Crm Invades Indian Insurance Sector

Final Dissertation Project
(CRM invades Indian Insurance sector)
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT

By
Himanshu Sharma

Under the guidance of
Dr. T.K Singhal Faculty, Management INMANTEC, Ghaziabad

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DECLARATION
I Himanshu Sharma a student of PGDM VI trimester of Inmantec business school, Ghaziabad hereby declare that the research project report titled ³CRM invades Indian Insurance

sector´ is my original work and the same has not been submitted for the award of any other
diploma or degree.

Place: Ghaziabad Date: HIMANSHU SHARMA

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Acknowledgement
A project is never the sole product of a person whose name has appeared on the cover. Even the best effort may not prove successful without proper guidance. For a good project one needs proper time, energy, efforts, patience, and knowledge. But without any guidance it remains unsuccessful. I have done this project with the best of my ability and hope that it will serve its purpose. ³To be or not to be is not anything which matters, how to be thankful is what really matters´ It was really a great learning experience and I am really thankful to Dr. T.K Singhal sir and my faculties, who not only helped me in the successful completion of this report but also, spread his precious and valuable time in expanding my knowledge base. I wish to acknowledge my gratitude towards Inmantec B-school, my parent, friends and all those persons who are responsible for the successful completion of this project.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Objective«««««««««««««««««««««««.6
2. INTRODUCTION««««« ««««««««««««««..7 3. CRM......................................................................................«««...9  FEATURES««««...««««««««««««««««...9  CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS««««««««««..««11  ESSENTIAL STEPS WHEN CONSIDERING CRM««««....12 4. PLANNING A CRM PROJECT ««««««««««««««...14 5. HOW TO PREPARE YOUR OFFICE FOR CRM««««««...«.22 6. WORK FLOW OF CRM .........................................................«««.23 7. e-CRM««««««««««««««««««««««««.«24 8. CRM IMPLEMENTATION «««««««««««««««.«.28 9. CRM¶S TOP BUSINESS MODELS«««««««..........................30 10. CRM INTEGRATION ««««««««««««««««««.33 11. INDIAN CRM MARKET «««««««««««««««««.34 12. CRM NECESSITIES FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES ««««««.41 13. INSURANCE SECTOR IN INDIA««««««««««««««43 14. IT in INSURANCE ««««««««««««««««««««47 15. CRM FOR INSURANCE««««««««««««««««««48 16. SUCCESSFULL STORIES OF CRM «««««««««««.«..51 17. CHALLENGES «««««««««««««««««««.«..64 18. SCOPE«««««««««««««««««««««««..««70 19. FINDINGS«««««««««««««««««..««««««.73 20. CONCLUSION ««««««««««««««««««««««74 22. RECOMMENDATIONS ««««««««««««««««««.75 23. BIBLIOGRAPHY«««««««««««««««««««««.76

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Objectives
To analyze - Impact of CRM in Indian Insurance sector. (A) Process involved in planning CRM.

(B) Find out successful stories of CRM in Indian Insurance sector.

(C) Challenges of Indian CRM market.

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Introduction
About CRM:
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a management strategy that unites information technology with marketing. It originated in the United States in the late 1990¶s, and, to date, has been accepted in a significant number of companies worldwide. On the other hand, some people have negative opinions of CRM; such views hold that it is difficult to implement successfully and that its cost-benefit performance is low, among others. Customer relationship management is a broadly recognized, widely-implemented strategy for managing and nurturing a company¶s interactions with clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes²principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service. Once simply a label for a category of software tools, today, it generally denotes a company-wide business strategy embracing all client-facing departments and even beyond. When an implementation is effective, people, processes, and technology work in synergy to increase profitability, and reduce operational costs. Due to ever-increasing costs and competition, organizations now must sell more products, and provide a higher level of service than at any time in the past. Fast delivery of information and service are now just as important as price. Without current technology, the increasing demands placed on the people in your Customer Facing Departments would make the job almost impossible. Software now allows sales departments, marketing departments, consultants, support reps and anyone else who interacts with customers and clients to enhance their productivity beyond what many people could have imagined just a few short years ago. Collectively, this technology and the tools associated with it are known as Customer Relationship Management Software, or "CRM". THE EVOLUTION OF MARKETING STRATEGY The Changing Market Environment In the early 20th century in the United States, demand outpaced supply to the extent that companies concentrated on selling as many products as possible. Suppliers focused on product development, manufacturing capacity, and securing distribution outlets, without regard to their consumers. They did not pay much attention to who bought their products or what their
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customers needed. They used classic marketing tactics, i.e., mass marketing ± primarily print and broadcast advertising, mass mailings, and billboards. By the middle of the 20th century, however, the economy had matured to a point where consumers had the power of choice because supply had outstripped demand. The era of the passive consumer was coming to an end. Companies began to find out who their customers were, what they wanted, and how they could be satisfied. They analyzed data about their customers and segmented them based on their demographics, such as age, gender, and other personal information. Then they promoted their product or service to a specific subset of customers and prospects. This was called ³target marketing.´ Each company thought seriously about the ³four P¶s´ (price, promotion, product, and placement), the basic concept of modern marketing, which was first suggested by the expert in the field, Jerome McCarthy, in 1960. By the middle of the 1980¶s, when the economy was highly matured, it had become extremely difficult to sell things. Traditional target marketing was not so gratifying under circumstances in which it was so difficult to cultivate new customers that this tactic could not sustain cost efficiency. At this point, the idea of ³relationship marketing´ gained the confidence of the business sector. This concept was aimed at building long-term relationships with customers and placed a great deal of value on the retention of existing customers rather than the acquisition of new ones. I will explain this in detail below. Retention and Acquisition Marketing operations consist of two activities: acquisition and retention of customers. In the world of mass and target marketing, the focus was on the acquisition side. On the other hand, in the world of relationship marketing, attention shifted to retention. This happened mainly because of the cost involved. In general, it is believed that ³it is five to 10 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than obtain repeat business from an existing customer.´1 As the needs of customers became diversified, conventional promotions became less efficient and drove up costs. According to the well-known empirical ³Pareto principle,´ it is assumed that 20 percent of a company¶s customers generate 80 percent of its profits.2 In other words; retention of a large customer base is a major issue. Birth of Customer Relationship Management In this context, CRM came into existence in the late 1990¶s. Although there is no clear definition of CRM, Jeffrey Peel, CEO of Quadriga Consulting, defined it as follows: [CRM] is about understanding the nature of the exchange between customer and supplier and managing it appropriately. The exchange contains monetary considerations between supplier and customer ± but also communication. The challenge to all supplier organizations is to optimize communications between parties to ensure profitable long-term relationships. CRM is a key focus for many organizations now as a shift away from customer acquisition toward customerretention and churn reduction strategies dictates a need for best practice CRM processes. ³Share of Wallet´ and Life Time Value

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In the age of target marketing, marketers aimed at the expansion of their companies¶ market share. With the advent of CRM, on the other hand, they shifted their emphasis to increasing the ³share of wallet´4 of their customers. As mentioned above, they try to establish close connections with their customers and offer products that the customers really want, so that the customers will be satisfied. Marketers estimate the value of customers on a long-term basis, that is to say, life time value (LTV).5 Basically, LTV is calculated as follows: ³Multiply a customer¶s expected number of visits times the average amount of money spent per visit. Deduct your costs of acquiring and servicing that customer. Add in the value of accounts this customer refers to you, and discount the sum appropriately for the time period you¶re analyzing.´6 It is difficult to ascertain the exact LTV of customers, but there is evidence that significant concern over creating long-term relationships with customers is warranted.

Cross-Selling and Up-Selling Cross-selling is the behavior of selling a product or service in addition to another purchase. Upselling is the behavior of stimulating a customer to trade up to a more expensive or profitable product or service. These strategies are aimed at selling more to existing customers for the reasons mentioned above. Taking an automobile dealer as an example, suggesting a car navigation system for a buyer is cross-selling; advising a higher-class car for a potential customer is up-selling.

CRM
The concept of CRM is premised on the simple logic of business: it must keep tracking customers once attracted; retain them in business portfolio and profit from their growth.CRM epitomizes the µmarriage of relationship marketing with the emerging information technology¶. Integration of ³people, process, technology and data´. Effective CRM practices can mean the difference between the success and failure of a business across all industries. CRM is a way of differentiation between customers to provide greater value to more valuable customers. The meaning of more valuable would be in terms of the monetary spending received from the customer along with regency and frequency of visit. CRM can be viewed in 4 principal ways y y y y Firstly it is a contemporary response to the emerging climate of unprecedented customer churn, waning brand loyalty and lower profitability. Secondly, CRM is central to the task of making an organization customer centric. Thirdly, CRM is the surest symbol embracing IT in business. Fourthly, CRM is the most certain way to increase value to the customers and profitability to the practicing organizations.

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CRM is the business strategy, process, culture and technology that enable organizations to optimize revenue and increase value through a more complete understanding and fulfillment of customer needs. There is a "Revenue Gap" that exists in most companies today. It is the difference in revenue that could be derived if all of a company¶s Customer Facing Departments were working with optimum information and at peak efficiency. Many companies understand that the greatest competitive advantage they have is what they know about their customers and how they use that data. However, most companies have not established the systems and methods necessary to capture customer centric information and leverage it into higher revenues and profits. Once captured, this information may be used to strengthen customer relationships that will then help to differentiate your offering and decrease the necessity to engage in costly price wars. Your ability to capture and leverage this customer information will become the measuring stick for your company¶s future success. Communication is the foundation of any successful relationship and business relationships are no different. Many companies are transitioning from the traditional one-way mass marketing communication model to a two-way communication model that engages their customers in an ongoing dialogue, creating a learning relationship. Every contact with the customer, whether it¶s e-mail, phone, Web, or face-to-face, is an opportunity to learn more about the customer¶s unique preferences, values and expectations. It is also an opportunity for the customer to gain valuable insight into a company¶s product or service offering. Enlightened companies are refining their product or service offerings based on what they learn, and they¶re using this greater understanding to create deeper, more profitable long-term customer relationships. The more your customers invest in these learning relationships, the greater their stake in making the relationship work, and the harder it becomes for your competitors to place a wedge between you and your customers. QIEM starts with the goal of helping companies develop comprehensive Customer Relationship Management strategies and solutions that focus on improving four key areas: Communication ±the exchange of information that, in turn, builds a greater understanding for both parties. Efficiency ± those areas for improving productivity while not in front of the customer. Effectiveness ± those areas for improving productivity while in front of the customer. Decision-Making ± leveraging the information derived to set future direction. A focus on these four key areas will help your company narrow the Revenue Gap by decreasing expenses and increasing revenue.

Definition ³CRM is the business strategy that aims to understand, anticipate, manage and personalize the needs of an organization's current and potential customers" -- PWC Consulting

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Rather it is the IT face of business processes that aims to establish enduring and mutually beneficial relationships with customers in order to drive customer retention, value and profitability up. Important features of CRM y It permits a one-to ±one marketing as compared to mass marketing y It stresses commitment over flirting y It helps disintermediation and delayed distribution aspects. y It helps reducing marketing cost significantly.

Critical Success Factors for CRM
Generic CSFs can be defined for any CRM project. These align around customer-facing processes and include: ‡ creating a customer culture ‡ adopting customer-based measures ‡ introducing effective IT ‡ segmenting customers ‡ developing an end-to-end process. The degree of change required around each of these measures needs to be evaluated at the outset. Many companies have customer-facing processes in place, such as complaints handling and customer service. Other initiatives may be less effective. For example, there is widespread dissatisfaction with loyalty programmes ² in many cases, they do not create added value because they are not integrated with product or service development. It is important not to develop what is, in effect, a wish list of processes, however. Processes need to be actionable and economic. Changing the business culture to be customer-centric can be a significant challenge because of the long-term dominance of the product view. It is vital to change the measures on which business performance is assessed ² this also allows the organization to benchmark how well it is progressing towards CRM. Reporting is closely linked to culture, as it indicates what the company believes is important. While customer satisfaction measures are relatively widespread, many companies struggle with identifying customer profitability. Fewer than half of all organizations have this measure in place (although one-third plan to introduce it), while more complex indicators such as lifetime value, are even less widely adopted. Aggregated, gross financial measures still dominate and need to be
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added to. Customer-defined measures also need to be adopted to evaluate performance against expectations. CRM systems and technology have been a major focus and 40 per cent of companies have already implemented them. Vendor selection is critical: a robust process needs to be adopted, as the right partner will affect the outcome of the project. End-users need to be consulted and piloting organized, with strong management support and training to ensure adoption. The impact of internal IT issues can be overlooked, but may harm the outcome of CRM implementations unless they are carefully managed. Gaining a better understanding of the customer base is an important step, especially the adoption of new segmentation practices (which seven out of ten companies are undertaking). The primary new approach is µneeds analysis¶, providing insight into how these differ by customer group. This may often reveal where the organization needs to make service improvements, or where it can achieve differentiation. To be effective, the CRM process needs to be integrated end-to-end across marketing, sales and customer service. This may require the introduction of board-level representation of the customer. There are important human resource implications, such as managing the expectations created by the project concerning timescale, costs and results. High-level sponsorship and a steering committee can be central to this, working closely with the project team.

7 Essential Steps When Considering CRM
For many advisers, choosing a specific customer relationship management technology can be a challenge. There are hundreds of CRM systems, and more than a dozen are focused specifically on financial planning practices. So where do you start? While it can be tempting to choose a CRM system based on the cost and list of features, you need to take a step back and consider your practice from a broader business perspective. Here are seven essential questions for you to answer to make sure your CRM investment gives you a great return.

1) What are your business objectives?
Software that allows you to easily create professional e-mail templates can be exciting, but it doesn't do you any good if it doesn't help you achieve your objectives. List your business objectives and make sure they are clear and measurable. For example, one of your business objectives could be to increase retention of current clients by 5 percent over the next three years.

2) What processes will the CRM impact?
Even before you decide to buy the software, consider your current customer relationship strategies and processes. How do you currently handle contact information? What is your process for preparing for client meetings? How do you communicate with your clients
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throughout the year? Understanding what could be impacted can help you identify areas you want to adjust, change or keep intact once the software is installed. 3) What are the anticipated gains from implementing CRM? Clearly identify what it is you expect your CRM to ultimately give you. Is it scalability to help you serve more clients, or efficiency in daily tasks so you can spend more time prospecting to increase revenue? These gains should relate to achieving your overall business objectives, but should also be very specific and relate directly to your anticipated use of CRM.

4) What features and functions are most critical to achieving your

objectives?
Once you have answered the questions above, you can use that collective information to help identify the functions you need in a CRM system. Here's a hypothetical example: Business objective: Increase client base by 10 percent with a corresponding 10 percent increase in revenue in the next three years. Processes impacted: Lead conversion process, which includes looking up pertinent client information before contacting the client (currently a long, manual process). Anticipated gains: Time savings to free up more time for prospecting. Function needed: The ability to quickly look up pertinent client information, including updated portfolio information, goals, net worth, etc. Track the stage each prospect is in. By using this information you can outline exactly what you need the software to accomplish to achieve your objectives.

5) What incentives and measurements exist to support the adoption of CRM?
Before you purchase and install a CRM system, you need to consider how you will motivate your staff to use the software. If it takes your assistant an extra 20 minutes to input complete client information into the software, he or she will need to understand how this extra work benefits the entire practice in the long run. It may also be appropriate to award him or her in some way for taking on additional work.

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6) Who will be responsible for evaluating and improving your business processes?
It is important to know if you are actually getting the value you want and need from your software purchase. To that end, identify who will evaluate the software and any gains (or losses) you have received from using the software on an ongoing basis. This individual can also be tasked with identifying new ways to improve your process that can save you time and money. 7) Which CRM is the best fit? Now that you know what you need the CRM software to do for you and how you are going to ensure return on your investment, you can evaluate the various CRM options available in light of how the software will improve your business. While going through all of these questions may seem like a daunting task, you will ultimately be better equipped to choose and use a software system that will help you take your practice to the next level.

