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Starting Situation
Once the reorganization was successfully completed in the business throughout all business units, the Head of Existing Customer Management and his new team based in various locations with a new organizational structure and targets asked themselves the questions:
- Am I on the right track with my CRM topics?
- Is my CRM in a good position to face the future?
Especially in the energy industry in which the business operates competition for customers is becoming tougher all the time, and the potential of customers who are still supplied by the major utility carrier in their area is very high.
Approach
Thus, b.telligent was retained to screen the Existing Customer Management by means of a Customer Intelligence (CIN) Quick Check. The goal was to determine the actual maturity level in the segments campaign management, analytics, reporting and customer processes in order to derive a roadmap for the development towards the target maturity level. In addition, the concept for a management cockpit with the required indicators was developed in order to thus monitor and manage the CRM activities.
Strategy
After a strategy workshop which was held in order to define the main points of focus interviews and live sessions were held with internal experts from the various departments.
The internal processes, the customer processes, the technical infrastructure with all CIN-relevant systems, in particular in the segment of campaign management, were documented, and evaluated; measures to aid the further development were identified. The existing CRM system architecture was compared to the functional CRM reference architecture developed by b.telligent in order to ensure that all key functionalities which are required by a progressive existing customer management are in place or that their introduction is planned.
Particular emphasis was placed on the data-driven support of the customer processes such as next best offer and customer win-back.
To this end, a project for establishing a customer-centered DWH was promoted and the project application was supported with a business case.
In the course of this project, the next step is to also evaluate and implement systems for campaign management (possibly with document/content management system, connection to an email service provider), analysis and reporting in order to complete the functional system environment. In this context, the “Best of Breed” approach is taken which ensures the best possible functional coverage of the department’s requirements for each department.
In order to assist the Existing Customer Management, a management cockpit with indicators from the segments customer, products, channels, campaigns and processes was designed and their definitions were determined in order to be able to take action at an early stage and to optimize processes. The cockpit will be realized in the next phases.
Overall, the strongest levers and the most important value-drivers have been identified and all measures have been prioritized in a roadmap in order to then realize them step-by-step until the end of 2014. As desired, the project was successfully completed within 1.5 months.
Learnings and Outlook
For the further implementation of the roadmap it is vital that the responsible project manager knows both the internal processes and the IT guidelines, as he will substantially also assume the technical part.
Further, he will ensure that the substantive requirements continue to be the focus.
One of b.telligent’s principles has once again stood the test in this project: an early coordination and consideration of ongoing and planned projects as well as a close cooperation in joint or related topics. This is the only way to ensure that projects do not contradict each other and that the commissioned project becomes a success.
