normally, the tele-callers are grouped in teams of six or seven callers, each supervisor handling one
such team. The tele-callers sit in front of a computer terminal and speak into their headsets as
telephone operators do in any telephone exchange. Simultaneously they access information on the
terminal, and add fresh data on it as the tele-calling progresses.

The tele caller opens the call by greeting the prospect appropriately. Then she politely seeks the
customer’s permission to have a brief conversation. She strikes the right chord with the prospect and
explains the offering. She generates adequate interest in the product and tries to clinch an order. If
this step does not materialize, follow up calls are made to secure the order.

The tele-callers are usually provided with a script with which they practice a game. Once they
become comfortable, they resort to improvisation as required and try to make tele-marketing more
effective. The scripts for the calls are worked out jointly by the telemarketer and professional
consultants hired by the telemarketer. They are also pre tested with a few prospects. The supervisor is
always available close at hand , she keeps track of productivity and the call quality of her team.

Advantages of CRM Call Center:

CRM helps the company identify most valuable customers and understanding their life time values.
Using CRM, the call centers design the organization systems and service to best meet the needs of
customers and maximize their value. CRM is intended for long term relationship building. Besides
capturing the different forms of customer interaction, CRM allows to capture and store all available
customers in the central history database. This allows agents the ability to pull up a customer’s entire
history while the two interact. Communication and service are more effective and efficient. Most
CRM products also track trends in purchasing and customer feedback.

Requirement Analysis: CRM Business Transformation Process:

In most companies, the business focus, organization structures and related business metrics are the
biggest inhibitors of CRM initiatives. All areas of the organization will have to change, in order to
truly support and foster CRM initiatives.

The CRM Business Transformation Map below shows the various aspects of that change. There are
five inter-related areas. These include:

 Business Focus
 Organisation structure
 Business Metrics
 Marketing Focus
 Technology
Business Focus:Product Sales Channel Marketing Service Customer

Organization structure: Place Promotion Channel Contact Customer

Manageme Managem Management managemen Managemen
Product Management
nt ent t t

Business Metrics: Place Program Customer Customer Customer

performan Performan Revenues Patterns & Lifetime
Product performance
ce ce Profitability value &
Loyalty

Marketing Focus: Sales Marketing Integrated Segmentatio Customer

Promotion Campaign Marketing n Specific Relationship
Mass Advertising
s Communicati Marketing Managemen
on t
Technology: Data Data Data Data Marts Customer
Maintenan Access Warehouse Touch point
Transaction Processing
ce Systems

Five Core Areas of Business Transformation

The Chart depicts typical stages of transformation within established organizations. The stages of
transformation proceed from left to right i.e from product to customer. it is important to note that
movement from one stage to another does not equate to abandoning the previous stage. Rather, it is a
matter of an organization shifting its emphasis over time.

Transforming the Business Focus of an organization essentially means getting the organization to
buy in the customer-focused paradigm. The business focus may shift from “How can we increase the
sales of our products” to “what our customer needs?” There may be stages of sales, channel,
marketing and service focus during the transformation process. The Business Focus transformation is
obviously critical to the success of any CRM initiative.

Changing the organizational structure of a company goes hand in hand with the changes in business
focus. Most organizations today retain a product focus with product managers driving business
decisions. The transformation to a customer focused organization should lead to literally organizing
around your customers., assigning customer segment manager’s responsibility for acquisition,
retention and growth of different segments of customers. This is a major hurdle for most
organizations, as it often means augmenting their existing product or channel structure with customer
management staff and additional headcount.

Transforming the Business Metrics should be a by-product of the changes noted above .In this case,
the shift is from a single focus on product performance. and /or promotion performance, or
decentralized views of these metrics, to a focus on customer lifetime value and loyalty. Rather than
simply measuring response rates and product profitability, they’re asking the critical questions “Do
we have profitable relationship with our customers? How can we make these relationships more
profitable?” Once again there is a gradual shift, they don’t abandon the product, place, program and
revenue measures immediately, but they do begin to shift some of the focus to the ultimate question
of customer relationships.
Changing the Market Focus of the organization from mass to interactive dialogue is essential. This
transformation seems to receive the most attention, in many marketing circles today. It is important to
note that while companies are increasingly investing in one-to one dialogue, mass marketing
communication still plays an important role in generating broad-scale awareness and interest.

Finally, there is a Technology Transformation. As with marketing focus, this area has received a
great deal of attention in data base marketing areas. It seems that everyone has a CRM to sell. CRM
technology must support and enable meaningful customer dialogued at all points of contact.
Technology is actually the easiest of the areas to change. Companies can “buy their way” over to the
right hand side of the transformation map. Because of this, technology often gets ahead of the other
areas of transformation. Technology plays a critical support role, but should not be the driver of CRM
initiatives.

Planning for Transformation:

Because transforming the organization must be a proactive effort,an enterprise-wide planning

initiative will be critical. In fact, effective and successful execution of CRM requires that the first step
be the development of a very detailed and comprehensive CRM action plan.

The key to building the CRM action plan lies in first understanding where the organization stands
relative to each of five aspects of change. The next step is planning process should be a Gap
Analysis. This analysis is essentially a comparison of current stage against optimal, relative to the
five aspects of business, to identify and specifically describe the gaps. In addition to the more obvious
gaps, this analysis should identify exactly where the CRM organizational holes are relative to:

 Marketing, sales and service practices

 Collection, capture, processing and deployment of customer information
 Distribution and operations effectiveness at customer touch points

Another key factor in identifying gaps is to understand how the organization functions relative to the
CRM Business Cycle. In the CRM business Cycle, the stages are interdependent and continuous. As
one moves from one stage to the other, one gains sufficient insight and understanding that enhances
subsequent efforts.

As shown in the diagram, for any organization, business starts with acquisition of customers.
However, any successful CRM initiative is highly dependent on a solid understanding of the
customers.

Understand and Differentiate:

Organizations cannot have relationship with the customers unless they understand them-what they
value, what types of service are important to them, how and when they like to interact, and what and
when they want to buy. True understanding is based on a combination of detailed analysis and
interaction. To create and foster a relationship, organizations have to act on what they learn about
customers. Customers need to see that a company is differentiating service and communication based
both on what they have learned independently and what the customers have told them.

