2184400-161078 Reutlingen, 30.08.2018 AbstractThis master thesis aims at

2184400-161078Master thesis report on functionalities of CRM tools to optimize the customer journey touchpoints and enhance the sales & marketing capabilities for a B2B company by ensuring relevant exchange of information among customers and sales executives(30.06.

2018 – 30.08.2018)Master thesis towards the degree full time Master of Business Administration (MBA)In the study program International Management at ESB Business School, Reutlingen University, GermanyPresented by:Surendra Supriykumar BannerjiStudent ID Number: 7645461st Supervisor:Prof. Dr.

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Dennis De Economics, Entrepreneurship, ESB Business School, Reutlingen2nd Supervisor:Msc. Katharina KrügerCO/SMD Customer & Markets,thyssenkrupp AG, Essen Reutlingen, 30.08.2018AbstractThis master thesis aims at understanding how CRM functionalities enhance particularly the sales and marketing functionalities of a B2B company.

Currently, with the increasing trend of digitalization and digitization many B2B companies are resorting to strategies with focus on customers. Therefore, today, almost every B2B company is utilizing and implementing CRM tools for businesses to develop better relationship with customers, and thus generate higher revenues and profits. While understanding the value additions from CRM functionalities in the sales and marketing domains, this study also tries to map these functionalities with the customer journey for a B2B company. A customer journey is a process that every buyer or potential buyer undergoes before they make a final purchase. The customer journey is quite easy to imagine and comprehend for a B2C business where a lot of information is available online which influence the purchase decision, but in case of a B2B company, the customer journey is different with different touchpoints.

This study considers the phases of a customer journey like ‘attract’, ‘nurture’, ‘convert’, ‘close’ and ‘retain’ and analyzes which specific functionalities are most suitable in the respective phases so that in the end the customer journey becomes superior, the customer experience is enhanced and the company becomes successful in developing better relationships with existing customers and also attract new customers. In the end, this study also throws light upon the implementation challenges encountered during the implementation of CRM in a B2B company. An in-depth theoretical research is conducted for topics on CRM functionalities, implementation challenges, sales & marketing in B2B, customer journey and this literature research is then validated by conducting qualitative interviews with experts in the fields of CRM, BDS and change management.

Keywords: Customer journey in B2B, customer experience, CRM functionalities, sales & marketing, CRM implementation challengesAcknowledgementsWith the end of my master thesis, I would like to offer sincere thanks to everyone who has offered me the support for the success of this research.First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Dennis De for his unconditional support and effort and for constant guidance at every step of the research study which helped in getting clarity on the approach and methodology. I would like to specifically thank, my supervisor Katharina Krüger (CO/SMD) for her support and learnings received regarding the CRM and customer journey specific topics. I would also like to thank Anja Schlepper for arranging the expert interviews so swiftly and guiding me in terms of the structure and other relevant comments pertaining to the thesis.

Lastly, I highly appreciate all the thirteen interviewees who agreed to participate in my research study, I am indeed grateful. Copyright & Restriction NoteThis master thesis report contains confidential information and data of thyssenkrupp AG. Publication, release, or duplication in parts or in the whole without the written consent of the company is not permitted. Furthermore, disclosure of the information to anyone other than the official supervisory, university lecturers and examination board is not authorized.An inspection of this work by third parties requires the expressed permission of the author and thyssenkrupp AG. Table of Contents Contents TOC o “1-3” h z u Abstract PAGEREF _Toc523327599 h 2Acknowledgements PAGEREF _Toc523327600 h 3Copyright & Restriction Note PAGEREF _Toc523327601 h 4List of figures and tables PAGEREF _Toc523327602 h 7List of abbreviations PAGEREF _Toc523327603 h 81Introduction PAGEREF _Toc523327604 h 91.

1Background PAGEREF _Toc523327605 h 101.2Research question and sub questions PAGEREF _Toc523327606 h 151.3Purpose & objective PAGEREF _Toc523327607 h 162Theoretical research PAGEREF _Toc523327608 h 172.1B2B sales and marketing PAGEREF _Toc523327609 h 172.

2Customer journey and customer experience PAGEREF _Toc523327610 h 192.3Customer journey mapping with touchpoints PAGEREF _Toc523327611 h 222.4Customer Relationship Management (CRM) PAGEREF _Toc523327612 h 242.5CRM functionalities in the sales & marketing domain PAGEREF _Toc523327613 h 282.6CRM implementation challenges and critical success factors PAGEREF _Toc523327614 h 322.

7Conceptual research framework PAGEREF _Toc523327615 h 353Methodology PAGEREF _Toc523327616 h 373.1Thesis research & methodology PAGEREF _Toc523327617 h 373.2Qualitative data collection PAGEREF _Toc523327618 h 384Results & Analysis PAGEREF _Toc523327619 h 415Discussion PAGEREF _Toc523327620 h 475.

1Future work PAGEREF _Toc523327621 h 475.2Validity, reliability and limitation of research PAGEREF _Toc523327622 h 486Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc523327623 h 497Bibliography PAGEREF _Toc523327624 h 55Declaration of authorship of an academic paper PAGEREF _Toc523327625 h 60List of figures and tablesFigure 1: Aspects of changing customer behaviorFigure 2: The 3C framework for digital salesFigure 3: Complex structure of a customer journeyFigure 4: Streamlined customer journey with touchpointsFigure 5: – Contextual analysis of inward-centered CRM worldviewsFigure 6: Research model by (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011)Figure 7: Research model with path co-efficient (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011)Figure 8: Conceptual framework of factors affecting CRM adoptionFigure 9: Conceptual framework of CRMFigure 10: CRM implementation challenges and critical success factorsFigure 11: Streamlined customer journey for B2B company with touchpointsFigure 12: Focus customer journey phases and functionalities Figure 13: All functionalities mapped in the respective phases of the customer journeyFigure 14: Conclusive model of CRMFigure 15: CRM types mapped in the customer journeyFigure 16: B2B customer journeyTable 1: List of intervieweesList of abbreviationsMT Master ThesisMBA Master’s of Business AdministrationESB European School of Businesstk thyssenkrupp AGBA Business AreaBU Business UnitOEM Original Equipment ManufacturerCO/SMD Corporate, Strategy Markets ; Development C;M Customers ; Markets EPC Engineering Procurement ConstructionCRM Customer Relationship Management OLAP Online analytical programming B2B Business to BusinessB2C Business to ConsumerB2G Business to Government BDS Business Development ; SalesGE General ElectricIT Information TechnologyKAM Key Account ManagerCJM Customer Journey Mapping Introduction “The future of communicating with customers rests in engaging with them through every possible channel: phone, e-mail, chat, Web, and social networks. Customers are discussing a company’s products and brand in real time. Companies need to join the conversation” Marc Benioff, Co-Founder and CEO of salesforce.com”Get closer than ever to your customers.

So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves” Steve Jobs, former CEO of AppleToday, businesses are complex and the dynamism observed in the market makes it all the more challenging. Amidst these challenges, it is important to focus on sales and profitability and the businesses formulate and implement strategies to ensure top line and bottom line growth. The attributes like quality and pricing are very competitive and now businesses are looking at ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Focusing on customers, customer experience and building and maintaining strong customer relationship emerged out to be ways of having competitive advantages. With the advent of the digitalization wave, the emphasis on customer needs and customer relationships has gained momentum. A B2B company is an entity or enterprise involved in business transactions between other businesses, such as one involving a manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer. This form of transaction is usually conducted between other enterprises rather than between companies and consumers. Other types of business models are business to consumer (B2C) and business to government (B2G) transactions. Among B2B companies there are different types, companies like BASF, Bayer, Shell etc. are B2B companies but product portfolio is linked to one another, by and large.

Another type of B2B companies are the ones like Siemens, GE, thyssenkrupp etc. who have equally large product portfolio but not all the products are linked to one another and the sales processes, customers and business models individually differ. This study considers a Business-to-Business (B2B) company with diverse business portfolio and evaluates how Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and functions can enhance a customer journey and sales and marketing capabilities for B2B companies. Background In the past, marketing strategies have given prime importance to agendas involving from increasing market share to increase profits, and focusing primarily on transactional mass selling. But today, it has become quite evident that retaining current customers and increasing sales with current clients is far more cost-efficient CITATION LJe04 l 1031 (L. Jean ; Neeley, 2004).For a large number of B2B companies across many sectors, the growing influence of customer-experience strategies and the bold moves of customer-centric leaders pose a critical challenge. Traditionally, winning in the B2B arena had been a matter of being in the right markets, offering superior products and services, or being the lowest-cost producer.

As these advantages have come under threat from increasing global competition, many players have invested in functional excellence. But while these benefits are substantial, these are dissipating quickly as competitors tap the increased mobility of labor markets and expanded access to knowledge. CITATION Mae17 l 1031 (Maechler, Poenaru, Von Collenberg, ; Schulze, 2017)Recently, many B2B companies are focusing on digitization and digitalization tools to succeed with customer-centric strategies. Customer-centric strategies, which were once used extensively by only business-to-consumer players like Amazon and Google, are now fundamentally changing the complicated landscape of business-to-business relationships, too. For example, the chief executive of a global chemical business producer recently announced at a top-management meeting that the company could no longer afford to deliver “a subpar experience” to its customers and therefore would focus on a customer-experience transformation encompassing all operative functions CITATION Mae17 l 1031 (Maechler, Poenaru, Von Collenberg, ; Schulze, 2017). What do my customers want? This is the question that every executive of a B2B company asks and that the most experienced executives are asking more frequently than ever. Customers, today, are empowered with technology which has given unprecedented control over the experience of purchasing goods and services.

