Proposed Framework

Based on the cases and the conceptual reviews of CRM, KDD, and Relationship Marketing, we propose a model for success in e-marketing (see Figure 12-1). The model includes three dimensions - KDD Technologies (to enhance the organization's 'Customer Knowledge Capability'), CRM Technologies ( chosen to maximize 'CRM Fit'), and Customer Relationship Focus (to induce strong 'Market Orientation').

Figure 12-1: Enhancing e-marketing through CRM and KDD

The theoretical bases for this proposed model are drawn and blended from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Knowledge Management approaches from MIS and Computer Science, Task-Technology Fit model from Management Information Systems (MIS), and Market Orientation perspectives from Marketing and Business Strategy literatures are adopted and adapted for the purpose of developing this framework.

The Task-Technology Fit (TTF) model from MIS provides a way to explain how CRM systems could lead to increased customer retention and satisfaction. Technologies that fit the tasks lead to salutary performance impacts (Goodhue & Thompson, 1995). MIS methods sometimes imply that technology alone will lead to greater customer satisfaction.

It is not technology in isolation that affects performance - other characteristics also come into play (Goodhue, Klein, & March, 2000). Even though technology is an enabler of CRM practice, it is not easy to satisfy customers without their permissions or without customers' willingness to participate and articulate preferences.

For such preference articulation, permission granting, and co-creating customer participation to occur, organizations have to be sensitive to customers and constantly receive signals from customers. In other words, it is necessary for organizations to be customer centric and market oriented. For, in competitive contexts, customers are likely to migrate away from organizations that ignore customer and market signals, and make a beeline towards organizations that do not ignore such signals.

To invoke the brain-limb-heart analogy again, technological advances have added enormous power to the ' limbs ' in the form of CRM systems, and boosted the IQ of the organizational 'brain' via KDD. The 'heart' of satisfactory service, however, still lies in relationship marketing based on a customer-focused organizational culture. In competitive e-marketing contexts, consumers are wooed by multiple firms - and therefore customer focus has to be leavened with a sharp-eyed competitive focus also. This is why customer focus requires a market orientation: attention to customers and competition.