Develop and Customize:

In the product oriented world of yesteryears, companies develop products and services and expected
customers to buy them. But in today’s customers focused world, product and channel development
have to follow the customer’s lead. Organisations are increasingly developing products, services and
even new channels, based on customer needs and service expectation.

Interact and Deliver:

Interaction is also a critical component of a successful CRM initiative. It is important to remember

that interaction doesn’t just occur through marketing and sales channels and media; customers
interact in variety of ways with different divisions of the organization, including distribution and
shipping, customer service and online.

To foster relationships, organizations need to ensure that

 All areas of the organization have easy access to relevant, actionable customer information
 All areas are trained how to use customer information to tailor interactions, based on both
customer needs and potential customer value.
With access to information and appropriate training, organizations will be prepared to steadily
enhance the value they deliver to customers. Delivering value is a cornerstone of any relationship.
Value is not price of the product or the discount offered. In fact, customer perception of the value are
based on a number of factors ,including the quality of products and services, convenience, speed, ease
of use, responsiveness and service excellence.

Acquire and Retain:

More the organizations learn about customers, easier it becomes for them to identify areas that fetch
great value for the organization. Those are the customers and customer segments a company will
want to clone in its prospecting and acquisition efforts. And, because they will continue to learn about
what is valuable to each segment, they will be much likely to score a “win” with the right channel,
right media, right product, right offer, right timing and most relevant message.

Successful customer retention is based simply on the organization’s ability to constantly deliver on
three principles:

 Maintain interaction, never stop listening

 Continue to deliver on the customer definition of value.
 Remember that customers change as they move through differing life stages. Be alert for the
changes and be prepared to modify the services and value proposition as they change.

Prioritizing the changes:

Since there might be many gaps, an organization has to be prepared to make several changes to make,
prioritization is critical. The organization should evaluate each of the strategies identified to plug
gaps based on-

 Cost: To implement including initial one-time costs, as well as anticipated on-going expenses.
 Overall benefits: Some changes may have larger impact on the organization’s ability to
increase customer value and loyalty.
 Feasibility: Based on organization’s readiness, data and system support resource skill-sets
and a number of other factors.
 Time required: including the time necessary for training and addressing ‘cultural’ change
management issues related to a specific strategy.

Measuring Success:

Implementing CRM is time consuming and demands a significant commitment across the cross-
section of the organization. It is crucial that the action plan-
  Establish means of measuring your progress on CRM initiatives
 Establish enterprise wide measures of success and metrics that can be applied to all of your
CRM initiatives.
 Apply these metrics on an ongoing basis to ensure continued funding of your CRM initiatives.
A common challenge in many organizations is that various groups, departments and divisions have
varying means of measuring and reporting on the success of their CRM and customer related
initiatives. Some may look at response rates and others may look at capture rates. Some may look at
increasing in average order, others may look at number of contacts required to close a sale. Needless
to say, the result is a lack of consistent results on CRM initiatives, and confusion between
departments ad in senior management about the measures of success of these initiatives.

Ideally, each of the potential initiatives should be tied to projected improvements in customer
dynamics-acquisition, retention, penetration and/or reactivation. The next step is to determine how
improvements in these dynamics impact revenues, costs and/or competitive differentiation.

Finally, it is important to establish universal metrics around these customer dynamics.

Each of these four dynamics can be measured by the following: percentages, number of customers,
number of products per customer etc.

Since customer relationships represent ongoing investments, it is important to also project the future
behavior and projected value of your customers while measuring the success of your CRM initiatives.
This is the concept of Lifetime Value (LTV).

A customer scorecard can be developed to reflect customer dynamics in a way that is most
meaningful to your organization, This scorecard should reflect measures of acquisition, retention,
penetration and reactivation across al business lines,divisions and functional areas. The customer
score card concept reinforces the concept of cumulative enterprise-wide impacts on customer
relationships. A scorecard should be fairly simple in order to facilitate easy understanding.

CRM implementation:

The following are the guidelines to follow before CRM is implemented at the company.
1. Develop corporate wide CRM engagement from key shareholders:

Many CRM projects fail because critical stakeholders are not involved in setting CRM strategy,
assessing requirements and selecting options.

2. Envision the company’s CRM strategy:

CRM is more than just a software. It is also about selecting appropriate methodologies and business
practices to help your business enable better relationships with customers. Set some high level
customer relationship goals in areas such as increasing customer retention, speeding problem
resolution, closing a higher percentage of sales etc.

3. Determine and Prioritize CRM drivers and requirements:

Priorities such include solving problems in the areas such s functional areas that are causing the most
pain, cost and missed opportunity for the business, areas where employees are most or least resistant
to changing business, weaknesses compared with competitors, complexity of each area that require
addressing and identifying other systems with which it needs to integrate.

4. Develop a CRM roadmap:

Develop a master plan consisting of several smaller steps and projects that will take you towards
achieving the corporate CRM vision. For each step spell out key outcomes and metrics, roles and
responsibilities, budgets and timeli:nes. Start with low-risk/high reward projects to build momentum
and success. Make sure all key stake holders in each project are included up front in solution
evaluation and implementation process toe ensure faster, higher user adoption at the end.

5. Think Integration:

Determine how, where and when CRM tools need to integrate with one another and with other
applications. This includes evaluating the business processes flow, and identifying process-related
customer interactions and transaction that need to be integrated.

6. Do Your Homework and create a short list:

Check out prospective vendors financial and customer references. Talk to peers who have more
experience in the CRM area, search websites and pursue publications.

7. Apply the 80-20 rule in the selection process:

Compare how vendors stack up in terms of solution strengths and weaknesses. Have vendors spell out
terms and conditions, through document pricing, training, methodology, milestones and metrics for
successful deployment.

8. Keep everyone in the loop:

Once you have made a selection, err on the side of over communicating. Get internal evangelists
involved early, and encourages inputs along the way as you roll it out. Offer flexible training options
to help accommodate different schedules and learning preferences. This will also speed adoption and
produce benefits more quickly.