The buying process is increasingly hypercompetitive, and always dynamic with many channels, touchpoints and individual interactions. Every customer expects high degree of customer satisfaction which was previously expected from B2C companies but now customers expect this even from the sleepiest corners of markets across all industries. Therefore, leading B2B companies are trying to differentiate themselves through technology CITATION Dun16 l 1031 (Duncan, Fanderl, Maechler, ; Neher, 2016). Industry-leading B2B companies have to respond to intensifying global competition by putting customer-centricity and experience at the heart of their strategy and using technology tools to get competitive advantage. This often leads to changes in the business model: Monsanto, for example, is transforming itself with an online platform from a supplier of seed and crop-protection products to a productivity partner, providing advice on subjects ranging from product selection to sowing and harvest timing. In the industrial-equipment sector, Atlas Copco has a similar strategy, with a platform supporting customers in the selection, purchase, operation, and maintenance of their equipment CITATION Mae17 l 1031 (Maechler, Poenaru, Von Collenberg, ; Schulze, 2017). Most of the B2B companies therefore operate in complex, highly unsettled business environments where customers increasingly dictate the rules. According to a research conducted by McKinsey;Company in 2016, 75% of the customers of a B2B companies, expect “now” service, within five minutes of making contact online.

Similar percentages want a simple experience and use comparison apps when they shop for consumer goods. Moreover, customers not only expect B2B companies to do business on digital platforms but also expect a smooth customer experience with multiple touchpoints. The customers give a lot of importance and trust online reviews as in personal recommendations. CITATION Dun16 l 1031 (Duncan, Fanderl, Maechler, ; Neher, 2016)Figure 1: Aspects of changing customer behaviorSource: McKinsey ; Co. Many B2B companies have already understood the fact that it is no longer enough to compete on products or services but to focus on customer experience and customer satisfaction in order to retain and obtain customers.

Companies have to make it easier for new and existing customers to connect in multiple ways. The best possible way would be to design and adapt to processes, cultures, and mind-sets to manage the entire customer experience skillfully—which will benefit not only consumers but also employees and the bottom line CITATION Dun16 l 1031 (Duncan, Fanderl, Maechler, ; Neher, 2016). Customer experience encompasses every aspect of a company’s offering—the quality of customer care, advertising, packaging, product and service features, ease of use, and reliability. However, in product businesses, the different operations cater to different aspects of customer experience, for example, product development defers to marketing when it comes to customer experience issues, and both usually focus on features and specifications. Operations department is mainly concerned with quality, timeliness, and cost. The customer service team personnel tend to concentrate on the unfolding transaction but not its connection to those preceding or following it. Ironically, at the end, the service rep asks, “Is there anything else I can help you with?” CITATION Mey07 l 1031 (Meyer & Schwager, 2007) Sometimes companies fail to understand the importance of customer journey and customer experience. On the other hand, many companies collect and quantify data on it but don’t circulate the findings and derive definite improvement areas.

According to another survey of Bain ; Company of the customers of 362 companies, only 8% of them described their experience as “superior,” yet 80% of the companies surveyed believed that the experience they have been providing is indeed superior. This wide disparity then results in fewer improvement measures. But today, consumers have a greater number of options than ever before, more complex choices, and more channels to pursue the options CITATION Mey07 l 1031 (Meyer ; Schwager, 2007). A lot of companies fail in delivering a compelling customer experience because managers at these companies think in very narrow terms, focusing only on individual topics and forgetting about the overall system for delivering value. This results in excelling in a few of the customer interfaces but not the entire experience, both before and after the purchase. Another group of companies focus on fixing the operations but do not consider the customer perspective on operations.

And most organizations still tend to underestimate the importance of the internal cultural changes needed to achieve and sustain a new approach to the customer experience CITATION Dun16 l 1031 (Duncan, Fanderl, Maechler, ; Neher, 2016). However, there are a few companies who have zeroed in on customer experience and are spending a lot of resources to use digitalization and digitization and as a result have access to myriad data. Now the challenge is that, measuring customer experience does not necessarily indicate methods of improvement. Customer satisfaction is essentially the culmination of a series of customer experiences or, one could say, the net result of the good ones minus the bad ones CITATION Mey07 l 1031 (Meyer ; Schwager, 2007). It occurs when the gap between customers’ expectations and their subsequent experiences has been filled. Digitization and digitalization have been able to provide high-quality customer interactions a competitive differentiator, no matter the channel. Currently, the B2B selling models remain firmly planted in the offline world and company websites are rich in product descriptions and digital brochures but fail to provide an easy way for customers to buy. On one hand, sales teams are working harder to navigate deals, on the other hand, they lack the analytics needed to manage the sale profitably, understand who the real decision makers are, and what sorts of outreach might prove persuasive CITATION Cat16 l 1031 (Catlin, Harrison, & Plotkin, 2016).

But there are also few B2B companies who, instead of standing on the sidelines, have embraced the digital revolution. A few of them are also outpacing consumer companies in digitizing back-office workflows and resource planning and in modernizing their existing IT architectures CITATION Cat16 l 1031 (Catlin, Harrison, & Plotkin, 2016). These processes not only focus on internal cost and process efficiencies but also on innovation around sales and the customer experience—and that’s where the real growth is. Social media platforms like, social network sites, have become an instrument for digital meeting places for friends and acquaintances, even from the professional background, and are now viewed as significant communication areas where ideas and opinions are exchanged.

Social media support a range of social activities, including blogging, microblogging, photo-sharing, social networking, and video sharing CITATION Caw16 l 1031 (Cawsey ; Rowley, 2016). These platforms give the opportunity for individuals and businesses to capitalize on people’s networks which also lead to the concepts to word of mouth, electronically and physically as well. Advanced analytics gives them rapid customer insights, so they can move with unprecedented speed and agility. This in turn will make it difficult for B2B companies because they also have to deal with shrinking product shelf lives, greater price transparency, and a changing cost basis on the one hand while simultaneously growing the capabilities needed to create consumer-like experiences on the other, with personalized service and hassle-free purchasing across platforms and devices. Nontraditional players like Amazon Business and Alibaba are also trying to exploit this digital trend by providing business buyers with simple and convenient digital marketplaces CITATION Cat16 l 1031 (Catlin, Harrison, & Plotkin, 2016). Therefore, the right combination of digital and non-digital transformation to improve customer experience coupled with a holistic, cross-functional transformation of a company’s core, including its culture, enabled by digitization offers a significant opportunity for differentiation and competitive advantage. The key will be establishing the right balance between digital and human interaction in B2B’s more complex customer relationships.

CITATION Mae17 l 1031 (Maechler, Poenaru, Von Collenberg, & Schulze, 2017). A systemic tool to establish the right combination of digital transformation is CRM. It is primarily a tool designed extensively for sales professional to effectively manage customer relationships. The CRM tools and functionalities are used by sales managers to collaborate internally with sales representatives across the globe to get complete overview about customers and improve the efficiency of the sales processes CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011). Research question and sub questions This thesis examines different ways to enhance and improve the customer journey (experience) with the help of CRM tools. The concept of customer journey and CRM tools and functions is taken as a framework with emphasis on the improving the customer journey touchpoints to strengthen the existing relationships with customers and also acquire new customers. Keeping this view in mind, the research question is How do CRM tools functionalities optimize the customer journey touchpoints and enhance the sales & marketing capabilities for a B2B company by ensuring relevant exchange of information among customers and sales executives? To answer the main research question, there are a few sub questions, wherein the idea is to try and answer each of the questions and the consolidated view of the answers to these sub-questions will eventually answer the main research question.

The sub-questions are-How does the customer journey look like for a B2B product company?With the latest technological advancements and easy access to digital platforms, how has the customer buying behavior and pattern changed (evolved) as compared to previous years? What is CRM? Its tools & functionalities in the sales and marketing domain? How do these sales and marketing functionalities add value to various touchpoints of the customer journey for new and existing customers of a B2B company? What are the challenges and bottlenecks that can emerge or be envisaged while implementing CRM functionalities-based customer journey enhancement and what are the critical success factors?Purpose & objective The main purpose of the research is to understand different ways in which CRM can be successfully used to improve the customer experience in a customer journey. With so much importance given to customer experience and customer satisfaction, B2B companies are using the CRM tool to impact the customer journey through the sales and marketing capabilities. According to various studies, winning new customers can be up to five times more expensive than maintaining existing customer relationships. As a matter of fact there is a negative correlation between the defection of existing customers and company profits CITATION LJe04 l 1031 (L.

