This project is done to understand how the implementation of a Management Information System (MIS) transforms the whole sales process in IBM which enabled it to win in the global economy. This report will try to analyse the CRM implementation in IBM, How it fits into the IBM scheme of things. We will also be analysing why IBM despite being an MNC was unable to cope in the new globalization era because of its inefficient processes and will elucidate on the need by International Business Machine to implement a new Management information system.Finally the project will illustrate the benefits IBM gained after the implementation of CRM Siebel.
International Business Machines (IBM) is an American multinational computer, technology, business consulting, and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM is the world's fourth largest technology company and the second most valuable global brand (after Coca-Cola). IBM is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century.IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software (with a focus on the latter), and offers infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. Sales is often the untamed "wild west" in many organizations, especially in those organizations with intensive sales cycles and diverse, multi-disciplinary, expert sales teams.
Sales organizations thrive in Chaos, relying on the energy, heroism and savvy of independent-minded sales professionals.Like other large firms with long histories of traditional Sales and big-company behavior, IBM knew this environment intimately. But as IBM strove to become more agile in response to market demands, IBM discovered that Sales processes needed to be refocused, sales intelligence leveraged, and teams orchestrated across clients, product lines, roles, geographies and function. More so, Sales needed to be a leader of integration - alignment of people and technology - within the enterprise, forging unexpected partnerships with the likes of Finance and other strategic functions.One could argue that there is no other single business function as important to a Company's performance and yet so uncontrolled as Sales. This phenomenon is especially exaggerated in the arena of large, complex, strategic selling, meaning those sales that require .
Complex sales often involve services priced in the thousands or millions of dollars, are typically sold from one large business to another business, and are framed as being strategically vital to the client organization. Today, for strategically minded enterprises, the traditional approach no longer works.Many products and services have evolved to become complex solutions, often requiring the minds and talents of hundreds to successfully configure and deliver. Companies are now global in a strategic and tactical sense, genuinely coordinating and integrating across the world. Communications and technology have evolved.
The world has become "flat". Buying sophistication and customer demands have increased to the point that reliance on hawkish sales techniques and personal relationships has been replaced by strategic, value-based partnerships between smart enterprises.The role of Sales is transforming from a promotional spokesman to a trusted advisor, and underscores the value of influencing clients' strategies and decision-making processes. The cost of complex sales is high, both in direct costs and the economic impact on the enterprise. A long sales cycle, with large, highly-compensated teams, travel, subject matter expert participation, legal reviews, document production, and other costs, can add up to a very large expense.This said, the direct costs of Sales paint too small a picture of how critical and costly a dysfunctional Sales organization is to a company.
Client relationships are too important to fail. They often require multi-year investments, and the value of an existing client is not just the thousands or millions in revenue of the first sale, but the growing annuity it represents for years and years of reorders and cross-sells. As the fountainhead of demand and revenue, Sales also drives overall business performance.Sales must either dictate or comply with the output of product development, manufacturing, infrastructure planning, and delivery staff.
Framed this way, poor sales planning isn't about the deal that was lost; it's about the staff that wasn't deployed, the inventory that wasn't sold, or the years of product development that were wasted. Knowing how Sales is going to perform is often more valuable to a company then how well Sales performs.This ability to foresee opportunity cost is an important complication in the imperative to improve Sales: at the field/client level the Sales organization must get better at doing its job (e. g. courting prospects, closing deals); and at the enterprise level Sales must also play a vital and integrated role in informing and working within the rest of the business operations (e. g.
, reporting revenue, accurately forecasting performance).
