The basic motive of business revolves around generating profit, and it can be achieved either by charging premium price for your offering, or by reducing the operational cost. The latter sounds logical considering the current scenario of global economic slump. A Business Process Management suite enables business owners to control the operational cost by efficient handling of business processes.

jSonic BPM offers comprehensive capabilities to manage business processes through functionalities such as designing, modeling, automating, executing, and monitoring. Furthermore, it enables stakeholders to clearly understand the objective of a business process, adequate resources required for executing it, responsibilities of actors involved in the process and  finally, to do away with its bottlenecks and associated costs.

Process owners can design, model, configure business rules, and simulate business processes through jSonic Process Management.  They can identify inefficiencies associated with a process and achieve process optimization. Industry standard business practices can also be easily incorporated in the process framework.

Now, as a process becomes optimized, its operational cost reduces, for process optimization is indirectly proportional to its associated cost.

Other factors that contribute in reducing operational cost are efficient handling of resources involved in a process and proficient monitoring of process activity. Both can be achieved through jSonic Workflow Management.

To conclude, it can be said that jSonic BPM enables stakeholders not only to reduce the operational cost but also increase transparency at each stage of process activity, and better utilization of process resources. jSonic provides better business everyday.

It is a known fact that every software application is intended to accomplish certain business goals. Customer Relationship Management or CRM is no different.  Business owners expect that through CRM application they will be able to discern:

•Who are their customers?
•What kind of marketing campaign is suitable for customers?
•How to efficiently maintain the Account and Contact database?
•How to track leads, and convert them into Opportunity?
•How to effectively resolve customer issues?
•How to provide better customer service?

Customer Relationship Management accomplishes the complete set of activities ranging from customer acquisition and retention to service. This cycle of customer-related activities is termed as CRM cycle, and Krawler CRM comprehensively covers the entire set of it.

The CRM cycle basically consists of four stages – Marketing, Sales, Product, and Support.

•Marketing Stage – In this stage of CRM cycle, the basic focus is to identify customers by running various marketing campaigns (such as emails, blogs, advertisements, and more), create the database for Account (pertaining to Organization) and Contacts (pertaining to individuals), and finally generate leads by analyzing the gathered customer data.

•Sales Stage –In the Sales stage, basic focus remains on leads. They are the individuals who have expressed some kind of interest in your product offering. ‘Leads’ are further categorized into Open, Contacted, Qualified and Un-qualified. Krawler CRM offers a functionality to convert ‘leads’ into ‘opportunity’ for carrying out further sales activities.

•Product Stage – In this stage of CRM cycle, the basic focus is on delivery of product. Krawler CRM offers Product Management functionality that captures details about the product price, vendor, and description, among others.

•Support Stage – During Support Stage, the primary focus remains on resolving customer issues and providing customer support. In CRM terminology, this function is known as Case Management. (To visit our previous blog on Case Management, please click here).

To conclude, CRM cycle provides insight into various stages of Customer Relationship Management from customer acquisition to retention and service. CRM cycle lays down the roadmap for how the business can connect with their customers efficiently and serve them more effectively.

With ever-increasing pressure of competition coupled by the recent global economic slump, Outsourcing and Automating of Business Processes has become a kind of necessity for enterprise owners. Although Outsourcing of business process results in cost saving, quality of process outcome remains questionable many a time. The Quality of Business Process outcome is directly related to how the process is being understood, optimized, and executed by its stakeholders. This is exactly where the usability of Business Process Management (BPM) comes in and can help both – Organizations and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – units.

In our earlier blog, ‘BPM as a Business Enabler’, we have already discussed about People, Process, System and Technology framework for BPM. Here we shall elucidate on how BPM and BPO can work in unison.

Effective communication and collaboration among BPO process owners and their counterparts is the initial step in understanding how the process work. BPM can accomplish this task efficiently through its Process Modeler functionality. Krawler jSonic BPM offers a unique Process Modeler, which is a web-based process designing and modeling tool that uses standard Business Process Modeling Notifications (BPMN). Furthermore, it eliminates the need of technical coding enabling the stakeholders to easily understand the process working mechanism.