Jean & Neeley, 2004). CRM can ensure adequate sharing of information between customers and sales representatives through various digital platforms giving customers more access to company products and giving companies efficient ways to attract and retain more customers. From a theoretical point of view, the thesis aims at giving a clear picture of customer journey, customer journey touchpoints and functionalities associated with CRM. The relatively modern approach of customer journey is analyzed through the prism of the B2B company sales and marketing logics, thereby understating the theoretical framework of CRM for internal and external process operations improvement. From a more operational point of view, the purpose of this study is to understand the implementation challenges and bottlenecks for a B2B company.

Also, this thesis gives clarity on how the CRM tools can improve the sales and marketing operations which in turn helps to improve the customer journey of a B2B buyer. The study analyzes different dimensions of the CRM and the customer journey framework for a B2B company. A tangible result of the thesis will be validation of the theoretical frameworks, identify implementation challenges and recommend possible measures to overcome the challenges for a B2B company. Theoretical research This chapter addresses relevant knowledge, recent studies and theoretical concepts from respective scholars and academic sources. The examination of concepts like B2B marketing, customer journey mapping, CRM functions and implementation challenges is analyzed from a theoretical perspective is discussed which is followed by an outline of theoretical aspects and viewpoints that serve as a framework to approach the topic, and as a starting point for the data collection. The framework is preliminary as certain parts still need to be explored throughout this study. The framework is thus adaptive in nature but provides direction to the research.

First, the topic of B2B sales and marketing topic is discussed followed by introduction of the customer journey and a theoretical B2B customer journey mapping. Then the topic of CRM is introduced along with a conceptual illustration of the sales and marketing functions. Lastly, the potential challenges in implementation and focus steps for successful implementation concludes this theoretical research section. B2B sales and marketing Traditionally, sales in B2B scenarios have predominantly driven by sales representatives and key account managers (KAM). Even today, sales reps and KAMs are crucial links between buyers and sellers in B2B markets. They have the unique ability to link the needs of potential customers (accounts) with the offerings or solutions provided by their company and this skill is highly valued by global B2B companies.

According to a study by Zoltners, Sinha, and Lorimer (2012), they estimate that U.S. B2B firms spend approximately $800 billion annually on sales forces, or roughly 7% of sales, entrusting these salespeople “with a company’s most important asset: its relationship with its customers. These sales reps and KAMs have had established comfortable grip over their relationships with the customers and these customer relationships need to maintained and nurtured further CITATION Shi17 l 1033 (Shi, Sridhar, Grewal, ; Lilien, 2017).

Today, B2B sales are undergoing a revolution with a number of trends completely redefining the sales and marketing strategies for B2B companies over the next couple of years. Advanced analytics and machine learning have given sales reps and analysts access to historically unprecedented amounts of data and computing power, permitting them to predict sales leads and opportunities with a high degree of accuracy CITATION Col18 l 1033 (Colter, Guan, Mahdavian, Razzaq, ; Schneider, 2018). Many companies are using advanced analytics tools to radically improve their sales productivity and drive double-digit sales growth without significant additions in manpower and time resources. According to various research there is a significant gap between brand messages that suppliers offer to customers and what their customers really understand and perceive. The digital sales and marketing revolution have clear ramifications and impact on the consumer arena, as the current consumers feel empowered, but this revolution has also impacted the world of business-to-business (B2B) brand building.

B2B customers connect and engage with companies through search, online communities, and Web-based video, so these are potentially powerful tools for delivering B2B brand messages and brand impact CITATION Fre13 l 1033 (Freundt, Hillenbrand, ; Lehmann, 2013). There have been radical changes in buyers’ preferences, with buyers being more content-driven, technically savvy, and comfortable engaging via digital channels, and this has resulted in the rise of sales skills with not only technical expertise but also strategic mindset to exploit the digital platforms successfully. This particular transition has led to the way companies and organizations are structured and operated. The B2B companies have invested in analytics which supports the on-field sales team CITATION BRa16 l 1033 (B. Ramaseshan & Stein, 2016). The management consulting firm Roland Berger has introduced a three C framework to capture digital sales.

Figure 2: The 3C framework for digital salesSource: Roland Berger analysis 2015All B2B firms have always had the fundamental need to establish a strong customer relationship and with the emergence of the digital platforms this can be done in a more structured and transparent manner. Businesses still need to attract customers, build trust, and create satisfaction with the products and services and in order to accomplish this, building meaning and long-term relationships is the key. This results in B2B companies trying hard to treat customers as individuals by allowing them to control the timing and extent of buyer-seller interactions and through the customization of products and services. CITATION LJe04 l 1031 (L. Jean & Neeley, 2004).

As a matter of fact, customers today prefer a relationship-based marketing and sales technique rather than the transaction-based sales. Especially, in the service industry in a B2B context, customers often prefer KAM and sales representatives as a single point of contact, the person who understands their exact needs and with whom a personalized communication is possible CITATION Bon15 l 1033 (Bone, Fombelle, Ray, & Lemon, 2015). Lastly, a significant shift toward subscription-based business models has now redefined the methodology of customer relationship management. Today, a simple sale transaction is no longer a one-time “won and done” deal. B2B companies want recurring revenues and customers want better product quality and superior service. In this world of recurring revenues and customized need of customers, sales need to be won every month, quarter, and year. And therefore, sophisticated customer-relationship management tools are becoming increasingly more valuable, and sales teams are aligning themselves closely to the long-term success of their customers.

This has led to the exponential rise of CRM tools and functions in the sales and marketing process CITATION Col18 l 1031 (Colter, Guan, Mahdavian, Razzaq, & Schneider, 2018).Customer journey and customer experienceThe relationship between a customer and a seller is strengthened by emotional engagement achieved by interactive interfaces and entertaining devices, that empower customers with dynamic visualization of information. Here, technology is used to connect retailers and clients in a smart way with a common goal of achieving better customer dynamics and customer experience CITATION For18 l 1033 (Foroudi, Gupta, Sivarajah, & Broderick, 2018). The basic definition of a customer journey is a visual depiction of the sequence of events through which customers may interact with a B2B company during the entire purchase process right from the point when a potential customer thinks about buying the product to the point where the customer is using the product CITATION Ros17 l 1031 (Rosenbaum , Otalora, & Ramirez, 2017). Customer experience, on the other hand, can be defined as the perception or acknowledgment that results from the active observation or participation of a consumer in the buying process which can enrich the value of the products and services offered by any company CITATION For18 l 1033 (Foroudi, Gupta, Sivarajah, & Broderick, 2018). Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is an important driver for business success and competitive advantage and is therefore a focus area for across many B2B and B2C companies. Today, customers interact with companies through several touch points in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature.

This kind of dynamism has required companies to integrate multiple business functions, and even external partners in order to create and deliver positive customer experiences. CITATION Lem16 l 1031 ( Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). Customer experience and customer journey is indeed complex, dynamic and difficult to measure and gauge. They are multi-dimensional and dynamic in nature and encompass customer responses and customer behavior pertaining to all the interactions they have had with the B2B companies CITATION Hom15 l 1033 (Homburg, C., Jozic?, D.

, & Kuehnl, C, 2015). Customer experience is “holistic in nature involving the customer’s cognitive, affective, emotional, social and physical responses to any direct or indirect contact with the service provider, brand or product across multiple touchpoints during the entire customer journey” CITATION McC15 l 1033 (McColl-Kennedy, J.R., et al., 2015). The main aim to measure customer experience or evaluate customer feedbacks is to use the responses to ensure higher levels of product and service qualities to achieve long term customer loyalty CITATION Hom15 l 1033 (Homburg, C.

, Jozic?, D., & Kuehnl, C, 2015). Customer experience is both intrinsic and elusive and efforts to measure and manage it require a lot of research and analysis. Interactions with multiple stakeholders and resources external to the firm, including, other customers and intermediaries and also impact customer experience CITATION Lem16 l 1033 ( Lemon & Verhoef, 2016). However, since customer experience is difficult to gauge, customer satisfaction and/or product/service quality are widely considered as proxy measures of customer experience CITATION Hom15 l 1033 (Homburg, C., Jozic?, D., & Kuehnl, C, 2015). Many a times, companies focus on customer perceptions of interactions in a single customer journey.

This approach becomes relevant when the individual customer is the user, perhaps more relevant in a B2C context. But in a B2B context, there are additional complexities caused by multiple stakeholders and there is no longer one single customer but a series of people making the final decisions and different set of people actually using the product CITATION McC15 l 1033 (McColl-Kennedy, J.R., et al., 2015). Therefore, a single customer approach is unlikely to be helpful in a B2B context, where there are usually multiple stakeholders and end users. Thus, the notion of a singular journey is overly simplistic. For example, an automotive OEM buys parts from various suppliers where the buying decision is made by the procurement team while the end users of these parts are perhaps the quality people or the main customers driving the automobile CITATION Zol17 l 1033 (Zolkiewski, J.

, et al., 2017). For B2B companies, understanding how to measure customer experience is cardinal because of the importance of interpersonal interactions that most customers come across and the efforts by the B2B companies to build and maintain long-term relationships, as these relationships drive sustainable competitive advantage, through trusted network partnerships. Therefore, understanding customer experience in a B2B context is crucial CITATION Mey07 l 1033 (Meyer & Schwager, 2007).

