The Hindu Business Line : CRM and creativity

Nokia, Charlie Chaplin, Google, Azim Premji, Annadurai, Sachin Tendulkar, Shakespeare, Dhirubhai Ambani, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Rahul Dravid, space journey, Narayana Murthy, how television works, Lakshmi Mittal, and vitamins.

The common thread for all these is that Naga Subramanian Chokkanathan, director of education and innovation in Bangalore-based CRMIT ( www.crmit.com), has authored a book in Tamil on each.

“I feel that knowledge sharing can become easier and more transparent if domain experts begin to write their experiences and insights in a way that is understandable to the common reader and children,” he says, during a recent lunch-hour interaction with eWorld. “This is what I am doing consciously, in my books with IT (information technology) and computers background, and I wish people from other fields also bring such a fulfilling reading experience for me and others.”

CRMIT delivers CRM (customer relationship management) ‘on demand solutions’ and works in areas such as CRM portals, service oriented architecture (SOA), and mobile CRM.

Excerpts from the interview.

How do you see CRM evolving in India, and in what ways are the trends here different from what is found elsewhere?

CRM is something that is not restricted to any country or culture. Wherever customers are there, businesses cannot afford to keep them unhappy; and that is where CRM comes in as a strong requirement.

In India, the trend is positive. When compared to about twenty years ago, people have more choice and every company knows it can’t take customers for granted. May be the movement is slow, but we see a steady progress towards an increased focus on the customer, rather than merely on the products and price.

Recently, I was thrilled to notice concepts like loyalty programmes adopted even by our grocery chains. Earlier, loyalty was taken for granted if good products and services were provided. But now, that is no longer the case, and companies are trying hard to win the customer’s heart, not just his pocket. In the process, both the customers and CRM are getting the attention they deserve.

With Indian businesses keen to try out innovative strategies for attracting customers, in what ways can CRM help them?

CRM can help businesses in many ways. To start, when somebody calls you or drops in at your office, do you know everything about him or her? That can be a good beginning, and knowing fully about a customer (or a prospect) is something that is always going to help us in suggesting products of interest to them.

Next, the services area. Many great Indian companies are known to be poor in providing support. Here again CRM concepts and tools can help.

Modern Indian businesses are definitely keen on implementing CRM concepts in their day-to-day operations. For example, a bank started providing ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ cards to its valued customers, and depending on their status the customers get faster services and better rates. The customers were happy, and the bank spent time with the right customers, prioritising well, and proposing things that are more likely to be accepted by the target audience.

Are there ways to measure the benefits of CRM for enterprises?

CRM success metrics differ for each industry. The most common ways of measuring CRM success are: increase in the number of leads, for a sales organisation; and the average time spent on each call, in a service organisation.

In our organisation, when we went with our own CRM implementation, we saw an immediate improvement of 25 per cent increase in the number of leads that got converted to orders.

Though each organisation has its own way of measuring CRM effectiveness, in general, organisations feel there is a definite value-add from CRM in the long term. According to Harvard Business School study, ‘Companies that put customers in the centre are 6X more likely to achieve growth goals.’ And CRM is a great tool to make that happen.

What are the popular myths about CRM?

First of all, many people assume that CRM means a software package. You buy it paying huge chunks of money, and then it takes care of your business. That’s all!

Unfortunately, life is not a ‘Harry Potter’ novel. Here we have to do the work, and software is just a tool, to support us.

CRM is more a business concept, and it is left to our creativity how we want to use it. You don’t need fancy software to support your CRM efforts, even though one such software would definitely help doing things faster.

For example, recently, I was in a pani puri stall that was very crowded. I was a little worried whether I was going to get my turn, or simply return hungry. At that time, the vendor just looked into my face and asked, ‘Hello sir, what do you want?’

I gave him my order, and he said okay. But, all this time, he was busy working on somebody else’s order. Whatever I had asked for took almost 10 minutes to come. But, I was no longer worried about waiting, because he had given me an impression that things are moving. Later, I observed that he was doing so for almost every new customer. Interestingly, nobody did mind waiting, after that small trick.

Now, this pani puri vendor doesn’t have any CRM software, but still he is able to apply its concepts in his daily work. That is the power of creative CRM, and there are endless possibilities of what you can do with it.

The second popular CRM myth is that all CRM implementations are costly and they take a long time. Only companies with deep pockets can afford to go for CRM implementations.

May be this was true a few years earlier. Now, CRM is slowly making headway for SMEs (small and medium enterprises). This is a positive trend we are seeing in the last few years, and expect this will be of interest even to big enterprises, to save their overall cost of CRM implementation.

What are the CRM takeaways for SMEs?

SaaS (Software as a Service) is a big trend now. We specialise in SaaS-based CRM solutions, both in our products and services. What SaaS is doing is to bring CRM to the masses, and the SMEs.

People who believe in CRM’s power, but can’t (or don’t want to) spend a whole lot of money immediately on that, can start by subscribing to CRM services, which are available for as low as Rs 250 per month, per user.

These provide a good start. You can use them and see the value. Once you like it, or when ready for the next level, you can move to the more advanced services, or even a hosted solution.

For example, some educational institutions in the US and Europe are now using CRM to track their current and potential students. They start with simple things, such as course registration, and slowly increase their CRM bandwidth.

This model is perfect for India, owing to the economics. SaaS provides companies with the luxury of sampling at a relatively low cost. The CRM solution can, accordingly, grow with the company.

