In re: SEBL
I have just begun to follow SEBL, and my wife pointed out some concerns regarding CRM:
CRM is closely tied to ERP. I consider ERP to be a failed tornado market because although most of the Fortune 1000 companies bought into the hype, almost everyone has come to the conclusion that the costs of implementation are not worth the advantages which ERP provides.
ERP seems to have failed because the cost of implementation was so high, and the complexity of the product prevented customers from taking full advantage of its features. Although CRM is cheaper to implement and is less complex, we are nevertheless seeing some ERP similarities with CRM. For example, supermarket loyalty cards is a facet by CRM. These cards were meant to analyze each customer's buy and sell activity in order to enable one-to-one marketing. However, most supermarkets are not utilising the data which they are receiving, just as many businesses were not able to take advantage of the features of ERP.
The theories/capabilities of CRM (and ERP) seem to be great, but that does not mean that it will be successful. Cost and difficulty of implementation and the challenges of customizing the CRM to fit each business' needs may cause it to go down the same road as ERP.
Some questions to the Thread:
1) Does SEBL provide a way to integrate e-commerce, TERM, CRM, and SCM to "smooth or enhance operations across the value chain"?
According to Gartner:
the e-business reality is that Technology Enabled Relationship Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Supply Chain Management are not integrated and therefore cannot be used to smooth or enhance operations across the value chain.
2) Although SEBL seems to be the dominant player in CRM, how do the numbers match up against Trilogy and Vantive?
As I mentioned, I have just begun to follow SEBL so these concerns which I raise may have been already addressed. If so, I apologize for the long post. If they have not yet been raised, then how do you guys feel about CRM's possible decline a la ERP? Even if it does, I guess SEBL could still be a profitable investment for awhile, but not a Gorilla investment. SAP seemed like a Gorilla (I bought into it), but I guess the Tornado never really formed.
Final question:
CRM has been around for as long as ERP and the two are very closely linked. How do we know that the Big Five and other consultancies are not just trying to sell another flavor of the month? |
