European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.

org
ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2839 (Online)
Vol 4, No.20, 2012

CRM Implementation in a Software Services firm: a Case Study

Analysis
Pradeep Kootelu Sundar1*, H. N. Narasimha Murthy1,2, P. S. Yadapadithaya1
1. Department of Commerce, Mangalore University, Mangalore- 574 199, India
2. Centre for Manufacturing Research and Technology Utilisation, Bangalore- 560 059, India
* E-mail of the corresponding author: [email protected]
Abstract
This study is undertaken to gain better understanding of CRM implementation in software service companies. The
literature on CRM gives the impression of being inconsistent. The objective is to uncover the process of CRM
implementation. A case study involving a Bangalore based software service firm which had implemented CRM, was
done. Semi-structured interview method was adopted for gathering data. The key finding is that effective leadership is
critical for CRM success. Also, findings have shown that CRM implementations have been successful and thus
achieved corporate satisfaction. The study confirms that the people, process and technology factors are crucial for a
CRM program. Software Services companies are emerging significantly all over the world especially in South Asia.
These companies operate in a very competitive market and there is a need to distinguish a service from the competition,
for endurance. The effective use of CRM systems to improve service, performance, customer satisfaction and
productivity is fundamental. However, the process of CRM implementation in the service industry has not yet been
studied. The paper outlines a guideline for a flexible CRM program. The value of this paper is that it illustrates how a
case study approach can be used to understand the real implementation process by software service firms.
Keywords: Software service industry, CRM implementation, Key drivers, Case study investigation

1. Introduction
Customer Relationship Management (CRM), aided by technology, integration of technology with business and the
process has evolved and adopted faster due to the change in focus of marketing organisations (Harris, 2003). CRM can
be defined as a revolving process during which companies interact with their customers, thereby generating,
aggregating, and analysing customer data, and employing the results for service and marketing activities (Seybold,
2001). CRM is a tactical business tool that helps marketing departments identify and target potential customers and
help set marketing goals by assisting the team to generate increased sales. It can also enable better customer
relationships, ensuring that the highest level of service is provided to them. Today, companies across the world are
laying emphasis on retaining existing customers since loyal customers are believed to be more profitable. There is a
consensual subscription to the theory of establishing strong and long-term customer relationships for business growth.
CRM fits perfectly with the need and also the solution.
In spite of the technological advances in recent years and high levels of investment, CRM faces serious difficulties and
implementation failures (Arnold, 2002; Doherty & Lockett, 2007; Ragowsky & Somers, 2002). CRM programs
experience a range of issues that include poor corporate customer focus, management commitment, change
management, and people, technology and process issues (Raman & Pashupati, 2004). Though many surveys and
reports have recognised the soaring CRM implementation as well as adoption failure rates, most of the literature does
indicate that CRM can provide long-standing benefits for organisations business and its customers (Bohling et al.,
2006). Nevertheless certain essential research gaps are evident. To close this gap, one of the primary areas is outlining
a foolproof mechanism for a successful CRM implementation. The available literature does not adequately highlight
the relationship between CRM technology adoption and customer relationships of a successful CRM program either
(Ling & Yen, 2001; Shoemaker, 2001). As a result, the stake holders are left in an indecisive situation due the fragile
nature of CRM system. Very few empirical studies concentrated on studying CRM implementation process developing
a guideline which could assist other adopters. Against this background, a case study analysis of the implementation of
CRM system at a software service company is presented.

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2. Overview and Background of CRM

The theoretical base of CRM is relationship marketing, customer retention, profitability, lifetime value, and
satisfaction created through business process (Chen & Popovich, 2003). The business objective of CRM is increased
profit and revenue. Having an effective CRM system in place can add value to the brand while reducing general costs,
since it helps organise resources more efficiently. In addition, with reduced costs of sales, productivity efficiency is
increased while the better flow of relevant information also adds value to customer interactions, helping to shorten
sales cycles. An efficient CRM system has a string database which will support and help establish closer customer
relationships, again enabling closer customer loyalty (Greenberg, 2004). In the past, CRM has been defined as a
process (Srivastava et al., 1999), a strategy (Davids, 1999), a capability (Peppers et al., 1999), a philosophy (Hasan,
2003), a technology (Shoemaker, 2001).
Effective CRM programme provides some significant benefits such as improved customer satisfaction, greater revenue
growth, and increased competitive advantage, as a result of long-term customer retention. CRM often restructures a
company’s focus - changing investments in winning new customers to retaining existing ones (Yim et al., 2004). CRM
helps in improving the processes related to customer management, placing customers at the centre of the organisation,
creating a “customer centric” structure (Grant & Anderson, 2002). Companies need to focus on uniform and
customised customer interactions across all customer touch points, as well as the ability to forecast customer needs in
order to cross-sell and up-sell products and services to specific customers. There is a skewed and incomplete
understanding of CRM by the industry, the topic offers huge scope for investigation. Marketing academics have
attempted to study CRM from different perspectives and found that there has been no deliberate attempt to
consolidate the conceptualisation into a holistic understanding (Zablah et al., 2004). Also, for the fact that, CRM
implementation is not straightforward and studies have shown that CRM may often fail to produce the expected results
(Peppard, 2002; Croteau & Li, 2003), makes the nascent and evolving nature of CRM a subject worthy of further
debate.