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PLANNING A CRM PROJECT
A well-defined and thought out plan outlines the following: ‡ The general business goals and objectives ‡ The necessary people involved ‡ A date for implementation ‡ A budget for all phases of the solution ‡ A Technical Inventory

The General Business Goals and Objectives
The first step in implementing a successful CRM project is to conduct an internal analysis. From this point you can begin to outline your project goals, objectives and requirements. Current State Analysis Successful solutions begin with analysis. This usually starts with an assessment of the current state of things. These most usually include the "aches and pains" that hinder your team¶s productivity and detract from your company¶s goals, but they might also include certain strengths within the current system. It is important to identify both. How do you know what the current state is? Begin by asking your sales, marketing and customer service teams a few key questions: What are the strengths and weaknesses of your company¶s current processes? How can the processes be improved? What administrative activities are detracting from their productivity?
What is the competition doing?

Desired State Analysis
Your desired state will establish and define the ultimate project goals. This analysis will result in a clear direction for the project and be the foundation for measuring the project¶s success. This analysis will also define the "Gap" between the Current and Desired State. Also, as a result of this phase of the analysis, the areas where the Revenue Gap can be narrowed will become obvious. Technology is an enabler, not a solution itself. Automating an inefficient process will only speed up the wrong activity. On the other hand, automating very strong processes can be easy and early victories for your system. Examples: Increased customer satisfaction Shorter sales cycle Higher close rate Higher margin per sale
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More accurate revenue forecasting Improved management information Stronger relationships with partners

Project Goals
Your project will begin to come into focus once you begin to drill down into the measurable, tangible project goals that address your CRM solution¶s unique requirements and specific needs. Example Objectives: Reduce the time required to disseminate leads to the sales team Automate quote and proposal generation Create and distribute reports electronically Cut the time required to generate forecasting reports Eliminate duplicate data entry Distribute pricing information, collateral materials or inventory Catalogs more quickly Facilitate group scheduling and activity calendaring Your project objectives will become your project¶s critical success factors. You¶ll use these to evaluate CRM solutions, and in turn, they will become the benchmarks or criteria that the solution must meet in order to be considered successful. If you don¶t identify the project¶s objectives, you¶ll.

Project Deliverables
Your project deliverables drill down further into the specific business needs that your system must address. This detailed list of features and functions will sometimes serve as the body of an RFP used to evaluate and compare CRM applications. Example Deliverables: Classify contacts by type, such as prospect, customer, reseller, supplier, business partner Automatically notify other team members of important plans, events or customer interactions Run reports automatically and distribute electronically Track customer referrals and lead sources Manage multiple marketing campaigns, projects and activities Create mailing lists and generate targeted direct mailings using fax, e-mail or standard mail

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Maintain an online encyclopedia of all marketing and sales materials including slide presentations, videos, graphics and audio clips Synchronize data changes, additions, deletions and modifications to records with mobile users.

Cost Justification
Your CRM solution plan should also provide a basis for justifying the expense associated with your initiative. Increased revenues and decreased costs are the obvious ROI indicators, but more must be understood. To justify the costs, first determine your ROI expectations. Begin by outlining your project goals and defining your measurable objectives. Convert the measurable objectives into a dollar amount that reflects the operational savings and increased sales that you anticipate. Now you can calculate how quickly you will realize a 100% ROI.

Example ROI Equation:
Company XYZ automated 20 salespeople with a CRM solution. As a result, each salesperson reduced his or her administrative tasks and non-selling time an average of 4 hours a week. 4 hours X 20 salespeople = 80 extra selling hours/week. That¶s equivalent to hiring two additional salespeople without the overhead. Next, add to your ROI analysis the less tangible benefits that your organization will derive, such as: Enhanced communication Greater Responsiveness Better-informed employees Better-informed management Happier Employees To achieve success, the CRM initiative must be endorsed and used at the highest level. Involve users in the analysis. Create a system that becomes a tool for them, not just a repository for management information. A solution may take as little as 30 days to implement, all the way up to 120 days, based on complexity.

Involve the Appropriate People
The most important factor in a successful CRM implementation is the people involved. Involvement has to start at the top with management and include relevant parties all the way to the user level. As a rule, successful CRM projects have an executive as the project champion. They make sure the project stays on track by setting the initial project goals and objectives, and eliminating obstacles that arise. Executive support and endorsement ensure that the CRM solution becomes a part of the corporate culture.

Prioritize
Plan meetings where the teams can discuss the opportunities to improve your current system and have them establish the priority of some "must-do". Since the CRM project will also impact
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management and information services (IS), poll them individually or create representative teams to compile their critical success factors as well. Early participation by everyone affected by the CRM solution promotes a sense of ownership and stimulates enthusiasm before the solution is implemented. Failure to involve the users during the project development leads to user resistance when you roll out the solution.

Establish a Timeline
Implementing a CRM solution, or any automation project, without pre-implementation planning is a sure-fire way to set out on the road to failure. An effective planning process includes creating the project calendar, complete with established deadlines and scheduled meetings. If your decision process will be by committee, delegate the appropriate tasks to the members. The length of the planning process can range from a few weeks to several months depending upon the complexity of your company¶s processes. Low-end contact management applications that are implemented "out-of-the-box" require less time than high-end enterprise solutions with complex customizations. Implementing the typical middle market CRM solution, not including your preimplementation planning, usually requires 30 to 120 days to complete. Many factors can affect the implementation timeline, including the depth and breadth of your customizations, amount of your internal IS department¶s participation, the number of users to automate, the amount of data to convert, and the degree to which the CRM solution will be integrated with existing systems. To help our clients begin realizing the benefit of their CRM solution quickly, QIEM recommends a phased implementation approach. In a phased approach, we begin by implementing the solution with only the minimum amount of customization necessary to meet your projects most critical success factors. Your employees begin using the CRM solution quickly and your company starts to realize ROI immediately. As the users become familiar with the system¶s capabilities and features, additional customizations are made in subsequent phases. The most successful CRM projects only attempt to implement in each phase as much as the users organization can absorb. A phased implementation can also help your project avoid the "scope creep" that can occur when you attempt to address too many requirements all at once. If you approach your CRM project with a long-term vision, then segment that vision into prioritized phases; you¶ll be less likely to overwhelm your organization with massive changes.

Take a Technical Inventory
One area that¶s often overlooked prior to selecting a CRM solution is the technical inventory. It is critical to know the current components and age of your company¶s technical infrastructure. This information will directly impact both the cost and operability of any CRM solution. Enterprise wide CRM solutions are designed for the client/server environment, Web-based environment or combination of the two. While some products will function in a variety of technical infrastructure configurations, others are designed for a limited number of configurations. If your technical infrastructure will not support the application you select, you may have to decide whether to change your infrastructure or choose from a more limited list of solution options. Some solution providers or software publishers offer system-hosting services. This alleviates some of your internal IS department¶s responsibility from some of the maintenance and administration of your CRM solution, but generally costs considerably more over 48 months or so.

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Establish a Budget
Front-office automation solutions vary from low-end, "off-the-shelf" products to high-end, customizable solutions. The cost of these products will vary significantly based on functionality, scalability and architectural elegance. While the CRM marketplace is crowded and fragmented, you should be able to compile a short list of systems to review based on your specific CRM objectives, business requirements and technical infrastructure. The greater your functional requirements, expect the cost for the system to increase. Your CRM project budget will need to account for the following Components: Software Consulting (analysis and project management) Customization, Integration and Data Conversion System Implementation User and Administrator Training Technical and User Support Software Maintenance There are two categories of costs commonly associated with a CRM project: Implementation Costs: These are the costs associated with the initial system implementation. Annual Costs: These are the ongoing costs associated with the long-term maintenance and support of the system.

Implementation Costs
To make sure that sufficient resources are available from the outset of the project, it is important to consider the solution¶s total cost. In addition to the software licenses, other costs associated with the initial implementation of a CRM solution include customization, implementation, training, support, and maintenance. These additional costs over and above the software will generally be 1 to 3 times the cost of the software. A typical middle market CRM solution implementation costs from $1,000 to $4,000 per user. Annual Costs Once you¶ve completed your implementation there will be annual expenses required to ensure the long-term success of the solution. Support ± Typical support agreements give you direct access to technical analysts for problem resolution, bug reporting, documentation clarification and technical. Maintenance ± Typical maintenance agreements include software updates, software upgrades and new versions. Without a maintenance agreement, you will have to purchase separately the software upgrades and new versions required to keep your system current. Industry standards are two to three software updates per year, one software upgrade per nine months to one year, and a
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new version every 18 months. A support agreement usually costs 10-15% of the software publisher¶s current suggested price for the software. Professional Services ± In addition to the support and maintenance agreements, you will want to budget annually for the professional services necessary to implement the upgrades, updates, and new versions. Ongoing Training ± When new versions or customizations are planned, you will need to include additional training for your users in the annual budget. New employees will also require user training to ensure they are using the solution successfully.

SELECTING A CRM SOLUTION
There are over 400 front-office automation solutions on the market today. Keep in mind«"Execution is more important than vision". Your success depends on the ability of your company and your selected business partner to successfully integrate the new tool into your existing ecology. So it starts with the planning process. The more planning that is done, the more obvious the selection will be. The "must-do¶s" are the benchmarks used to evaluate each solution¶s ability to effectively support your business processes and address your automation requirements. Solution evaluation processes range from an informal discussion among the project leaders to a formal rating procedure involving the entire project team. The complexity of your business processes, the amount and detail of your project requirements, and the number of solutions you plan to evaluate will guide the format of your evaluation process. Establish benchmarks for evaluating a solution. The evaluation should include all factors that could impact your solution.

Proprietary Systems
You may be considering designing your CRM solution from scratch. The initial cost of developing a proprietary system may look attractive, but many companies find that after they "re-invent the wheel" they face ongoing development costs to keep the system functioning. Most of these proprietary projects fail because of one or more of the following reasons: Lengthy design and implementation cycle Resource draining maintenance requirements Future platform incompatibility Inability to integrate system with other enterprise applications Reliance on a single custom developer

Packaged Solutions
Implementing a packaged CRM solution with customizations to accommodate your business practices will save you both time and money. Customized solutions can be implemented in less time than it takes to develop and implement a proprietary or homegrown system. Customized
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solutions also require fewer resources to maintain and can be readily integrated with back-office automation solutions such as MRP/ERP and accounting/finance systems. When evaluating a CRM solution, you want to consider the software developer¶s market leadership or position, the long-term growth goals and financial stability. In the current economy, many CRM vendors are not financially stable. The last thing you want is to select a vendor only to see them go out of business in three months. Check out their financials. It is also important to purchase a mature product, not some late entry into the middle market CRM space. Most new products may have some slick new technology, but never make enough of a dent in the market and mind share to survive. You will also want to be comfortable that the solution is scalable and will grow with your company. You may only have ten sales reps today, but will the system still handle 50 or 100 sales reps easily without abandoning it. Consider carefully the methods that the CRM solution can be customized. Many appear to be simple to customize in a quick demo, but cannot be inexpensively adapted for more complex customizations. You may not feel that you need these today, but most companies regret not considering this aspect in their decision process. For example, can you affordably add custom business logic to the data entry and other areas using a simple and commonly understood programming language such as Microsoft Visual Basic? Can you add additional tables to the CRM system? For example, could you add a custom 1:Many table associated with the Account or Company table to store multiple software licenses, multiple channel partners, or multiple products? Do not trust the sales rep with an answer like ³Yes, no problem!´. We tend to call this type of answer ³SMOP´, or Simply a Matter of Programming, and many, many dollars. Have them demonstrate how you can make such changes in front of you. Do not trust any custom demos developed off-site. Also, check with other companies who are using the system. See how much they have been able to adapt and customize the system to their special business needs.

SELECTING A SOLUTION PARTNER
Selecting a knowledgeable, reputable solution provider or systems integrator is more important than selecting the best solution for your project. You can take an excellent CRM software package and totally mess up your implementation if it is not done right. You will want a partner with the resources to provide full implementation support including system design, customization, data conversion, installation and training. Look for the following in a CRM partner: Specialized resources ± Companies and organizations that have consultants who specialize in Customer Relationship Management understand how to implement successful solutions. Organizations with resources dedicated to supporting CRM solutions are able to provide comprehensive services and ensure the long-term, ongoing success of the system. Current certifications and training ± Maintaining a staff of trained and certified professionals requires a significant allocation of a company¶s resources and is a strong indicator of their commitment to servicing the CRM solutions they represent. It is important that the team assigned
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by your CRM partner to implement your system includes experienced professionals certified to customize, integrate and provide training for the solution you select. Check out the experience of the consultant to be assigned to you. In fact, be sure to meet this consultant prior to your selection of the solution provider. CRM Experience ± The CRM industry is growing exponentially, and so are the numbers of solutions and solution providers. It is important that your partner has the experience, both with implementations and with the product offered to understand both the technical and strategic aspects of CRM. Be wary of ERP and Financials solution providers who ³also´ offer CRM solutions. With the slowdown in their market, many have jumped into the ³hot´ CRM space but have little experience and understanding of it. Documented methodology ± The solution provider that you choose should utilize a proven and documented project management system. Development of a successful, repeatable methodology is a strong indicator that they will deliver a reliable solution form start to finish and that they are committed to the CRM market. Client references ± The best way to assure that your implementation experience will be positive and professional is to check client references. Call three to five of their customers and ask questions such as: Did the solution provider meet the project deadlines? How were last minute changes handled? How well did the solution provider communicate with them? Was the final project cost in line with the estimate? How well have they provided "after sale" service?

How to Prepare Your Office for CRM
Business surveys show that more than half of CRM solutions actually fail because of poor implementation. Business experts recommend ten steps that project managers can take to ensure the successful adoption of new CRM solutions.

1. Get Clear on Who Owns CRM Solutions

Some marketing professionals perceive sales automation as a function of the IT department. In other organizations, CRM might be viewed as an individual's "pet project." Instead, everyone in an organization should have some emotional buy-in for CRM to succeed.

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2. Communicate How CRM Solutions Help Meet Business Goals Customer relationship management encounters resistance in organizations where CRM solutions appear to contradict goals. For instance, if employees don't feel empowered by information, CRM can become a waste of time. Tying each element of a CRM implementation to a policy or to a vision statement can improve its chance for success. 3. Put Customer Relationship Management into Strategic Context In organizations where CRM solutions fail, project managers often focus on the potential savings of sales automation features. Instead, successful project managers emphasize the areas of longterm opportunity opened up by CRM. 4. Offer Thorough Training on CRM Solutions scheduling a handful of mandatory training sessions is a great strategy for a failed implementation, according to veteran project managers. Understanding that different team members may have different learning styles can lead to a more comprehensive training program that continues beyond the launch phase. 4. Offer Thorough Training on CRM Solutions scheduling a handful of mandatory training sessions is a great strategy for a failed implementation, according to veteran project managers. Understanding that different team members may have different learning styles can lead to a more comprehensive training program that continues beyond the launch phase. 5. Carve Sales Automation Tasks into Manageable Chunks CRM solutions fail to gain traction in organizations when one team member or job role becomes tasked with "keeping things running." Instead, project managers can work out assignments for specific departments that keep the system from developing a bottleneck. 6. Track ROI on CRM Solutions Project managers often justify a CRM solution by pointing at the potential cost benefits. Moving beyond the internal savings and into tracking the new business generated from sales automation and other modules is essential to keeping a CRM project moving forward. 7. Prepare for Culture Shock after Online CRM Implementation Online CRM tools break down barriers in organizations, even when stakeholders prefer to keep some information to themselves. Openly addressing coming changes and their implications early in the launch cycle can help prevent team members from rolling back into old habits. 8. Roll Out CRM Solutions Gradually In organizations where CRM solutions failed to take root, stakeholders often reported feeling overwhelmed. Launching CRM in smaller chunks maintains a sense of forward momentum while team members become acclimated to new systems. 9. Ask for Input on Customization and Future Releases when stakeholders feel "shut out" of the release process, CRM implementations fail. Soliciting
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and tracking feature requests can help team members understand how CRM solutions evolve over time, based on user feedback and budget guidelines. 10. Celebrate Milestones Regularly Taking time to celebrate wins is just as important as addressing opportunities, according to many experienced CRM project managers. Giving team members time to reflect on the positive impact of a CRM solution can shift focus away from gripes and criticisms of an incomplete system. Clear Communication Leads to CRM Success Experts agree that following these ten steps often leads to significantly higher success rates for CRM rollouts. Keeping everyone in the loop about the rationale for and the progress of the project is essential to an effective launch.

