Throughout the past decade, CRM has become such a buzzword that in contemporary terms the concept is used to reflect a number of differing perspectives. In brief, CRM has been defined as essentially relating to sales, marketing, and even services automation. CRM has also been increasingly associated with cost savings and streamline processes. Accordingly, the topic has been widely covered in terms of its alignment with business strategy. However, there appears to be a paucity of coverage with regards to the concept’s alignment with knowledge management. This chapter demonstrates how CRM in fact pivots upon the dynamics of knowledge management. Furthermore, this chapter emphasises how by lieu of its conceptual underpinnings and operational dimensions, CRM is aligned with business development in the context of knowledge management. References have been made to specific strategies and tactics within the hotel industry in order to illustrate the relevance of this contended association.
TopThe Background To The Conceptual Development Of Crm
In spite of much interest and effort, Relationship Marketing persistently remains ambiguous as a concept. In varied attempts to unravel its conceptual and fundamental underpinnings, several academics have defined Relationship Marketing (Harker, 1999). However, rather than clarify what the concept truly encompasses in reality, many of these definitions have instead arguably limited the scope of the concept. Consequently, depending on which position is being favoured, Relationship Marketing has been described as a specific type of marketing, such as database marketing or services marketing, or even as a series of actions. At other times, the concept has been described as a single entity, which embraces almost every other marketing discipline (Berry, 1983; Gummesson, 1997a,b; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). As such, the precise meaning of Relationship Marketing is not always clear in literature.
Considering the conflict, which appears to prevail with regards to the actual dimensions of Relationship Marketing, it is not surprising that the concept of CRM has attracted just as many varied comparisons. Throughout the past decade, CRM has become such a buzzword that in contemporary terms, the concept has been used to reflect a number of differing perspectives. While it has at times been referred to as being synonymous to a form of marketing such as database marketing (Khalil and Harcar, 1999), services marketing (Grönroos, 1994a,b) and customer partnering (Kandampully and Duddy, 1999b), at other times CRM is specified in terms of more specialised marketing objectives such as customer retention (Walters and Lancaster, 1999a), customer share (Rich, 2000) and customer loyalty (Reichheld and Schefter, 2000).