CRM-Customer Relationship Management

After recession Market condition is improving. For growing up in the business in the highly competitive environment, your success depends upon how you can find new clients, win new clients, nurture and retain the existing once, lure the former clients back to the company, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer support. This is where concept of Customer Relationship Management comes into the picture.

Customer Relationship Management, famously known as CRM, is simply a methodology/concept to keep customers happy and satisfied.

In three phases CRM can support the relationship between organisation and customer.

1. Acquire: Acquire new customers by marketing and selling products to customer

2. Enhance: Provide various tools which offers the customers service from a team of sales and service specialists, which offers customers the convenience of one-stop shopping

3. Retain: Retain the customers by letting them know about new products, with better services and rewarding the loyal customers by creating different type of market strategies.

We can see lots of example related to CRM in our day to day life. Some are as below:

1. To acquire the customers one new company announced 1 paisa per second plan.

2. Companies provide team of sales and service specialist to suggest the new plans to customer suitable to their needs and help them choosing the right product. Through their service specialist, they also solve the issues faced by customers while using their products. Some ompanies even provide web based tools so that you can recharge your prepaid mobile account, pay your bills, lodge your comaplaints, check you bill details etc at one stop.

3. Retain: Companies provide various promotional offers to their loyal customers and make their market strategies, try to maintain their relationships with them by providing better and improved services.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of CRM:

1. Operational CRM: It provides support to front office business operations like sales, support, marketing. Tasks resulting from these processes are forwarded to employees responsible for them, as well as the information necessary for carrying out the tasks and interfaces to back-end applications are being provided and activities with customers are being documented for further reference.

2. Analytics CRM: Data gathered in operational CRM is analyzed and help the organization to plan and make their future strategy. Data collection and analysis is viewed as a continuing and iterative process. Ideally, business decisions are changing over period of time, based on feedback from earlier analysis and decisions.

3. Collaborative CRM: Collaborative CRM facilitates interactions with customers through all channels (personal, letter, fax, phone, web, e-mail) and supports co-ordination of employee teams and channels. It is a solution that brings people, processes and data together so companies can better serve and retain their customers. The data/activities can be structured, unstructured, conversational, and/or transactional in nature.

I will discuss these in more detail in my next blogs...

Marathi bol!!!

In this large world, if you keep your ears and eyes open, you will see lots of incidents around you. Some incidents are eyeopener, some are new learnings while some teaches you new lessons for life.

Today I met with such kind of incident which gives me a feeling that unless we change with the time, unless we scrap the old unwanted values which has no significance in modern world and unless we motivate and teach our next generation about the changing world, we can't progress.

Today I was standing at a bakery in Pune. Then two children, brother and sister came there with  some money in their hand. The girl was around 7 years old and her brother was almost 5 years old. The girl asked for a dairy milk from the shopkeeper in Marathi. Then the boy almost screamed and told in Hindi "Mujhko bhi chahiye" (I too need Dairy Milk). As soon as that girl hear this, shouted over her brother "kya mujhko mujhko bol rha hai; Marathi bol!!!" (Why are you speaking Hindi, speak Marathi). I got shocked not because of she forced her bro to speak in Marathi but because of the fact that 7 years old girl was saying this. I know there was a movement by MNS for speaking in Marathi but I didn't know it has affected to the children innocent minds as well (directly or indirectly). Even the person who raised the issue, his own son is student of a English medium school.

From school days, we have always been taught that we are living in such a diversified country but still we are united. However,we are still not able to convert this theory in actual. Lots of incidents such as Babri demolition, Godhra riots etc. always gives feeling that we are united in diversified country only on papers. When people wanted fill up these gaps and try to forget these things, our 'great' politicians again make this gap only for their vote bank politics. Earlier, they used to do politics over caste reservation issues. Now they wanted to divide India on regional and language basis for their profit (Read more by clicking here).

This incident was shocking for me because I believed that Indian youth is changing. They now no longer believe in these kind of differences and give priority to national values. But probably we still need to grow up.

Now we should educate people so that they do not come under influence of such politicians. We should understand that we need to think as Indians not like marathi, rajasthani or bihari. Preserving our cultural values are not bad. However, it should not happen at the cost of national values. If we do not leave aside these narrow mindedness, we can't progress. We need to adapt those things which is important for India's progress.

Permit for Mumbai!!!