Workflow of CRM
A simplified CRM workflow is as follows.

1. Collecting Customer Data and Information
Acquisition of customers and basic data including name, address, gender, age, etc, is fundamental, but transaction data such as date, time, item, value, etc. at every ³touch point,´7 i.e., a point of interaction when the company communicates with a customer, or vice versa, are also essential. Information is often needed to complement these data. It is ³a knowledge that comes from asking questions to customers such as why and how.´8

2. Analyzing Data to Predict Customer Behavior
Marketers use these data and information so that they can record the interests and preferences of customers. Furthermore, they attempt to ascertain purchasing patterns on the basis Of transaction records. ³Using sophisticated modeling and data mining techniques, behavior prediction uses historical customer behavior to foresee future behaviors.´9 Understanding the tendency that a certain type of customer is apt to purchase a specific product (³propensity-to-buy analysis´) and that certain products are often bought with other specific products by a particular type of customer (³product affinity analysis´) has a beneficial effect on making marketing decisions.

3. Marketing Campaigns: Applying the Results of Analysis
Companies conduct marketing campaigns that are designed on the basis of the results of analysis or on hypotheses. They promote their products through various channels, such as e-mail, the Internet, telemarketing, or direct mail. They also contact their customers for follow-up after purchase. And, of course, they have to monitor the results of that campaign in order to refine future campaigns. With CRM software, they can, for the most part, automate these processes.

4. Measuring Results, Revising Hypotheses, and Repeating This Workflow Process
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To improve their results, companies need to evaluate the effects of their marketing campaigns. They should measure whether and how a given campaign achieves its original goal and revises their hypotheses according to the results. After that, they should repeat the workflow process, thereby making gradual progress.

About e-CRM:
ECRM Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers making use Of Information Technology (IT). As the internet is becoming more and more important in business life, many companies consider it as an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs, tighten customer relationships and most important, further personalize marketing messages and enable mass customization. Together with the creation of Sales Force Automation (SFA), where electronic methods were used to gather data and analyze customer information, the trend of the upcoming Internet can be seen as the foundation of what we know as eCRM today. We can define eCRM as activities to manage customer relationships by using the Internet, web browsers or other electronic touch points. The challenge hereby is to offer communication and information on the right topic, in the right amount, and at the right time that fits the customer¶s specific needs Channels, through which companies can communicate with its customers, are growing by the day, and as a result, getting their time and attention has turned into a major challenge. One of the reasons eCRM is so popular nowadays is that digital channels can create unique and positive experiences ± not just transactions ± for customers. An extreme, but ever growing in popularity, example of the creation of experiences in order to establish customer service is the use of Virtual Worlds, such as Second Life. Through this so-called eCRM, companies are able to create synergies between virtual and physical channels and reaching a very wide consumer base. However, given the newness of the technology, most companies are still struggling to identify effective entries in Virtual Worlds. It¶s highly interactive character, which allows companies to respond directly to any customer¶s requests or problems, is another feature of eCRM that helps companies establish and sustain long-term customer relationships. Furthermore, Information Technology has helped companies to even further differentiate between customers and address a personal message or service. Some examples of tools used in eCRM: Personalized Web Pages where customers are recognized and their preferences are Shown. Customized products or services (Dell). CRM programs should be directed towards customer value that competitors cannot match. However, in a world where almost every company is connected to the Internet, eCRM has become a requirement for survival, not just a competitive advantage.
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E-CRM and its Benefits The long-term business relationships provide many potential benefits for banks and clients. It is Generally less costly for any service firm (bank) to maintain and develop an existing client Relationship (Berry 1983). The customer can also make transaction cost savings by developing a Long-term relationship with bank. The numerous studies carried on in USA reveals that transacting through Internet is much more economical than other channels. For instance, it has been estimated that while it costs nearly US $1.07 per transaction using the normal means, on the Net the costs comes to a mere cent. Even when compared with telephone banking (5 cents) and the ATMs (2.7cents), the Net seems to have an edge. In addition, the strategic and social benefits may be considerable for both parties (Halinen 1989). A long-term relationship may, for instance produce strategic benefits for the bank in its marketing by generating references and credentials or it may create competitive advantage by building barriers to switching. The client on its part may enhance the quality of services offered by engaging in long-term business relationship with a bank (Berry& Parsuraman 1991).In Net banking the financial statement can be viewed, printed or down-loaded in any format for ease of analysis. Thus, Internet as a service-delivery channel shifts the control of transactions from the bank staff to the customer. Net bank customers find better information through websites than from the unwilling, less knowledgeable and noncooperative banking staff. Thus high level of customer control that translates into customer satisfaction and repeat purchases the most critical advantage of e-CRM in banks. Other related benefits include decreased cost of sales and promotion, high supply-chain management integration and improved logistics management. Current Status of e-CRM in Indian Banks Internet has enabled banking at the click of the mouse. At present there are five functional Categories for online banking sites ± on line brochure center, interactive bank, e-mails, calculations and cyber banks, which offer customers access to account information, inter-branch funds transfer and utility bill payments. Banks have tied up with service providers in telecom and power sectors like MTNL, BSES and cellular service providers for allowing their customers to make bill payments online. In India, new private sector banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Global Trust Bank and UTI Bank, have taken the lead in e-banking. Among the foreign banks, Citibank, has noticeable presence, while others like Federal Bank, HSBC Bank, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro Bank, are moving towards becoming big players in e-banking. Even the state run banks like SBI and Union Bank of India have realized the advantages of such services. ICICI Bank, the first bank to offer e-banking services in India has more than one lakh regular Internet user accounts, of which more than 25 percent are of NRIs. The bank has viewed advanced information technology as a managerial and competitive tool and has tried to harness technology to the maximum possible extent to deliver superior customer services. The Bank has emerged leader in B2B and B2C initiatives. A B2B solution (i-payments) aims at facilitating online supply-chain management to it corporate clients by linking them with their suppliers and dealers in a closed business loop. All members in this loop are required to maintain the account with the bank. This product has gained considerable market acceptance and the bank has already entered into memorandum of understanding with over 100 large Indian companies. The Bank became the first bank in India to introduce utility bill payment through Internet. Bank has entered into tie-ups with leading telecom companies such as MTNL, Tata teleservices, VSNL and cellular operators such as BPL Mobile, Airtel and Usha Martin. Tie-ups have been
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established with BEST & BSES for electricity payment in Mumbai. The bank with its net banking service called µInfinity¶ goes a step forward by allowing the account holder to transfer fund into another person¶s account with the bank. Also one can intimate about the loss of an ATM card over the net when using Infinity. Corporate sector can issue letter of credit and make inquiries regarding bills sent for collection via this service. It also provides facility for nicknaming all accounts to avoid remarking lengthy accounts number. UTI bank has tied up with Cosmat Max, to create a communication network for its customers. The network will have 50 VSAT terminals at strategic locations, which will help in ATM servicing and internal management information system. The bank has signed a memorandum of understanding with equitymaster.com for e-brokering activities of the site. This will enable the bank to leverage its database for e-commerce and other initiatives with data-warehousing and data-mining, where information of the customer spending habits will be used to sell other correlated products like credit cards. HDFC Bank has, for the first time in India made the e-shopping experience secure online and real time with the launch of its payment gateway. This will allow any Visa/Master credit card holder anywhere in the world to make payments for global services over the Internet. The bank has tied up with 15 portals and is in talk with several others to offer secure business to customer e-com. transactions. The first secure, on-line and real-time e-com. credit card transaction in the country was done on the Easy.2 shoppe.com shopping mall, enabled by HDFC bank on a Visa card, heralding the launch of the payment gateway. HDFC Bank also offers a direct debit option whereby its customer can pay for the goods or services by a secure password enabled transfer of funds from their account to the merchant account. The state run public sector bank, the State Bank of India (SBI) made a quiet foray into net banking. The country¶s largest commercial bank launched on-line SBI - an account browsing facility over the Net for customers in eight select branches including four NRI branches. E-CRM Techniques used by Banks in India Banks leveraging technology can develop innovative customer solutions to attain growth with Profitability within the framework of sound risk-management practices. Techno-savvy banks are Tapping into online services to initiate a new era in relationship management to create one to one Relationships as well as one to many relationships to enhance their competitive advantage. Recent developments in critical areas of IT have changed the way banks are managing their Customer relationships. The following are some of the latest e-CRM techniques used by banks in Offering new products and services to its customers. 1. Internet banking: Internet is being used by banks to disseminate information to customers about bank¶s products and services through their websites. The banking services are provided through Net with convenience of ease and accessibility. Internet banking offers many benefits To the banks viz. vast reach, reduced transaction costs, direct marketing and cross selling, Build bank¶s brand, etc. It also offers benefits to customers¶ viz. reduced cost, convenience, Banking with the bank and not the branch, speed, better cash management, etc. The new private sector banks ± ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank and the Global Trust Bank have taken the lead in Net Banking. The state run public sector banks are lagging behind in Net banking, although modest beginning has been made by the State Bank of India. 2. Data Warehousing and Data Mining: This technique is used to develop and use customer data to check their profile, retention and loyalty patterns. They provide valuable inputs for retaining customers and developing products and services for the future.
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3. ATMs: At present installed number of ATMs in the country is 1800, which is likely to be more than 4000 by next year. Most of the demand for this technology is coming from State owned banks. Until now, ATM services have been confined to deposits and withdrawal from bank accounts by customers. The growth in ATMs has been fuelled by a race among banks to expand their customer base by going in for more value added services (bill payments and ticketing services) on these machines. 4. Telebanking or Mobile banking: These services empower the customer with an instant access to routine queries and transaction or check bank balances. 5. Computerized decision support system: This helps the banks in applying optimization techniques in functional areas such as, asset±liability management, optimization of investment portfolios and asset portfolios through linear programming. This is a practical tool which helps the bank managers and customers in optimizing investment decisions. 6. E-mail: Banks can maintain the list of its best customers and inform these members through e-mail the various services and schemes offered by the bank. These days this is considered as one of the cheapest and effective means of communication. 7. Computer networking: Networking between the branches of divisional, regional, zonal and Head office of banks provides access to customer data base from the executive desk. This will Integrate the front-office applications with back-office requirements, thus generating MIS for Branch managers and executives at the different controlling offices including Head office for accurate, speedy and cost-effective customer services. 8. Customer smart cards: These cards are issued to key customers which carries all the relevant Information, details of previous and repeat purchases, to make it convenient for the customers to recall and for the banks to keep a track of the behavioral and purchase trends. Utilities like BEST in Mumbai are already using smart cards for ticketing in its luxury buses.

Phased CRM Implementation - Is it the Right Choice?
CRM is the most influential customer strategy of the decade. What started out as a customer retention program today has developed into a fully fledged business strategy often involving millions of dollars? How long does an actual CRM implementation take? How long does it take to see some return on investment after employing a CRM strategy? A company can expect a fair share of return on investment equivalent to at least ten times its investment. Companies should comprehend the fact that they are actually starting up a project that could take at least 5 years but will lead to phenomenal increase in market share. Since most organizations try to get the whole organization involved in a CRM project they face considerable difficulty. This happens as most organizations are built to resist change. It is important to

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concentrate on one department, make evident changes and then get the rest of the organization involved. CRM's Time Frame- What you Need to Know
y

Sometimes putting money into a 5 yr plan may seem unwise therefore it is better to opt for small investments - quick steps. The return on these little investments can be used to further greater expansion. So one should therefore opt for a 6 months, one year project and then continue from there on. Every organization needs to establish its goals clearly. From then on it has to decide at which point it actually is and where it really wants to see itself after its CRM implementation. It is imperative that the organization have a long-term commitment to the CRM project and be willing to invest the required amount of effort time and money to obtain necessary results. The organization should not expect a return on investment too soon. Expecting a short return on investment say 6 months will have detrimental effects. The average implementation time for organizations that implement most CRM solutions is 12 - 16 weeks while the industry average hovers greater than 10 months. An organization that implements CRM should expect full ROI in 10 months. Return on investment is usually 4 to 7 times the initial and ongoing investment. Large scale change requires much more additional time. Over the first 3 years CRM will evidence a steady growth rate and deliver a profitability increase in millions. As the CRM program continues each step should pay for itself in only 6- 12 months Customer behavior shows only within a few months although some customer behavior takes longer to change. Significant improvements take place only a few months after employing the CRM strategy. After the implementation of the strategy CRM focus should be on customer interactions and using this to meet customer needs. What's most important is to build and launch, then improve, rather than spend months in preparation before the initial launch.

y

y

y

y y

y

y

So what's the best option? Do organizations opt for a one time plan or a phased implementation strategy? Opting for phased implementation is certainly more beneficial and is the better choice of the two. Guidelines for Successful Phased Implementation: Ease Slowly into CRM Implementation Establish your business needs first. Next companies need to establish a CRM project that has a short delivery period so that the project can be delivered in a short timeframe. It is better to opt for phased implementation, small individual projects than a mammoth one. This will ensure that there is adequate return on investment and that there is considerable cost reduction and efficiency.

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CRM Package vs. Business Needs It is important to ensure that the best balance is obtained between the CRM solution and the actual use of it. At most times businesses find that they are adjusting their business processes and goals to the CRM package and vice versa. An effort should be made to make use of the CRM tools to the best of its ability while at the same time accommodating business processes. Get Management Involved CRM executives and top management should be involved. Their participation is critical to the achievement of CRM goals and objectives. The CRM committee appointed or the CRM manager should actively participate in all aspects of the CRM implementation from the inception to the deployment. Responsibility should be given to the appropriate persons and ensured that they carry it through and thereby avail of all the possible CRM benefits. Training is Essential Training should be taken seriously. Since the implementation of CRM is a huge task it is important to plan for individual training within the organization for ex. classroom training, expert training etc can be opted for so that they are enabled to possess the necessary skills required for the job. This is an important part of CRM implementation. Employees should be encouraged to provide feedback on how well the CRM training has gone and whether or not they need additional help. Implementing CRM Make sure the business is affected to the barest minimum. See what effects the CRM implementation will have on your business and make sure you prepare employees for the possible jolts. It is most important to focus on the process and allow the CRM tool to manage the process. It is also important to include the entire business even if the CRM project includes only one business unit. Future Focus Since the CRM implementation will bring with it new changes and new challenges it is imperative that the resources at hand be used to deal adequately with possible change. It is important to focus on the possibility that changes will undoubtedly occur in future. Plans should be made keeping this in mind. Room should be provided for modifications and the possibility of plans going awry as well. The business should be well equipped to deal with these changes. Get Feedback from Users Obtaining user feedback is essential as this can contribute to the success of the CRM project. It yields valuable information about CRM implementation's requirements user acceptance, etc. While considering implementing the CRM strategy the adherence to the above factors will go a long way in ensuring success. Getting CRM right will ensure that customer retention is secured, sales leads are followed and marketing is boosted. After the execution of CRM the results need to be measured often, based on the methodology developed. It is important to ensure that current metrics are established. Both qualitative and quantitative measures should be adopted, after which the results need to be analyzed and finally based on this a methodology should be implemented.