9. Learn, Adjust and Evolve:

Develop a mechanism to monitor use, get feedback and adopt the solution as necessary to make sure
its evolving with business and customer needs. Depending on the type of CRM package deployed,
you can use surveys, ongoing education, user groups and other venues to stay on top of knowing how
these needs are changing, as well as what types of adaptations the solution will be needed over time.

CRM Software Selection:

Installing a good CRM software package is the cornerstone of any customer relationship management
program. Without good CRM software, gathering and storing the multitude of details gained about a
customer from each interaction would be very difficult.

Small business CRM software has gone ahead in leaps bounds in recent years, with several top
quality packages now available to choose from. Prior to beginning the search for good CRM software
technology however, there are a few basic features you should seek in a potential CRM package:

 Basic Functions: The CRM software should manage data relating to both individuals and
companies and it should also provide time management features. As most businesses use
 Microsoft Office, including Outlook, the CRM package should offer seamless integration with
MS Office and/or fax software, as the ability to compose letters, faxes and email without leaving
the CRM software is vital.

 Recognised CRM Software Supplier: Do your research. Make sure your proposed CRM software
supplier is recognised in the industry and has a solid backing with reputable customer testimonials
and reliable 24/7 technical support.

 360 Degree Customer View: It is important to know which people work for the same company;
who said, emailed or wrote what to whom, and when. These details need to be a single click
away. Does the CRM package you are considering provide this 360-degree view?

 Seamless Connectivity: These days it is becoming more and more common for a growing
business and its mobile workforce to utilise networked access to a central database, to mobile
phones, and to PDAs. You need to ensure your CRM software package supports all the
connectivity required by your company.

 Managing Campaigns: In order to optimize your business marketing dollars, tracking of

marketing campaigns and measuring their performance is critical. You will need a CRM package
which provides this function.

 Managing Leads: If you want sales opportunities to become closed sales, tracking leads is of
prime importance. Make sure you select CRM software which provides lead tracking.

 Data Transfer: Unless you are starting a business from scratch, you will probably need to import
information from previous software. Make sure you will be able to import directly, instead of
spending hours processing the data through an intermediate stage or even worse, manually. You
will also need the ability to export data in order to exchange information with businesses who
might use another CRM software package.

 External Support: To get the most from any CRM package, you will find tips from fellow users,
industry-specific templates, plug-ins to be vital. Make sure the package you are considering is
well-known and supported.
CRM gurus Dr Martha Rogers and Don Peppers say that practising good CRM means you need to
develop a one-to-one learning relationship with each customer, over four stages:

· Identification

· Differentiation

· Interaction

· Interaction

It's about treating different customers differently. It requires a shift in thinking, perseverance,
discipline, and very good CRM software.

It will take you many interactions with a customer to improve identification of their details. You will
need many customers before you can place them in different segments and cater to their needs by
segment. It may take even longer before you know enough to customise individual offerings.

So get researching, for the very best computer CRM software technology suitable to your business.
Without it, you are certain to be pushing up hill in your quest to run a successful customer
relationship management program.

Reasons for failure of CRM Programmes:

Too often management views CRM as an easy solution to their business problems.It is often
initiatives begin and unfold the management realizes the gaps in the expectations. Some of the causes
of failure are:

1. Mistaking CRM as the substitute for good marketing management:

Many marketing managers view a CRM programme as the substitute for marketing management
assuming that the programme would lessen the hard work involved in marketing. They place
excessive expectation on the CRM software and think the software will by itself look after their
customer management tasks. No CRM programme can substitute the hard grind that marketing is all
about. CRM requires superior marketing managers and staff ,who are not only sensitive to the
customers, but also willing to put in the needed work in the execution of the CRM programme.
2. Failure to appreciate the dynamic nature of marketing:

Customer’s needs and the value they perceive in various offerings are subject to change overtime.
Technology and environment too keep changing, affecting the firm’s customer management strategy.
When CRM programme does not take cognizance of this dynamism of marketing, it fails.

3. Preoccupation with gathering of data and neglect of its application:

Application of the insights on customers to marketing action is the core of CRM.. The usefulness of
this expenditure depends entirely on the extent to the information is applied to marketing actions.

4. Inadequate appreciation of the potential of the customer database:

The firms lack adequate appreciation of the potential customer base. Their CRM programmes remain
as just, PR programmes. They stop with just quarterly customer mailings or monthly customer letters.
Measurements of customer satisfaction and protocols for applying the results there of for calculating
the efficacy of marketing are usually non-existent.

5. Failure to use brand intelligibly in the CRM programme:

Using brand intelligibly is the key to successful mass marketing. It is seen whenever the brand and its
values are not utilized throughout the CRM process, the results are not favourable. The way
customers interact with brands has been changing in recent years. Multiple channels have contributed
to this. This means that in the present times, the brand must work in all the channels/media and all the
levels/touch points at which the communication take place. CRM must first know how the customers
consume its brand and how they relate to it. Using this knowedge,the brand’s value proposition and
the various benefits it offers should be tailored to the individual customer and communicated to him
in a specific way.

6. Reluctance to measure customer satisfaction precisely:

Manny managers are reluctant to precisely measure the level of customer satisfaction. They also fail
to set clear parameters/ metrics for this measurement. Obviously, these managers have no way of
finding out whether CRM implementation has brought in benefits or not.
7. Failure to follow up the feedback from the customers:

Analysis shows that in many cases, firms painstakingly gather feedback from customers, but
afterward forget about it completely. After coercing the customers to fill in any number of feedback
forms, suggestion forms and survey questionnaires, they make no attempt to action the feedback or to
initiate a further dialogue with them. This is worse than not gathering feedback at all.

8. Reluctance to share the data on customers with all staff:

Many firms have a protectionist approach to information. Their thinking is that information should be
made available only on a ‘need to know’ basis within the organization and must be tied closely to
rank. This is anti-ethical to CRM. CRM programmes believe in making all relevant information
available to all those in the organization, who interact with the customer in one way or the other.

