Enterprise Resource Planning (any modules) Application

Question: Discuss about the Enterprise Resource Planning (any modules) Application. Answer: Introduction The enterprise resource planning has various modules in which we have selected Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. Customer relationship management does help the company or business to increase or boost their sales performance by providing a better customer service and committing a healthy relationship with the potential clients (Neslin, 2014). The best part of Customer relationship management (CRM) is that we can have all the details available in it. CRM (Customer relationship management) does help the company to track and manage the detailed data or information of the customers. The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application can be used in any industry to know their customer perception, for example, Foster's Group implemented CRM in their industry to understand what their potential customers think about their products and about their organization and how they can improve their services. Sensitivity of Customer Relationship Management application The customer relationship management application is the most valuable and sensitive asset for any company who have adopted and implemented CRM in their business. It has been the most efficient and strongest approach in creating and maintaining the corporate relationship with the potential clients. It is not just an application; it creates a strong personal bonding within personals (Nguyen Mutum, 2012). This type of bond development will lead to business success. Some customers move from one location to another location, or they go out of business, or they have moved on to a competitive company so there are so many reasons that a customer can be lost for a particular business. The survey that says 34% of customer loss is due to the above reasons, and 66% customers are lost due to other factors (Wang Feng, 2012). CRM (Customer Relationship Management) plays a sensitive or critical role for many companies to keep a good overview of the potential clients. It provides us the right tool to register the contacts and potential customer leads (Kumar Reinartz, 2012). We can know our clients by the implementing CRM in the business that would help with product improvement and customer satisfaction. The client's interaction is tracked by using Customer relationship management application because it makes the customers feel that they are important to the company because they do have a track record of the client interaction and the client does not have to explain it, again and again, every time they contact the support or service team. It is critical because if they do not have the previous interaction of customer then they might feel that they need to explain it again, and the company does not count them as important (Koegler et al., 2013). The primary purpose of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is to provide better support to customer engagement where every technology, programs, and strategies are created or built around to provide the right kind of engagement for good or better possible experience of clients (Khodakarami Chan, 2014). It is sensitive because the company is depended on the CRM because it is the central pillar of customer satisfaction as it creates adequate bonding between the company and their potential clients, they engage effectively with their customers by the utilization of customer relationship management. The CRM is sensitive because it contains all the historical analysis and view of all the potential customers and this help to decrease the correlating and searching of their clients which does affect the increase in business. It not only uses to deal with the potential customers or clients, but it is also used for getting new clients or customers. Implementation of Customer Relationship Management with cloud environment There are some reasons for adopting cloud computing by most of the organization, the below chart figure 1 explains that there are three main reasons why most of the enterprise does look to implement clouds such as neglecting the software and hardware expenditure, Scalability and flexibility of Information technology resources and disaster recovery and business continuity (Chuang et al., 2015). The cloud computing provides three different models such as PaaS (Private as a service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Here for Implementation of Customer Relationship Management in the cloud, we can use the SaaS model in the private cloud. CRM is the most important for growing business and establishment of a robust and healthy foundation with customers is essential. Figure1: Possible Engagement in Cloud computing (Source: Brender Markov, 2013, pp.730) The SaaS uses the website to deliver applications which are managed by the third-party service provider, and the interface is accessed by the customer side. The CRM systems need to perform well because it's important to integrate all the data from business services, providing a seamless transformation, improving business efficiency and help the business to hit all strategic goals and objectives. In SaaS model, the CRM does not need to be installed and run the application in the customer data centers or their computers (Lal Bharadwaj, 2015). It reduces the expenditure of hardware, maintenance, and provisioning, support, installation and software licensing are other benefits and advantages of SaaS model. The SaaS model provides better benefits because everything is managed by the vendor ends and no extra cost is needed. Figure 2: CRM in Cloud (Source: Alryalat Alhawari, 2014, pp.10) The CRM implementation in a cloud has to be done in private cloud deployment model. CRM need to be chosen by the company. For example for Salesforce, that is the best SaaS CRM that can be implemented in private cloud deployment model. When the CRM in cloud refers that the CRM software tool and the database of the customer on the organization included in the cloud and are delivered to the potential users with the use of the internet. The Customer Relationship Management in the cloud does provide access to the (Customer Relationship Management) CRM application through website tools such as website browser where the system administrator will predefine the access levels in the organization (Peng, 2014). Employees can enter into the CRM system simultaneously using an internet browser or device and can access the data or work on the CRM system. The