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CRM's Top Business Models are in High Demand
The purpose of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to enable various organizations serve customers better through introducing them to a series of processes and procedures that better the buying experience for customers. This is done through implementing a successful CRM strategy through a software package that has been specifically designed to support these business processes and procedures. The work of CRM involves focusing on service automated processes, information gathering and processing, integrating and automating various customer serving processes in a company. It also manages to keep track of customer preferences, buying habits, deals with service requests, information requests, complaints etc. It deals directly with the customer. For ex call centers use Customer Relationship Management to store customer information. It enables them to retrieve and store information and serve the customer efficiently. It also helps them to encourage new customers, cater to the needs of the older ones and basically achieve customer retention. Finding a CRM software vendor is easy work but what's important is getting one that works for you. The leaders in the field include:

Oracle
Oracle is the leader in the CRM field. The company currently offers 50 CRM applications that are able to provide for all the customer service requirements of small, medium and large industries. Oracle provides CRM applications that aid the organization through improved business processes. What does Oracle have to offer? The answer is accurate information. In addition to that the functionality it offers is just as important. It manages to provide excellent support for all departments within the organization like customer support, added services and additional

SAP
SAP was established in 1972 and is now a leader in the provision of business solutions for all types of industries. It is a CRM software vendor that caters to businesses worldwide and currently serves more than 32,000 customers. SAP has a presence in more than 50 countries. It is the world's largest business software company. It is the world's third-largest independent software provider overall and employs more than 35,000 people. They are able to provide excellent customer service and support. It boasts of having the Knowledge, Experience, and Technology that is needed to optimize Business efficiency. It manages to provide a range of solutions that cater to every aspect of the business.
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The benefits from SAP are:
y y y y y

Better efficiency Cost reduction Better performance Adaptability to business environment Overall Growth

One advantage SAP has is that SAP Ventures invests in new companies that are interested in finding new technologies. This enables them to stay ahead in the rat race. SAP offers several solutions for Customer Relationship Management and is able to deliver customer-centric solutions that revolve around each customer. It helps the organization to support the various departments like marketing, sales, and service and provides them with good analytics as well as excellent interaction capabilities. SAP CRM supports the customer-related processes and deals with all customer-related activities across all departments. It sources and gathers together all customer data in the organization in order to facilitate better decisions. It enables company's address their business needs adequately, manages to achieve the business objectives and reaps the required return on investment. Sales Force This unique provider manages to provide simple yet effective customer relationship management products that equip the business with the capacity to increase its effectiveness. It offers a wide range of solutions from marketing to sales force automation to customer service and support. It boasts of being the world's first on-demand application-sharing service. It provides customizable CRM solutions that integrate extremely well. It aids on-demand applications and succeeds extremely well at this. Its main feature is its ability to manage and share information easily. Its provisions include:
y y y y y

Analytics Sales Force Automation Custom Applications Marketing Automation Customer Service Support

Right Now Business Models Right Now Technologies provides organizations with the necessary on demand CRM solutions that are needed to build a customer centered business. Its appeal lies in its technology, commitment to customer success and its ability to deliver a high ROI and capacity to achieve customer retention. Its clients number more than 1,400 organizations.

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It is able to achieve better customer relationships that cater to customers needs adequately. It helps organizations to understand and deal with their customers better.Right Now manages to provide a holistic view of the customer and the customer data. It also helps in identifying customers, satisfying them and ultimately retaining them. Sales revenue increases along with overall productivity and growth. It increases the quality of service effectiveness. The sales department as well benefits as shorter sales cycles, increased revenue from sales, and better sales efforts. From the marketing perspective marketing efforts are sharpened and marketing campaigns are improved. Right Now Technologies as a CRM software vendor has so much to offer the customer as they have exhibited leadership in the customer service field and enables the organization to actually focus a whole lot more on the customer.

Increase profitability and sales with CRM integration.
CRM integration has become what is considered to be one of the best business strategies in use by companies today. With CRM integration, companies can create an effective marketing plan, improve customer service and increase satisfaction, and in turn, increase the profitability and sales of the business. Deciding to invest in CRM integration could be the best business decision your company could ever make. No matter what the size of your business, choosing to move to CRM integration is as simple as understanding exactly what CRM integration can do for you. Once the facts are clear, your business¶ steps to CRM integration will naturally fall into place.

What Is CRM Integration?
CRM integration is most simply stated as the introduction and implementation of CRM integration software into a business. In most businesses, CRM integration would include selection of a program, installation of necessary hardware and software, importing existing data and files, and training employees to use the new system. Bringing CRM integration into your business is one of the best ways to increase productivity and maximize your business¶ profitability. CRM integration can be done within the organization or you can hire an outside firm to do the initial CRM integration work for you. How Do You Start CRM Integration? Starting CRM integration can vary depending on your specific business and needs. The first step is to decide what type of program would best benefit your business with CRM integration. Some research and comparison of available projects will help you to complete this step. Next, you must decide if your company is capable of handling CRM integration on its own or if you should contact outside help to make the transition seamless. Bringing in the necessary software and equipment, setting it up, and importing existing data would be the next step in CRM integration.

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Finally, training your employees on how to best utilize the new system would complete your company¶s CRM integration process

What Are The Benefits of CRM Integration?
Businesses that go through CRM integration see many different benefits. One of the biggest benefits of CRM integration is increased business profitability. CRM integration makes this possible through streamlining processes to reduce the time spent on customer relations. With just a few keystrokes, customer service, billing, and sales information is available in the database, making each customer contact more efficient. CRM integration also allows you to direct your marketing plans to the most receptive audiences. This can cut costs for marketing and advertising, while increasing customer conversion. You can also use the CRM program to manage your employees¶ tasks and sales, keeping tabs on everything that is going on within your organization. Depending on the nature of your business, you may find even more benefits of CRM integration once the process has been implemented.

How Can CRM Integration Apply To Your Business?
No matter what industry your company is in, the need for CRM integration is universal. Every business provides a service or product to a customer and keeping detailed records on customers, purchasing history, and service needs can allow CRM integration to help you make the most of each customer interaction. Additionally, the other features of CRM integration, such as employee monitoring and task delegation can help you to manage the productivity of your employees and their customer contacts. Finally, the CRM integration process will better prepare you to plan and organize future business plans with detailed information and customizable reports on your business activity and trends. CRM integration can apply to and improve your business in any way that you find acceptable to use the processes included.

CRM Integration and Prophet Software.
One of the industry leaders in CRM integration is Prophet Software from the Avidian Company. This knowledgeable company offers CRM integration solutions for businesses of all sizes. Whether you are a business that has one employee or a hundred thousand, CRM integration is possible with the wide range of Prophet Software solutions. Avidian can also offer a complete package for CRM integration, including self-training and an extensive training package for your employees to be used to wrap up the CRM integration process. Exploring Avidian Prophet Software solutions for CRM integration may be the best choice for the future success and profitability of your company

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The Indian CRM Market
This report is an Executive Survey of about 70 CRM Consultants, Users, and Vendors involved with CRM practices and technology in India. The report is restricted to the Indian market, and the purpose is to give an overview of the market before investigating different aspects in further depth in subsequent research programs. Contents 1. CRM Market Size ‡ The Market can be sized at Rs. 50-100 Crores (1 Crore=10 million) ‡ Outsourced CRM Services forms the largest segment 2. Market Prospects ‡ Buyers are either low-awareness or unconvinced ‡ The market shall show slower than expected growth 3. Market Drivers and Inhibitors Need for improved customer service shall drive service-oriented industry sectors to adopt ‡ CRM ‡ High cost and poor customer-orientation hold back acceptance 4. Buyer Sectors and Vendor Recall ‡ Banking, Insurance, and Financial Services sectors are best-fit sectors for CRM ‡ Siebel, Oracle and Talisma emerge top-of-mind vendors 5. Respondent Profile

1. CRM Market Size Quick Glance: ‡ The Indian CRM market can be sized at Rs. 50-100 Crores (1 Crore=10 million) ‡ The CRM market can be segmented into the market for software and services ‡ The services segment includes outsourced CRM services, integration, training, and consultancy ‡ The market for CRM services is considerably larger than the market for CRM software Fig. 1. Sizing the Indian CRM Market

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Observations and Inferences y A clear majority of our respondents size the Indian CRM Market at the Rs. 50-100 Crore range but with 33% of our respondents putting the market at a size greater than Rs. 100 Crore; there could be a higher benchmark for the market size applicable than the Rs. 100 Crore mark. y Our findings are in agreement with the figure most published in the media stated by Denis Collart, the global head of PWC¶s CRM practice who, in an interview in November 2000, stated that the Indian Market for CRM Software and Services would grow to about Rs. 100 Crore by 2001. Fig. 2. CRM Market Segments

The market segments for CRM can be broadly out as the Software, Services, and Hardware market. Our study has been restricted to the Software and Services markets.

Fig. 3. Breakup of the Global CRM Market

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This chart gives the breakup of the Global CRM Software and Services market. The projected revenues for each of the segments for the year 2001 from past research have been used to arrive at the relative percentages. This breakup is merely indicative, as the revenue projections have been taken from more than one source. Observations and Inferences y The breakup between revenues from various segments in the India n context is not expected to vary from global market to a significant degree. With this assumption, the size of the market for CRM implementations (including Software, Integration, Consulting and Training) in India lies in the 40-60 Crore range. y Given the small market, a local vendor looking for business is going to find himself up against tough competition. Majority of the CRM solution providers in India do not have a product but act as consultants and integrators for software like Siebel, Oracle, SAP etc. providing consulting, software deployment and integration, and training. y Outsourced CRM Services has the maximum potential for growth, but the number of players entering this market is growing at a significant rate. Telemarketing Firms, Direct Marketing Firms, Data Collection firms, Market Research firms, and even Advertising Agencies have begun to add the CRM tag to their services. With the Call Center market finding the international market tough going, they are increasingly turning to the domestic market to supplement revenues.

2. Market Prospects Quick Glance: ‡ Indian firms are aware of CRM, but are yet to take concrete steps towards implementation ‡ The market is expected to catch on, but slower than anticipated ‡ The overall sentiment is µwait-and-watch¶ The next two charts indicates what our respondents feel is the stage of evolution of the Indian CRM market and what they feel are the market prospects. Fig. 4. Stage of evolution of the Indian Market

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Fig. 5. CRM Market Prospects

Observations and Inferences y While there has been a great deal of attention on CRM technology and practices in recent times, when it comes to putting it in practice, the market is in a very early stage of evolution. Most respondents felt that the Indian firms were either unaware, or unconvinced about the benefits and applicability of CRM. y The overall sentiment when it comes to growth prospects is upbeat in the sense that people are convinced that it shall take off, albeit slower than anticipated. Signals for Solution and Service providers are that they are going to have to stick through this early stage till the market matures in terms of awareness and acceptance, and the number of implementations increases. y Media reports have put the annual growth rate for the CRM Software market in India at 25-30%, and Services market at about 50-60%. Our respondents however feel the going shall be slower than projected. 3. Market Drivers and Inhibitors Quick Glance: ‡ The need for improved customer service and high global adoption shall drive the Indian CRM market ‡ The high cost of implementation and low awareness of benefits is going to prove a major deterrent The next two charts indicate the factors our respondents feel will drive acceptance of CRM in India, and the factors that will hold back acceptance.

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Fig. 6. Market Drivers

Fig. 7. Market Inhibitors

Observations and Inferences y A need for improved Customer Service shall be the main driver for Industry sectors that depend on the quality of their customer interactions to retain existing customers and win new ones. High Global adoption is likely to drive the MNCs to adopt CRM first in line with Global implementations. y While the first hurdle holding back the market is a lack of awareness, respondents have put high cost of implementation as the main inhibitor. Complete and comprehensive CRM packages such as those of Siebel and Oracle costing in the range of Rs. 1 to 2.5 Crores (and more) are too expensive for most Indian firms. However, with software vendors bringing down prices and offering relatively affordable packages bundled with integration and consulting services, this could soon change. y In the Indian context, lack of customer orientation and poor existing IT infrastructure can prove major factors. Firms need to evolve their customer thinking by a significant extent before they accept CRM as the strategic imperative it is, and internal systems and database management practices need to be upgraded before CRM software can be used to any effect.
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y

Another major inhibitor indicated by respondents was that Indian firms lack the skills and strategic vision required to successfully implement CRM.

4. Buyer Sectors and Vendor Recall Quick Glance: ‡ Banking, Insurance, and Financial Services are the sectors that shall benefit most from CRM practices and technology ‡ Siebel emerges as the most top-of-mind CRM package, followed by Oracle and Talisma Fig. 8. Best-fit sectors for CRM practices and packages

Fig. 9. Top-of-mind CRM Packages

Observations and Inferences y Our respondents voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Financial Services sector as the best fit sector for CRM. Recent implementations in the banking and financial services sector, especially those of ICICI and Citibank, have clearly grabbed attention. y The best-fit sectors as expressed by our respondents gives an indication as to how closely CRM is associated with improvement in customer service. y Siebel is the global leader when it comes to CRM software and has clearly grabbed mindshare in the Indian market as well. While 77% of the respondents mentioned Siebel as a known CRM vendor, Siebel was the first CRM package that came to mind for 64% of the respondents.

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y

SAP and Oracle have recently entered the Indian market with aggressive plans targeting the SME market in particular. Both firms are targeting a growth in the market for their products of about 30%.

5. Respondent Profile Fig. 10. Respondent Profile

Fig. 11. Respondent Involvement with CRM

Total respondents: 71

CRM Necessities for Financial Services
The ideal CRM solution for any financial service company is one that effectively leverages customer knowledge in times of intense competition and ever-changing customer demands. How well a bank or a financial enterprise reacts to shrinking margins and complex situations can make a huge difference in the market. Today, CRM solutions need to grow, from the CRM solutions that preceded them to the market, and provide dynamic solutions to the today¶s ever-changing business challenges. While early CRM solutions only provided partial solutions to complex banking issues, there is great promise that contemporary CRM solutions will be able to meet the wide range of market demands. Companies have been forced to provide a range of products and value-services to meet the growing demands of customers. With the availability new business channels such as the Internet,
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customers have the option of choosing from a larger pool of products and services. This puts immense l institutions to have their CRM systems in place to succeed in a competitor market place. In addition to requesting a wide range of products and value-added services, customers demand ease and comfort in using these products and services. This means that companies need a CRM solution that can capture and store real-time information in a central repository and offer easy access to the data. Capability to segment according to customer details (demographics, geography, occupation, services) is a necessity for any CRM solution. Segmentation helps business managers and leaders in strategic planning and decision-making based upon customer behaviour. With quality data, companies can create cost-efficient marketing campaigns to target the most profitable customers and ensure a profitable return on investment (ROI). CRM integration impacts the following areas: ‡ Understanding customer portfolios ‡ Optimizing sales process ‡ Integrating collaborative solutions ‡ Increasing customer satisfaction Analytical CRMs: Understanding Customer Portfolios Analytical CRMs aim at storing, analyzing and applying information from business intelligence tools to communicate with customers. It emphasizes customer knowledge, strategic planning, and execution as cornerstones of a CRM initiative. Under customer portfolio management, companies make decisions and allocate resources based on customer value. Winning new customers and retaining profitable customers are the responsibilities of a successful analytical CRM program. To obtain profitability, it is critical to match service levels to customer needs, directing less profitable service needs to lower cost service channels. Key deliverables of an effective analytical CRM solution are: 1. Problem formulation 2. Preparation of definitive datasets 3. Definitive analysis using statistical techniques, non linear pattern or deviation detection and machine learning. 4. Visualization of results in an easily understandable format. Developing a CRM Measurement Strategy Many businesses are pursuing new metrics even if they are not considering CRM. However, it is central to successful customer-focused strategies that appropriate measures are adopted which will evaluate the company¶s performance against the customer¶s perspective. As well as hard measures of value and retention, softer measures also need to be incorporated and their impact on the bottom line demonstrated. Many organizations make the mistake of not establishing new measures before CRM is introduced. This makes it very difficult to demonstrate the benefit and added value of the new process. Key performance indicators are one approach, although care must be taken to ensure they are not simply deployed as a standardized checklist. It is important to measure what needs to be measured, not what can most easily be measured.
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Benchmarking is also likely to emerge as an important new metric for the customer-centered organization. When considering which benchmarks to adopt, those which include a strong element of process measurement should be favored as this allows causal links to be demonstrated with financial performance. Many companies do not even know their baseline metrics, including elements such as total marketing spend or composition of their sales force. This makes the introduction of benchmarking extremely difficult. Evaluation of marketing activities needs to be included: in many cases, this has been omitted even from existing metrics. Reporting of the new measures should be enterprise-wide and in a highly visible, accessible format (µtraffic lights¶ and scorecards are popular approaches). Investment into CRM systems is rising: it is predicted that between $5 billion and $7.3 billion will be spent during 2003 on hardware, software and services for this purpose. Critical issues in selecting the appropriate solution include scalability, cycle times, and reliability of the vendor. With considerable consolidation expected among the 400 different vendors active in this arena, the latter is likely to become a more important factor over time. Systems integration will be a major aspect of IT steps taken in relation to CRM. Consideration needs to be given to point solutions which automate specific functions against broader, enterprise-wide applications. Few have yet been developed but more will become available. There may be an opportunity to leverage functionality within a solution designed for one function into another area, if the processes are similar.