Through BPM, an organization that wants to outsource their business process can be benefited in innumerable ways. BPM enables process owners to define (diagrammatically) and optimize the business process operating in the organization. Once that is done, they are assured about quality in process outcome. The outsourcing of such modeled process can yield in cost saving. Furthermore, with BPM in place, changes in the process can easily be accomplished through Business Rules Engine. In addition, when the contract with BPO agency expires, the process can again be easily implemented in organization’s BPM environment or can be re-outsourced.

From the perspective of BPO industry, BPM reduces the time period to understand the client’s process. It further enables stakeholders in BPO to clearly analyze an individual task in the concerned process, and formulate their strategy (in accordance with industry best practices) to achieve the process objective. This results in saving of time, resource, and cost while carrying out the process.

To conclude, BPM enables BPO owners to demonstrate that they have clear understanding of client’s process and client can be assured of both  ‘cost saving and quality’ related to the process outsourced.

One of the primary motives of CRM is to establish a robust communication between the customers and your sales & marketing team, which can be achieved in a cost effective manner through On-Demand CRM. Krawler aptly understands the benefits that can be achieved by the use of the On-Demand CRM application. Our CRM solution enables your sales and marketing team to leverage the power of web. This results in efficient managing and tracking, of sales and marketing related activities. Furthermore, the stakeholders have instant access to the relevant information from anywhere and anytime.

The nub of the matter is that On-Demand CRM ascertains that you have to pay only for the number of CRM application users, or in other words, you pay as you use.

Some of the salient features of On-Demand CRM are as follows:

•No Up-front Investments: The need for initial investment in the hardware and software is obviated. Vendors (like Krawler) bear the ‘up-front’ investment expenses.

•Easy Integration: The integration of On-Demand CRM with existing systems is comparatively easier than that of On-Premise CRM solution. Krawler employs industry standards for web services to achieve integration within and outside organization’s information framework.

•High Scalability: Due to Higher Server configuration provided by vendor, scalability of On-demand CRM also becomes higher.

•Hassle-Free Maintenance: Software maintenance is always a critical and pain-stacking area for any application installed as On-Premise solution. But with the On-Demand methodology, the focus of this activity is shifted to vendor, which is mostly free of cost.

•Competitive Pricing: The On-Demand CRM basically takes into account the number of users who will be using the software. Furthermore, the hardware, software, installation, and deployment cost are not considered.

•Low Entry and Exit Barrier: As there are no installation and deployment cost, the barrier for entry is low. You simply have to decide on the number of user’s license and pay as per vendor’s monthly pricing scheme. Krawler has a very competitive pricing for On-Demand CRM solution. (For Krawler Pricing Plan, click here). Furthermore, you have to unsubscribe in order to stop usage of the application, making the exit barrier considerably lower.

To conclude, there are various benefits of On-Demand CRM that ranges from no up-front investment to high scalability and integration, to competitive pricing. Krawler offers a free trial run of 30 days for its CRM solution. To know more about our On-Demand applications, including CRM, click here.

A Workflow Engine is a critical component of Business Process Management that manages and executes business processes. In simple terms, Workflow Engine facilitates transition of modeled process from design phase to execution phase.

Workflow Engine aims to minimize manual intervention in the process, thereby reducing probability of human error. Many a time, initiation of a particular activity in the process depends on the completion of other. Actors involved in handling such activities should have instant information about the status of others. This in turn facilitates rapid execution of process, which may otherwise prolong its completion time. Thus, Workflow Engine reduces the overall process time to the minimum possible extent.

Enterprises follow certain guidelines – statutory or framed – while performing operational processes. These guidelines are incorporated in Business Rules Engine, and implemented through workflow engine. Workflow Engine performs wide range of activities such as submitting process related documents, sending email notifications to stakeholders, talking to web services, and more. Furthermore, Workflow Engine coordinates in carrying out various process tasks in the sequential order as defined in the process logic, known as Process Orchestration.

jSonic BPM supports the Web Service-Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) for carrying out the process orchestration through its workflow engine.

