ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIES THAT RESULT IN BEST PRACTICES FOR SAP CRM

The increasingly globalized marketplace in which American businesses compete today has changed in fundamental ways in recent years, and innovations in information technology have provided companies with new opportunities to create products, deliver services, and form strategic alliances that were not even imaginable a few years ago (Ballou, Heitger & Tabor, 2001). One of the consistent aspects of most industrial economies has always been the manner in which companies have been forced to change over the years to remain competitive. In this regard, Smith (2003) emphasizes that, “It is a fact of business life that a company must always strive to produce strong profits. It is also a fact that customers are becoming increasingly demanding in their service level expectations” (p. 22). Although this does not sound like much of a change from the past, there have been some fundamental changes in the global economy and the world of information technology that have created both challenges and opportunities for almost all types of business today, that is if they are capable of applying their information technology applications in meaningful...