Unbundling and deploying CRM applications as e-services

Abstract

The development of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities by incrementally sourcing and combining "best of breed" services from different providers is a key lever for reducing implementation risks and costs linked to CRM projects. Central to a "best of breed" and incremental CRM implementation strategy is the unbundling of CRM functionality into a portfolio of services that can be sourced from application service providers and/or developed internally within the client organization. This paper addresses issues and methodological steps relating to unbundling CRM applications into self contained e-Services and developing the service blueprint to deliver the e-Service. In particular a study is conducted illustrating the unbundling of customer segmentation functionality towards modeling, packaging and delivering the business process functionality as an on-demand e-Service.