Considering a B2B scenario, capturing customer experience is more complicated because the customer experience is derived from direct and indirect interactions between suppliers, client and end users, and also other stakeholders involved in customer interaction. Thus, the result of such kind of customer experience measurement produces not only individual perceptions but rather a more holistic picture which can be categorized under the term ‘touchpoint’ CITATION Zol17 l 1033 (Zolkiewski, J., et al., 2017). Since in a B2B context there are multiple stakeholders, interacting in different ways with different sets of agendas and requirements depending on the role (e.g.

buyer versus user) and individual objectives, the path followed by these customers also differ CITATION Mik15 l 1033 (Mikolon, S., Kolberg, A., Haumann, T., & Wieseke, J., 2015). Therefore, there needs to be variety of customer journeys and identification of appropriate measures of customer experience that can evaluate this diverse customer journeys. Thus, to fully explore customer experience in a B2B context, these different and potentially conflicting customer journeys need to be carefully considered and evaluated CITATION And17 l 1033 (Martin, 2017), CITATION Eje16 l 1033 (Ejenas, 2016).

Customer journey mapping with touchpoints Customer journey mapping (CJM) is becoming a popular strategic management tool among the B2B industrial community to understand the myriad customer touchpoints and evaluate the customer experience at each touchpoint. Although, there is a lot of academic research done in this field and many managers and companies are using this technique, there still exists confusion as to how to create a customer journey map suitable to the specific sales process CITATION Ros17 l 1033 (Rosenbaum , Otalora, & Ramirez, 2017). Driven by the current momentum in the topic of customer journeys and customer experience, B2B companies have come up with different approaches to map the customer journey. According to these B2B companies, customer journey approaches are methods and practices where the product sales and service process is analyzed, modelled, managed, or (re)designed applying a customer journey perspective CITATION Føl18 l 1033 (Følstad & Kvale, 2018). CJM illustrates all possible organizational touch- points any customer may encounter during the sales/service exchange process. Detailed understanding of the customer touchpoints enables senior management to work with cross-functional teams and employ tactics that foster product and process innovation.

The primary aim of these tactics is to improve customer interactions by enhancing the customer experience associated with each touchpoint. Touchpoints are typically depicted horizontally on a customer journey map in conjunction with a process timeline. The timeline is then separated into three periods: pre-sales, sales, and post-sales CITATION Váz14 l 1033 (Vázquez, et al.

, 2014). It is not feasible for B2B companies to design an all-inclusive customer journey map that contains all possible touchpoints, because doing so can result in a highly complex customer journey map which can be difficult to comprehend and evaluate CITATION Ros17 l 1033 (Rosenbaum , Otalora, & Ramirez, 2017). The figure below shows a complex customer journey map relevant for a B2B company. Figure 3: Complex structure of a customer journeySource: Illustration from SAP Hybris Marketing, DeutschlandCustomer journey touchpoint mapping process is based on the common underlying assumption that each customer touchpoint is equally important and should be represented and managed with the same level of significance. Therefore, to eliminate the risks arising from this assumption, marketing research is linked to the CJM process which enables gathering customer information and identifying both critical and non-critical touchpoints CITATION Ros17 l 1033 (Rosenbaum , Otalora, & Ramirez, 2017). This paves the way for a simplified customer journey shown below. Figure 4: Streamlined customer journey with touchpoints Source: thyssenkrupp AG Customers & Markets internal analysisTo understand and prioritize the real touchpoints, it is also recommended to directly ask customers which touchpoints they go through when making their journey for a product/service required. This approach may require more time and resources at the beginning, but the trade-off for this effort will be outweighed by the benefits of the improved map’s simplicity and usability CITATION BRa16 l 1033 (B.

Ramaseshan & Stein, 2016). The customers today are empowered with various technology platforms and buying options. The customers control their journey through the purchase cycle more than vendors control the selling cycle. According to Forrester research, 74% of business buyers conduct more than half of their research online before making an offline purchase. This dynamism in the buying behavior changes the role of B2B marketing in a fundamental way and B2B marketers are engaging with customers through various possible touchpoints in the customer journey, example, through digital and social channels, from peers, on YouTube, at events, and through your sales reps, trying to influence the decision-making process.

There are different approaches to achieve this influencing strategy because some buyers prefer to engage with a sales representative while others prefer educating themselves through professional contacts and peer-created content; and the rest are comfortable doing research on vendor websites. Therefore, the customer journey touchpoints become important CITATION Wiz15 l 1033 (Wizdo, 2015). This concept of customer journey mapping with touchpoints is a part of the digitalization wave in the B2B industrial community and the customer journey is directly and indirectly linked to various multi-channel, multi-interface, high tech, low tech customer-client interfaces. The crux of the idea is the challenge to simultaneously comprehend and strengthen current and future customer experiences as customers move from one touchpoint to another.

To accomplish this task, analytics tools are required. Tools that can absorb and evaluate data to support key decisions to enhance overall customer experience CITATION Gri16 l 1033 (Grillo, 2016). Customer Relationship Management (CRM)CRM is a technology that blends sales, marketing, and service information systems to establish partnerships with customers. It is designed to depict a realistic picture of customer relationships at various touch points in the customer journey where the customers and B2B companies interact. CRM can be considered as a set of business processes formulated for companies to establish better relationships with its customers enabling companies to learn more about the customers and markets in order to deliver better quality products and greater value of service CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011). In the past, CRM was often seen as a ‘quick fix’ IT project proposal implemented by consultancies. According to Bergeron, CRM ‘was born around 1997’ and many researchers claim that CRM evolved from total quality management in the 1980s.

A few scholars recognize the strategic and technological focus of CRM while others claim that CRM has its original roots evolved from relationship marketing concepts. In this way the idea or concept of CRM has evolved over the last decade, but there are different approaches and theories surrounding its evolution CITATION Maa15 l 1033 (Maarit Lipiäinen, 2015). Today, developments in the field of information technology combined with the demand from managers have increased the use of CRM. B2B businesses using CRM to segregate the market and identify target customers.

Various industrial segments, from financial to engineering to aviation and healthcare are routinely using CRM systems Businesses to capture and manage customer data as a means of improving customer acquisition and retention levels. Companies are leveraging CRM’s potential to enhance business performance CITATION Mea12 l 1031 ( Meadows & Dibb, 2012). The aim of CRM is to streamline business processes and assist in formulation of strategy for customer in order to build client loyalty and long-term profitability. The general premise of sales force technology, such as CRM, is to enable sales representatives and marketing professionals to become more effective and efficient with access to customer and market data. CRM technology tools assist in reducing sales cycle time and increase the sales turn around / conversion rate. B2B companies that are implementing CRM are potentially looking for benefits like improved efficiency in sales processes; increased productivity in sales, marketing, and customer support and the ability to record and understand customer needs CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011).

According to CITATION Law17 l 1033 (Lawson-Body & Limayem, 2017), there are seven major CRM components identified: 1) customer prospecting, 2) relations with customers, 3) interactive management, 4) understanding customer expectations, 5) empowerment, 6) partnerships, and 7) personalization. There are obviously two domains of CRM; CRM for B2B companies and CRM for B2C companies. As discussed in previous sections of this research study, B2B products and sales processes are indeed complex and so will the complexity of CRM for B2B. For any B2B company, marketing and sales is more of developing and maintaining the relation with customers while B2C firms are more transactional per customers.

Therefore, understanding CRM for B2B industry requires understanding of organizational and social structures and interdependencies of business operations CITATION Lab10 l 1033 (Labus & Stone, 2010). There are various dimensions, school of thought and frameworks pertaining to CRM. According to CITATION Lab10 l 1033 (Labus & Stone, 2010), there primarily exists three. First one is the managerial CRM which focuses on formulating, nurturing and sustaining customer relationships with access to appropriate customer and market data. Second one is the IT & processes framework where the technology side of CRM is explored and evaluated, for example, the IT infrastructure required for CRM tools and the implementation challenges trying to integrate different IT processes. The third dimension is focuses on market and stakeholders where the CRM systems give knowledge and insights about the external factors of a business. The iterative end result of such comprehensive analysis is that there is no unifying CRM model embracing the unification of CRM holistically, but distinct models exists with partly overlapping and dis-unified CRM ideologies but with the core fundamental principles remaining constant.

The figure below tries to consolidate different dimensions and school of thoughts from various academicians and research scholars. Figure 5: – Contextual analysis of inward-centered CRM worldviewsSource: CITATION Lab10 l 1033 (Labus & Stone, 2010)There is another side of CRM that is also relevant considering the B2B scenario and that is the social media aspect or social CRM. The ideological principle of social CRM takes CRM ahead by capturing the changes brought about by the digitization and digitalization of the communication landscape CITATION Wan17 l 1033 (Wang, Rod, Ji , & Deng, 2017). Social CRM can be defined as a ‘philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment’ CITATION Gre10 l 1033 (Greenberg, P., 2010). According to the definition, social CRMhighlights the re-invention of company values and engages and manages dialogues rather than managing customers. Customer engagement involves establishing a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the customers that continue over a period of time CITATION Maa15 l 1033 (Maarit Lipiäinen, 2015). Social media is not just one channel but a motley of various channels and platforms meant for communication.