CRM when integrated or implemented in the Cloud then it does provide efficiency, flexibility, and reliability in service, sales, and marketing as described in Figure 2. Challenges in cloud implementation There are no particular difficulties that can be mentioned because every day there are some new challenges that arise in cloud computing (Rong et al., 2013). Let us discuss some common challenges that need to be addressed adequately dealt with by any organization. Choosing the right cloud model: It is important to select the right cloud model among SaaS, PaaS or IaaS. The aaS refers available as a service and things get easier when the business requirements are known and which needs to be met. The cloud strategies always begin with an enterprise strategy and determinations of the rewards or risk of different choices (Jensen, 2013). It is said that the implementation is last, and business strategy or case is first. Data Security: The security always stays on the top as the biggest challenge for any service and in the event of cloud computing it is the same. It always a safety issue when any firm or enterprise is moving to cloud environment. Many companies don't avoid implementing cloud in their organization due to security concern. Security remains the universal issue or concern, and no such solution is there that can handle the breadth of cloud issues or concern (Chen Zhao, 2012). Limiting Networks: The system creates a significant issue in cloud implementation or integration. Most of the companies only focus on the resources that cloud offers nut they forget that to effectively utilize the cloud resources a proper network is required, and the network has to be ready to handle such massive bandwidth. So it is rather important that before implementing cloud computing in the organization, the firm needs to check that their network connections are ok. Dealing Data: The big data plays a critical role in many companies those who are moving to the cloud. Big or small size companies products huge amount of data every day. Now considering an example that if the volume and the velocity of data are too much to control or handle, then the firm might end up losing more than they gain. Starting from Zero: To implement the cloud in the organization, some best methods and practices need to be planned initially before choosing cloud as an option for the company. There are five essential of cloud computing that needs to be reached that are measured services, resource pooling, demanded self-services, comprehensive network access, and rapid elasticity. Other than that the company or firm needs to develop some other best practices that are aimed at enhancing the automation of task and from better communication which benefits employees. Suggestions or ideas for the challenges mentioned For the above challenges that are mentioned, some solutions need to be addressed to overcome such challenges. Protection or Security: All the confidential data is stored in the cloud, and it is entirely unknown that the service providers protect the data with proper security are the primary concern. The data cannot be access by the service provider as they have to rely entirely on the company provided infrastructure and to give full data security with limited handling options. To solve this issue, the company has to provide a layered security for layer architecture of the cloud. For example, first the hardware need must be trusted using HTPM (Hardware Trusted Platform Module) and the VP (Virtualization platform) needs to be trusted using a well-protected virtual machine monitors. Limiting Networks: The bandwidth requirement is necessary for any organization who are looking to implement and integrate cloud computing. It is required because when everyone in the organization try to use the resources available in the cloud and someone attempts to download a large data file from the data center, then things gets slow which does affect the others workflow (Popa et al., 2013). So to increase the networks speed or we can say the bandwidth there are some different solutions we can obtain for such as When there is a huge load of traffic, then the cloud service provider needs to transfer or direct some traffic to the servers that are near. Routers that are used in the organization needs to be of high capacity and performance so that the traffic can be effectively managed. The organization can obtain edge routers as they are much capable of processing a huge number of cloud packets. Optical fibers can be used to divert the WAN traffic, but it will raise the cost. Dealing Requirements: The requirements are not fixed it can either decrease or can sometimes be increased. So the cloud has to be flexible with dealing with these conditions, many types of research has been conducted by experts and came up with some typical methods or approaches that can be used such as building up an application by just predicting the requirement or demand at each level, on timely manner predictions needs to be made for future demand. Dealing Data: To manage the big data in the cloud is always a critical issue that needs to be solved. To address the big data issue, it is important to know the latest tools and services. Conclusion The report that is presented here explains about an enterprise resource planning module that is Customer relationship management along with cloud computing. The report covers various aspects of Customer relationship management such us the need of CRM, the functionalities of Customer relationship management and the process that in involved for CRM and its real time application in general point of view. The report also discusses the sensitivity of Customer relationship management and the implementation of CRM in the cloud using a particular cloud model. In this report, the SaaS has been selected with private cloud, and a detailed report is presented with proper relevant figures. Various challenges that are faced while the cloud implementation in an organization or company is submitted. Moreover, the recommendation or suggestions are given at the end of the report to overcome the challenge that arises while implementing the cloud computing in any organizations. References Alryalat, H., Alhawari, S. (2014). Integration between Cloud Computing Benefits and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Processes to Improve Organization's Performance. International Journal of Cloud Applications and Computing (IJCAC), 4(1), 1-14. Brender, N., Markov, I. (2013). 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