3. CRM Implementation
Like with all good decisions for technology implementation, the first step for a good CRM implementation is the
strategic decision to change or improve business processes in the organisation. Of course, there is the little matter of
investing in an improved information system, so the critical first step is top management buy-in and the support of an
efficient Project Manager (PM). The project manager needs to be extremely knowledgeable about the internal
environment of the organisation as well as the external industry environment, to be able to gauge precisely what he and
his organisation are up against. He or she has to be very clear on the customer scenario in their industry- the demands,
anticipations, opportunities and threats on the market. Being the point of contact between the software solution supplier
and the end users - employees, the PM needs to supervise the project, coordinate the education of the end users and
keep the motivation levels high. He or she needs to have the overview of the entire project in order to be able to
understand and communicate the development phase of the project, and the tasks in the next development phase of
CRM project (Pinto & Slevin, 1987).
There are certain things that have to be borne in mind even before the implementation is started. Smith (2006) points
out that organisations need to be aware of where the implementation can go wrong and plan accordingly. Failures could
be triggered by overestimating the functionalities of the implementation, inability to integrate the systems vertically so
if customers need some data from the back-office, the system cannot help, thus cutting down communication channels.
And of course, the biggest threat is the top level management that is not tuned to the new implementation and does not
provide the requisite leadership support.
In order that the process is streamlined to meet the objective, the scope of the implementation needs to be defined early
on. To keep the process simple, defining a reasonably manageable system that is fragmented into smaller bits of system
scope is one good way to do it. Phasing in software functionality over a series of sequential implementations is a
significant way of decreasing complexity. In order to lower the risk, it helps if specific customisation is reduced, or
even done away with. The biggest factor for determining the application functionality is the business need – clearly
laying down the scope of functions to be implemented (Ocker & Mudambi, 2002). The module by module
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implementation process approach makes business sense too, if the adoption is in a chunk, there are chances of unused
technology capacity and unnecessary business disruption, which ultimately creates losses, failing the payback test
(Rigby & Ledingham, 2004).
The first obvious step is securing the commitment of top management to the implementation of CRM as a business
strategy. Then CRM can be translated into a strategy that is aligned with the organisation’s business strategy. Then the
organisation’s technical, human, and organisational capabilities need to be analysed, as the rest of the components are
being formulated. According to Coltman (2006), the strategy for CRM should be oriented towards:

Customer management

Integration and alignment of organisational processes

Information capture and alignment of technology

Creation of CRM strategy implementation plan
At the level of technology readiness, as the company becomes more technologically and organisationally advanced, the
level of technological complexity that the CRM can bring to the table increases (Alt & Puschman, 2004). There is a
specific set of requirements that an organisation needs to have ready before a complex CRM is put in place. It requires
the organisation to adopt definitive type of CRM systems (analytical, operational, and collaborative), back operations,
front-office applications and software requirements, and systems that run an efficient knowledge management process
(Boon et al., 2002; Shang & Ko, 2006; Ocker & Mudambi, 2002).
While top management stakeholder buy-in is critical, it is equally important that the system and process restructuring is
communicated to the employees of all levels, covering all functionalities, not only sales and technology. Thus, it is
critical to change the business- attitude of the organisation, without which a CRM cannot operate efficiently. Unless
the values and culture of the organisation changes, there would not be any shift in mindset towards greater culture
centricity (Sin et al., 2005).
The transformation of the organisation’s orientation to customer-centric orientation is a key element. A number of
factors can be changed to meet the need of CRM implementation (Boon et al., 2002; Curry & Kkolou, 2004). The
organisation could initiate the redesign of communication systems between the custom facing and back-office
operations. Emphasis could be placed on the culture of customer –centricity to become the objective of all official
functions. Teamwork and collaboration would be essential for each project and any resistance to the new paradigm of
the workplace needs to be dealt with.
In their interactive research approach, Payne & Frow (2006) identified four main implementation areas.
1. CRM readiness assessment – needs to be done in a pre-implementation stage, to assess if the organisation is
ready for a defined CRM system implementation. This would be the stage where senior management buy-in
would be critical.
2. CRM Change Management – In order that a large scale and complex CRM implementation be accepted and
successful within a company, a sea change in organisational and cultural behaviours is required. Hence, a
critical dimension of any large CRM program implementation is an effective change management program.
3. CRM Project Management – As with all projects, CRM project management plays an increasingly significant
role as the size and complexity of CRM initiatives increase. In most instances two main types of
implementation teams can be identified: Where a team of specialists are brought together on a temporary basis
to address a particular project with a finite completion date. Where the user organisation puts together its best
technology and sales brains in a team across functions gets the blessings of the top management, forming a
significant part of the CRM initiative. Whichever the case may be, a successful CRM project implementation
is one that will help the organisation achieve business objectives, thus supporting the entire business strategy.
4. Employee Engagement – finally comes the deep significance of employee engagement to support the various
initiatives that comprise the overall CRM program. The role of employees and their acceptance of the CRM
processes and implementation activities are crucial for a successful implementation.
According to Crocket & Reed (2003), for an implementation to be successful, the organisation concerned needs to do a
detailed analysis on the industry best practices and whether they can be adopted by the organisation. The key steps for
a successful CRM implementation would be:

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• Have clarity on where the CRM stands, and how it can become a part of the organisation’s business strategy,
not as an implementation but as a strategic tool.
• Asses the technology, processes and people capability for the new step.
• Ascertaining if there is a good enough business case to implement a new application that will realign the entire
organisation. Understanding that it cannot be just another new toy.
• After these assessments, a new implementation plan needs to be created that would define the goal very
clearly, explaining how to achieve and how to exactly go about achieving it.
Chen & Popovich (2003) proposed an implementation model in the context of customer- centric, enterprise-wide,
technology and cross functional integration. This model is based on the three important factors- people, process and
technology. The people factor highlights the importance of top management commitment and organisational change,
the process factor emphasises the importance of organisational process change and the technology factor discusses the
evolution of the information technology and their importance.
Once in place, it makes business sense to integrate the CRM with other systems to produce even more efficient results.
When a CRM system is integrated with other decision support systems such as the enterprise planning system, the
executive information systems, the product life-cycle management systems, to name a few, each of these
functionalities creates a better flow of data in order to take informed decisions on strategies. With this new clarity,
organisations can plan for production, sales and other functions, much better than when working in silos. This would
definitely translate into better customer understanding, more successful sales strategies, leading to better revenues and
higher profits (Anderson, 2006).
In summary, CRM implementations are found to be successful in organisations which collate greater data about their
customers, and work out strategies to cater to their unique requirements (Kotler, 2002). Goldenberg (2002) adds the
three most significant factors that make an implementation successful - people, process, and technology - each of these
present challenges, but it is only by integrating these factors that the CRM system can run. The organisation needs to
study the impact of the CRM system on its resources, its processes and even its customers, and manage all of these to
make them one integrated whole – an entity that is ready to welcome the CRM system in its processes and use it to its
maximum value.

4. Research Methodology
The objective of this paper is to study the process of CRM implementation in the software services companies. A case
study methodology was adopted as it allows the researcher to ask over open-ended questions relating to what happened,
why it happened and how things happened (Yin, 1994). The case study illustrates the experiences of CRM
implementation at a Bangalore based software service firm. Due to the confidential nature of the study, the company's
name has been changed to ‘XYZ Corp’ to mask company's identity. The data for the study was collected by several
semi-structured interviews with members of the business development team within the company and by referring
archival documents. The target audience for interviews were the Sales and Marketing Manager and Sales Director. The
semi- structured interview methodology facilitated to gather data that was rich in detail (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