List of major Insurance Companies in India (July 2010)
Insurance industry earlier comprised of only two state insurers. Life Insurers i.e. Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and General Insurers i.e. General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) GIC had four subsidiary companies. With effect from December 2000, these subsidiaries have been de-linked from parent company and made as an independent insurance company. These companies are Oriental Insurance Company Limited, New India Assurance Company Limited, National Insurance Company Limited and United India Insurance Company Limited. The first batch of licenses was issued by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) in 2001. As on December 2009 following are the players in the Indian Market: The total number of life insurers registered with the authority has gone up to 23. While, the total number of general insurers registered with IRDA are also now 23. LIFE INSURERS IN INDIA
y

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company Limited y Birla Sun Life Insurance Co. Ltd y HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd y ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd y India First Life Insurance Company Ltd

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y

ING Visy Life Insurance Company Ltd. y Life Insurance Corporation of India y Max New York Life Insurance Co. Ltd y Met Life India Insurance Company Ltd. y Kodak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Limited y SBI Life Insurance Co. Ltd y Tata AIG Life Insurance Company Limited y Reliance Life Insurance Company Limited. y Aviva Life Insurance Company India Limited y Sahara India Life Insurance Co, Ltd. y Surinam Life Insurance Co, Ltd. y Bart AXA Life Insurance Company Ltd. y Future Generally India Life Insurance Company Limited y IDBI Fortis Life Insurance Company Ltd. Canada HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance Company Ltd. y Argon Reliquary Life Insurance Company Limited y DLF Parametrical Life Insurance Company Limited y Star Union Dai-Ichi Life Insurance Company Limited
y

y

REINSURERS IN INDIA: GENERAL INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA y Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd. y ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. Ltd. y IFFCO Tokyo General Insurance Co. Ltd. y National Insurance Co. Ltd. y The New India Assurance Co. Ltd. y The Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. y Reliance General Insurance Co. Ltd. y Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance Co. Ltd y Tata AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd. y United India Insurance Co. Ltd. y Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Co. Ltd. y HDFC ERGO General Insurance Co. Ltd. y Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India Ltd. y Agriculture Insurance Co. of India Ltd. y Star Health and Allied Insurance Company Limited y Apollo DKV Insurance Company Limited y Future General India Insurance Company Limited y Universal Sompo General Insurance Co. Ltd. y Shriram General Insurance Company Limited y Bharti Axa General Insurance Company Limited y Raheja QBE General Insurance Company Limited y SBI General Insurance Company Limited y Max Bupa Health Insurance Company Limited

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Policies and Guidelines
The Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (IRDA) has issued revised guidelines licensing of corporate agents. IRDA has stipulated that the decision to engage any person as corporate agent will be taken only in the corporate office of the insurance company and proceedings appointing the person as corporate agent will be issued by an officer who will specially be designated by the chief executive officer to issue to such orders. Insurers have been directed to carry out 'surprise inspections' of the books and records of the group organizer or manager at least once a year to ensure total compliance. IRDA has set a new deadline of December 2006 to complete the price deregulation system in the domestic general industry. Currently almost 70% of the general insurance market functions under the tariff system which is fixed by Tariff Advisory Committee (TAC), a constitutional body supervised by IRDA. The intention of such road map is to see that there is an orderly movement from the present regime to the future set up. While IRDA assumes that all lines of business would be de-tariffed, to start with it may be limited to lines other than motor in view of the sizeable share the motor premium commands in the overall premium collected by the insurers and the large number of policyholders involved in these lines of business. IRDA has clarified, that the function of underwriting and rating of insurance business should be independent of the business development function and not be made subservient to the business development function.

Insurance products
Listed below is the list of popular insurance products in the Indian market More than 80% of the life insurance business is from Endowment Assurance (Participating), and Money Back (Participating products).Fire and Miscellaneous insurance businesses are predominant. Motor Vehicle insurance is compulsory. New products have been launched by life insurers. These include linked-products. Insurance products from the new insurance companies now give a lot more options to customers. New insurance products are more transparent, flexible & customized to the need of different types of individuals. Companies are providing "Free-look" period of 10 days where customer has the option of returning the policy within 10 days if it does not meet his requirements. Loading of riders to basic range of products & thus providing lots of flexibility to the customers is few of the examples. Insurance Companies are now providing information about their performance on a regular interval to bring transparency in declaring bonuses. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) have reported that every life insurance company registered under the IRDA (Registration of Indian Insurance Companies) Regulations, 2000, can transact life insurance business which includes 'linked business'. After clearance from IRDA, the insurance companies must launch the products within three months from the date of clearance. The number of new products cleared by the IRDA during the financial year 2009-10 in respect of private insurance companies was 236.
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Insurance software
The middle and late 90s witnessed the tornado of financial reforms, deregulation, globalization etc., coupled with rapid revolution in communication technologies and evolution of novel concept of 'convergence' of computer and communication technologies, like Internet, mobile / cell phones etc. The evolution of IT services outsourcing in the Indian banks has presently moved on to the level of Facilities Management (FM). Banks now looking at business process management (BPM) to increase returns on investment, improve customer relationship management (CRM) and employee productivity. Despite this there is a large gap that needs to be filled in with cutting edge technology.

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CRM Invades the Insurance Sector with Amazing Results

The current scenario in the insurance industry is a complex and competitive environment tinged with little stability. The major hassle the industry faces is obtaining clients. This is due to the fact that the big fish in the insurance industry dominate the sector. It has become increasingly difficult for this particular sector to gain profits while curtailing costs. Acquisitions, mergers, have all contributed to the difficulty insurance agents and other professionals from this industry face. Long considered a job only restricted to insurance companies, selling insurance policies has now become an option for banks as well. This has resulted in a lot of increased as well as unwelcome competition. Customers tend to lose out as they are not buying from the right provider. In addition to this the Internet has increased the pressure for insurance companies in capturing the market. All this has succeeded in making the insurance world more complicated. What is required is a comprehensive database of information about customers who hold your insurance policies. The answer? Choosing a customer centric strategy can go a long way in achieving this. CRM - Customer Relationship Management holds the key. CRM helps insurance companies to ensure that the customer is understood better. Right now insurers can achieve excellent policy administration; good billing systems etc but fall short on the customer front. However this alone is insufficient to survive on. Insurers have now realized that CRM is essential if they want to deliver high quality services since it satisfies current customers and gains new ones. This is because policies get sold only if relationships are built. CRM solves these problems with its user-friendly, web-based CRM tools that increase sales opportunities.

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Insurance sector to drive Indian CRM market After telecom and banking, it¶s the turn of insurance companies to deploy customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. As competition intensifies, insurers are trying every trick in the book to retain existing customers, with a wide range of services driving the market for CRM applications in the process, says Akhtar Pasha While the insurance sector is seeking to maintain a balance between acquiring customers and developing existing ones, customer acquisition is vital, as no retention strategy will entirely stem customer defection. That said, insurance companies are experiencing unacceptable levels of customer churn, thanks to which they are focusing on keeping the customers they already have in a bid to ensure a net growth in their customer base. Today, the focus is on selling more products to existing customers to improve profitability. Customer-focused strategies require CRM (customer relationship management) to help acquire customers thorough various touch points and translate operational data into actionable insights for proactively serving customers. Vikram G Shah, managing director, Talisma Corporation says, ³CRM with BI (Business Intelligence) tools can help insurance firms monitor the ebb and flow of customer behavior, giving them a holistic 360-degree view of their customers.´ While the CRM market in India is still nascent, bigger players such as ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company are adopting it in a big way. The company was earlier using Goldmines (a sales and marketing tool) and HEAT (an operational CRM solution) from Front Range Solutions. Last year it took a decision to invest in CM3 from Teradata and SAS¶s statistical tool for BI. Anil Tikoo, head-IT at ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company says, ³As a forward looking company, we see CRM playing a significant role in acquiring new customers. CRM lets us obtain granular details about our customers, helping us to design better products, improve service levels and reduce operational costs.´ CRM has helped ICICI Prudential Life capture five lakh customers through effective event-based marketing and lead tracking to cross- and up-sell products. Tarun Pandey, application manager at Aviva Life Insurance Company India adds, ³CRM helps us categorize and segment customers and align our products that best suit them.´ Aviva says that CRM is helping them expand into rural areas. Aviva caters to close to 100,000 customers with its CRM solution. That¶s not all. Players such as Birla Sun Life, Aviva, HDFC Life and MetLife are expected to adopt CRM tools as well in the near term.

IT in Insurance
There is an evolutionary change in the technology that has revolutionized the entire insurance sector. Insurance industry is a data-rich industry, and thus, there is a need to use the data for trend analysis and personalization. With increased competition among insurers, service has become a key issue. Moreover, customers are getting increasingly sophisticated and tech-savvy. People today don¶t want to accept the current value propositions, they want personalized interactions and they look for more and more features and add ones and better service.
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The insurance companies today must meet the need of the hour for more and more personalized approach for handling the customer. Today managing the customer intelligently is very critical for the insurer especially in the very competitive environment. Companies need to apply different set of rules and treatment strategies to different customer segments. Personalization helps organizations to reach their customers with more impact and to generate new revenue through cross selling and up selling activities. To ensure that the customers are receiving personalized information, many organizations are incorporating knowledge database-repositories of content that typically include a search engine and let the customers locate the all document and information related to their queries of request for services. Applications 1. E-CRM Insurance industry is a data-rich industry, and thus, there is a need to use the data for trend analysis and personalization. It is very difficult to interact with each and every person to whom the insurer wants, and in the insurance sector the customer relationship management is base. Thus with the help of e-CRM insurer are taking knowledge about their customer and providing information directly to them. It also reduces the cost of marketing which increases the profit of Business. 2. E-Insurance Today various insurance companies are providing facilities to their clients. They can check the balance premium, maturity date, dues and outstanding of their policy. They are provided various new information regarding new policy. The customer can pay the premium amount of their policy from the e-insurance option. 3. Various tools of IT Various It software are used for the accounting, e-CRM, e-insurance, which facilitate these works and solve the problem related with this.

CRM for Insurance
Insurance is a complex product where personalized service²achieved through an intimate knowledge of customers and their histories with an insurance company²is critical to making sales. As insurance options broaden and products grow more complex, customers seek superior, personalized service more than ever. With the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act in 1999, insurance companies face increased competition from banks and brokerages. With the enactment of the Patriot Act, insurance companies need to ensure that they "know their customers." The situation grows even more urgent when one considers the bad economy that hurts investment income; as well as the extremely narrow window of time wherein an insurance call center representative, agent or broker holds a customer's attention²and a valuable opportunity to cross-sell or up sell. It is at this precise moment that these individuals have the chance to maximize these fleeting sales opportunities.
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To maintain competitive edge and viability, insurance companies are focusing intently on delivering superior customer service. A comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) strategy addresses three imperatives: Sum providing a unified enterprise customer view; Sum retaining customers with great services; and Sum controlling costs as the insurance company in question expands. These three imperatives form a unique interplay that maximizes sales while reducing operational costs²the equation for improved revenue growth and profitability. Gain a Unified Enterprise View of Customers Within many insurance companies, there is a wealth of valuable information about individual customers: you know who they are and what insurance products and services they buy. You know their history of claims and the status of their accounts. You may even know about their opinions and preferences, or whether promotions have attracted their response. But can you unify all these fragments into a complete portrait of this most important asset: your customer? For insurance companies, "know thy customer" can be a challenging imperative. Customer data may be divided among product lines, or among legacy claims, policy and billing systems. If an insurance company has expanded its customer base through mergers or acquisitions, its information may be even more fragmented. CRM in insurance starts with a single, complete, real-time enterprise view, so that call center representatives, agents and brokers can understand and serve every facet of individual customers. This level of holistic, personalized service can be the differentiating factor that retains good customers and reduces churn²an important goal, given that customer retention is profitable and new customer acquisition can be expensive.

Retain Customers with Great Service Most insurance companies understand the virtues of a single, complete, real-time enterprise view of individual customers, and they have made great progress towards providing this view at customer touch-points throughout the enterprise. But it's critical to note that this view should not be regarded as an end in and of itself²rather, it is a rich foundation to be used as a basis for a deeper, more advanced level of customer understanding. Consider how foolish it would be to try to sell automobile insurance to someone who doesn't own a car. Without customer analysis and behavior prediction, this is exactly the quagmire that calls center representatives, agents and brokers find themselves in every day. This advanced level of understanding is needed to help insurance companies predict customer behavior and align marketing, cross-selling and up selling efforts accordingly. By making customer analysis and behavior prediction data immediately accessible at the desktop, sales efforts are optimized and customer loyalty is strengthened, as individual customers feel that their needs are understood and met in a way that is fast and convenient. Predicting customer behavior for improved sales efforts is a three-step process:
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Sum Profiling: Insurance companies first build a profile of information about customers who have previously exhibited a targeted behavior. Profiling requires rich customer data, including enterprise-wide transactional and behavioral data such as call center and account holdings information. Other data sources include key performance indicators and third-party demographics. An example of profiling might be building a profile for customers who bought new homeowners' insurance policies in the past two years. The goal is to determine characteristics to look for in future buyers. Sum Modeling: By using data mining on the profile information, analytics can uncover the most relevant characteristics of the customer segment being analyzed. For example, the most significant attributes of customers who bought homeowners' insurance are gleaned from the profile via the data mining application. Such characteristics comprise the model of customers most likely to purchase homeowners' insurance in the future. Sum Scoring: Insurance companies use predictive analytics to score existing customers by comparing them to the model. Those most closely matching the characteristics included in the model are most likely to exhibit the targeted behavior. Given the example above, an insurance company can rate its customers numerically to indicate how closely they match the model of the person most likely to buy homeowners' insurance. Once customers are scored and the analysis pinpoints customers most strongly correlating with the model, an insurance company can address those customers, especially the top prospects. Customers scoring a nine or above might receive a special promotion for homeowners' insurance, while a separate, incentive-based offer might entice those scoring seven and above. Customer analysis and behavior prediction can also be used to identify life events and/or extended relationships, which can be highly useful in improving profitability from individual customers. For example, life events often trigger changes in insurance coverage that can be anticipated and leveraged with targeted offerings. You might identify health insurance policyholders who have recently had new children and offer them an attractive life insurance policy. Using a single, complete, real-time enterprise view coupled with customer analysis and behavior prediction, you may be able to identify good drivers among your auto policyholders who have children turning sixteen. It's time for a targeted offer to add the family's new driver to the policy. As with many industries, the more products you can sell to a given customer, the less apt he/she is to migrate to another provider. Furthermore, as policy holders tend to stick with you, the ratio of premiums paid to the cost of claims increases in favor of the former. Lastly, statistics show that the longer a policyholder remains a customer, the less frequently he/she submits a claim. All of these factors contribute to improved profitability. Control Costs While You Expand Business expansion presents many positive opportunities to insurance companies, including increased assets and broader geographic reach to new customers. So how does an insurance company grow without sacrificing profitability? The company at hand must offer the same level of superior service that its customers have come to expect²while
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minimizing operational costs that, paradoxically, have the potential to spiral out of control, as the company begins to serve an augmented and growing customer base. The first key is to enable your agents, representatives and brokers to identify and spend the right amount on each opportunity. A high-value, low-risk customer, who carries policies over a long period and makes relatively low claims, is an ideal subject for marketing and sales efforts targeted at extending his or her portfolio. Call center representatives, agents and brokers need real-time access to this business intelligence, so they will know where to concentrate their efforts in the limited amount of time they have the customer's attention. The second key is to use the most cost-effective channels without sacrificing a high level of customer service. Call center, agents, email, phone and self-service portals²how can your employees determine which channels are the most efficient and cost-effective for different target audiences and desired behaviors? Again, using customer analysis and behavior prediction, call center representatives, agents and brokers can target marketing and sales efforts through different channels depending on the target audience in question. Going one step further, new and advanced email response, Web chat and self-service portal tools are drawing more and more customers to the Web each day, enabling a consistently high level of customer service while "pulling" customers to a communications medium which is much more cost-efficient than the phone. Particularly valuable are Web-based self-service portals, which can function as a first and last point of contact and eliminate valuable time spent assisting a customer who can just as well assist him or herself. Finally, Web-based interactions tend to deliver on the holy grail of customer service²speed and convenience. The third key is automation of the more mundane insurance business processes. Given the myriad systems in the insurance world²claims, billing and policy systems, not to mention automobile, home, life and health insurance subsystems for each one²CRM systems in insurance will only add another layer of complexity, labor and expense if they are not pre-built to connect with legacy systems and automate the mundane work of keeping these systems updated. Automated, multi-step workflow capabilities are critical to minimizing these and other potential bottlenecks, such as the processing of trailing documents supporting a policy application² documents like expert appraisals, doctor's statements and/or proof of student status. By automating mundane processes and removing the paper trail, call center agents, representatives and brokers are freed up to focus on the more strategic activities²like servicing customers. Today's insurance companies certainly face a daunting challenge in maintaining and increasing their competitive edge. But by focusing on three key imperatives²gaining a unified enterprise view of customers, retaining customers with great service and controlling costs while expanding²insurance companies can turn challenges into strategic competitive advantage and enhance their long-term viability and profitability.