I was in utter shock when I read through the remarks by our honoured Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram about increasing rate of crime in NCR. First of all I couldn't understand what he was trying to say by word 'Immigrant'. Clearly his indication was towards the people from U.P. and Bihar.  I could not understand how can be a person of neighbour states can be termed as immigrant in their own country that is also by our country's home minister. This is his responsibility to ensure safety for Indian Citizens inside and outside country. It seems he is trying to hide his incapability for handling such situations. I think he also forget he himself is not from Delhi so he is also a immigrant in his own words :). 


Contrary to his statement, statistics available with Delhi Police gives an entirely different picture than what was portrayed by the home minister. More than 83% of people involved in crime this year were from Delhi while only 17% were found to be from outside Delhi. A majority of those arrested come from poor economic strata and were involved in various cases like robbery, rape, burglary and murder. Only 11% of those arrested were from the upper class while 22% of those arrested are from the middle class.


Close on the heels of our home minister statement Shiv Sena demanded permit system for Mumbai and Delhi to check the flow of immigrants. I am just thinking if we need to have permit for visiting in our own country. If Mumbai and Delhi are the foreign soils? If today Mumbai is known as financial capital of India, it is not due to only the people of Mumbai, but the people from different parts of country came and helped Mumbai to grow.


To control the situation of increasing number of people in Mumbai and Delhi, government should help in generating the job opportunities in other parts of the country. Government should try to reach out to the poor people (be it from General class or reserved class) and motivate them for the studies because statistics shows majority of criminals are those who are dropouts before class 10.


At last, it is really very disappointing to hear these kinds of statements from the Home Minister who is very highly educated and having a very good reputation in the country. He should rather work on  finding the solution of th problem.


What you guys say???

Tribute to Sachin

The evening of April 23rd 1973 was an ordinary one you would think, Lord our god was havin a regular day, his friends were outside playing cricket. He wanted to join but was too busy making designs & attending to complaints. His friends mocked him, his mom was like, "atta kuthehi jaycha naiye khelayla.kama kara!".He so wanted to play.but determined & powerful as he was he said, "Baas, udya dakhavtoch!". then dawned the pious morning of 24th April 1973 & his show that started on February the 15th 1989 hasn't stopped!


That was the day mankind was blessed with hope, talent, determination, inspiration & that smacking cover-drive. God said "let there be a player for those who can't play, cuz maybe they are busy, have duties, are ill equipped in any way, have dreams, lack determination, need inspiration, need addictions, need something to take their mind off things, are disabled, basically for all mortals.Karachi drew flak but confirmed entry, But ."Mai Khelega" hinted longevity & determination.

Manchester '90 hinted at genius, Chennai '93 claimed singularitySydney

'92 meant prodigal; Perth '92 was magical, Colombo '94 implied belonging; Nottingham '96 confirmed geniusCape Town '97 was princely, Sharjah '98 confirmed coronationDhaka '99 displayed performance; Bristol '99 showed passion, responsibility & emotions Chepauk '99 was tragic, hinted human; Chepauk '99 & '08 confirmed peerless & granted redemption Natwest '03 showed adaptability & commitment, Sydney '04 hinted @ sainthood, Dhaka '04 was comeback, Hamilton '09 was Supremacy Re-BornSydney '08 exorcised the demons; Eden Gardens '10 was another step.Jaipur'10 confirmed God! Wankhede, Mumbai '11 should not matter.


Forest Gump was a fictitious character who ran for little more than 3 years & won Oscars, this man (?) has been running for more than 20 and still draws flak for the Ferrari! The journey from Shivaji Park to Wankhede of little more than 10 kms takes about 30 minutes by local train, this particular one has lasted 21 years and features more than 30000 instances of running up & down that 22 yard strip. Sometime in the near future he will stop running, take off his guards, hang his boots as they say, put his feet up & enjoy a cheesy-fatty burger & beer for breakfast. Slowly he will be able to do the small things he craves like having the Kirti college wada-pav, hanging out at Marine drive with old pals, not driving the Ferrari, attending award functions or having dinner at Hilton. Sometime in the near future the shoulders will heave a sigh of relief, the fingers will straighten, the heels will cool, the painkillers will stop, the lower back support will come off and the only the eyes will moisten at mentions of Chepauk, Sharjah, Perth & Shivaji Park. He will have done his part, it's another matter whether the people will be satisfied or not. It's not in his hands. Math suggests he will have, but destiny takes over where math ends. We can just Hope & pray.


