Exercise 26.

1. I have chosen the scope of study to focus on the business integration of Customer Relationship Managament in a manufacturing environment.

2. Summarise your understanding and describe its relevance (250 words max) in either your study at university or in your work environment;

As a manufacturer involving in both OBM (ie. original brand manufacturing) and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing); our end customers are indirectly serviced through retailers and distributors. As such, it is often very difficult to understand what are the customers feedback and purchasing behaviour. Getting access to these information are often a tedious and inefficient process of collecting paper based feedbacks and complaints. With the advent of telecommunications, manufacturers can use various touch points such as web, mobile and interactive kiosks to engage a consumer to tell more about their experience. Proctor & Gamble has designed MyPampers.ca - a loyality solution in rewarding their customers some form of rewards. This engagement of end customers now allows the manufacturer or brand owner to learn more about the customer's purchase and consumption behavior. The need to integrate a component of the CRM is to ensure that the business process are tracked when there are multiple touch points in which consumers can interact with the company or system as a whole, the records or business intelligence are therefore essential to deliver services to end customers. A collective database supported by analytics engines gives a business the intelligence to forecast demand, seasonal purchase patterns, and to a certain extent involve users in the feedback loop of new product development (NPD).