Business Intelligence and Customer Relationship Management: a Direct Support to Product Development Teams

• Main Authors: Pietrobon, Alberto, Ogunmakinwa, Abraham Bamidele Sunday
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Informatik 2011
• Subjects: business analytics; data mining; business intelligence; BI; decision making; customer relationship management; CRM; data sources; product development; industrial design; manufacturing industry.; Computer and Information Sciences; Data- och informationsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-15473

For manufacturing firms, having knowledge about customers is very important, in particular for the developers and designers of new products. A way in which software can help to build an information channel between the customers and the firm is through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Business Intelligence (BI) solutions. Customers’ data are captured into the Customer Relationship Management solution while Business Intelligence analyses them and provide clear processed information to the developers and designers of new products. In this study we have researched if this process occurs in the industry, if and how it can be improved and what advantages it could bring to manufacturing firms. We have carried out the data collection by interviewing experts in four companies, three software companies that provide Business Intelligence solutions and one manufacturing firm. We found out that those software solutions are not used to directly connect developers and designers to customers’ data, and that there are no specific technical obstacles that prevents this, if not managerial reasons rooted in everyday practice. We also uncovered facts that would help to make this process more efficient and make customers’ data even more relevant to development.