In the Krawler jSonic BPM context, workflow engine coordinates among the Business Rules Engine, Task Manager, and Activity Monitoring for efficiently carrying the workflow automation of modeled processes. Business Rules Engine enables Business Owners to create, edit and delete governing rules for business processes. Through Task Manager, process owners can monitor, review, and update their workflow tasks. Activity Monitoring facilitates real time monitoring of the processes, events, and triggers.

In a nutshell, it can be said that Workflow Engine acts as the brain of Business Process Management.

The prospects of Business Process Management (BPM) have generated huge excitement among Enterprise Owners and IT Owners, alike. This is mainly due to the fact that BPM efficiently handles the most core component of Business – Process.

The most frequent and basic question asked by the stakeholders – What is the first step in BPM implementation? The answer is quite simple – Process Modeling.

Process Modeling refers to the set of activity for documenting the Business Process using a combination of graphical notations and text. Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is the most widely accepted and used language for Process Modeling. Krawler jSonic Process Modeler is a powerful web based process designing and modeling tool, which uses standard Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN).

Process Modeling enables process owners to analyze the current state of Business Process and perform the gap analysis for optimizing and improving the same. While carrying out the Process Modeling activity, participants can:
•    Learn the importance of each task in the process
•    Understand their role and responsibility in carrying out the process
•    Identify task that are comparatively more time consuming i.e. Bottleneck Identification

Once the process is modeled – roles, forms, and business rules – are assigned to individual tasks in the process.

In conclusion, Process Modeling provides the basic foundation on which further BPM activities – workflow automation, reporting, and more – are carried out.

In a true sense, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an approach for enhancing customer experience and satisfaction by serving their needs and requirements in the most efficient way. In achieving this objective, the importance of external (customer facing) and internal (cross functional) processes can hardly be overlooked. This is exactly the junction where significance of Business Process Management (BPM) is realized. In other words, the convergence of BPM and CRM results into a Process Driven CRM.

One of the most noticeable benefits that BPM offers is the capability of facing any dynamic business condition. This is enabled through efficient handling of process, right from designing phase to execution. Krawler jSonic BPM offers comprehensive capabilities for process management, workflow automation, collaboration, data management and reporting.

Most of the time, the processes managed and automated by BPM are cross-functional i.e. the processes are spread across various business domain of enterprise.  When this ability to efficiently handle the business process is incorporated in CRM, the effectiveness of CRM is increased many fold.

Consider the situation where a customer places a bulk order enquiry to the customer representative. In order to answer the customer query, information from inventory, quality and manufacturing division is required.  The CRM solution that doesn’t have a process centric approach is of no value in such scenario.

BPM enables CRM to collate the information and metrics across the enterprise that results in better customer service.

Workflow automation is another area where CRM can be benefited by incorporating BPM. The workflow engine in BPM enables stakeholders to define the automatic routing of tasks related to customer processes. Although in CRM, the Case Escalation functionality supports workflow automation, it is limited to CRM domain only. With BPM, tasks can be automatically routed among other enterprise domain such as inventory, whenever required.

In conclusion, CRM is all about acquiring, managing and serving customers. This can be done efficiently and effectively only by having a strong enterprise wide process framework that is delivered by BPM.

In simple terms, Case refers to a detailed description of customer’s query or problem. Case Management aims to handle cases in the most optimized and standardized manner.

In today’s complex business environment, customer acquisition and retention plays a critical role in generating and maintaining competitive advantage. In this context, Case Management goes a long way in achieving customer’s loyalty that results in higher customer retention. Case Management lays emphasis on attending to customer’s problem or query – mainly after product or service delivery.  Through Case Management, stakeholders can effectively track, manage and resolve all customer issues. It provides a comprehensive view of case information through a single point of contact.

Krawler CRM, part of its Deskera Enterprise Application suite, offers a complete Case Management solution. The Case Management functionality in Krawler CRM allows customer service teams to capture all the relevant details about each case such as case name, subject, contact name, product name, type, priority and status, among others. When a case is being registered, various related activities are initiated. These activities are recorded systematically in the Krawler CRM. The Escalation functionality enables stakeholders to escalate (move forward) the case to the next appropriate level whenever the issue is not resolved at their level. The Case Reporting functionality presents status (New case, Pending, Escalated) of case in a highly intuitive graphical manner.