Today, social media includes a wide range of customer engagement forums like basic blogs, discussion boards, chatrooms, forums, moblogs (sites containing digital audio, images, movies, or photographs), and social networking websites. These can be summed up under the category of word of mouth forums CITATION Man09 l 1033 (Mangold & Faulds,, 2009). According to CITATION Kap13 l 1033 (Kaplan & Heanlein, 2010), there are six different types of social media platforms: collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia, OhMyNews), blogs (blogs, podcasts, and Twitter), content communities (e.g. YouTube and Flickr), social networking sites (e.g.

Facebook and LinkedIn), virtual game worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft) and virtual social worlds (e.

g. Second Life and Habbo). There are also internal social media applications used in companies, ex. Salesforce.com CITATION And12 l 1033 (Andzulis, Panagopoulos, & Rapp, 2012). Now-a-days, CRM is being a part of a company’s core activity and has gained significant momentum with the advent of digitalization and industry 4.0 trends. However, like mentioned earlier, the main goal of CRM will always remain the same, to enhance customer relationships, because understanding and evaluating customers is crucial and requires different business operative functions to work in tandem and ensure that the company is able to deliver maximum value to customers CITATION Maa15 l 1033 (Maarit Lipiäinen, 2015).

There are definitely advantages and benefits of CRM integration with processes. CRM helps business streamline the manufacturing, distribution and selling of products and services. It not only reduces administrative and quality management costs but also improves the efficiency of marketing. Other features include reducing the cost and effort of order entry by giving large customers access to ordering functionality or stock data and option of tracking the status of order CITATION EYu03 l 1033 (E., Zeng, Wen, & Yen, 2003). CRM functionalities in the sales & marketing domainCRM as a tool has many features of marketing automation and sales automation with emphasis on business processes. The focus is on managing, improving and facilitating sales, support and related interactions with customers, prospects, and business partners throughout the sales buying process. Broadly speaking, a well- designed CRM tool involves the following characteristics of relationship management, salesforce automation, technology & system integration and opportunity management.

Relationship management features include instant service response based on customer input, one-to-one solutions to customers’ requirements, direct online communications with customer anytime and anywhere, and customer service centers that help customers address the specific queries regarding products or services. Salesforce automation functionalities include automation of sales promotion analysis, automatically tracking a client’s account history for repeated sales or future sales, and coordinating sales, marketing, call centers, and retail outlets. In any B2B business there are plethora of IT systems being used for various business operations and the feature of technology and system integration delivered by CRM provides valuable support. According to International Data Corporation, IT services industry will make billions over the next couple of years by assisting companies integrate their information systems with business processes. An example would be applying data-warehousing technology to aggregate transaction information, to merge the information with CRM solutions, and to provide key performance indicators. Also, the opportunity management features include flexibility to manage unpredictable growth and market demand of products with a sophisticated forecasting model integrating sales history with sales projections CITATION Wan17 l 1033 (Wang, Rod, Ji , & Deng, 2017). CRM software are user defined and user friendly enabling automatic tracking of events, meetings, reminders, promises, integration features with the activity managers, electronic filing cabinet by company, inbound/outbound call handling, and one click exit to any other user function CITATION Cal15 l 1033 (Callaghan & Valos, 2015). The CRM software is designed to support an intuitive issue tracking, project collaboration and communication system that provides a central area for project teams to identify and collaborate on problems, develop action plans, and reach resolutions.

Sales & marketing teams use the threaded collaboration feature to trace the history and sequence of conversations on virtually all customer and project issues occurring during the project lifecycle. This functionality of CRM helps in onboarding new team members quickly up-to- speed and for documenting the decision-making process CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011). CRM tools basically assist sales people of a company to manage customer relationships by collecting, analyzing, and distributing information that enhances prospecting, improves communication and sales, and delivers tailored product configurations CITATION Hun06 l 1033 (Hunter & Perreault, 2006). Another dimension of CRM tool is the provision to share critical client information with other functional departments and colleagues within an organization. This feature of CRM helps in coordinating and collaborating with other departments leading to internal transparency of business operations. This enables sales professional to better serve their clients and provide information to management in real time CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr.

, 2011). B2B companies have significant focus on customers as companies want better relationships for continued business. To achieve this, collaborating with peers and other functions is vital and CRM tools assist in collaboration and integration. These two aspects enable sales professionals in a company to align to business processes and simultaneously develop new methodologies based on specific customer needs CITATION Ing04 l 1033 (Ingram, 2004). CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011) designed five different hypotheses in pertaining to CRM, sales performance and collaboration. The hypotheses and diagrammatic representation are given below.

H1: Utilization of CRM leads to increased performance with customers.H2: Utilization of CRM leads to increased sales process effectiveness.H3: Utilization of CRM increases the ability to collaborate internally with peers and management.H4: Collaboration positively mediates increased performance with customers.H5: Collaboration positively mediates increased sales process effectiveness.

Figure 6: Research model by CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011)The regression of customer performance on the antecedent constructs ‘CRM utilization and collaboration’ produced an R2 (path co-efficient) of .488 (p < .01), which means the model explains 48.8 percent of the variance in performance with customers.

Both constructs were statistically significant, with collaboration having the largest effect with a path coefficient of .525 (p < .01). Similarly, the regression of sales process effectiveness on the antecedent constructs ‘CRM utilization and collaboration’ produced an R2 of .477.

In combination, these constructs accounted for 47.7 percent of the variance in sales process effectiveness. CRM utilization is statistically significant and had the largest effect with a path coefficient of .650 (p < .01). Figure 7: Research model with path co-efficient CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr., 2011)Therefore, as shown in the above figure, all the hypothesis from H1-H4 were supported and proved true but only H5 was not supported due to lower path co-efficient 0.

076, or 7.6% of the variance in sales process effectiveness. According to the B2B Sales Index, a sales professional spent twice as much time on pre-sales analysis with other internal departments within their company and therefore, improving functional relations between departments is crucial CITATION Mal00 l 1033 (Maltz & Kohli, 2000). Co-ordination among sales departments and other internal functions like marketing, production, and customer support helps companies provide higher service levels, customized solutions, and increased customer value CITATION EYu03 l 1033 (E., Zeng, Wen, & Yen, 2003).Academic research also suggest that CRM systems improve the sales professional’s ability to communicate clearly with new and existing clients thereby improving the ability to win more business by understanding the customer and their needs. Thus, CRM tools and functionalities bridge the gap between customers and companies and ensures internal collaboration and thus impacting the sales performances CITATION Rod11 l 1033 (Rodriguez & Honeycutt Jr.

, 2011). CRM implementation challenges and critical success factorsThe previous sections of the study explain the CRM concept and the various functionalities offered by the tool. This section discusses various challenges encountered during the CRM implementation stage and also talks about the critical factors required for a successful implementation of CRM. Currently, many B2B companies have started using CRM tools, although the extent of usage and coverage does vary, but almost every company does face myriad implementation problems. B2B companies start on the CRM journey with market segmentation to identify and target attractive customers but from this departure point, some companies progress to using relationship marketing ideas to gain customer closeness, before moving on to implementing full CRM systems, while others lag behind with technology and company bottlenecks.

Hence, the progress shown by organizations vary and with little uniformity in CRM uptake or consistency in the achieved outcomes. The lack of uniformity in CRM driven outcomes can be blamed to the significant gaps in understanding the CRM implementation concept and what particular results do firms want to achieve in the end CITATION Mea12 l 1031 ( Meadows & Dibb, 2012). The myriad implementation problems and barriers also arise because too often CRM implementation is focused on the software features without an in-depth understanding of the issues of integrating culture, process, people, and technology within and across an organization. Therefore, the challenge is to integrate CRM successfully within the people, processes, operations and technology to extract maximum value CITATION Kra09 l 1033 (Krasnikov, Jayachandran, & Kumar, 2009). According to CITATION Ngu07 l 1033 (Nguyen, Sherif, & Newby, 2007), there are three main reasons for the failure of CRM implementation. First, when there is a clear disconnection in CRM vision and its execution, i.

e. a lack of understanding the definition of CRM. Ideally, it is a mix of technical and business strategy to increase the value of customer relationship. Second, poor leadership for CRM project drivers also cause serious impediments in the implementation process. Less motivated or less experienced leaders driving the CRM projects across business units in a company significantly reduce the pace of implementation. Lastly, insufficient support from CRM vendors also cause serious delays in the implementation process.

CRM vendors should not only highlight the important functionalities offered by their respective tool but the vendors should also be knowledgeable enough to advise the companies as to how these functions can actually add value to the business operations. Other researchers like CITATION Kim12 l 1033 (Kim, Park, Dubinsky, & Chaiy, 2012) point out that the implementation challenges include restrictive organizational structure, inflexible corporate culture, poor understanding of the customer base, unsuitable or inflexible technological resources, lack of real benefits for customers and limited HR policy around training/recruitment. These aspects reflect the social and structural issues involved in building relationships as well as harder technological issues CITATION Mea12 l 1033 ( Meadows & Dibb, 2012). These challenges or bottlenecks can be succinctly captured in the 5-S framework constituting staff, style, structure, systems, and schemes. The first two of which can be described as the cognitive elements or software of strategy, while the other three elements are termed under technical elements or the hardware of strategy CITATION Osa07 l 1033 (Osarenkhoe & Bennani, 2007).