9. Ignoring the need for efficient, trained, well-motivated employees:

Happy customers are the outcome of happy and well motivated employees. And such employees bred
only in great workplaces. Companies can succeed in CRM only by having efficient, well-motivated
and happy employees. The challenge is often with the speed of response. The firm must resolve
customer’s problem adequately and quickly. Employees with the right motivation ‘customer –first’
attitude creates a satisfied customer.

10. Some CRM programmes incur very high costs:

Running a CRM Programme, especially the creation and maintenance of an effective customer
database involves significant costs. There are software costs, hardware costs, systems cost, people
related costs, training and motivation costs and so on. The business must be capable of generating
such revenues and profits that costs of CRM programme do not pose a problem at all. There must
also be proper control of the costs of CRM-both investment costs and operation costs. The CRM
programme succeeds only when the net is positive.

11. Failure to appreciate that the scope for CRM varies over businesses:
All businesses and all customers do not lend the same scope or applying CRM. Failure to appreciate
this basic fact will lead the CRM programme to failure. For example, in FMCG businesses where the
end customers run into millions, and are distance from the company by several tiers of middlemen
and geography, a one –to-one relationship is difficult to maintain. They may be better of with
traditional mass marketing/communication strategies.

12. Failure to fit in the needed flexibility:

In some cases, CRM programmes fail as they are designed without the needed flexibility. A rigid
structure will be incapable of supporting one-to-one marketing. It will not be able to respond to
individual customer’s needs in specific ways.

13. Poor planning affects business goals:

Poor planning affects the company’s views of interaction with customers and increases the chances of
addressing the wrong issues. Planning must be based on creating new initiatives that will make doing
business better for the customer. It includes taking small steps to reach the larger goal.

14. Resistance to Change:

Remaking a company to be genuinely customer-centric is new and uncharted territory and as with
anything new, there is always resistance to change. Change often forces people to regress to what
they know and protect what they have always been comfortable with.

15. Commitment from senior management:

A solid and total commitment from the most senior management is a must for the CRM project work.
The project must have a dedicated senior executive with the strength to sell the program throughout
the organization as is champion, assuring the company’s commitment.

Analytical CRM

Analytical CRM analyzes customer data for a variety of purposes:

 Design and execution of targeted marketing campaigns to optimize marketing effectiveness

  Design and execution of specific customer campaigns, including customer acquisition, cross-
selling, up-selling, retention
 Analysis of customer behavior to aid product and service decision making (e.g. pricing, new
product development etc.)
 Management decisions, e.g. financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis
 Prediction of the probability of customer defection (churn analysis)

Analytical CRM generally makes heavy use of data mining.

Collaborative CRM

The function of the Customer Interaction System or Collaborative Customer Relationship

Management is to coordinate the multi-channel service and support given to the customer by
providing the infrastructure for responsive and effective support to customer issues, questions,
complaints, etc.

Collaborative CRM aims to get various departments within a business, such as sales, technical
support and marketing, to share the useful information that they collect from interactions with
customers. Feedback from a technical support center, for example, could be used to inform marketing
staffers about specific services and features requested by customers. Collaborative CRM's ultimate
goal is to use information collected from all departments to improve the quality of customer
service.[4]

Geographic CRM

Geographic CRM (GCRM) is a customer relation management information system which

collaborates geographic information system and traditional CRM.

gCRM combines data collected from route of movement, types of residence, ambient trading areas
and other customer and marketing information which are matched with relevant road conditions,
building formations, and a floating population. Such data are conformed with a map and is regionally
analyzed with OLAP(On-Line Analytical Processing) for visualization. This enables a company to
examine potential customers and manage existing customers in the region.
Strategy

Several commercial CRM software packages are available which vary in their approach to CRM.
However, as mentioned above, CRM is not just a technology but rather a comprehensive customer-
centric approach to an organization's philosophy in dealing with its customers. This includes policies
and processes, front-of-house customer service, employee training, marketing, systems and
information management. Hence, it is important that any CRM implementation considerations stretch
beyond technology, towards the broader organizational requirements.

The objectives of a CRM strategy must consider a company’s specific situation and its customers'
needs and expectations. Information gained through CRM initiatives can support the development of
marketing strategy by developing the organization's knowledge in areas such as identifying customer
segments, improving customer retention, improving product offerings (by better understanding
customer needs), and by identifying the organization's most profitable customers. [5]

CRM strategies can vary in size, complexity and scope. Some companies consider a CRM strategy to
only focus on the management of a team of salespeople. However, other CRM strategies can cover
customer interaction across the entire organization. Many commercial CRM software packages that
are available provide features that serve sales, marketing, event management, project management
and finance.

Successes

While there are numerous reports of "failed" implementations of various types of CRM projects,[6]
these are often the result of unrealistic high expectations and exaggerated claims by CRM
vendors.Many of these "failures" are also related to data quality and availability. Data cleaning is a
major issue. If the company CRM strategy is to track life-cycle revenues, costs, margins and
interactions between individual customers, this must be reflected in all business processes. Data must
be extracted from multiple sources (e.g., departmental/divisional databases, including sales,
manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, finance, service, etc.), requiring an integrated, comprehensive
business processing system to be in place with defined structures and data quality. If not, interfaces
must be developed and implemented to extract data from different systems. This creates a demand far
beyond customer satisfaction to understand the full business-to-business relationship. For this reason,
CRM is more than a sales or customer interaction system. The experience from many companies [who?]
is that a clear CRM requirement with regard to reports (e.g., input and output requirements) is of vital
importance before starting any implementation. [citation needed]
With a proper demand specification, a
great deal of time and money can be saved based on realistic expectations of systems capability. [citation
needed]
A well operating CRM system can be an extremely powerful tool for management and
customer strategies.

GAP Analysis

The CRM (customer relationship management) is an integrated effort to strengthen the network of
relationship for the mutual benefit of both the parties. The biggest management challenge in the new
millenium of liberalization and globalization for a business is to maintain good relationship with the
king – the customer. This study is of great significance because

Ø A 5% increase in the customer retention will increase the profit up to 125%.

Ø It costs seven time more to attract a new customer than to serve an old one.

Ø 20% of the company’s loyal customers account for the 80% of its revenues.