5. Empirical Study: Case XYZ Corp

XYZ Corp (name changed) is a Multicultural Global Technology & IT Services Company delivering business and
technology solutions to a wide range of Fortune 500 companies and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) globally.
XYZ Corp’s services portfolio includes Enterprise Business Services, Product Engineering and R&D Services, and
Enterprise Information Security Services. Around 25 per cent of their clients are Fortune 500 companies and another
25 per cent are large global multinationals, remaining represent small and medium enterprises across various verticals.
The future business strategies of XYZ Corp are to farm their existing customers and acquire new ones. With their
Customer centric approach, they plan to have an unprecedented focus on Customers. They also intend to make an
investment in innovation labs for incubating new business models, and innovating within their business (services,
verticals). This will also include expanding their focus on new horizontal services and scaling that business to a much
larger levels. XYZ Corp implemented CRM in 2008. All Sales and Customers details are now stored in their CRM
system. XYZ Corp did not change its practices to fit the vendor’s CRM system, instead the CRM system had to be
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customised to suit their existing process. XYZ Corp has implemented Hosted CRM, accessible through web interface.
The vendor provided training to both the end-users and the systems engineers. Training was also given to further
customise the CRM system if need arises.

6. CRM Implementation at XYZ Corp

The process of implementation at XYZ Corp started with the buy-in of the top management, facilitating the
transformation of the company into a customer-centric organisation. This was not only an implementation need but
also a business need – in the face of severe industry competition and a strategy to retain good customers. The biggest
contribution and involvement in the CRM implementation process of the senior management was in terms of securing
adequate financial and human resources. As mentioned earlier, the CRM implementation was kicked off with a
thorough assessment of its readiness to successfully implement CRM. By developing a differentiated CRM strategy
and aligning it with the company’s new business strategy, plans were developed to implement a CRM project that
broke down the CRM activity into smaller sub-projects. In order to start its actual implementation, the company
focused on the following activities and aspects that were sub-parts of the whole CRM implementation.
New business plans were put in place to carry out the technological part of the CRM project. These plans aimed at
providing advanced communication channels to the company’s customers as well as to its employees. It also aimed at
providing fast and differentiated software services and help leverage the level of performance and productivity for the
company’s employees. The overall implementation plan also took steps to improve the infrastructure and provide
better customer support services. XYZ Corp signed a five-year contract with their CRM vendor to provide a
consultancy service for CRM implementation. The contract also included technical support, since the project is
strategic and involved a significant amount of investment.
Since the assessment had identified poor human resource skill levels as one of the bigger reasons for failure of the last
attempt, one of the big aspects this time was proper training and buy-in from the employees. The strong resistance by
the employees to adopt to the new changes in the work system was avoided this time. The learning process from past
mistakes ensured that the employees understood that such resistance, alongside poor orientation and training programs
for staff, contributed to the failure of the last CRM launch. This time, the entire resource structure was redesigned
according to the assessment of its current capabilities. The vendor contract included developing training programs for
the employees. These were aimed at leveraging their skills to the required level, so they there would be no problems in
coping with the company’s new customer-centric strategy. A series of training programs were launched at the company
headquarters while other programs were organised outside the company.
The people requirement of a successful CRM implementation included the requirement of a industry best sales head,
who could spearhead the implementation. This person also helped in positioning qualified skilled personnel especially
in upper-level positions. To fight resistance to change by the personnel, the company applied a two pronged approach.
Firstly, the staff was educated at all levels in planned training programs on different aspects of the new strategy.
Thereafter the company offered a substantial redundancy for employees who did not make an effort to become a part of
the new paradigm, or were unable to do so for any reason - either due to their lack of sufficient skills or due to their role
in resistance to the new changes in the company’s structure and culture.
Based on operational front-line functions (Sales & Marketing) and service delivery without a clear vision of focusing
on the customer, the old structure would not have been able to support a CRM. For the CRM strategy to succeed this
time around, it was mandatory to have a new organisational structure. Creating new departments and re- engaging
some older functions within new departments was really required. So, in the new attempt, the CRM committee headed
by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company controlled the force that supervised the implementation of CRM.
In addition, each CRM project was owned by a certain department which had the responsibility for the technical
implementation of the CRM project. The shared service department then had the responsibility for unifying the process
of implementing CRM by the different departments. It was the shared services department that created the strategy for
redesigning processes and procedures.
Based on the empirical study and literature review, a guide for a CRM program is outlined as depicted in Figure 1.
Given the current economic and business scenario globally, any technology enabler that promises to add to business
value, should be a strategic objective of any organisation. Customer retention, maintenance, loyalty and satisfaction are
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the business mantras. Competition is cutthroat and every sliver of the market makes a difference. Every company needs
data, a unique approach, and deep insight into the customer's mind and preferences. CRM programs can be an effective
sales strategy to achieve all these objectives. As soon as organisations can map a benefit in terms of revenue and market
share from their sales strategy, they should opt for a CRM implementation to put the strategy out in the market.
The implementation can be divided into three phases, Pre-implementation, Implementation and Post-implementation
phase.
Pre- implementation Phase: This phase starts by outlining a plan for CRM system. Under the tutelage or at least support
of Top Management, a CRM committee should be formed to kick start the process. This team should consist of
representatives from different teams, which include the IT team, the back-office operations team, the resource
allocation team, and the customer facing sales team. The committee should be responsible for requirement gathering,
identifying a core team that would be accountable for the deployment and operation of the CRM system, getting
sufficient budget allocated for the CRM project. They would also be responsible for monitoring the progress of CRM
implementation. Here are some steps that need to be enforced:
• Planning and top down communications to make sure employee buy-in is in place
• Changes to processes, including structural changes, strategy changes should be done and communicated to the
employees
• Readiness assessment needs to be done
• End user training is mandatory
Various CRM systems and vendors need to be evaluated on various criteria apart from the cost factor:
• Vendor experience and capability in aiding project execution as well as provide technical support during
implementation.
• Vendor maintenance support and service
• Training and software upgrade support
• Integration functionality and compatibility with the existing systems (legacy systems, ERP system)
The CRM committee has to evaluate and select the one that is most suited to their IT infrastructure and business
processes. Then a choice needs to be made between Installed & Hosted and between Integrated suite and Best of Breed
CRM systems. Each has its advantages and disadvantages and the final choice lies on a couple of factors:
• For global office scenario, a hosted system works out more financially viable, along with the benefit of global
access
• In case the organisation has legacy IT infrastructure and applications, it should opt for Installed systems to
avoid compatibility issues.
• For companies that don’t have a fixed number of users, a 'pay-as-you-go' arrangement will work best to tackle
attrition issues.
Implementation Phase: In this phase, the three most important factors are people, process and technology, which have
to be in place. These three components are inter linked and have to coordinate with each other for a successful CRM
program. Getting employee and stakeholder buy-in is essential, as is getting the processes in place. The employees are
to be informed well in advance about the CRM plans and process. The skill level of end users has to be developed so
that they could use the new CRM system. As far as technology is concerned, the implementation strategy should
include plans to prepare the IT infrastructure to handle the CRM system. The strategy should include end-to-end
project execution plan, keeping the business objectives as the main focus. All the customer information collated earlier
will also need to be migrated to the new system while implementation happens, and the process of cleaning and
migrating needs to be done under vendor supervision, to avoid problems later. The data has to be sorted so that its
analysis and reporting is aligned to the business strategy that the company has drawn up. The customer data stored in
the CRM system needs to managed efficiently. Data should be stored in a secure storage location.
While it makes business sense for most companies, the decision to integrate the ERP and CRM should depend ideally
on the need of an organisation. Nevertheless, this integration always allows for best utilisation of the system for
strategy purposes. Organisations with large back-office applications can streamline their operations with the
integration of CRM and ERP. As a suggestion, it is better to choose the ERP vendor to procure the CRM, simply for the
fact that they more often than not provide a seamless integration between these two systems. Top Management needs to