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Oracle apps penetrate Indian insurance sector
Bangalore: Oracle India witnesses strong momentum in the insurance sector in India. According to IDC, Oracle is refining its strategy in the financial applications market through a number of product enhancements that aim to boost the global appeal and usability factor for both PeopleSoft Enterprise and Oracle E-Business Suite customers. Leading providers of life and nonlife insurance services in India such as IFFCO TOKIO, National Insurance Company, New India Assurance, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Aviva Life, Canara HSBC Life Insurance, AEGON Religare Life Insurance, IDBI Fortis Life Insurance, have invested in Oracle Applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite Financials, Oracle PeopleSoft Human Capital Management and Oracle Siebel CRM for Insurance. The Oracle Financials suite of applications is helping these insurance companies meet growing challenges around financial reporting, compliance with IRDA norms and automating back office functions. Operational efficiency is a challenge in the insurance business and keeping a firm grip on costs becomes crucial. Oracle's back office solutions are helping these companies squeeze productivity from existing resources through better management of performance and investment in process standardization/automation. With the average number of policies (life and non-life) held by an Indian consumer at 1.33 compared with an average of 5.2 polices per individual in mature markets, the growth in the insurance business due to such under-penetration will largely hinge on insurance companies' ability to manage their most critical asset- human capital. The Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management solution is enabling insurance companies in India to manage their staff talents and competencies and improve their productivity, while enabling adherence to local laws & regulations. The Indian insurance sector faces challenges in the form of policy lapse rates, which adversely impact top line revenues, de-tariffing activity and its impact on all stakeholders. The Oracle Siebel CRM for Insurance solution is helping insurers like NIA & NIC take a more proactive and assertive role in the interplay between customers and IT networks. "The insurance sector in India is experiencing a thrust driven by rising disposable incomes and demand for a more customized culture and need based services. Organizations are challenged to improve business performance, introduce new products to market, optimize distribution management, and improve customer communications and satisfaction while complying with regulatory requirements," said Samir Sathe, Applications Sales Director, Financial Services Industry, and Oracle India.

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HDFC Ergo Achieves 30 Percent Lead Conversion with A CRM Solution
Executive Summary Insurance is a tough game. And when you have 20,000 leads a month sitting in disparate systems across the country, it only gets tougher. With an efficient lead management system, HDFC Ergo collected all its leads in one repository, allowing it a 30 percent lead conversion rate. We live in a world of uncertainty. The escalating number of road accidents, plane crashes, or just the growing wrath of nature manifested in cyclones or freak incidents involving volcanic ash spew, will turn even the biggest optimist into a skeptic. Unless you're a soothsayer, there is nothing much you can do to avoid accidents. There is a way, however, to limit your damage: insurance. One of the key players of the burgeoning Indian insurance industry that many believe is in its Golden Age of growth is HDFC Ergo General Insurance. It was born out of an initiative by HDFC Bank to enter into the general insurance sector. The company has had an eventful start. It began operations back in 2002 as HDFC Chubb General Insurance Company, a partnership with the bank and Chubb, an American insurance company. After Chubb exited, it operated as HDFC General Insurance till the end of 2008, after which it partnered with Munichbased insurance company ERGO International AG and came to be known as HDFC Ergo. With a little over eight years in the industry, it is already the fifth largest private insurer in the country. For a company that has gone through multiple management changes, it has a robust IT system supporting it. That¶s because it takes its IT seriously. For example, its campaigns like µmobile enrolment technology' that helps the rural masses to buy insurance policies with a mobile phone. Or even its RFID-enabled cattle insurance offers. Technology has been instrumental in placing the company among the best in the country. But it wasn¶t enough. All Over the Place HDFC Ergo, like any other insurance company, reaches out to its customers through a network of agents, direct sales force, brokers, dealerships and bank employees. Traditionally, the leads generated by field executives would be manually entered in excel sheets and communicated to a
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branch office or an area sales manager through e-mails. The problem was about 20,000 leads were being generated across the country every a month. And they were updated in disparate, asynchronous systems."Because each employee would report leads only to his immediate officer, data was fragmented and it was almost impossible to get a holistic view of all the leads that were being generated across the country," says Mehmood Mansoori, head-IT, HDFC Ergo. The sales team was struggling to generate reports, calculate their conversion rate, or figure out which deals were getting closed- and which were not. This was beginning to trouble Mansoori. "It was undermining our efficiency. It was difficult to figure out where the gaps lay and what we could do to close them," says Mansoori. These challenges came at a time when the company had started pursuing an aggressive growth strategy. In the past two years, HDFC Ergo has grown from 15 branches to 70. This meant it needed a faster turnaround time, more successful ad campaigns and a higher conversion rate. Mansoori knew he could help and the answer lay in a consolidated CRM system. When HDFC Ergo's head of IT approached management with his proposal for a centralized lead management system, it wasn¶t a hard battle to fight, he remembers. They were thrilled that someone could help them with their problems. With that settled, Mansoori began the process of re-designing the company's lead management system. But before that, he needed to find an efficient CRM system. Mansoori settled with the Sales Force Automation module of Talisma 7.1. Leading Edge Mansoori wanted a data upload tool by which the 450 field executives could directly upload lead data into the Talisma server. The vendor's implementation team came out with a tool that periodically picks data from a specified folder and uploads it to the server. With the new system in place, field executives can now upload leads generated from the market, third-party databases, and existing customers into a central repository. The sales team can use the Lead Tracking and Reporting Mechanism tool to manage leads and track these leads across the customer lifecycle, and generate various reports for top management. The system also gives the flexibility to customize according the user's needs. "A single repository of data enables us to closely track the sales pipeline and figure out where the gaps are, and how to close them out. My users were thrilled with the solution, because it makes their lives so much easier," says Mansoori. Akhil Dhamija, national manager, HDFC Ergo, (he is part of the retail team responsible for customizing the system) agrees with Mansoori. "We have a team which takes care of leads. Now, it is important that all these leads and prospects are brought into a refined tunnel which helps us attend to them. This way we can extract maximum potential in conversion of the leads," he says. And that's clearly visible from the lead conversion rate which today stands at 30 percent. A 30 percent conversion rate of 20,000 leads equals 6,000 policies. That's not the only thing that makes Dhamija a happy man. The system has also enabled the company to run a lot of marketing
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campaigns to attract more customers into buying insurance. "With the new system, I can tag each campaign with specific attributes, be it location, size or type of market into the Talisma software. By further customizing the software, I can compare the effectiveness of one campaign with that of the other. This helps us improve with each campaign," he says. What's more, the system is also a boon for call center employees. With simplecustomizations they can now closely track all the policies the company has issued and service customers according to their needs. For example, they can alert customers if their policies are about to mature or offer them new policies. With so many benefits crowding Mansoori, what would be the ultimate benchmark to the success of the project? "The system has helped our sales agent enhance their relationship with their current and potential customers. This will essentially help improve traction with our customers."

Max New Life Insurance Wins over Customers with CRM
Executive Summary CIO 100 Winner: Here is an ingenious CIO who built a comprehensive system that gave the private insurer the ability to increase its profits. Max New Life Insurance has over 15,000 employees and a turnover of Rs 3,857 crore. It also has about 1 lakh agent advisors at 712 offices across 389 cities. But agents were not the only way the insurer's customers could approach the company. It also had a website, tie-ups with banks and distribution partners. The problem with these multiple customer touch points was that the organization didn't have single view of the customer. This had an impact in multiple areas: from customer service to agent management and training and a decline in the company's ability to effectively control collections, renewals, and retention processes. It also impacted Max New York Life's ability to increase profitability. "One of the key business challenges that paved the way for this project was a lack of an efficient lead management system, which could enhance our ability to increase our wallet share from existing customers," says Hitesh Arora, EVP and headIT, Max New York Life Insurance. These problems brought about the decision to implement a ³pivotal enterprise CRM´ say Arora. It would lead to the implementation of a customer service management system, a lead management system, a policy holder portal, a collection, renewals and agent management and performance system. Because it sought to fix many problems in many departments, the project needed to be wide and deep. And that made it unwieldy. "Managing cost and schedule overruns of a project of this magnitude was a major challenge," says Arora.

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The project was also the first of its kind in the Indian insurance industry, which left Arora and his team with little guidance. They had to start from scratch by documenting requirements and working out the flow and design of the system - and simultaneously manage changing requirements and additional request that impacted the project's timelines. Despite these challenges the first three phases of the Rs 4.5-crore project were launched by August 2009 and they have seen wide acceptance. Today, the system has over 1,600 simultaneous users and it has served about 75,000 customers. "It has also resulted in fewer customer calls because they can access information for themselves. The system has registered more than our target expectations," says Arora.

ICICI Bank
The CRM initiatives in ICICI Bank are the reason for its growth in customer base, channels, and product and service offerings. Since its inception in 1995, the bank has grown to have 15.8 million customers, holding about 17 million accounts. The bank¶s network has expanded to 610 branches and standalone counters and over 2,000 ATMs. The bank uses the model to support its goals in sales, customer service, and analytics. ICICI Bank states that its high levels of relationship maximization are made possible by how its CRM system is able to "know and understand the customer better´, which customer is most suitable for what kind of product and at what point in time." About 30.40% of the bank¶s home loans are cross-sold to existing customers. Similar ratios have also been reported in the sale of insurance policies. Ratios of about 50.60% have been seen out of the credit cards and personal loans business. ICICI Bank¶s CRM capability is built on a ³Teradata´ data warehouse that integrates data from multiple sources, including the Oracle database and various flat files. The system provides users with information about each customer¶s checking accounts, fixed deposits, credit cards, and other financial information. The bank has taken on the end-to-end proposition of SAS for enterprise intelligence, which offers a credible integrated approach to analytics, including data detection, data cleansing, data preparation, event detection, reporting and business intelligence, and campaign analysis. The bank estimates that it is able to track more than 1,200 parameters concerning demographics, transactions made, channel usage, and product relationships. CRM, according to ICICI consists of following approaches: ‡ Getting personalized information on customers The bank collects all the information about the customers for processing. ICICI bank has mainly 4 service offerings like, loan account, saving account, current account and fixed deposits. Moreover, the bank has many customers in each category. So, they collect the data on one server and thus the company gets the personalized information on each customer by asking them to fill the information in customer application form.
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‡ What is the value of the relationship? After the collection of the personalized information on every customer, the department checks out the value of the relationship with each and every customer and find out customer¶s wants and needs so as to offer him the customized product. ‡ Customized offerings to the customers After deciding the value of the customer the company offers him the customized product. They also practice cross-selling. Cross ± selling refers to offering another product from the service offering of the bank to the customer which he has not gone for. For example, if customer has saving account with the bank then we offer him loan, insurance and other investments. ‡ Converting a prospective customer into a true customer The last approach of CRM according to ICICI bank is that they try to convert the prospective customer into a true customer. Right from the moment the inquiry comes, they follow- up the customer and then make him to come to the bank occasionally and then regularly The Processes for Delivering CRM The tools and the processes are as follow ± ‡ Customer application form ICICI Bank collects all the data from customer application forms and gets the personalized information to know which product to offer to which customer. This process helps in collecting the data and knowing what the customer wants and understanding his needs. ‡ Centralized software where the whole data is collected The data collected through customer application forms is available at one server and can be accessed anytime, anywhere. So, this helps in the further process of customized offerings and cross ±selling. ‡ Wide range of offering After collecting the data from the customer, team decides what product to offer to which customer. In case the bank recognizes you as a valuable customer then is offers a more customized service. ‡ Cross ± selling It refers to offering another product from the service offering of the bank to the customer which he has not gone for. This depends on the value of the customer to the bank. It is not offered to every customer. It depends on how loyal the customer is to the bank. The more business he gives to the bank, the more are his chances of being special services offered. ‡ Feedback forms The bank distributes feedback forms at all its branches. The customer feedbacks on the service, technology used, employee behavior and promptness in solving customer¶s problems, are taken and they are analyzed.

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‡ Telephonic Conversation with ICICI Official- Darbhanga, Branch For understanding the CRM model and activities of ICICI Bank, Mr. Sanjeev, one of the officials of Darbhanga branch of ICICI Bank was talked with twice on 20th & 22th July, 2009. The findings are‡ The CRM model has mainly two parts - Walk-ins in branch and Call centers. ‡ Finacle is used by ICICI bank to store data, record transactions and update on a daily basis in all branches. The customers either come to branches for their queries and other help where personal/ one-to-one interaction is required or they call at call centers to solve their queries. ‡ The profiling of the walk-ins is done and the details are recorded or updated using Finacle Software. ‡ The CRM has helped in solving the problems of customers as well as banks. It has improved Efficiency and productivity of Bank officials reduced time in problem solving and query handling. ‡ While choosing the software for CRM activities cost was a major criterion, quality was also Considered. ‡ Training was required by the officials and was parted with them. No information regarding the Cost of the software, training cost, and training period was shared.

‡ It has helped in generating more revenues and profits and is cost effective. ‡ The feedback of the customers as well as the employees of the bank was positive.

HDFC Bank
HDFC Bank Ltd. is a commercial bank of India, incorporated in August 1994, after the Reserve Bank of India allowed establishing private sector banks. The Bank was promoted by the Housing Development Finance Corporation, a premier housing finance company (set up in 1977) of India. HDFC Bank has 1,500 branches and over 2,890 ATMs, in 528 cities in India, and all branches of the bank are linked on an online real-time basis. CRM in HDFC Bank The HDFC bank has implemented a data warehouse solution that would eliminate the inconsistencies of working with disparate sources. The warehouse pulls information from the different customer interface channels the bank offers, centralizing them in a single database. In early 2002, the bank completed the interface of the warehouse with the retail banking liability system, followed by the assets system and the depository system by the end of 2002. The bank gives certain profitable customers µpreferred¶ status in service deliveries and pricing. This helps the bank to know which channels the particular customer prefers to use. The bank then sets up its investments in that channel. The bank undertakes analytics-driven database
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driven marketing efforts based on the banking behavior of the customer. If he has used his card in an apparel shop, customized incentive mailers are sent to him; or marketing programs are sent to merchants who facilitate usage of the bank¶s cards on the bank¶s terminals. The data warehouse with over two terabyte of data under management empowers the product managers to study and monitor the customer and business trends over the last six quarters in an online manner. According to researchers, 81% customers recommend HDFC BANK products, 91% of these are having good purchasing experience with the company.58% of the customers said that the maintenance charges charged by the company is moderate, 55%of which are having good purchasing experience and 85% of which recommend HDFC BANK to others.63% customers are satisfied with the existing services rendered by the organization. Majority (67%) of customers rated the HDFC BANK products as ³good´ and 67% of which are highly satisfied with the service of the company. According to HDFC Bank, a customer is an asset to the company only if he is a loyal customer. Approximately 76% customers of HDFC BANK are discovered to be loyal. This is the area where the organization can and plans to improve in the near future. HDFC Bank uses iFlex's Micro banker and Fin ware for its core banking operations. It plans to transfer to their new ``Universal Banking Services'' package as soon as the acceptance tests currently under way are completed. The bank also uses their Internet banking software. For the, the IT activities span three segments: ‡ Back-office, which enables all transactions ‡ Distribution of the bank's products and services in the market. That is, enabling customer interaction through the Internet, ATMs, the mobile phone. HDFC's corporate customers need not visit the bank for many of their transactions either. PC-based corporate banking lets authorized personnel in corporate open letters of credit or pays suppliers and integrates the transaction with the ERP system. ‡ The third sort of automation enables the business intelligence and CRM aspects of a bank's business. For cash management, the bank uses a package from a Pune company called CashTech. The bank¶s Depository systems run on software provided by Mumbai-based Kalpataru. For loans, bank uses the Nucleus Software. To provide round-the-clock service and support to its customers, HDFC Bank has Unix-based systems from Sun Microsystems as hosts for its banking software. It is in the process of moving the application to a mainframe-class UNIX machine (the E10000 from Sun) in the near future.