How big is CRM as business potential? And, do we have the relevant education in biz schools? What can make CRM more widespread in use?

CRM as a business is worth about Rs 15,000 crore. But this is a kind of unclear number because it includes CRM products and services in the traditional sense, and also the related IT enabled services.

Big players in CRM such as Oracle are very enthusiastic about CRM’s growth potential. Almost every major corporation is introducing its own CRM version, to get a part of the CRM pie. And the latest on the bandwagon is the biggest one, Microsoft, actively promoting the ‘Microsoft Dynamic CRM’.

In general, the CRM market is buzzing with activity. Market leaders like Siebel and SalesForce.com are still strong, despite tough competition from new players.

Industry interest reflects in the media’s coverage of customer relationship topics. Business schools are gearing-up to teach CRM basics to the next-generation professionals. Because of huge CRM implementations, and their direct effect on the business, end customers are also becoming aware of the change, and have started expecting more.

What are the issues that CRM has to overcome?

One major question, or point of resistance, is whether CRM is intruding into people’s privacy.

The other day, I was making a phone call to an electronic store. A guy picked it and said, ‘Hello sir, you are so-an-so, you purchased a washing machine from us nine months back, model such-and-such. Now, what can we do for you?’

This, right at the start of conversation, took me aback. I know a CRM tool can match my phone number with their records and flash all the details on the monitor, and one can just read out from the screen. But still, the feeling that somebody is watching me is scary, to put it mildly.

Such problems can occur when you go too aggressive on CRM. The challenge is to find the right balance, and work in such a way that the customer is happy with the service, as well as the way we manage the relationship.

About CRMIT, its work, size and growth over the years. Your role in it. Also future plans.

CRMIT started its operations four years ago, as a small team of three members. From there, we have grown to the current team size of 70 plus, with a focused effort in the field of CRM using our team’s strong business understanding, and creativity. We work with CRM experts in Oracle, and strive to provide CRM-based end-to-end services to our customers.

I started working here as a co-founder, consultant, then moved to the role of architect, and currently I am taking care of education and innovation teams. These two areas are what we feel are going to determine the growth rate at which we can move. So we would like to concentrate on continuous learning, being in the leading technology domains, and more important than all, being creative and useful.

What are your products and services? Are you currently working on any new products/services?

Our innovation team continuously works on brining CRM-related new products, and our brand CRM++ has more than ten products till date; the list is growing.

Our intention is to develop various market-driven products, using the latest technologies. At the same time, our concentration is on filling the business gap, instead of just showing-off technical expertise.

On that front, we are very proud about one of our recent releases, mCRM. Meaning, mobile CRM, it provides access to CRM data for mobile users. This can be used by any industry where people are on the move. That means, all industries.

Here is a scenario. You are reporting a problem about broadband connection in your home, and the service ticket is received by an engineer, who happens to be in the next street. He is able to look at your problem on mobile. Then, he visits you in the next five minutes and the issue is resolved. We feel mCRM can take customer relationships to that next level, where both the end customers and the companies get benefited.

Any success stories of your implementation.

Let me narrate a few. SolidWorks Corporation of the US, a leader in 3D CAD technology solutions, has its software used by over half a million product designers and engineers worldwide to design better products. We did a CRM implementation for the company, helping it automate the way it handled campaigns, accepted leads, assigned them to value added resellers and tracked the complete lifecycle. This whole process is now automated using CRM, which gives better experience to customers, partners and SolidWorks internal staff.

Godrej Industries Ltd is another example. Our CRM implementation for Godrej helped it reach out to the customers, with end-to-end sales support. This included collaborative fulfilment schedules, real time access to business data and increasing the speed of information flow.

When Vodafone (previously Hutch) wanted to improve its bill presentment portal, to provide a more personalised experience for end users, we were part of the implementation that added many advanced features to the traditional way of monthly mobile service bills, while at the same time saving cost on customer interactions.

In addition, we have done different product- and service-based CRM implementations, and also provided educational services to General Motors (GMAC), GE Fleet, 3M, IBM, Accenture and Oracle.

On your second-life as a writer — its trigger, the benefits and insights.

Like many, I started writing because I read some great literature in my school days. Not out of my own interest, though. My aunt, who was blind, introduced me to many good books, and asked me to read them out for her. That was the main reason I was with books, when most of my friends were busy playing cricket on the street.

Of course, I played my fair share of cricket, but the reading habit is something that stuck with me, and I started writing a few ‘detective’ stories. Fortunately, none of those stories made it to the printing machine.

After I matured both as a reader and as a writer, my first short story was published in 1997, and that motivated me to write more, resulting in a short story collection few years later.

Later, I got into a feverish mode of writing non-fiction, after a publication house asked me to write a book about my favourite cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. That triggered my interest in non-fiction, which made the whole difference.

After that first book, I have written biographies, business histories, political histories, and books for children, under the name N. Chokkan.

I am thrilled to find that non-fiction readers too like a simple and effective narrative style, and I am keeping that as my focus. At the same time I try to bring my work and business experience into my works, as a background, wherever relevant.

Naga, a graduate in production engineering from Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore, holds a master diploma in business administration from Symbiosis University, Pune. Before co-founding CRMIT he worked in various development and consulting positions with Baan Info Systems, BroadVision India and Infact Infotech India. As a trainer, Naga has delivered more than 50 educational engagements and corporate training in various technologies, for organisations including IBM, Accenture, Oracle, BEA Systems, Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant, and Tech Mahindra.

dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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