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consider their financial feasibility before they decide on integration of their ERP with CRM.
Post Implementation Phase: Top Management is required to monitor the usage and utilisation of the CRM by end-users,
ensuring that operations guidelines and processes are being followed. A clear CRM process should be outlined and the
end-users should be informed and trained about the process to be followed while using the CRM. All data gathered
through market research and customer interactions should be recorded and managed appropriately for data analysis to
draw meaningful reports.
Once CRM is put into use, measuring the success of its operations helps gain clear insight into the efficacy of the
process. In addition, it can reveal the effectiveness of the CRM process that has been drawn up as a part of the business
development strategy. From time-to-time, the performance of CRM has to be measured to evaluate its effectiveness
and a suitable framework has to be adopted to measure the performance of CRM. Additional to calculating the ROI,
CRM performance can be measured by developing CRM-specific framework.
A good way to extract the best utilisation of the system is to plan reward programs to motivate employees to use CRM.
Human Resource polices should include plans for motivating the employees to use CRM. Also, Training and
Development (T&D) programs should be planned as an ongoing Human Resource Development (HRD) activity to
train new hires, and train existing resources on new features added to the CRM system or for better utilisation of the
existing features. Training programs should include CRM vendor trainings as well as trainings developed internally
about the organisation's processes and plans. Also, technical personnel/ engineers needs to be trained on the technical
aspects of the CRM system for trouble shooting any of the technical issues arising during usage and for future
customisations (if required).
A significant factor here is that all the activities connected with the CRM need to be customer focused or customer
centric, as the sales strategy. Also, right from the planning phase to the post implementation phase, all decisions made
should be customer centric. It is also required that all the operational activities should be monitored by the Top
Management. Only then the commitment and best usage will draw best results from the system, making the
implementation a success. In the figure 1, all the elements listed are ultimately success factors for the CRM program.
Each of them need to be treated as significant parameters/ factors for a successful CRM program, and ignoring any one
can cause a weak link in the CRM system and may results in inefficiencies of the program.

