Sample Project
12/09/2010
IS300
Full Foods Case Study
In order for Full Foods to maintain its competitive advantage against other similar companies, it must adapt new technologies in order to improve customer service and the collection of data. This will enable the company to become more efficient. These new technologies will include, but are not limited to, a Customer Relationship Management System, a Business Intelligence Database, a Database Management System, Decision Support System, a Data Warehouse, and a new website. All of Full Foods data should be stored on a centralized server in order to eliminate wasted time locating data. Every branch will be able to access this server without having to navigate their way through other branches within their organization.
As your technology consultant I believe that the implementation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System would benefit Full Foods in many ways. A CRM is defined as a set of applications designed to gather and analyze information about customers. The main reason an organization would implement a CRM system is to increase the quality of customer service, and gather as much data as possible about buying habits and preference of its customers. CRM’s are designed to support three areas of customer relationships. They are marketing, sales, and customer service.
The marketing portion of a CRM is used to identify characteristics of likely customers, and the most efficient and effective way to execute a sale. Implementing a marketing research system within the CRM will help to find populations and regions that are most likely to purchase Full Foods’ products. This system will also help identify new products that are likely to sell to those identified regions. Once a CRM is implemented within your company, your inventory turnover will increase, and you will no longer have food spoil before it is sold. It will also allow you to have sufficient quantities of the products that your customers desire in order to be satisfied. Once this is implemented Full Foods will no longer have empty shelves and this will increase customer loyalty.
The CRM will also identity targeted markets. The principle of targeted marketing is to define the prospective customer as accurately as possible, and to direct marketing funds to those people most likely to purchase your products. The new website that I will be creating for Full Foods will perform selective advertising by targeting customers wants and showing them their own customized page. For example if a customer is always purchasing whole wheat products the website will show them pop-ups and savings on whole wheat products, and even make suggestions of other products they may be interested in.
Full Foods should also implement a database management system which is used to build databases, populate them with data, and to manipulate the data. This will help the company sort and categorize consumers by age, gender, income, previous purchases of related products, or any combination of these facts and other demographic information. The company then selects consumers whose characteristics match the company’s customer profile and spends its promotional dollars to try to sell to those select customers. This will be achieved by providing your customers with a bonus card that they will have scanned every time they make a purchase.
The CRM will collect all this data, and identify customers buying patterns and personal information. With this information you can individually send personalized brochures and coupons to individual customers in order to increase profit and customer loyalty. You can also create a loyalty program, and provide even greater discounts to your most loyal customers. This is similar to how Best Buy has a reward card you can receive, and if you as a customer spend a certain amount they upgrade you to silver and gold memberships. Another benefit of the rewards program is that it will provide you with specific