The next important element to solve the implementation challenges is to understand the critical success factors for successful CRM implementation. CITATION Mea12 l 1033 ( Meadows & Dibb, 2012) highlight three priorities: (1) identifying the critical elements for CRM success; (2) identifying the main moderators that influence the CRM implementation and success relationship; and (3) considering what can be learnt from organizations which have been successful in their CRM strategies. For CRM implementation teams of B2B companies it is essential to understand industry’s best practices and simultaneously the adaptation capability of their respective organizations. The recommended critical success factors by CITATION Ngu07 l 1033 (Nguyen, Sherif, & Newby, 2007) areStrategic context: The organization should understand how CRM fits into the context of the company’s overall business strategy.Capabilities assessment: The assessment is to be done to confirm the company’s current CRM capabilities.Business case development: The organization needs a good reason to implement CRM other than new technology fever.Implementation plan creation: Create and execute a plan, which clearly defines how to achieve the goal and execute it.

Figure 8: Conceptual framework of factors affecting CRM adoption CITATION Wil16 l 1031 (Williams, Nicholas , & Naumann, 2016)Conceptual research framework There are numerous research scholars who have studied and worked in the field of CRM. Different researchers have varied opinions and standpoints. Having consolidated these viewpoints from previous research studies, this thesis presents a conceptual framework for CRM. Figure 9 shows the conceptual framework established through the theoretical research. The main idea is to validate this theoretical framework against the insights from the interviews conducted and then formulate one final concise framework which will then be mapped with which specific phase of the customer journey does it correspond to. For example, the analytical dimension of CRM is currently being used in which phase of the customer journey and which are the other phases where this dimension could be used will be evaluated in the discussion and results section of this study.

In this way, which specific dimension of CRM can actually enhance the sales and marketing capabilities of a B2B company can be understood. Figure 9: Conceptual framework of CRMFigure 9 depicts a perspective of CRM where it can be broadly classified into IT and Business domains. The IT essentials consists of infrastructure support and system integrations. The Business domain focuses on the business processes and the analytical insights that can be drawn from the customer and market data. The business process dimension can be further categorized into operational CRM and collaborative CRM.

Operational CRM intends to streamline and refine day-to-day business operations like ERP, HR processes etc. to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes. While, collaborative CRM ensures different business functions are integrated to ensure transparency and smooth operations. The analytical CRM targets sales and marketing functions particularly to give detailed insights about the customers and markets through functionalities like sales forecasting models, customer and marketing segmentation models etc. The conceptual framework shown in figure 9 conveys the fact that all the research and efforts in the field of CRM revolve around the dimensions and domains mentioned in the framework.

The figure 10 below is used to sum up the challenges encountered during the implementation of CRM and the critical success factors required for a successful implementation of CRM. They are categorized into three types, strategic, tactical and operational. These challenges and critical success factors will also be validated, whether a B2B company actually faces similar challenges in the real-world scenario. Figure 10: CRM implementation challenges and critical success factorsMethodology In this chapter, the methodology and process used for conducting the research is discussed. The study is based on a qualitative approach which permits to generalize and draw individual conclusions which is suitable for exploring new and unknown areas of research. The results drawn from the qualitative data is then used to validate the concepts and framework derived from the theoretical research.

Thesis research & methodology A research study can be conducted with the help of either a deductive approach or an inductive approach, or even both. In a deductive approach the initial hypothesis is defined with the help of available theoretical research and then tested and verified with the results of the research. An inductive approach is conducted by an initial identification of a problem area or a research area which is then understood, examined and analyzed. This approach starts with data collection and then theories and frameworks are established, in contrast to the deductive approach wherein already established theories are validated.

In this thesis, parts of both approaches are used. The initial design frameworks and concepts are based on a deductive analysis of relevant theoretical frameworks obtained from theoretical research, with emphasis on CRM, customer journey and customer touchpoints in a B2B context. It is always beneficial to refer to parts of the existing theoretical frameworks in reference to the analysis of collected data, and then test it on the results of the study. In addition, inductive approach was used to reach few conclusions which are normally observed in a qualitative and exploratory research. The combination of both approaches gives a more vivid perspective on the research questions and sub questions. This thesis is based on a purely qualitative approach by conducting personal interviews of the relevant industry professionals. The research topic of this thesis is of an exploratory nature aimed at testing and generating new ideas in a new domain of CRM and customer journey in a B2B context.

Therefore, a qualitative approach makes logical sense as the data required to answer the research questions and sub questions could not be collected in a standardized and structured way like quantitative data. Also, the topics like customer journey and customer touchpoints are subjective and diverse depending on the nature of business and customers. A qualitative research also has the advantage of providing a general understanding of the research topic and the possibility to continuously re-define the expert interviews and other forms of data collection along with growing experience and knowledge. The knowledge likewise shaped the research study design and advocated certain data collection methods. In qualitative research, the subjective viewpoints act as a conceptual lens throughout the data analysis and exploration of findings. These viewpoints later on assists in re-defining or adjusting the concepts of CRM, customer journey and customer journey touchpoints.

The literature review revealed that customer journeys and its touchpoints differ across industries, products, geographies and contact platforms. Thus, in order to be specific, a B2B company is selected for reference. This company has diverse business areas and equally diverse product portfolio catering to multiple customer segments. Thus, specifying the type of company helps focus on the research questions and sub-questions in more detail and depth. Qualitative data collection Data collection in a qualitative approach scenario is used as an instrument referring to the assumptions / hypothesis made. As a result, the conclusions of a qualitative study are mainly based on the researchers own interpretation of the empirical data. Generally, there are two types of data collection techniques – primary and secondary.

Primary data is the original information collected by researchers with a specific agenda in mind, and usually includes interviews, surveys, observations and experiments. Secondary data is information collected for purpose that may differ from the researcher’s purpose, and include books, articles, journals and data from online websites. In this research, two primary data sources are used – internal observations and interviews, with latter having more emphasis. Internal observations include the analysis and data gathered, perhaps, during internship in a B2B company, because getting an inside company perspective contributes in understanding the processes and identifying bottlenecks in a corporate environment. As mentioned, the interviews were the main primary data source.

It is important to hear the respondents’ views and thoughts on the subject matter which enables to get details that is difficult to obtain from secondary research. A total of 13 interviews were conducted and the respondents and the organization are chosen to be anonymous. The roles and responsibilities and the industry segment to which each of these respondents belong is mentioned. Respondent Role & Responsibility Type of Company / IndustryA Business Development and Sales – Head of Customer and Sales Intelligence EPC- Industrial SolutionsB Digital project manager – CRM Corporate- B2B CompanyC Group Processes & Information Technology Manager Corporate- IT Digitalization ManagerD SMD- Customer & Markets Manager Corporate- Digitalization ManagerE SMD – Customer & Markets Manager Corporate- Digitalization ManagerF Technical Assistant to Managing Director Vendor- Implementation PartnerG Business Development and Sales – Head of Sales EPC- Industrial SolutionsH Business Development and Sales – Program Manager CRM EPC- Industrial SolutionsI SMD-BDS – Manager Business Development Automotive SupplierJ SMD – Project Manager CRM Automotive SupplierK Communications – Brand manager Corporate- B2B CompanyL SMD – Customer & Markets Manager Corporate- Sales ExcellenceM Business Development and Sales – Head of Business Intelligence EPC- Industrial SolutionsTable 1: List of intervieweesAs shown in table 1, a total number of 13 interviews were conducted, each scheduled for approximately 60 minutes.

A semi-structured interview conduction process was used wherein; the main questions to be asked had been predefined and communicated beforehand. However, the questions did vary depending upon the type of interviewee and their respective roles and responsibilities. The interview process started with general questions about CRM, relevance of IT, sales processes and then moved into specific questions about customer journey, touchpoints, CRM functions and implementation challenges. Based on the experience of the initial interviews, there is always the option to modify / tweak the process for better output. Few examples of questions asked were How is IT contributing in the current digitalization wave? What is the contribution of CRM in terms of digitalization in a B2B scenario? What are the challenges encountered in successful implementation of CRM in a B2B company? How has the customer buying behavior and pattern changed over the years? How can you link the CRM functions to a customer journey? A large selection of literature, articles, journals, reports, online data sources etc. were used as a secondary source of information, primarily to obtain a general understanding of relevant theoretical frameworks pertaining to CRM and customer journey touchpoints in a B2B context. As a part of the secondary research a lot of online websites of B2B companies were visited to understand the dynamics around customer touchpoints. The information gathered from secondary sources also helped in building a strong conceptual foundation for the primary research and establishing hypothesis.

