CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Pharmaceutical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions



Pharmaceutical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions

Introduction

Customer relationship management (or CRM) is an emerging managerial philosophy closely aligned with the intersection of marketing and information technology. CRM suggests that the goal of a business organization should be to develop, enhance, and maintain relationships with its “best customers.” Terms such as “strengthening the bond between customer and company,” “customer-focused strategy that drives profitability” and “customer retention” are often associated with CRM. In this view, not all customers are created equal, and it is in the organization's interest to create long-term relationships with a strategically targeted segment of the customer population that will best contribute to the organization's success. Often success is defined in terms of profitability (for example, “the 20% of the customer base that is responsible for 80% of the revenues”), although customers may also contribute to organizational success through enhancing the organization's image, word of mouth, or other types of influence. However success is defined, the intention is to identify, target, and nurture those customer relationships that are most critical to that goal. This paper discusses pharmaceutical customer relationship management (CRM) solutions in a concise and comprehensive way.

Pharmaceutical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions

Based on the objectives and standards outlined above, Pharmaceutical company should implement a solution that leverages the existing investments in a unified support database and enables sales and marketing teams to access this customer data more easily. Barnes (2001) mentions numerous commercial solutions exist, but require complete retrenchment from the existing systems. Commercial solutions also require significant capital investment, both up-front and over time. Pharmaceutical company has an effective CRM tool developed by the support department that can extend to serve other areas as well. Leveraging investments in current solutions decreases the total cost of implementing CRM tools, and eliminates the ...