Prepare a research paper that examines a customer relationship management (CRM) system implementation by and organisation.
Description of Case / Background of Company
Founded in 1977, Indigo was first in the market to introduce a top – quality digital printing press and remains a leading innovator in the digital printing industry. Indigo was acquired by the Hewlett – Packard Company in March of 2002 and now operates as the Indigo Digital Press Division within Hewlett – Packard. The CRM implementation described in the case study took place in the years prior to Indigo’s acquisition by HP, and the overview reflects this. Indigo is a global company and employs 150 sales representatives in charge of direct sales, and it has a network of distributors. Indigo designs and produces high quality digital printing presses and distributes them throughout Europe and America. In addition to these products, indigo markets proprietary ink, thus providing solutions for commercial print shops. Indigo also sells industrial applications like packaging, plastic cards and labels. Indigo sells to customers in over forty countries, including commercial printers, quick – printers, in – plants, packaging plants and labels printers.
Initiation
To support its manufacturing, logistics, and supply chain operations, Indigo had successfully implemented an application capable of looking after this function. This application however, was not capable of supporting the sales and marketing functions of Indigo.
In early 1998, Indigo’s management became concerned with the effectiveness and productivity of its sales force and faced a number of business challenges including:
1. The long period of time taken to close sales. In the absence of the capability to analyse the s ...