The relevant secondary sources are cited in the text and a detailed description is mentioned in the Bibliography chapter. This study was conducted in a limited period of time of 6-8 weeks and the respondents were interviewed within a span of 2 weeks. However, a lot of efforts was involved in scheduling the interviews and formulating the correct questions based on the experiences and expertise of the respective interviewee.Results & Analysis This chapter contains the results and analysis of the qualitative data collected from the interviews. The approach is deductive, meaning that the concepts presented in chapter 2 are used as frameworks for the analysis, and tested on the results. The thirteen respondents interviewed belong to two specific industrial sectors, first is the automotive industry where the business area supplies automotive components to OEMs in the automotive industry and second is business area which provides EPC and technology licensing services to industries from various domains like cement, chemicals, oil & gas, mining, process industries, etc. For the above mentioned two specific business areas, the customer journey followed by a potential buyer along with the touchpoints is demonstrated below. This customer journey was formulated by the Customers & Markets team of thyssenkrupp AG and is particularly applicable for a B2B company.

Figure 11: Streamlined customer journey for B2B company with touchpointsSource: thyssenkrupp AG, Customers & Markets AnalysisThe first phase of the customer journey is the ‘attract’ phase where a stranger who is interested to enquire about a product tends to visit the product website, or consider a hearsay about the company or even come across representative of that company during a trade fair or workshop. These are the various touchpoints which convert a stranger to a visitor who now takes interest in the product and the company. Once the visitor is interested in the product and the company, he/she/customer now becomes a lead who is genuinely interested in buying the product/service and this is the second phase of ‘convert’. This lead now has to be converted into an opportunity and it undergoes the ‘nurture’ phase wherein the company ensures all relevant information about the product and prices reach the potential lead. The next is the ‘close’ phase wherein now there is no online platform involved but more of face-to face personal meeting to establish a relationship and rapport. For product and service clarification the potential customer typically expects on-call support and easy contact with the sales reps. So, these touchpoints in the ‘close’ phase needs to efficient. Lastly, the ‘retain’ phase is important to ensure that the customers not only become loyal to the company but also becomes an advocate of the product/service and spreads the word.

In B2B business, retaining customers is essential and companies use various methods like loyalty rewards, discounts, preferred customer status etc. to ensure customers are retained. Going further deep into the actual sales and marketing functionalities, the figure below mentions the functionalities in the respective phases of the customer journey. It is important to note that the customer journey and touchpoints mentioned above are subject to change depending on the type and nature of business.

For example, a B2B business would rarely rely on television ads to attract customers, and therefore the touchpoints differ. Like mentioned above, the customer journey taken into consideration consists of five phases starting from ‘attract’, ‘convert’, ‘nurture’, ‘close’ and ‘retain’ where a potential customer undergoes transformation from being a stranger to being a loyal customer. Currently, the CRM projects implemented are concentrated around the ‘nurture’ and ‘close’ phase of the customer journey. Figure 12: Focus customer journey phases and functionalities The CRM vendors like ITVT and Orbis not only assists in integrating various internal systems but also offer a wide range of functionalities. In the ‘nurture’ phase, there are five functionalities illustrated. Visit planning and reporting comes very handy to understand the level of engagement with the customer based on historical visit information and also helps in planning future interactions. The leads management functionality typically helps in prioritizing the leads/opportunities and then dedicate resources and time accordingly. While submitting a final quotation to a customer, there are inputs required from different stakeholders and different departments and it is important to have a seamless co-ordination.

CRM vendors also provide the functionality of product and service information suitable to specific customer also with the pricing data feature which is dynamic depending upon the customer, region etc. Similarly, in the ‘close’ phase, CRM vendors offer functionalities like order management wherein the planning and co-ordination for the next steps is done once the order is received from the customer. Also, the workflow integration is a similar functionality and assist in the post order receiving phase. The contract management functionality automatically reads the contract once it is uploaded and makes a note of important pointers like renewal date, conditional clauses etc. triggering an alert as and when necessary. As mentioned by various respondents, the buying center analysis is a crucial functionality as it helps understand the important decision makers in the customer organization and how and when to approach the selected professional. Lastly, the win/loss analytical feature helps to gauge the strengths, weaknesses and improvement areas within the organization to ensure higher bid conversion numbers. The CRM tools are designed with functionalities to add value at each and every phase of the customer journey.

In the diagram below, the functionalities offered by the CRM vendors is outlined in blue for the respective phase of the customer journey. These functionalities are not fully utilized by the business areas represented by the respondent group interviewed, but are the potential ones to be exploited in the future. The functionalities in the other respective phases are illustrated below. Figure 13: All functionalities mapped in the respective phases of the customer journeyIn the ‘attract’ phase, measuring and improving the company visibility and establishing an ease of contact is cardinal. There are touchpoints like google search ads, company websites and social media platforms and these touchpoints can be successfully managed by CRM tools.

The functionality of touchpoint optimization helps assessing the significance of various touchpoints through measuring their actual utility and prioritizing or even formulating new touchpoints based on market popularity. CRM functionalities also assists in marketing events planning and tracking the success or failure of these events. The ‘convert’ phase is basically used to convert a visitor or an enquirer into a lead and CRM functionalities can add value in many ways. For any B2B company, the customers and markets define the leads and CRM tools help in various customer segmentation and market segmentation methodologies. Currently, the segmentation is done on a simple excel sheet but CRM offers sophisticated analytical tools connecting various dynamic parameters like market growth, geographic potentials and generate a demand map for the product in question.

An important functionality to manage the ample customer data and information in one consolidated manner. It is possible to meet many executives from a single company across different geographical regions and a customer data management tool provided by CRM can help in keeping all information pertaining to a single client together at once place which will be easy to access. Simultaneously, managing contact data for the appropriate sales representative can also be handled by the CRM tools. Lastly, in the ‘retain’ phase CRM tools manage the customer feedback or customer complaints/issues which can help focus on the appropriate improvement directions for the product, service or the sales process in general. Based on the historical buying pattern of the customer, product upscaling and cross-selling is also a feature supported by the CRM tools wherein high-end products and complimentary products could be sold to a customer thereby enhancing the sales value. Also, for B2B businesses the contracts are long term and sometimes subject to renewal, especially the service and maintenance contracts, and an automatic triggered update can be helpful.

To retain existing customers, a structured mechanism to provide priorities and privileges to esteemed customers in terms of superior and quick service or discounts on selected products can be achieved through functionalities of CRM tools. In short, CRM can add value in every possible dimension relating to customers and therefore is of tremendous value for B2B companies. With respective to implementation challenges, all the respondents were very clear pointing out the bottlenecks. Depending upon the ongoing projects, future projects and complexity of the business processes and organizations involved, this study identifies top four major implementation challenges. Limited resourcesManagement driveEmployee acceptance and claritySystem integrationFirst challenge is the lack of resources, and this was pointed out by almost every respondent stating that for implementing a CRM project of such a large magnitude, manpower, time and monetary resources are extremely important. Second, the level of management support and drive required is also equally important and consistency is required.

For example, according to a few respondents, the management enthusiasm levels started decreasing as the intensity of the CRM projects increased. A clear management mandate and strong and consistence involvement is indeed the key. “The work force always appreciates the presence of management personnel in CRM workshops” – BDS, Head of Sales, EPC industryThird, the user/ employee acceptance is also a challenge because the workforce using the CRM tools find it difficult to migrate to new systems and this is where the change management team come into picture trying to explain the users “what’s in it for them?”. This challenge also arises from lack of clarity.

Concept clarity can be defined as a challenge when the various stakeholders, be it the user till the senior management have misaligned expectations from the CRM tools. The expectations and vision for CRM should ideally be uniform across hierarchies and well understood among business and IT personnel of any organization. Lastly, system integration is surely challenging, especially with bigger the organization, more complex the processes and here the management needs to decide whether it is appropriate to go with standardized or customized processes. “It is crucial for businesses to understand the importance of standardization and how it can assist in achieving better system integrations” – CRM ManagerThe literature research categorized the implementation success factors into into strategic, tactical and operational factors and lists in very detail, however, the respondents were very succinct in identifying four major implementation challenges listed above. On a practical basis, CRM managers encounter the challenges during the implementation process and in spite of trying to be extremely prepared to address the challenges, there are sometimes new challenges emerging out and need to be addressed on an ad hoc basis. Also, the theoretical research conducted always considered IT and system integration as another dimension of CRM, or rather an IT dimension of CRM but after conducting the interviews with the respondents, IT, system integration and compliance are the primary foundations of the CRM rather than being another dimension. Without a strong IT infrastructure, achieving a successful CRM implementation is challenging.

The theoretical research correctly mentions the CRM functionalities in the sales and marketing domain and these functionalities are also corroborated by the respondents and the research finally classifies the functionalities in the respective phases of the customer journey. Discussion Future work This research studied only two business areas, automotive and EPC industrial solutions, and there are more business areas to be studied in the future because the nature of the business is a key determinant of the CRM functionalities to be used. Also, the CRM processes can be standardized or can be kept as is with a high degree of customization depending on the business requirements, stakeholders, complexity and monetary resources, because there is a significant investment involved in IT systems and infrastructure and the return on investment is not very easy to quantify. In order to have a better 360° view of the customers, it is also important refine the existing customer journey framework, making it adaptable depending upon the business and specific operations, for example, sales, service etc. From the aspect of methodology, future work could be carried on evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency customer journey map.