Ø To study on customer relationship management would enable the researcher to know about the
CRM practices

Hypothesis
Hypothesis – 1

H0 :- There is no difference between practices of CRM tradition and modern methods.

H1: There is a difference between practices of CRM in Tradition and modern methods.

Hypothesis-2:

Ho: There is no impact of CRM on the Profitability of the organization

H1: There is impact of CRM on the profitability of the organization

Hypothesis 3:

Ho: There is no association between the factors that affecting the CRM Practices

H1: There is an association between the factors that affecting the CRM Practices

Hypothesis 4:

Ho: There is no effect on the role of information technology on CRM

H1: There is an effect on the role of information technology on CRM

Limitations of the Study

1. Time constraint is unavoidable limitation of my study.

2. Financial problem is also there in completing this project in a proper way.

3. As no work has been done earlier in this regard so scarcity of secondary data is also there.

4. Inadequate disclosure of information is also the problem.

 Research Methodology

A. Type of research is descriptive research by survey method based on secondary data.

B. Data is collected from the Reliance fresh CRM published reporst and secondary data from
company profile, brochures.
C. Sample Size: 100 consumers. Collection Method: personal.

D. Tool: a structural questionnaire was prepared to collect information pertaining to the study.
The questionnaire was administered to reliance fresh customers.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

The research is primarily both explanatory as well as descriptive in nature. A well-structured

questionnaire was prepared and personal interviews were conducted to collect the customer’s
requirements, through this questionnaire.

DATA ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE:

a. Percentages

b. Bar – diagrams
 INDUSTRY PROFILE

Indian market has high complexities in terms of a wide geographic spread and distinct consumer
preferences varying by each region necessitating a need for localization even within the geographic
zones. India has highest number of outlets per person (7 per thousand) Indian retail space per capita at
2 sq ft (0.19 m2)/ person is lowest in the world Indian retail density of 6 percent is highest in the
world. 1.8 million households in India have an annual income of over 45 lakh (US$91,260).
Delving further into consumer buying habits, purchase decisions can be separated into two categories:
status-oriented and indulgence-oriented. CTVs/LCDs, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers,
microwave ovens and DVD players fall in the status category. Indulgence-oriented products include
plasma TVs, state-of-the-art home theatre systems, iPods, high-end digital cameras, camcorders, and
gaming consoles. Consumers in the status category buy because they need to maintain a position in
their social group. Indulgence-oriented buying happens with those who want to enjoy life better with
products that meet their requirements. When it comes to the festival shopping season, it is primarily
the status-oriented segment that contributes largely to the retailer’s cash register.
While India presents a large market opportunity given the number and increasing purchasing power
of consumers, there are significant challenges as well given that over 90% of trade is conducted
through independent local stores.
Challenges include: Geographically dispersed population, small ticket sizes, complex distribution
network, little use of IT systems, limitations of mass media and existence of counterfeit goods.

RETAILING FORMAT IN INDIA

Malls:
The largest form of organized retailing today. Located mainly in metro cities, in proximity to urban
outskirts. Ranges from 60,000 sq ft to 7,00,000 sq ft and above. They lend an ideal shopping
experience with an amalgamation of product, service and entertainment, all under a common roof.
Examples include Shoppers Stop , Lifestyle and Pantaloon.
Specialty Stores:
Chains such as the Bangalore based Kids Kemp, the Mumbai books retailer Crossword, RPG’s Music
World and the Times Group’s music chain Planet M, are focusing on specific market segments and
have established themselves strongly in their sectors.
Discount Stores:
As the name suggests, discount stores or factory outlets, offer discounts on the MRP through selling
in bulk reaching economies of scale or excess stock left over at the season. The product category can
range from a variety of perishable/ non-perishable goods.
Department Stores:
Large stores ranging from 20000-50000 sq. ft, catering to a variety of consumer needs. Further
classified into localized departments such as clothing, toys, home, groceries, etc.
Departmental Stores are expected to take over the apparel business from exclusive brand showrooms.
Among these, the biggest success is K Raheja’s Shoppers Stop, which started in Mumbai and now
has more than seven large stores (over 30,000 sq. ft) across India and even has its own in store brand
for clothes called Stop.
Hyper marts/Supermarkets:
Large self-service outlets, catering to varied shopper needs are termed as Supermarkets. These are
located in or near residential high streets. These stores today contribute to 30% of all food & grocery
organized retail sales. Super Markets can further be classified in to mini supermarkets typically 1,000
sq ft to 2,000 sq ft and large supermarkets ranging from of 3,500 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft. having a strong
focus on food & grocery and personal sales.
Convenience Stores:
These are relatively small stores 400-2,000 sq. feet located near residential areas. They stock a
limited range of high-turnover convenience products and are usually open for extended periods
during the day, seven days a week. Prices are slightly higher due to the convenience premium

Major Indian Retailers

Indian apparel retailers are increasing their brand presence overseas, particularly in developed
markets. While most have identified a gap in countries in West Asia and Africa, some majors are also
looking at the US and Europe. Arvind Brands, Madura Garments, Spykar Lifestyle and Royal Classic
Polo are busy chalking out foreign expansion plans through the distribution route and standalone
stores as well.
The low-intensity entry of the diversified Mahindra Group into retail is unique because it plans to
focus on lifestyle products. The Mahindra Group is the fourth largest Indian business group to enter
the business of retail after Reliance Industries Ltd, the Aditya Birla Group, and Bharti Enterprises
Ltd. The other three groups are focusing either on perishables and groceries, or a range of products,
or both.

