Colloquium: March 17, 2007, M Padmanabhan
CEO - Telematics Business Unit. Ashok Leyland
To Learn the Customer
CRM or Customer Relationship Management, as the name suggests means focusing entirely on the customer as if they are the king. But the intricacies of CRM have always eluded us which is why a morning spent with Mr. M Padmanabhan was such a treat to us students of the Amrita School of Business.
He started off by putting us at ease and saying that he welcomed questions at any point of time during the presentation. This was highly encouraging as we now had a very interactive session and some very interesting questions were brought up by the students.
The presentation started with the definition of CRM and gave us some food for thought by saying that the process of CRM begins before you even acquire a customer and even after he ceases to be a customer. At this point he also stopped to explain that the services sector is growing at a very fast pace and consumers are now becoming more and more savvy, discrete, and above all demanding. What is touted to be the strength of the Indian economy is testimonial to this, “strength of the Indian economy is that very soon 60% of its population is going to be below the age of 25 and educated.” This segment realizes that there are other companies out there who can provide similar services and wouldn’t hesitate to leave the present brand/company for them. The growth of the IT sector is another factor that adds to this.
He then took us through the old paradigm of what was perceived to be customer relationship management and then the new paradigm, which is what we are extensively following now. He explained this to us with the help of examples from the crowd of students present and it was with great ease that we learnt that earlier sales was the main focus and delighting the customer happened occasionally, if it happened at all. He compared and contrasted this with today’s practices where we target the segment, acquire the customers, manage their entry and life cycle, and make an overall strategy keeping CRM in mind.
He next took us through the difference between the product market and the customer market and how CRM relates differently to both. An interesting point that he made was that “products are now becoming services and services are now becoming products”. I thought this statement made an immense amount of sense especially in the context of CRM.
He next showed us a grid of how to analyze our customer base. After putting up the slide which had the graphical representation of the grid he then explained to us what each quadrant of the grid meant. But as examples he asked us to use the Indian cricket team and name the players we would place in each grid. This really livened up the class and also these examples helped us remember the grid and its quadrants with hardly any effort at all.
He then moved on to tell us what are the parameters that are frequently used for analysis and also the reason behind why we analyze our customers. In this regard he told us that contrary to popular belief-
• A satisfied customer is not equal to a loyal customer
• A satisfied and loyal customer is equal to a profitable customer
On of the most important topics that he covered was the customer service life cycle and never before has such a difficult topic been covered with such simplicity. The diagram put up said it all and the questions that were asked and answered cleared any doubts that could have been there.
He also stressed on the fact that the ‘touchpoint’ i.e. the point where the customer comes into contact with the company either through salesmen or even a simple drop down box must be given a lot of thought. He also explained to us the importance of interdepartmental agreements and the relationship between delivery and backend operations.
He finally took us through the architecture of CRM and also the considerations that have to be kept in mind before fixing on the architecture. He informed us about the new trends that are arising in the market such as RFID’s and E-Ink.
But the icing on the cake was the way in which the presentation ended. He showed us a couple of slides which had a conversation that would take place in 2020 between people while ordering a pizza. More than just the humour the slides made us think whether there is a line that has to be drawn regarding privacy while focusing on CRM. But then I guess that’s what he wanted, to make us think and to realize how important CRM is in today’s environment.
All in all the session was CRM in a capsule, wherein we were able to extract the essence of the subject and at the same time cover all its phases. A most informative colloquium that left us thirsting to know more.
Anju Suresh Nayar
1st MBA
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