Implication
CRM Implementation is the most significant step in the company's decision to go ahead with a CRM system, it
encompasses the entire nine-yards of readiness assessment, matching capability to market demands, and getting the
people and process to change as per requirement. Most companies go at least three fourths of the way to ensure it is a
success. It could be done in smaller modules as the case XYZ Corp did, or as a whole if the implementation is on a
smaller scale, but the readiness assessment is what makes the difference.
This article outlines a guideline for a clear and flexible path for implementing CRM by identifying different phases of
CRM implementation and linking these phases to CRM success factors. Firstly, it identifies the CRM components that
will help provide organisations with a clear vision of accountabilities and responsibilities for implementing CRM
within the organisational structure. To achieve success with CRM, companies are advised to take the time to
understand the issues affecting people, process, and technology components individually. They also need to
proactively manage the integration of all three components to ensure that the people, process, and technology mix is
right during all phases of the CRM initiative. This study has confirmed the theory that people element is fundamental
and significant in any CRM implementation. Change process to be customer centric is the way forward for the success
of CRM and business objectives. Top Management needs to take "ownership" of the complete program.

Conclusion
The foremost requirement of a successful CRM practice starts at the top. The top management of a user organisation
have to be the first evangelist for the concept. The mindset for adapting processes and people to implementation of a
CRM has to flow down from the top, making it a company wide effort, with active support from senior management.
Executives in decision- making positions need to be actively involved in changing processes to make them more
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customer-centric and cross- functional. This would help facilitate putting in place new processes that use technology
better. It would also help in instilling disciplined cooperation and collaboration in carrying out the cross-functional
processes. The system would need proper training of employees in order for them to become more customer-centric,
thereby adding value to their customer interactions. This would also help enhance their market and customer related
skills, and thus motivating them to achieving CRM goals.

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Pradeep Kootelu Sundar is a Research Scholar at Department of Commerce, Mangalore University. He has obtained
extensive experience in market research and market analysis in UK and India focusing on industrial research and
sampling. His areas of interest include Customer Relationship Management, relationship marketing and business
management. He holds MBA from University of Wales, UK, MSc in International Business from The Robert Gordon
University, UK and Bachelor of Engineering from Visveswaraiah Technological University, India..

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European Journal of Business and Management www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1905 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2839 (Online)
Vol 4, No.20, 2012

H. N. Narasimha Murthy is a researcher and educationalist. He received ME from Thiagarajar College of

Engineering., Madurai, India. He has acquired PhD in Materials Science, Mangalore University, Mangalore. He has
published more than 80 research papers in various journals. His areas of interest include Marketing, Customer
Relationship Management, polymer composites, nanotechnology, laser machining and cryogenic machining. He is a
recipient of ARCI Best Paper Award & Best Presentation Award, at NSSRS-4, 2002, Indian Institute of Technology,
Chennai, Best Faculty award-2009 by Cognizant Technologies, Bangalore. Presently he is working as a Professor and
Dean P G Studies, Centre for Manufacturing Research and Technology Utilisation (CMRTU), India

P. S. Yadapadithaya is a researcher and educationalist. He got his BCom from SDM College, India in 1980
and obtained MCom degree from Mangalore University, in 1982 securing first rank and a gold medal. With three
decades of PG teaching experience at PG department at Mangalore University, he has successfully supervised more
than 15 PhD scholars. Having expertise in the field of Marketing, Human Resource Development, Customer
Relationship Management, Dr. Yadapadithaya is the recipient of national and international awards for his contribution
to commerce teaching and research. He is currently working as the Registrar of Mangalore University.

Figure 1: A guideline for a CRM program

46
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