 REI AGRO LTD Retail: 6TEN and 6TEN kirana stores

 Future Groups-Formats: Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Pantaloons, Central, Fashion Station,
Brand Factory, Depot, aLL, E-Zone etc.
 Raymond Ltd.: Textiles, The Raymond Shop, Park Avenue, Park Avenue Woman, Parx,
Colourplus, Neck Ties & More, Shirts & More etc.
 Fabindia: Textiles, Home furnishings, handloom apparel, jewellery
 RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group Retail-Formats: Spencer’s Hyper, Spencer’s Daily, Music World,
Au Bon Pain (Internaional bakery cafeteria), Beverly Hills Polo Club
 The Tata Group-Formats: Westside, Star India Bazaar, Steeljunction, Landmark, Titan
Industries with World of Titans showrooms, Tanishq outlets, Croma.
 Reliance Retail-Formats: Reliance MART, Reliance SUPER, Reliance FRESH, Reliance
Footprint, Reliance Living, Reliance Digital, Reliance Jewellery, Reliance Trends, Reliance
Autozone, iStore
 Reliance ADAG Retail-Format: Reliance World
 K Raheja Corp Group-Formats: Shoppers Stop, Crossword, Hyper City, Inorbit Mall
 Nilgiri’s-Formats: Nilgiris’ supermarket chain
 Marks & Spencer: Clothing, lifestyle products, etc.
 Lifestyle International-Lifestyle, Home Centre, Max, Fun City and International Franchise
brand stores.
 Next retail India Ltd (Consumer Electronics
Entry of MNC

The world’s largest retailer by sales, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Enterprises have
entered into a joint venture agreement and they are planning to open 10 to 15 cash-and-carry facilities
over seven years. The first of the stores, which will sell groceries, consumer appliances and fruits and
vegetables to retailers and small businesses, is slated to open in north India by the end of 2008.
Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer by sales, is planning to setup two business entities in the
country one for its cash-and-carry business and the other a master franchisee which will lend its
banner, technical services and know how to an Indian company for direct-to-consumer retail
The world’s fifth largest retailer by sales, Costco Wholesale Corp (Costco) known for its warehouse
club model is also interested in coming to India and waiting for the right opportunity.
Opposition to the retailers’ plans have argued that livelihoods of small scale and rural vendors would
be threatened. However, studies have found that only a limited number of small vendors will be
affected and that the benefits of market expansion far outweigh the impact of the new stores.
Tesco Plc., plans to set up shop in India with a wholesale cash-and-carry business and will help
Indian conglomerate Tata group to grow its hypermarket business.

Indian Retail Reform

Until 2011, Indian central government denied foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand Indian
retail, forbidding foreign groups from any ownership in supermarkets, convenience stores or any
retail outlets, to sell multiple products from different brands directly to Indian consumers.
The government of Manmohan Singh, prime minister, announced on 24 November 2011 the
following:

 India will allow foreign groups to own up to 51 per cent in “multi-brand retailers”, as
supermarkets are known in India, in the most radical pro-liberalisation reform passed by an Indian
cabinet in years;
 single brand retailers, such as Apple and Ikea, can own 100 percent of their Indian stores, up from
the previous cap of 51 percent; both multi-brand and single brand stores in India will have to
source nearly a third of their goods from small and medium-sized Indian suppliers;
 all multi-brand and single brand stores in India must confine their operations to 53-odd cities with
a population over one million, out of some 7935 towns and cities in India. It is expected that these
stores will now have full access to over 200 million urban consumers in India;
 multi-brand retailers must have a minimum investment of US$100 million with at least half of the
amount invested in back end infrastructure, including cold chains, refrigeration, transportation,
packing, sorting and processing to considerably reduce the post harvest losses and bring
remunerative prices to farmers;
 the opening of retail competition will be within India’s federal structure of government. In other
words, the policy is an enabling legal framework for India. The states of India have the
prerogative to accept it and implement it, or they can decide to not implement it if they so choose.
Actual implementation of policy will be within the parameters of state laws and regulations.

The opening of retail industry to global competition is expected to spur a retail rush to India. It has
the potential to transform not only the retailing landscape but also the nation’s ailing infrastructure. A
Wall Street Journal article claims that fresh investments in Indian organized retail will generate 10
million new jobs between 2012-2014, and about five to six million of them in logistics alone; even
though the retail market is being opened to just 53 cities out of about 8000 towns and cities in India.
It is expected to help tame stubbornly high inflation but is likely to be vehemently opposed by
millions of small retailers, who see large foreign chains as a threat. The need to control food price
inflation — averaging double-digit rises over several years — prompted the government to open the
sector, analysts claim. Hitherto India’s food supplies have been controlled by tens of millions of
middlemen (less than 5% of Indian population). Traders add huge mark-ups to farm prices, while
offering little by way of technical support to help farmers boost their productivity, packaging
technology, pushing up retail prices significantly. Analysts said allowing in big foreign retailers
would provide an impetus for them to set up modern supply chains, with refrigerated vans, cold
storage and more efficient logistics.

Market Size
India's retail sector is worth US$ 350 billion and is growing at a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 15 per cent to 20 per cent at present, as per a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) research
report titled, 'Winning in India's retail sector: Factors for Success'.

Mass grocery and apparel are the two most favoured segments for foreign direct investment (FDI) in
multi-brand retail in India, according to a study titled 'Indian Retail Market-Opening More Doors' by
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India.

The FDI inflows in single-brand retail trading during April 2000 to December 2012 stood at US$
42.70 million, as per the data released by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).

E-tailing

The Indian retailers are using a mix of formats, of which a relatively new but rapidly growing retail
format is the online channel, which offers consumers convenience, price benefits and the ability to
shop around the clock. Though in a nascent stage, India's online retail market is growing at double-
digit rates and is likely to be the next format that retailers will incorporate into their array of channels.

The Indian digital consumer industry, e-tailing is set to become a Rs 53,000 crore (US$ 9.71 billion)
market by 2015 from the current Rs 3,600 crore (US$ 659.34 million), as per a November report by
Avendus Capital Pvt Ltd.

Edukart.com, an online education company is planning to extend its franchise network across India.
The company aims to open more than 50 centers in the coming year. The focus of such expansion
will be metro cities, tier I and tier II cities.

