Ecotourism & people Essay

Ecotourism is a branch of tourism which seeks to extend the concept of sustainability to the tourism industry. In recent years, concerns such as the planet’s sustainability, preservation of its natural resources, balancing human activities with Mother Nature’s needs and so on, have reached all-time highs. It is exactly concerns such as these which have led to the development and growth of ecotourism. There is no single universally accepted definition of ecotourism. Indeed, several researchers, tourism providers, environmental agencies and local bodies have formulated different definitions, which vary slightly in their scope and breadth. However, three key elements are central to most of the definitions encountered in a review of the existing literature, namely: sustainability of the ecotourism location; creating an appreciation among ecotourists of the need to preserve the natural environment; creating respect and/or contributing to the development of the local cultures (Eastwood, 2009). These characteristics of ecotourism quite obviously place it into sharp contrast with traditional mass tourism. Mass tourism often attracts tourists to locations that have been extensively developed in terms of infrastructure, facilities, communication networks and so on. In doing so, the natural and physical environment of such locations is dramatically altered, in ways that are irreversible. Moreover, large amounts of energy may be consumed to sustain such establishments. In contrast, ecotourism seeks maximum preservation of the natural environment of designated locations. Indeed, the very charm for an ecotourist lies in visiting a location that still remains largely untouched by modern development. Mass tourism also makes no claims to educate tourists with regard to the environment. The main offering of mass tourism is typically entertainment and leisure. Individuals availing this form of tourism typically use their holidays to take a temporary break from their commitments, choosing to relax and unwind during the interval before returning to their routine lifestyle. Unless the tourists specifically choose to embark on an educational journey in areas of personal interest, most journeys do not have serious objectives, and this factor is reflected in the marketing appeals used by mass tourism providers. Finally, while tourists in the realm of mass tourism are most certainly exposed to different cultures and people, this interaction is generally viewed as more of an exotic exposure rather than anything more meaningful or substantial. There is no pressing need felt by the tourists or the mass tourism providers to contribute to the different communities visited or to be concerned about their development. On the other hand, most genuine ecotourism initiatives are geared to the development of host communities, with long term planning and financial resources being channeled towards this objective (Schellhorn, 2010). Part Two: The Ecotourist Experience The unique aspects of the ecotourist experience and its implications for host communities are explored next. Motivations are not homogenous: It would be misleading to assume that all tourists visiting ecotourism locations have the same motivations. An analysis of tourists at Al Maha, an ecotourist resort in Dubai, revealed that the average tourist is simply motivated to come and enjoy the desert setting more than anything else. Many of the tourists are rich individuals, primarily businessmen and women, who simply desire an exotic temporary accommodation as an alternate to hotels in the city. While at the resort, such individuals do not sever ties with their corporations, or typically immerse themselves in the indigenous culture as the ideal ecotourist is expected to do. Another segment of tourists at this resort consists of honeymooning couples looking for a romantic getaway – again, not the stereotype of the dedicated ecotourist (Ryan & Stewart, 2009). Since the motivation itself is lacking, the Al Maha ecotourist resort is hardly able to change the tourists perceptions regarding sustainability or the need to preserve and appreciate the natural environment and local cultures. Scale of development: The Al Maha resort example discussed above also raises an import concern: the scale of development within ecotourism locations. Al Maha is extensively projected as an ecotourist destination; however, it has been extensively developed, almost resembling a luxury resort! The resort also consumes vast amounts of energy in maintaining its facilities, which runs somewhat contrary to the concept of sustainability of resources. Those in support of large scale ecotourist destinations claim that expansion of such projects is almost a prerequisite if such projects are required to have a substantial impact globally (Buckley, 2009). Tourist behavior may be counter-productive: A study conducted at three ecotourist destinations in the Himalayas revealed that, in some instances, so called â€Å"ecotourists† were actually creating compounding problems of pollution by littering and improper disposal of non-biodegradable items. Ironically, the management of hotels was doing no better either – discharge of untreated waste water was rampant (Batta, 2006). Such behavior is in complete violation of the spirit of ecotourism. It not only spoils the experience of true ecotourists who may also be frequenting such resorts, but is also a social issue since it creates discomfort for the local residents. New income may not be channeled in sustainable activities: Whereas income generation for the local community members at ecotourism locations is an expected and desired outcome, this new income may defeat the objectives of sustainability if it is channeled in undesired activities. For example, a case study conducted in Brazil and Peru revealed that locals used the income generated from employment at ecotourism locations to engage in needless, extravagant consumption of goods. Moreover, earning income from this means did not deter them from engaging in activities such as hunting or unsustainable exploitation of natural resources (Stronza & Pegas, 2008). This study highlights the need to educate the local communities involved in ecotourism initiatives if the full benefits of these initiatives are to be realized. The negative impacts of overcrowding: The ecotourist’s experience is most fulfilling if the location is perceived to offer a serene, calm environment, where one can get away from hustle-and-bustle and really connect with nature. This is precisely the reason why overcrowding can seriously deter the ecotourist’s enjoyment of his/her experience (Ormsby & Mannle, 2006). Managers of ecotourism locations are placed in a quandary, particularly if they are aiming to generate significant amount of funds from attracting tourists. On the one hand, they want their destination to become popular and attract the optimal level of tourists; on the other hand, if overcrowding occurs, then the destination loses its appeal for true ecotourists. Ethical dilemmas: In her article entitled â€Å"Ethics and ecotourism: connections and conflicts†, Stark (2002) proposed a series of questions pertaining to ethical concerns in the realm of ecotourism. A few summarized questions, pertinent especially to those in the tourism industry who provide travel packages claiming to be ecotours, are as follows: What is the â€Å"carrying capacity† of a specific site (or in other words, how many tourists it can support), beyond which the local environment would be prone to harm? Is ecotourism simply being projected as a fashion statement or something which is â€Å"in†? Are local cultures simply being objectified rather than truly appreciated? What are the net costs and benefits of ecotourism activities? Do local communities benefit, and are they involved at each level of implementation? Is care being taken, particularly in developing countries, that sites which have rich traditional or cultural heritage are not being exploited for commercial purposes? These are just some of the numerous questions which come to the fore when choosing a destination for ecotourism and designing and implementing a strategy which is ethically sound. It is an accepted fact that the development of any form of tourism, even ecotourism, has long-lasting impacts on local communities. Therefore, it is vital for ecotourism development agencies to take the locals on board and determine in advance what nature and level of changes are acceptable to them (Butcher, 2006). Unsuitable nature of education provisions: Stem et. al (2003), in an article entitled â€Å"Ecotourism and education for sustainability: a critical approach†, that most of the insights and educational experienced provided at ecotourism locations currently are not up to par and sufficient to generate a proper understanding of sustainability and environmentally friendly activities among tourists. Some tours provide theoretical data, others provide adventure and thrill, whereas still others merely encourage tourists to immerse themselves in their surroundings and appreciate natural beauty. What is lacking is the kind of education which would motivate attitudinal and behavioral change among tourists, not only while they are on tour but something which they can appreciate, act upon and tell others about as well once the tour has ended. Longitudinal studies could be employed to find out whether ecotourists actually change and maintain their changed behavior over an extended period of time after a given trip, but such studies have largely been lacking to date (Buckley, 2009).