Major Benefits of Case Management:
•High customer satisfaction due to effective handling of customer’s query and problems
•Quick resolving of cases due to centralized availability of case information
•Reduce waiting time for processing the case due to Case Escalation functionality

Social CRM is the philosophy of monitoring and managing customer interactions, and relationships with existing and potential customers, through web, social networking sites, and other digital channels. The amalgamation of Social Media Marketing and CRM gives rise to the concept of the Social CRM.

As per the study conducted by Coleman Parkes Research in May 2008, sixty four percent of companies interviewed, reported an improved reputation in the marketplace due to social media tools.

The pervasive web has opened up enormous opportunities to interact with varied group of customers.  The success of Web 2.0 based social media tools – such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many more – have created new avenues for carrying out the marketing and sales activities. These forums provide the appropriate hunting ground for organizations to generate a positive buzz about their product offerings. The marketing strategy of “Word of Mouth” can be carried out easily though Social CRM and in the most optimized way!

One of the most promising features of Social CRM is that it enables organizations to understand the customer preferences and behavior through direct interaction with them. These interactions along with web analytics can be captured in the form of data, and analyzed for better understanding of customers. The analytical operation on the captured data can be extended to calculate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, unravel the customer navigation patterns on an organization’s website, and formulate strategies for targeting customers through web based social media forums.

Krawler social networking expertise based on Web 2.0 along with its CRM offers the right kind of Social CRM capabilities.

There is no denying the fact that the global economy around the world is facing the recessionary heat which is being felt by every Organization – small or big, global or local. In such difficult times, Enterprise Owners become impatient in acquiring new customers and improving their diminishing bottom-line. The need of the hour however, is to concentrate on “Business Basics”. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can definitely help enterprises in achieving that!

Let us briefly visit some of the action areas from business perspective that can help Businesses to perform better during Economic Downturn.

Up-Sell and Cross-Sell Opportunities

During the recessionary times, the most effective way of getting the business is to do “Up-Sell” or “Cross-Sell” to the existing customers. The probability of succeeding in Up-Selling and Cross-Selling is directly related to how the customer relationship is maintained in the past. This is exactly where the benefits of CRM can be realized in such a tough time!
A Customer Relationship Management solution effectively and efficiently caters to the aspect of customer retention through functionalities such as Account Management, Contact Management, Case Management and Activity Management, among others. The automation of these functionalities helps in optimizing the related sales and marketing efforts.

Customer Segmentation

The philosophy of customer segmentation is evergreen irrespective of economic conditions. But its value has increased many folds, when even a penny spent on marketing and sales effort means a lot! The CRM solution enables stakeholders to accurately analyze the data related to market segments, products, leads and campaigns. This results into better understanding of customer demography, product/brand loyalty and purchase behavior, among others. To summarize the point, CRM aids in formulating a “Sales Funnel” that provides  information about the most profitable customer segments and helps devise appropriate methods (Personal campaign, Mass marketing) to target them.

Empowering Marketing and Sale Team

Enterprises tend to reduce the marketing and sales resources during the tough times. Such an approach is definitely not fruitful in the long run. The emphasis should be on empowering the marketing and sales team and thereby enhancing their productivity as well as efficiency.
The CRM solution offers automated functionalities such as lead management, order processing, product pricing, mobile notifications, system generated emails and other administrative tasks. The end result of such CRM initiatives is that the Marketing and Sales representatives can concentrate better on those activities that directly impact the company’s bottom-line and do away with the routine non-value adding tasks.

In conclusion, CRM solution enables Organization to focus on customer acquisition and retention even in the most demanding situations and that too with the most optimized approach.

Krawler CRM enables stakeholders to study customer’s needs and behavior in order to provide better customer experience. Krawler Business Intelligence 2.0 blended with its CRM offers a unique feature – Customer Intelligence that empowers managers at every level of the organization to gather and analyze information regarding customer details and activities.