Retail in Rural India

Rural chains in India are focussing on hinterlands in a big way. For many companies, a large portion
of their revenues comes from rural sales. The companies thus are aligning their marketing strategies
in accordance to the requirements of their customers in rural areas.
Turtle, one of India's leading men's lifestyle brands unveiled their limited edition collection of Khadi
menswear with the theme "Ecological Weave". This is an initiative which not only hopes to revive
the khadi industry and the livelihood of its weavers and their families in rural India, but is also poised
to revolutionalise menswear fashion.
 COMPANY PROFILE

Reliance Fresh falls under Reliance Industries. It is the first retail venture of the Group. The company
offers fresh fruits and vegetables, staples, groceries, fresh juice bars, FMCG products and dairy
products and non-vegetarian items.Reliance Fresh Limited operates food retail outlets. The company
was incorporated in 1999 and is based in Navi Mumbai, India. Reliance Fresh Limited operates as a
subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited.

Reliance Retail started its journey in 2006 with the opening of its first Reliance Fresh store. Today
Reliance Retail operates 584 Reliance Fresh and Reliance Smart stores and sells over 200 metric
tonnes of Fruits and over 300 metric tonnes of Vegetables every day.

Reliance Fresh is India’s leading neighbourhood retail chain, synonymous with freshness & savings.
With the three core promises of Fresh Hamesha, Available Hamesha and Savings Hamesha, Reliance
Fresh is a one-stop-shop for fresh shopping, fresh savings and fresh happiness.

From fresh fruits & vegetables to dairy, cereals to spices, processed food & beverages to home &
personal care products, we have the entire gamut of your grocery needs covered.

Across our stores, we retain a strong customer centric approach to meet all your shopping needs - be
it routine or seasonal, well known brands or popular local products.

Continuing Reliance’s hallowed tradition of backward integration, Reliance Retail directly partners
with a large number of farmers and small vendors in a farm-to-fork model. The linkages with the
farm has brought about transformational changes in the quality of life of the farmers as also
enhancing the quality of produce, reducing wastage by shortening the time to move fresh produce and
reducing intermediaries in the value chain thereby benefiting all.
 DATA ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION

Age A) 18-25 B) 25-40 C) 40-60 D) 60 and above

Age Respondents Percentage

18 – 25 35 35
25 – 40 45 45
40 – 60 13 13
60 & Above 7 7
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can state that 35% respondents are from the age group of
18- 25, 45% respondents are from the age group of 25-40, 13% respondents are from the age
group of 40 – 60, 7% respondents are from the age group of above 60
 Gender A) Male B) Female

Gender Respondents Percentage

Male 45 45
Female 55 55
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can state that most of visitors for the reliance fresh are
female and the respondents are 55%, male respondents are 45%.
Family Income A) 8 K - 10 K B) 10K - 20 K C) 20K - 40K D) > 40K

Income Respondents Percentage

8k – 10k 6 6
10k – 20k 36 36
20k – 40k 40 40
Above 40K 18 18
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can state that 40% of respondents are earning 20k-40k,
36% of respondents are earning 10k-20k, 18% of the respondents are earning above 40k, 6%
of the respondents are earning 8k-10k
Occupation

A) Government Job B) working in private sector C) Own Business D) Retired

Occupation Respondents Percentage

Government Job 20 20
Working in Private sector 35 35
Own Business 35 35
Retired 10 20
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can state that 35% & 35% of respondents are from private
jobs & Own business, 20% respondents are from government job, rest are retired persons
From how many years you are using services offered by Reliance fresh.

a. 0-2 Years b. 2-4 Years c. More than 4 Years

Respondents Percentage

0–2 35 35

2–4 45 45

More than 4years 20 20

Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can state that 35% of the respondents are using the
services of reliance fresh from 0 – 2 years, 45% of the respondents are using the services of
reliance fresh from 2 – 4 years, 20% of the respondents are using the services of reliance
fresh for more than 4years
Rate your overall satisfaction with the services provided by Reliance fresh?

a. Highly Satisfied b. Satisfied c. dissatisfied d. Highly dissatisfied e. moderate

Satisfaction level Respondents Percentage

Highly satisfied 48 48
Satisfied 36 36
Dissatisfied 6 6
Highly dissatisfied 1 1
Moderate 9 9
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 48% of the respondents are highly
satisfied with the reliance fresh, 36% of the respondents are only satisfied with reliance
fresh, & rest of them are dissatisfied, Highly dissatisfied, & moderate
Are you satisfied with the quality of products which is been delivered in the reliance stores?

a. Yes b. No
Satisfied with Quality Respondents Percentage
delivered
Yes 82 82
No 18 18
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that most of the respondents are satisfied
with the quality of products delivered, only less no of respondents are not satisfied with the
quality delivered
Do they entertain queries in a proper manner?

a. Yes b. No
Entertain queries Respondents Percentage

Yes 90 90

No 10 10

Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above we can interpret that 90% of the respondents says that reliance fresh will
entertain the queries & 10% of the respondents says that reliance fresh will not entertain the
the queries
How do you rate the process of billing system in reliance fresh?

a.Excellent b.Very Good c. Good d. Average e. Bad

Satisfaction level Respondents Percentage

Excellent 42 42
Very good 32 32
Good 16 6
Average 8 8
Bad 2 2
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 42% of the respondents says excellent,
32% of the respondents says it is very good, 16% of the respondents says it is good, 8% of
the respondents says it is average, 2% of the respondents says it is poor
Are you satisfied with the range of Products & Services?

a. Yes b. No
Respondents Percentage
Yes 98 98
No 2 2
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph, we can interpret that most of the customers are satisfied with
the range of products & services provided by the reliance fresh
Do they provide full information of the offers offered by the different products?

a. Yes b. No
Respondents Percentage
Yes 94 94
No 6 6
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 94% of the respondents says reliance fresh
provides full information about the offers offered by them, & rest of the respondents say No
Do you find their charges nominal as compared to other competitors?

a. Yes b. No
Respondents Percentage
Yes 82 82
No 18 18
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 82% of the respondents says that
charges in the reliance fresh are nominal. & rest of the respondents says that charges in the
reliance fresh are very high
Do they provide any discount on bulk purchase from the store?

a. Yes b. No
Respondents Percentage
Yes 99 99
No 1 1
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 99% of the respondents says that Yes
there will be discounts on the bulk purchases, 1% respondents says that no there will not be
any discount on bulk offers
Do they give certain attractive offers?
a. Yes b. No

