مدل مدیریت ارتباط با مشتری و سیستم های اطلاعات کسب و کار (هوش کسب و کار) برای خرده فروشان کاتالوگ و آنلاین

As more retailers evolve into customer-centric and segment-based business, business intelligence (BI) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems are playing a key role in achieving and maintaining competitive advantage. For the past ten years, the authors have had the rare opportunity of observing and interviewing employees and managers of three different management teams at three separate Fingerhut companies as they experimented with various ITs for their companies. When the first Fingerhut company peaked in 1998, as many as 200 analysts and 40 statisticians mined the database for insights that helped predict consumer shopping patterns and credit behaviour. Data mining and BI helped Fingerhut spot shopping patterns, bring product offerings to the right customers, and nurture customer relationships. By 1998, Fingerhut was the second largest catalogue retailer in the U.S. with revenues nearing $2 billion. However, after Federated acquired Fingerhut in 1999 and made it a subsidiary, Fingerhut Net, it suffered great losses and was eventually liquidated. Finally, a new company, Fingerhut Direct Marketing, was resurrected in 2002 under a new management team, and it once again became successful. What went right? What went wrong? The paper concludes with CRM and BI systems success factors and a discussion of lessons learned.

The use of IT has created new ways for firms to exploit vast potentials of customer relationships that have never been exploited before. With growing competition from both traditional and online businesses, keeping customers satisfied, increasing potential sales, and maintaining customer loyalty become strategically important to business success. To improve and exploit customer relationships, business intelligence (BI) tools are used to assist CRM systems focus on decision support, market research, target marketing, customer service, and customer collaboration in products and services. Despite numerous CRM studies, very little effort has been made in incorporating consumer preferences for customer satisfaction and relationships. Wang and Head [10] report that most research on consumer behaviour addresses the acquisition stage, while research in the retention stage is still in its infancy. This paper deals with this paucity of research, and presents case studies on the success and failure of customer relationships and business intelligence. The paper identifies strategies and the successes and failures at Fingerhut Inc., the second largest catalogue mail order company in the U.S. in 1999, and addresses the following questions: 1. What are the impacts of price discrimination on customer relationships? 2.What are the impacts of CRM and/or BI systems on catalogue and online retailing businesses? 3.What are the impacts of high switching costs and/or lock-in strategies on customer relationships? 4.What is a successful outcome model for catalogue and online businesses?

With rapid advances in technology, enterprises today frequently search for new ways to establish value positions. Overall, the success, failure, and rebirth of Fingerhut confirms the need for BI to support CRM successes, and challenges some conventional wisdom about switching costs, price discrimination, and the threat of disintermediation. It appears that the recent findings of Muthitacharoen et al. and Wang and Head regarding switching cost and price discrimination cannot apply to the real world, at least not to Fingerhut. Businesses must be careful in their use of price discrimination among sales channels. Because the failures of Fingerhut's order-fulfilments system was just a tactical short-term problem, it was more likely that the removal of the strategic position that relied heavily on BI and CRM was the main cause for the failure of Fingerhut and Federated in 2001. Today, Fingerhut is back in business as an independent private company. For the past four years, it has achieved spectacular success in its re-entry into online business, 57% in 2006, and 76% in 2007 and even 14% during the recession of 2008. Using the same business model with which it had success in the past, it has been successful. As technology advances, opportunities exist for Fingerhut to further expand its strength in business intelligence and CRM.