Aviva uses CRM to insure success
AVIVA Life Insurance has made its mark in the Indian insurance industry in just two years. It has been aided in this Endeavour by the deployment of Talisma¶s e-CRM suite that has helped it launch new products and services to differentiate it from competitors. The reason There has been an influx of private life insurance companies in India after the liberalization of the Indian insurance sector. When Aviva entered India in 2002, it was one of the last players to
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enter the market. The key to success lay in knowing potential customers better, and in bringing out products and services tailored to customer requirements. To do this, it went in for an enterprise-wide deployment of Talisma¶s e-CRM suite even before it launched Indian operations in June 2002. Picking the best A stringent assessment exercise took place, during which four vendors, including Talisma, were evaluated by a team of 10 people. This team had representatives from the IT department and also from customer-facing departments such as sales, marketing and customer services. Says Tarun Pandey, manager, Applications, Aviva, ³After a thorough evaluation process, we went in for Talisma¶s suite primarily because it offered integration with our call centre operations, which no other vendor was offering. The suite promised a common integrated platform for different customer-facing departments [sales, marketing and customer services] within the organization.´ A smooth roll-out The implementation of the CRM suite was a smooth affair. The implementation exercise began in December 2001 and went live six months later. Pandey explains, ³Since we went in for the CRM suite before launching our business in India, the implementation was smooth. If an organization is already in business the implementation exercise can be a prolonged affair.´ The CRM suite has been deployed in marketing, sales and service as well in the partner and sales ecosystem (comprising bank assurance partners and insurance agents). Aviva has implemented several modules of Talisma e-CRM, such as marketing, sales, servicing, and contact centre. The only component it hasn¶t used is the chat module. Today, there are 450 personnel using the eCRM suite at Aviva. Advantage Aviva Pandey explains, ³The implementation of Talisma e-CRM has helped us share real-time customer information across different customer-facing departments across locations. This has helped departments track customer details and respond to queries at short notice.´ The implementation has facilitated quick analysis of Aviva¶s sales and marketing initiatives, which has, in turn, helped the company modify its products and services before offering them to customers. This has helped it win more customers and retain existing ones by offering them products and services that fit their needs. It has also helped Aviva develop multi-step marketing campaigns. Based on the type of response at each stage of the advertising campaign, appropriate processes can be triggered automatically in the e-CRM suite. Aviva¶s entire sales and marketing operation has been integrated through this deployment. The company¶s customer service team has successfully leveraged the suite to provide superior service across multiple channels. New version
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Talisma is upgrading its e-CRM product and Aviva plans to roll it out by May 2004. Pandey says, ³We have already evaluated the new version of Talisma¶s e-CRM, which is likely to be released in May or June this year, and since it has enhanced features matching our requirements we will go for it.´ Besides going for a new version, Aviva is planning to go in for the chat module of Talisma¶s e-CRM suite so that customers will be able to chat with Aviva¶s representatives if they have an inquiry. User interfaces of e-CRM suite used by Aviva Interfaces Uses The interface makes use of Microsoft Outlook for communication with the sales team and automatically Talisma performs a two-way synchronization between the Offline client and the server. With the help of this interface, Client sales related information like details of contacts, accounts, interactions and opportunities can be easily downloaded into a user's Outlook folder. This interface is being used by Aviva's banking Talisma partner at its branches to access the server over the Web Client Internet using a dial-up connection. This interface is being used by Aviva's insurance agents who log on to this portal from anywhere (home PC, cybercafé, etc). Operations performed by Talisma agents through the portal are restricted to operational Portal sales details and viewing a few key reports that give Framework them an indication of their performance. Data updated by agents goes to the central Talisma CRM data repository. This simplifies and smoothens the monitoring of Aviva's dispersed sales operations. Benefits for Aviva y Aviva¶s entire sales and marketing operations have been integrated through the deployment of the e-CRM suite. The customer service team at Aviva has successfully leveraged it to provide superior service across multiple channels. y Aviva can share real-time customer information across its customer-facing departments across locations. y It has facilitated the timely analysis of the company¶s sales and marketing initiatives, thus helping Aviva modify its products and services to the tastes and requirements of customers. e-CRM at Aviva in a nutshell y Aviva decides to implement a CRM suite even before it commenced its Indian operations. The idea was to have a better interface with customers. It also wanted to integrate its customer-facing departments.
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y y

y y

y

It picks Talisma from among four vendors after a stringent evaluation exercise. Aviva takes six months to implement the e-CRM suite. It implemented all the e-CRM modules barring the chat module. Today there are 450 users of the e-CRM suite at the company. Aviva Life Insurance enters the Indian market in June 2002. Thanks to the e-CRM implementation, Aviva is able to tap the potential of the Indian insurance market by tailoring its products and services, and quickly analyzing and adjusting its marketing initiatives. The company has evaluated the next version of Talisma eCRM suite and plans to roll out the same towards the end of this year¶s AMJ quarter. This time around, Aviva intends to implement the chat module.

IT set-up at Aviva Hardware/software Type Server Dual-processor IBM series machine Aviva has a mix of NAS and SAN. It uses tapes Storage for back-up Database Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Operating System Microsoft Windows 2000 Aviva has taken multiple leased lines from Bandwidth Bharti

Talisma takes on giants in eCRM market
BANGALORE: As retaining customers has become the priority in the Net-dominated business world, customer relationship management (CRM) is where the action is. Multinational giants have till now dominated the CRM field. However, it's now been made possible to deploy the solution practically to all segments and sizes. And with a TCO (total cost of ownership) and easy-to-use model that challenges the MNC offerings. Talisma Corporation, incubated out of the city-based Aditi Technologies and specializing in eCRM solution development, has come out with a range of products that promise to change the landscape of the eCRM industry. With around 25 products and services, including the Talisma VoIP, the company's offerings cover almost all segments of the industry. The Talisma Sales Suite, launched at the Internet and e-Business Conference and Exhibition (iEB) in New York earlier this month, is an innovative approach to sales force automation (SFA) that streamlines the sales process and enables organizations to efficiently manage a variety of sales opportunities. Upgrading the Talisma 2.5 version, it has recently introduced Talisma 4.0 which has the capability to challenge world class products. "Our products are easy-to-use, bring down the TCO considerably, and function with a mix of power and scalability," said Anantharaman S Iyer, Technical Lead, Talisma Corporation. According to him, the company's
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eCRM solutions can be deployed in such small entities with just two people to large enterprises with thousands of employees. They can be installed within 10 days - less than one-fourth of the average time taken by the giants. The Talisma eCRM Suite, latest in the series, is scalable to accommodate thousands of concurrent users and millions of interactions per day and can support mid-to-large enterprises. "The solutions can be used even by kids," said Iyer, adding that it doesn't need too much of intelligence to operate the system. Stating that the company brings better TCO than most players in its segment, Iyer said while the normal TCO today is roughly $ 40,000, a simpler version from Talisma starts at around $ 1,000. According to him, Virgin Records, a UK-based company with over 600 customers, recovered the cost of Talisma CRM solution deployment within one week. The advantages that Talisma brought with its product range had made it one of the top five eCRM players in the world, he said. There is an immense potential for growth for the company, said Iyer. "Today companies are ready to pay one million dollars for eCRM solutions," he said, "We are just scratching the surface." While the global market is estimated to be around $ 250 million, in India, it is expected to touch $ 17 million by 2006. End users such as call centers are likely to offer a high potential for CRM implementations. Talisma, which got a first-round funding of $ 31.5 million last year, received another $ 12.3 million last month from venture capital firms led by Oak Investment Partners. Banking majors like Citibank and HDFC and financial institutions like ICICI and IDBI have already initiated the implementation of CRM solutions while telecom majors like Airtel and Usha Martin are to implement them soon. Daksh, Rediff.com, Citibank, GE, Kotak Mahindra and Indya.com are among the company's 75 customers in the country. The company hopes to break even in a year.

Challenges
A key aspect of the CRM project is that it is cross-functional, and requires co-ordination of both front and back-office activities. This is why the emphasis must be on the culture and process, rather than on the technology. Mapping the processes involved from a customer¶s perspective when interacting with the company can be a useful way to identify where integration is necessary and what changes are required. As well as being cross-functional, CRM may also cross the boundaries of the organization itself to embrace partner organizations and suppliers. Developing a sound business case that aligns the project with well-defined returns on investment is central to progressing CRM. Cost-savings are less likely from this type of project, placing a stronger emphasis on greater operational efficiency, increased revenue streams and longer customer relationships. The business case should identify both internal and external drivers of the shift towards a customer focus, and should propose solutions that address these issues. All channels through which customers interact with the business should be considered, and whether the project will address all of these in one go, or whether phased implementation will be needed. A case should also be made for the appointment of a chief customer officer or other director at board level who will take responsibility for the new focus. According to Business Intelligence research, 64 per cent of companies claim to have such an executive with responsibility for marketing, sales and customer services, and 60 per cent say
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their senior management understands cross-functional plans well. However, these figures fall considerably at middle management level, indicating a skills and conceptual gap between those driving the project and those required to execute it. The strategy then needs to be handed to a programme management team whose task is to determine the right measures, processes and systems that will deliver against the objectives. Responsibility should also be taken by the team for the internal marketing of the CRM project and achieving buy-in to its goals and objectives among end-users. One of the most important aspects of any project is adopting a structured approach to the programme. Many external consultants offer guided pathways towards CRM. It is more important that a structure is in place than which structure is chosen. By breaking the process down into component steps, it will be easier to monitor progress and benchmark against the overall objective. The steps involved will include:
y y y y y

people issues (gaining high-level sponsorship, gaining enterprise-wide buy-in, managing expectations and training) management issues (motivation and administration) technology issues (selecting which processes to automate and choosing The appropriate solution).

Challenges are a part of any business. According to Chopra, awareness of the CRM functionality with respect to a specific segment is extremely low. ³The switch from optimizing production and delivery to optimizing on customers is a major paradigm shift. Without a clear understanding, it is hard for businesses to look at the CRM spend. At the same time, with so many open-source and low-function CRMs, low-budget implementation is at large,´ adds Grewal. However, the pitfalls of a low-featured CRM are seen only when the implementation is partly done. CTOs and CIOs need to understand the business better to recommend and carry CRM in the organization as is required for customer-centric software. Doug Faber, VP, operations, APAC, Salesforce.com, agrees. ³The major inhibitors of CRM in the Indian market are the same as elsewhere. The current downturn, lack of adequate infrastructure, skill sets, and awareness of CRM,´ he says. ³Lack of adoption within an organization can send mixed signals to companies seeking to get a CRM initiative going. Lack of management commitment could be the other reason why it can flounder,´ says Abraham of Sage. Adds Dwivedy of Microsoft, ³CRM is extremely complex, which is one of the reasons why people avoid it. It has to be used as profusely as a computer and should be as simple as one.´ However, these factors do not take away the success story of CRM in the country. Industry
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experts in the CRM arena predict that most of the verticals will adopt CRM. For Chopra of Team Computers, sectors such as manufacturing and pharma will drive the growth of CRM. Insurance, healthcare, pharma, entertainment, telecom, and banking are those chalked out by Religare¶s Gerwal, who also adds that there is really no vertical that will not significantly benefit from a full-scale CRM implementation. For Microsoft¶s Dwivedy, 85 percent of the business comes from large enterprises and the rest from mid-size companies. ³SMBs are not really a player as of now´, he reveals. ³The demand for CRM in telecom and ITES has been higher than in other verticals. This is due to the increasing number of call centers, websites, and the ever-increasing numbers of complaints and customer base of the telecom service providers,´ adds Gani of Frost & Sullivan. ³The major verticals that have been driving the growth of CRM are ITES, telecom, BFSI (mainly the Insurance companies), government, and manufacturing, followed by retail and travel industries,´ he adds. ³Since CRM is a relatively new market, the verticals will be somewhat sporadic. However, the verticals that are typically IT intensive such as telecom and finance will be the low-hanging fruit for CRM solutions,´ says Dharmasthira of Gartner. Even Faber of Sales force says they are seeing strong traction from verticals like BFSI, high tech, and business services. Watch Out For SaaS has come out as a winner and is projected to be the future. According to Frost and Sullivan, the most common trend that influences the CRM market in India is the availability of CRM on SaaS or in an on-demand basis. Applications that provide vertical-based solutions and business analytics are expected to influence the current trend. With the acceptance of cloud computing companies like Google, eBay, and Amazon.com, people have become comfortable using the web for personal transactions, and there is no reason why managing their businesses on the web should not be this easy. Talking of clouds, analysts and industry players feel that CRM will reach the skies in the near future. CHALLENGES TO IMPLEMENTING CUSTOMER EQUITY ASSET MANAGEMENT The following key challenges face those that try to implement customer equity asset management: ‡ Limited Scope Many existing CIS tools are very limited in scope, and do not support customer equity management.
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‡ Complex Technology Technology solutions sold by vendors have become very complex to use, expensive to maintain, and contain irrelevant information for data mining. ‡ No Pertinent Data Most of the existing data warehouses lack information on regency, frequency, and monetary values. They also offer information that is insufficient for supporting predictive modeling and predictive scoring. ‡ Extended Time to Market The addition of new capabilities to existing data warehouses is cost prohibitive and takes a long time to bring into production stage capabilities (or even to catch up with the fast-changing dynamic nature of the marketplace). ‡ Multi-Vendor Tools and Capabilities Over the years, many major financial organizations have developed data warehouses by purchasing diverse sets of software tools and then building data warehouses in-house. For example, Data Quality and Cleansing tools, Extract Transform Load (ETL) tools, database management and storage tools, data mining, and campaign management solutions from various vendors.

‡ Overburdened Internal Information Technology Organization Information technology organizations have had to employ individuals who have specialized vendor product skill sets to support multi-vendor tools. This can increase organizational expenses significantly. ‡ Lack of Integrated Capabilities The focus of many CIS systems has shifted to service only ad hoc reporting and to provide simple querying capabilities rather than becoming an infrastructure for efficient customer equity management or for enabling some sort of KDD.