This could involve gathering, analyzing and aggregating data from sales representatives, mid-senior level management, key account managers and most important the customers. Because in the end, it is the customer who follows the buying journey and is involved in different touchpoints to get in touch with the companies. Therefore, based on the information gathered from the respondents, the ideal next steps for a B2B company would be to first try and mitigate the implementation challenges encountered during the CRM implementation journey to ensure a smooth change process. These challenges are well documented in the results section of this study and are not very difficult to comprehend or anticipate. Second, the results section also point out that currently the interviewed business areas are focusing on the nurture and close phase of the customer journey while it is equally important to start focusing on the other phases because the CRM vendors are equipped with all kinds of functionalities to address these specific phases of the customer journey and now it will depend on the business areas, management inclination & drive, man-power resources and success of previous pilot projects to start venturing into the other phases. As a future area of research, the CRM framework presented in ‘Conclusion’ chapter can be used as a basis for further research on the dimensions of CRM.

Also, the functionalities mentioned for the respective phases of customer journey should be studied in more detail and perhaps establish new functionalities depending on specific B2B business areas. Validity, reliability and limitation of research Like mentioned above, the participants of this study only represent two business groups. One is the automotive sector while other is the EPC industrial solutions sector. It is also noteworthy to mention that the respondents interviewed come from a strong educational background and are highly experienced in their respective fields with not only in-depth knowledge about the business processes but also cognizance of latest CRM developments. No attempt was made to understand the ways and means to alleviate the implementation challenges and it is completely at the discretion of the organization to act accordingly as they see fit. Similarly, it did not consider specific implementation challenges arising during CRM implementation in the other three phases of the customer journey viz. attract, convert and retain.

However, it is safe to assume that there is surely over lapses in terms of the implementation challenges, because these are generic. Thus, the results of this study only a small portion of business areas in the entire B2B industry.Possible limitations of the study include limited theoretical research on customer journey specific to B2B companies. The literature research consists of studies on customer journey for specific industry domains like finance, telecom, retail etc. but not for a general B2B industry customer journey. Also, this study only looks at two business areas, the industrial solutions and automotive, study on more companies and other business areas will add greater value. Though the findings presented in this study are tentative, the purpose is neither to generate findings representing all B2B sectors nor to cover all the elements of a customer journey and CRM in the customer journey. This study was designed to get insights about the CRM functionalities in general and how these functionalities enhance the sales and marketing capabilities of a B2B company and two sectors were studied for this purpose.

To this point, the results of the research are still insightful and valuable. Conclusion Based on the analysis above, this chapter sets out the main conclusions to be drawn about study and answers the sub questions and the principal question of the thesis. The qualitative inputs from the respondents in conjunction with the theoretical research is summed up in the framework below which can be used for further research. Figure 14: Conclusive model of CRMIn the above figure, CRM is supported by three pillars. Operational, analytical and collaborative CRM. Operational CRM includes sales and marketing functionalities involving like managing customer information, website traffic, customer calls, customer visits/enquiries etc. and these are primarily focused on the initial phase of the customer journey. The analytical CRM consists of data mining, data warehousing and OLAP (online analytical processing) tools which assist is analyzing markets, customers, prioritizing leads/projects, analyzing win/loss projects and these are accomplished by data analysis.

Also, OLAP tools support online tracking of marketing events and customers activity. The analytical CRM is currently very actively used in the ‘nurture’ and ‘close’ phase of the customer journey. The last pillar is the collaborative CRM which is also considered to be the last stage of CRM wherein different business process functions are integrated to ensure smooth interdependency and transparency within businesses at a global level. The figure 15 below shows the types of CRM being used in respective phases of the customer journey.

Figure 15: CRM types mapped in the customer journeyCompliance and IT are the standard foundation blocks involving data governance regulations and IT infrastructure & tools respectively. IT will always be the base or the foundation of any CRM initiative and this is also observed in the theoretical research. It can be coupled with compliance in this case. The important point to be observed is that marketing and sales are the two business functions and CRM bridges the gap between them ensuring transparency. The sales and marketing domain consist of the different functionalities specific to business processes, be it automotive or EPC thereby focusing on external customers and market. Examples of the functionalities includes, customer and market segmentation, opportunity/ leads management etc. Thus, CRM connects the sales and marketing functions with an eye on adding value to customers. In the end, CRM still is a summation of IT and Business domains which is also evident from the theoretical research.

The responses from the interviews also made it clear that change management is extremely important to ensure appropriate employee acceptance in the CRM transition process. It involves conducting employee workshops not only to educate the workforce about the benefits of CRM in sales but also to understand and alleviate the implementation challenges encountered by the users. Sub-question: 1How does the customer journey look like for a B2B product company?The B2B domain is very vast comprising of diverse business models. The customer journey for different businesses and for specific business processes vary and therefore cannot be generalized. However, the phases of a customer journey almost remain the same for many business sectors.

The phases include, attract, nurture, convert, close and retain. Considering the standard phases, the top view of a customer journey for a B2B company can be successfully described in the figure below. Figure 16: B2B customer journeySub-question: 2With the latest technological advancements and easy access to digital platforms, how has the customer buying behavior and pattern changed (evolved) as compared to previous years?In the B2B domain, the customer is indeed empowered with access to a lot of information and data online about companies, products and competitors. These parameters influence the decision making of a buyer. Therefore, it has become paramount for many B2B companies to maintain a clear brand image and reputation in the online domain. However, there are still a lot of business models where the traditional approach to sales is followed, i.

e. through a key account manager. Ex. EPC business. These businesses run and flourish on customer-company relationship since the projects in these businesses have a significantly longer gestation period. Hence, it is surely true that the digitalization has indeed empowered the customers and help buyers in decision making, it is also true that there are B2B businesses that are still running on the traditional sales model primarily because of the nature of the businesses. Sub-question: 3 What is CRM? Its tools & functionalities in the sales and marketing domain? As the name suggests, it is an approach that is used by businesses to manage the relationship and interactions between existing customers and potential customers. The CRM systems or software tools are employed primarily in the sales and marketing domain helping companies to connect to new customer and streamline business processes thereby improving company profitability. Currently, there are many CRM vendors in the market providing with a host of functionalities in the sales and marketing domains. In the sales domain functionalities like leads/opportunity management, customer contacts management, buying center analysis, customer & market segmentation tools etc. provide insights about the customers and help structuring an approach process. Similarly, in the marketing domain, functionalities like event planning and analysis and online social media marketing add value to the process. The CRM functionalities give an analytical perspective in the sales and marketing functions which is valuable for a B2B company. Sub-question: 4 How do these sales and marketing functionalities add value to various touchpoints of the customer journey for new and existing customers of a B2B company? The illustrations of functionalities mentioned above add a lot of value to the internal operations of any company. For existing customers, the functionalities ensure better quality of products and services are delivered at competitive costs. The contracts are managed and tracked well and there is always a key account manager or designated responsible personnel for any future communications. Also, existing customers are timely informed about the new products and latest technology in the market. As far as potential customers are concerned, the sales and marketing functionalities help generate leads to identify potential customers and understand the exact needs of these new customers to be. Once these needs or leads are identified, the CRM tools assist right from the beginning of the bidding process till the bid is submitted and the outcome is declared. The CRM tools also have the win/loss analysis feature to contemplate the reasons of loss in the hindsight. Overall, CRM tools cater to both existing and potential customers and it depends on the company for which particular feature they intend to exploit. Sub-question: 5 What are the challenges and bottlenecks that can emerge or be envisaged while implementing CRM functionalities-based customer journey enhancement and what are the critical success factors?Based on the results and analysis of the interview process, it can be concluded that change is indeed difficult and CRM implementation is nothing but a paradigm shift in-terms of processes and mindsets. There needs to be efforts put in to make this change transition as smooth as possible. Also, for this change to happen faster and smoother, there needs to be significant drive for this change coming from the senior management or authoritative personnel in an organization along with suitable allocation for resources. Lastly, integrating the multiple existing IT systems are particularly challenging considering the size and complexity of the organization. These critical parameters determine the overall success of CRM implementation and this success % is therefore different in different companies and businesses. Research Question: How do CRM tools functionalities optimize the customer journey touchpoints and enhance the sales & marketing capabilities for a B2B company by ensuring relevant exchange of information among customers and sales executives? CRM functionalities like customer contact management, marketing even planning and evaluation and online website content & social media management assist the customers to first have sophisticated touchpoints to contact companies and the specific product and service requirement and even have a dedicated sales representative purely managing a group of customers and acting as key account managers. Also, functionalities like contract management, quotation management, product pricing, market and customer segmentation ensure that the sales representative is prepared and updated with all the latest information about the customer, product and market before facing the customer. The sales representatives have access to all customer data, historical and current, including previous projects, transactions and current potential projects thereby making the sales team efficient before client meetings. This is especially beneficial for global B2B companies whose customers are also equally international since there is one consolidated platform for customer information with complete transparency and can be accessed from any geographical location. 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