With this challenging economy...will customers use BI to track customers?

Question

QUESTION: Are faculty (e.g., professors, lecturers) teaching BI to students centered around customers data?
Hi! With this challenging global and regional economy...
It's always good to look at what customers and the marketplace will invest in as a top priority in 2009!
With business intelligence centered around customers...
Faculty (e.g., professors, lecturers, reseachers) can benefit through their thought leadership and of course, preparing students (graduate and undergraduate) for meaningful careers and jobs (which will help pay for student loans!:-)
So one segment of interest within Business Intelligence is to better track customers which leads to better decisions, better customer support, better insights, better opportunities!
What are the biggest gaps that you see that businesses and organizations face when tracking (analyzing) customers' trends?
How much of the customer information needs to be tracked inside the walls of the business or organization and how much outside the boundaries? For example, suppliers, distributers, partners, retailers may have information about the customers that would help a great deal! This information may be outside the organization that needs it most!
Also, how much of this customer information is stuctured vs. un-structured? How much is predictable data and how much is ad-hoc? If it's ad-hoc and thus lost, how does this effect the "single version" of the truth in respect to customers?
Should students learn about how organizations address business intelligence in respect to customer data? Now much of this type of knowledge is being exchanged on campus (face-to-face and e-learning)?
Best regards,
Richard
Edited by: Richard Blumberg on Feb 3, 2009 6:43 PM

Answer 1

Hi,
Customer data is certainly relevant. Business Intelligence is capable to capture and analyze quantitative data very well and certainly one of the useful tools to detect trends and uncover opportunities...
Nevertheless, most companies leverage CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions to track the most relevant data regarding their customers. In the SAP world, this functionality is supported by SAP CRM. SAP CRM collects information about Marketing (Marketing Campaigns, Segmentation, Leads...), E-Commerce, Channel Management, Sales (Opportunities, Quotations, Orders...), Interaction Center, Service and Field Applications based on core data like Business Partners (not only customers) or Product Master Data, which can be integrated with the ERP-System.
In the SAP world this data from SAP CRM can be analyzed within SAP CRM or can be analyzed using CRM Analytics, which leverages the functionality of SAP Business Intelligence. This integration of special purpose systems supports the maximum leverage of the information available.
We, at Hochschule Ansbach, see the benefit of demonstrating this integration to our students. We have found a business partner to sponsor our curriculum development and will teach the first integrated SAP BI - SAP CRM - SAP ERP course this spring.
For more details visit [http://www.profheesen.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=140:crm-partnership&catid=1:news&Itemid=50]
If you are interested, feel free to contact me in Charlotte at the UA meeting or via email.
All the best,
Bernd