It's a reality we have to face; and the sooner we accept it the better it will be for us. Ours is a country living in nostalgia & hope, nothing wrong in that. But, sometimes in reminiscing & dreaming we forget to revere the present. Remember in school when after a typical mathematics exam we used to ask the teacher, "Will we get marks for steps?" We had an idea the answer will be wrong, but somehow to us that didn't mean we had not put in efforts. To our parents it always did. Ends should not be a judge of the commitment put in the means.

Remember how our parents did not let us go out for a night out to our friend's farmhouse cuz we were too young @ 17 to do that & it was outside city limits? He was 16, travelling to a country with whom we had fought 3 wars, which remains to this day our biggest enemy & whose bowlers thought that getting a batsman 'out' was to get him to not be physically able to play the next delivery. From the foggy, bloody Karachi morning of February 15th, the dusty Sharjah night, the chilly Manchester morning, the hot Chepauk afternoon to the divine Jaipur evening the journey has attracted all the adjectives this language had to offer. Now we resort to mere sounds, intonations & swear words."Gacchi dakhavli.", "Kadak!", "aaaaaaiiicchhhya gaavat!!!" & "baba laagle" sadly cannot be termed as adjectives.

Coaching, sport merchandising, FMCG & advertising industries were riding solely on him for years, more critics & 'experts' have made money on him than you can imagine, more people must have retired from cricket after he started playing than people appearing on reality shows, every time a teenager shined, his throne was said to be in danger. But he stood. Lasted. All the Graeme Hicks, Saeed Anwars, Inzamams, Pietersens, Pontings, Shane Warnes, Wasim & Waqars, Donalds of the world have come and gone, they just were not enough to deter him. There is no proof that the sun will rise tomorrow, but in this world of seeming chaos there is one order that it is impossible to hide the sun after he rises. There will be prodigies, there will be displays of brilliance, statistics suggests that there might even be someone who will manage to score more runs...but will there be a better on-drive, a more sonorous cover-drive, more conviction in a straight drive, more nirvana in that raised bat, a more joyous celebration of a wicket? Will there be another one? No. End of debate.


This might be sounding a bit pessimistic cuz I am talking about the end of something which all of us who have held a willow fathom, but only because it took me a while to realize that yes we are having difficulties with comprehending what we will do when he is not around anymore, whom will we look up to, where will we dump our sadness? What will unite us? But the bigger problem which we selfishly seem to have overlooked is what will HE do? Not that he is incapable of doing anything else, cuz only God knows what he has created with so much attention & what are his creation's limits, but we seem to think of him as a machine that has been producing since the ribbon was cut 20 years back. We have no memory of him not being around. He has just been there, taken for granted. Just like the sun...

There came a time when he was riding a tiger in search of the tiger; the tiger he was, he knew, he owned & controlled. He was deciphered, figured out, if the critics were to be believed. The believers were quiet & confident. It's been 6 years since a leading newspaper printed an iniquitous headline, 'Endulkar?', I await the day when ill have the power to say to them "In your face!" that is what makes him different from us, he doesn't think about retribution, he thinks about duty.

Taoism says 'be vacant & you shall remain full'; he emptied himself, went back to where it started & retraced his steps and as always just like after the eclipse the sun is brighter he came back stronger. He knew he had the ability, he knew he loved doing it; he had to make his body believe in his love. Today he is truly the Tao of Cricket. I weep for the future of cricket as a visual attraction medium. The silence that follows his wicket is said to be the loudest sound in sports, let us make a deal that the applause that will be heard on his last day on the field shall be one of the most resonating sounds in sporting history. So I ask you all today to clap and contribute to the decibel levels, because the sound needs to reach the heavens, God needs to be told that we are thankful. Gather your tears because we need to repay the sweat. Stand up, fold your hands, close your eyes and worship because none of us will be alive to see another remotely like him.

It won't matter if next time you think you can't pull something off & don't remember 143@ Sharjah, next time you think you are in pain & can't think of 136 @ Chennai or 140 @Bristol, next time you think you can't find a way but don't remember 241 @ Sydney...but remember, every time that you feel your feet are above the ground think of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. We owe him that much...

Cheers & Good Luck to everyone for WC '11...