Why CRM Project Fail?
lt is a sad fact but there is mounting evidence that not all CRM projects meet their desired outcomes. In fact I must admit that I have been involved in CRM implementations that have not always lived up to the high expectations of the project sponsors. l am glad to say that it isn't only me. There are many examples of CRM implementation projects that have gone off the rails. An article that appeared in "The Australian" newspaper last year stated that a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit stated that: "IT projects showed that only 25% of IT projects in the last 2 years have had a positive business outcome."
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The article went further to say that the area most vulnerable to IT failure is Customer Service with 52% of projects. The largest proportions of any grouping. Bitter pill to swallow - over half of our CRM projects fail to meet expectations of the businesses that they are meant to support. A colleague of mine runs a CRM based consultancy in Sydney has said he has seen some organizations take 3, 4 and 5 attempts at it before they get their implementations right, saying that 65% -80% of CRM implementations fail on their first attempt. This is a gloomy prospect. Not the bright sunny vista that I was hoping to paint with this Blog. I do, however, have a few ideas about why this is the case. IBM has done some research specifically into the question of why CRM programs are successful. Over consecutive years IBM has carried out a study called "CRM done right". In this study they have determined the discrete project steps that organizations have taken in CRM implementations and weighted them by the contribution that each step has made to the success as the project. They categorized the steps into 3 main groups: Foundation Building Steps - Technology Implementation, Detailed Implementation Plan, Implementation Roadmap, Capabilities; Contributing Steps - Sponsorship, Business Case, Metric Development, Customer Data; Differentiating Steps - Governance, Organizational Alignment, Change Management, Process Change, CRM Strategy. Of these groups, the Foundation Building Steps only contributed 2% to the success of the projects; the Contributing Steps contributed 19% and the Differentiating Steps 79%. Overwhelmingly, the study found that the core business related activities where the main driver to successful CRM implementation. The technology project played a necessary role, but was nearly insignificant in the overall success of the implementation. Food for thought. My personal experience supports these findings Numerous consultants and critics have expressed various opinions as to why so many CRM projects have failed. Darrell K. Rigby and his co-workers at Bain & Company, for example, have cited ³the Four Perils of CRM.´14 Below, I will describe these pitfalls and propose some countermeasures. Peril 1: Implementing CRM before Creating a Customer Strategy Many executives mistakenly believe that implementing CRM software is equivalent to creating a marketing strategy. But in fact, CRM software is just an enabler to move their strategy into action. Before implementing CRM software, therefore, a company should formulate its strategy and clarify the purpose for this strategy. In other words, a traditional and well-thought-out marketing strategy concept is necessary. Peril 2: Rolling Out CRM before Changing the Organization to Match After establishing the goals of its strategy, the company should revamp its organization and/or business processes accordingly. This includes not only external operations with customers but internal systems, such as job descriptions, performance measures, compensation systems, training courses, etc. If such reforms are implemented, employees will be able to recognize the nature and benefits of the new strategy.
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Peril 3: Assuming That More CRM Technology Is Better Many executives also mistakenly believe that CRM is a technology-intensive product and are apt to put emphasis on new functions of CRM software. ³CRM can be managed in many ways,´ however, ³and the objectives of CRM can be fulfilled without huge investments in technology simply by, say, motivating employees to be more aware of customer needs.´15 When a company begins to use packaged CRM software, it is very important for them to narrow down the specifications of the software in order to minimize the burden on its users and to suppress bugs. If a company concentrates excessively on new functions, this will cause false of integration of CRM software and existing system. This is a costly pitfall. Peril 4: Stalking, Not Wooing, Customers With the aid of CRM software, marketing managers can more easily analyze great quantities of customer data than before; thus, they are apt to contact their customers without careful consideration. But the point is that they should establish contact only with individuals who have a real interest in their company and/or products. When they approach the wrong people, they can be perceived as stalkers and lose potential customers. And Much More... Other than the four perils described above, there are other issues to take into consideration. At the introductory stage of CRM, regular communication is of considerable importance to entire company. Doug Tanoury, president of Customer Interaction Consulting, 16Doug indicated that it ³should be delivered throughout the company highlighting µwhere we are¶ in the project, sharing milestones and informing staff what happens next.´16 Generally speaking, the cost of implementing CRM is quite high. Today, large businesses can spend between $30 and $90 million over a three-year period on software, technology, labor, consulting services, and employee training related to CRM initiatives.17 Implementing CRM is such a major project that most executives are apt to think that CRM is a software tool that will manage customer relationships by itself. But this is a big mistake. As Rigby pointed out: ³CRM is the bundling of customer strategy and processes, supported by the relevant software, for the purpose of improving customer loyalty and, eventually, corporate profitability.´18 In recent years, there have been some companies that have been successful in implementing CRM software. Common among such firms is that ³they¶ve all taken a pragmatic, disciplined approach to CRM, launching highly focused projects that are relatively narrow in their scope and modest in their goals.´19 They only introduced CRM into the critical process or fatal flaw in their companies¶ competitiveness. This method is so effective that it will become a common strategy in the future.

CRM Implementation Issues
One of the most interesting aspects of CRM development is the multitude of customer interfaces that a company has to manage in today¶s context. Until recently, a company¶s direct interface with the customers, if any was primarily through sales people or service agents. In today¶s environment most companies interface with their customers through a variety of channels including sales people, service personnel, call centre, Internet websites, marketing departments, fulfillment houses, market and business development agents, etc. For large customers it also includes cross-functional teams that may include personnel from various functional departments. While each of these units could operate independently, they still need to share information about
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individual customers and their interactions with the company on a real time basis. For example, a customer who just placed an order on the Internet and subsequently calls the call centre for order verification expects the call centre staff to know the details of his or her order history. Similarly a customer approached by a sales person unaware that she has recently complained about dissatisfactory customer service, is not likely to be treated kindly by the customer. Therefore effective CRM requires a front-line information system that shares relevant customer information across all interface units. Relational databases, data warehousing and data mining tools are thus very valuable for CRM systems and solutions. However, the challenge is to develop and integrated CRM platform that collects relevant data input at each customer interface and simultaneously provides knowledge output about the strategy and tactics suitable to win customer loyalty and support. If a call centre personnel cannot identify or differentiate a high value customer and does not know what to up-sell or cross sell to him then it would be a tremendous loss of opportunity for the company. Although most CRM software solutions based on relational databases are helping share customer information, they still do not provide knowledge output to the front line personnel. As shown in Figure.6, CRM solutions platform needs to be based on interactive technology and processes. It should assist the company in developing and enhancing customer interactions and one-to-one marketing through the help of suitable intelligent agents that help develop front-line relationship with customers. Such a system would identify appropriate data inputs at each customer interaction site and use analytical platforms to generate appropriate knowledge output for front- line staff during customer interactions. In addition, implementation tools to support interactive solutions for customer profitability analysis, customer segmentation, demand generation, account planning, opportunity management, contact management, integrated marketing communication, customer care strategies, customer problem solving, virtual team management of large global accounts, and measuring CRM performance would be the next level of solution sought by most enterprises. Since CRM implementation comprises a significant information technology (IT) component, these companies have handed over the responsibility of CRM implementation to information technology departments. They are focused on simply installing CRM software solutions without a CRM strategy or program in place. This leads to creating an operational tool within the company, but the usability and effectiveness in producing desirable results from such tools is limited. CRM tools would be valuable when they are used to identify and differentiate individual customers and to generate individualized offer and fulfill customized solutions. The lack of CRM strategy or CRM programs would leave the front-line people without any knowledge of what they should be doing with the additional customer information that they now have access to. For those who apply themselves and develop improvised solutions, it could backfire as ad hoc solutions could cause unintended deterioration in customer relationships. Appropriate strategy and excellent implementation are both needed for obtaining successful results. From a corporate implementation point of view, CRM should not be misunderstood to simply mean a software solutions implementation project. Information Requirements of an Effective CRM Solution the employees of a firm employing CRM would require rich information about their firm and customer Base including:

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‡Information about the market

‡Information about the firm

‡The current segment

‡Demographic Distribution (by age, sex, education, income, marital status, etc)

‡The firm¶s best customers and the segment they belong to, products bought by them, their Preferences, habits and tastes of each segment.

‡Individual level information consisting of:

Customer personal details such as name, address, family details, education, etc

The customer group /segment to which the individual belongs.

History of present and past behavior Likes, dislikes, habits and preferences Events coming up in their personal life etc

VISION FOR THE FUTURE
In the Light of Return on Investment (ROI) Although expenditures on CRM can be enormous, companies often invest in it without a very clear idea of how they are going to measure the return on that investment. Given the current tight economy, companies have no choice other than to focus increasingly on financial measures, especially ROI. The ROI analysis should consider intangibles (i.e., outcomes beyond tangible cost savings and revenue growth). Simply stated, ROI is calculated as returns divided by investments. When assessing the total cost of ownership of CRM, it is important to add ongoing costs such as annual software
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licensing fees, software maintenance (e.g., modifications and fixing bugs), and continuous employee training, as well as one-time costs, such as the software base license, consulting fees, hardware, initial employee training, and so forth.20 On the other hand, when figuring out the returns, the matter is considerably more complex, because there are many tangible and intangible benefits. Tangible benefits include cost savings and revenue growth that would be achieved by improvement in sales force productivity, increased cross-selling, and an increased customer retention rate. Intangible benefits might be an increase in customer satisfaction, improvement of market predictive ability, and product development in accordance with customers¶ needs. Although these benefits are difficult to quantify, they can be measured with appropriate benchmarks.21 CRM still a new concept among mid-sized businesses with less than 40% adoption, Adoption levels for CRM solutions the highest among verticals like logistics and finance with 60% and 57% adoption levels respectively Bangalore, November 9, 2010: Zinnov Management Consulting, a leading management consulting firm, today announced the launch of its study on the On-demand CRM market in India and the market potential for cloud based CRM solutions among the Indian SMBs. According to the findings of the study titled 'CRM - A silver lining for Cloud ', the On-Demand CRM market in India is currently at a very nascent stage with a total market size of USD 16-18 million. The study further highlights that On-demand CRM is gaining ground in India and being in the early stages of adoption, the vendors offering On-Premise CRM solutions have the early mover advantage helping them corner a large market share. These include vendors like Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle. As a part of the released study, Zinnov conducted a survey to understand the market potential for cloud based CRM solutions among the Indian SMBs. The survey covered 403 Indian SMBs across verticals like manufacturing, hospitality, media, real estate, finance and logistics , detailing out their perspective on 'Cloud-based CRM' and providing insights on CRM adoption in India. The findings of the survey reveal that the CRM tool is still a new concept among small and medium sized businesses in India. While as high as 63% of Indian mid-sized businesses (100 to 1000 employees) have not adopted CRM solutions, the percentage of non-users further goes up for small sized businesses (Less than 100 employees). Overall, the CRM adoption level among the Indian SMBs stands at 25%. As per the survey, the adoption levels for CRM solutions are the highest among the logistics and finance verticals with 60% and 57% adoption levels respectively, followed by hospitality, real estate, manufacturing and media. Speaking on the launch of the report, Mr. Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Zinnov Management Consulting, Pvt. Ltd, "The biggest challenge to the adoption of On-demand CRM in the Indian market is the basic lack of awareness of CRM solutions. Traditional marketing (cold calls and viral) techniques are unable to bring about awareness and the current sales channels are not well positioned to sell cloud solutions. Addressing this requires a three-pronged strategic approach spanning across awareness creation, knowing your customer and selling right."
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The survey further reveals that the demand for CRM solutions in India is likely to be driven by both the large organizations and SMEs. In terms of demographic spread, while the Tier-I cities has a significant share of the CRM market, Tier-II cities are now emerging as the destinations for CRM providers to sell their solutions. For the SMBs adopting CRM, the reasons cited include the need for streamlining and managing the processes in a better manner. Strengthening the customer relationship, push from the customer and customer retention especially among the finance and logistics verticals are some of the primary drivers for CRM adoption among the Indian SMBs. Majority of the non-users cited that they don't need CRM solutions since they are self-sufficient in managing their relationships on E-mails/ mail clients, Spreadsheets, etc. Highlighting aspects of the study, Mr. Kishan Bhat, Manager-Consulting, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd said, "According to our survey, sales and marketing teams create a strong case for adoption of CRM as companies find maximum beneficial impact of CRM in marketing and lead management, customer service and maintaining customer accounts. Around 50% of the CRM users interviewed cited that demand from sales and marketing team led them to adopt CRM solutions. However, when it comes to measuring effectiveness, all the CRM users surveyed believed that CRM helps them increase the overall effectiveness of the team". When it comes to the vendors, on-premise CRM solutions have high brand recall among both users and non-users. On-premise solution providers like SAP and Microsoft are better positioned to adopt and even sell cloud offerings better when compared to online CRM providers due to already existing brand recall in the market. SAP pips Microsoft for a higher brand recall among the non-users of CRM solutions as well. However, overall non-users of CRM do not have any preference for known and tested brands for CRM solutions and are ready to try new brands as long as value will be delivered. "The cloud vendors have not done enough to promote awareness and hence cloud computing/SaaS remains a new terminology for majority of users and non-users. As a result, cloud computing is yet to gain awareness and acceptance in the Indian market. According to the findings of the study, desktop application continues to be the preferred platform for CRM solution with 80% of the users. While half of companies got the solution customized to their processes but only a fourth of companies have their CRM solutions integrated with other applications used in the firm", Bhat added.

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FINDINGS
1) CRM helps marketing operations in two activities: acquisition and retention of customers. 2) CRM helps in different areas like;1. Reduce the time required to disseminate leads to the sales team 2. Automate quote and proposal generation 3. Create and distribute reports electronically 4. Cut the time required to generate forecasting reports 5. Eliminate duplicate data entry 6. Distribute pricing information, collateral materials or inventory 7. Catalogs more quickly 8. Facilitate group scheduling and activity calendaring 3) The Indian CRM market can be sized at Rs. 50-100 Crores (1 Crore=10 million). 4) Media reports have put the annual growth rate for the CRM Software market in India at 25-30%, and Services market at about 50-60%. Our respondents however feel the going shall be slower than projected. 5) Aviva caters to close to 100,000 customers with its CRM solution. 6) HDFC Ergo Achieves 30 Percent Lead Conversions with A CRM Solution.

7) There are 450 personnel using the e-CRM suite at AVIVA Life Insurance.

8) 85 percent of the CRM business comes from large enterprises and the rest from mid-size companies. 9) 60% insurance companies only are using e-CRM at present in India.

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Conclusion
There is a probability of huge increase in employment opportunities. A number of web-sites are coming up on insurance, a few financial magazines exclusively devoted to insurance and also a few training institutes being set up hurriedly. In the insurance sector various new tools are coming to facilitate the business. e-CRM, einsurance leading a new way for the development of this sector it leads to increase in the employment opportunity in future. Technology has opened up new markets, new products, new services and efficient delivery channels for the banking industry. Online electronics banking, mobile banking and internet banking are just a few examples. The IT revolution has set the stage for unprecedented increase in financial activity across the globe. The progress of technology and the development of worldwide networks have significantly reduced the cost of global funds transfer. It is information technology which enables banks in meeting such high expectations of the customers who are more demanding and are also more techno-savvy compared to their counterparts of the yester years. They demand instant, anytime and anywhere banking facilities. It is information technology which enables banks in meeting such high expectations of the customers who are more demanding and are also more techno-savvy compared to their counterparts of the yester years.

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Recommendations
1) Vendors need to create awareness around how CRM can help firms build relationship

with their repeat customers.

2) Majority of the CRM users firms have size of about 100-500 employees. So small firms

could be a target in Indian CRM market.

3) Awareness around utility and advantages of CRM tool needs to be created among Sales

and Marketing team in firms since they are the end users of the CRM solution.

4) IT heads are the key influencers in decision making about IT deployment and therefore

need to be targeted effectively for selling the CRM tool.

5) CRM still a new concept among mid-sized businesses.

6) 40% insurance companies are still not using e- CRM software. So CRM software

companies need to capture this vacant area.

7) CRM would require rich information about their firm and customer.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS 1) A Business Guide to Customer Relationship Management BY NJ: AddisonWesley 2) Customer Relationship Management BY; - ³Kristin Anderson and Carol Kerr´ 3) How to prepare YOUR OFFICE FOR CRM BY; - Joe Taylor Jr. 4) CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANGEMENT BY;-Prof. Jadish N. Seth

5) Griffin, Jill and Lowenstein, Michael W. 2001. Customer Winback How to Recapture Lost Customers and Keep. 6) Colvin, Geoffrey and Selden, Larry. 2003. Angel Customers & Demon Customers. Portfolio. NY, NY.

7)

Marketing in the new Millennium

BY;- Xavier. M. J

WEBSITES
1) WWW.INSUARANCETECH.COM 2) WWW.SRIBD.COM

3) WWW.FALCON-INC.COM
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4) WWW.ITTOOLBOX.COM

5) WWW.COMMUNITY.NASDAQ.COM

6) WWW.CRMINFOLINE.COM

7)

WWW.CIO.IN

8) www.zinnov.com

ARTICLES
1) A Crash Course in Customer Relationship Management, Harvard Business Review.

2)

Indian On-Demand CRM market worth USD 16-18 million: BY; - By Kailash Pandiyan

3)

Zinnov Management Consulting

4)

Use of Information System in Banking and Insurance Sector BY; - Dr. R.S.Meena

5) ³CRM±an approach to modern marketing´ BY;- C. K. Dash

JOURNAL
1) THE JOURNAL OF INSURANCE INSTITUTE OF INDIA

2) European Centre for Customer Strategies

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RESEARCH PAPERS
1) DELHI BUSINESS REVEIEW BY; - R.K. Mittal &Rajeev Kumar

2) INDIA INSURANCE SECTOR ASSISTANCE REVIEW

3)

ZINNOV MANAGEMENT CONSULTING

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