Attractive offers Respondents Percentage

Yes 96 96
No 4 4
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 96% respondents says that reliance fresh
will offer attractive offers to attract the customer, only 4% respondents says that no
Does the store inform you about the new products & services which will be launched in the
Market?

a. Yes b. No

Respondents Percentage
Yes 84 84
No 16 16
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 84% of the respondents says yes & 16%
of the respondents says no
Do you think the reliance fresh identify and resolve problems of the associated with products &

Services?

a. Yes b. No

Respondents Percentage
Yes 45 45
No 55 55
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 55% of the respondents says no for the
reliance fresh identify and resolve problems of the associated with products & services,
45% of the respondents says yes for reliance fresh identify and resolve problems of the
associated with products & services
Do you think Reliance fresh is maintaining good customer relations through its services?

a. Yes b. No

Respondents Percentage
Yes 68 68
No 32 32
Total 100 100

Interpretation

From the above table & graph we can interpret that 68% of the respondents says yes
Reliance fresh are maintaining good customer relations through its services, 32% of the
respondents says no Reliance fresh is maintaining good customer relations through its
services
71
 Findings & Suggestions
1. 35% respondents are from the age group of 18-25, 45% respondents are from the age

group of 25-40, 13% respondents are from the age group of 40 – 60, 7% respondents

are from the age group of above 60

2. Most of visitors for the reliance fresh are female and the respondents are 55%, male

respondents are 45%.

3. 40% of respondents are earning 20k-40k, 36% of respondents are eraning 10k-20k,

18% of the respondents are earning above 40k, 6% of the respondents are earning 8k-

10k

4. 35% & 35% of responents are from private jobs & Own business, 20% responents are

from governmnt job, rest are retired persons.

5. 35% of the respondents are using the services of reliance fresh from 0 – 2 years, 45%

of the respondents are using the services of reliance fresh from 2 – 4 years, 20% of the

respondnents are using the services of reliance fresh for more than 4years

6. 48% of the respondents are highly satisfied with the reliance fresh, 36% of the

respondents are only satisfied with reliance fressh, & rest of them are dissatisfied,

Highly dissatisfied, & moderate

7. most of the respondents are satisfied with the quality of products delivered, only less

no of respondents are not satisfied with the quality delivered

8. 90% of te respondents says that reliance fresh will entertain the queries & 10% of the

respondents says that relaince fresh will not entertain the the queries

9. 42% of the respondents says excellent, 32% of the respondents says it is very good,

16% of the respondents says it is good, 8% of the respondents says it is average, 2%

of the respondents says it is poor

72
10. Most of he customers are satisfied with the range of products & services provided by

the reliance fresh

11. 94% of the respondents says reliance fresh provides full information about the offers

offered by them, & rest of the respondets say No

12. 82% of the respondents says that charges in the reliance fresh are nominal. & rest of

the respondents says that charges in the reliance fresh are very high

13. 99% of the respondents says that Yes there will be discounts on the bulk purchases,

1% respondents says that no tere will not be any discont on bulk offeres

14. 96% respondents says that reliance fresh will offer attractive offeres to attract the

customer, only 4% respondents says that no

15. 84% of the respondents says yes & 16% of the respondents says no

16. 55% of te respondents says no for the reliance fresh identify and resolve problems of

the associated with products & services, 45% of the respondents says yes for reliance

fresh identify and resolve problems of the associated with products & service

17. 68% of the respondents says yes Reliance fresh are maintaining good customer

relations through its services, 32% of the respondents says no Reliance fresh is

maintaining good customer relations through its services

73
 Suggestions

 There should be more and more emphasis given by the company for satisfying the
customer up to a apex limit and by providing the utility of every penny of his
money.
 There should be more use of information technology.
 The company should be flexible to bend its rules and procedures in the clients
favour.
 The company can communicate and develop stronger customer bonding by
providing social and financial benefits.

Conclusion

From this study it can be concluded that the customer relationship management in Company
is satisfactory. The company is using various CRM practices like customization of the
product, maintaining interaction with the customers regularly and providing good quality
product etc. Customer relationship management has a certain impact on the profitability of
the company. Average sale per customer has increased 15% over the last two years. Customer
response rate towards marketing activities is also improving. There are various factors
affecting the customer relationship management like working environment of the company,
support from top management and coordination among the departments of the company.
Information technology is not used as much as it should be. The company is using traditional
tools of CRM like quantitative research, personal interviews. The company should modern
tools like data mining, contact center, e-CRM and web based survey tools.

74
 Questionnaire

This is Project Report on Customer Relationship Management [CRM]

Personal Details

Name :
Age
A) 18-25 B) 25-40 C) 40-60 D) 60 and above
Gender
A) Male B) Female
Family Income
A) 8 K - 10 K B) 10K - 20 K C) 20K - 40K D) > 40K
Occupation
A) Government Job B) Working in private sector
C) Own Business D) Retired

Q1. From how many years you are using services offered by Reliance fresh?

a. 0-2 Years b. 2-4 Years c. More than 4 Years

Q2. Rate your overall satisfaction with the services provided by Reliance fresh?

a. Highly Satisfied b. Satisfied c. Some what satisfied d. Highly dissatisfied e. moderate

Q3. Are you satisfied with the quality of products which is been delivered in the reliance

stores?

a. Yes b. No

Q4. Do they entertain queries in a proper manner?

a. Yes b. No

Q5. How do you rate the process of billing system in reliance fresh?

a.Excellent b.Very Good c. Good d. Average e. Bad

75
Q6. Are you satisfied with the range of Products & Services ?

a. Yes b. No

Q7. Do they provide full information of the offers offered by the different products?

a. Yes b. No

Q8. Do you find their charges nominal as compared to other competitors?

a. Yes b. No

Q9. Do they provide any discount on bulk purchase from the store?

a. Yes b. No

Q10. Do they give certain attractive offers?

a. Yes b. No

Q11. Does the store inform you about the new products & services which will be launched in

the market?

a. Yes b. No

Q12. Do you think the reliance fresh identify and resolve problems of the associated with

products & services?

a. Yes b. No

Q13. Do you think Reliance fresh is maintaining good customer relations through its

services?

a. Yes b. No

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