Ford Motor Company: Supply Chain Strategy Case

Ford Motor Company, incorporated in 190 by Mr. Henry Ford, is one of the largest vehicle markers in the world today. This company employees more than 360,000 employees and has produced more than 260 million vehicles over its history. Since the 1970s, the auto industry has evolved from an industry with only a few large companies to one in which competition has become tough. Instead of two main competitors, Ford now faces foreign automakers in the marketplace. With the increased competition, car dealers are seeing more cars sit on lots for a longer period of time and are now offering a variety of incentives to get people to buy these products. Diagnosis In 1995, the CEO of Ford established an initiative called Ford 2000 in an effort to reduce costs and become more market competitive. This new initiative encompassed all of Ford's activities, such as product development, manufacture and marketing. Most of these projects were based around IT improvements. These improvements were done as an effort to bring Ford closer to all aspects of their supply chain, from their supplier to their customers. In 1998, Ford also opened the first of its Ford Retail Networks. This project was started to help the dealers compete with the real competition, such as GM and Chrysler instead of each other. It also brought Ford closer to the end customer. This Ford 2000 project was a major undertaking, but what is helping the company as a whole? Well, in 1998, the Ford 2000 initiative had raised Ford's profits, return on sales, and had made the company the industry leader in profit per vehicle. Ford had been named the most improved automaker in 1997 by JD Power Initial Quality Study and had become the world leader in trucks. They were making progress, but where still burdened with large inventories. Ford's Director of Supply Chain Systems began to research what Ford could do to decrease these inventories to become the industry leader and to increase shareholder wealth. She did some research into Dell Computers. This company was enjoying 55% per year growth at the time that Ford's growth was steady at about 6% a year. They were also seeing a 133% growth of their stocks while Ford was seeing at 33.4% growth. Dell had adopted a virtual integration business model. Within this model Dell uses the Internet for almost all business activities. Customers place an order specifying exactly what they want. This can be done over the Internet or over the phone. Dell then places an order for the components of this machine over an Internet based JIT ordering system. The parts are received assembled and shipped to the customer within 5-6 days. After much research, the director tried to determined if this same system could be used for Ford Motor Company. Analysis The Director found that there would be several challenges if they were going to implement this type of virtual integration system. First, Ford Motor Company is more than 100 years old whereas Dell was opened in 1984. Since the company is so old and has been doing business the same way for a long period of time, it will be harder to implement a large change such as virtual integration. For example, Ford's procurement process is not where it needs to be if the company is going to virtually integrate. Ford currently has a very large number of suppliers. Procurement personnel are highly involved with every aspect of the supplier relationship, while Dell uses a JIT ordering system. Ford's manual process is more apt to errors than an electronic process would be, but the procurement department has been so powerful for so long that it may be hard to convince those working in this department that this change will be beneficial. The implementation of an electronic ordering system could put some of these employees out of a job. These employees are also choosing suppliers on the basis of cost only. If Ford was going to implement a virtual integration system, procurement professionals would have to take other aspects into account, such as delivery time and willingness to partner. If Ford was going to implement an electronic system for ordering, they would also face some challenges while establishing Internet links with their suppliers. First, they would have to choose whom they would want to partner with in this fashion. Then they would have to determine if these suppliers have information technology systems that would support an Internet based communication system. Currently Ford has started to develop this type of system with their â€Å"tier one† suppliers who are their most advanced and largest suppliers. If they were to extend the electronic ordering to other suppliers who did not have the technology to support this type of system, Ford would be forced to decide if they would want to help their suppliers develop or acquire the technology needed for this interaction. Other issues such as what type of information would be shared and the security system they would use to make sure only those with the need to know would have access to this information would have to be addressed as well. Another challenge Ford Motor Company would face when trying to implement a virtual integration model like Dells is there are some major differences between the computer and automotive industries. An automobile is a more complex product and includes many more parts than a computer. If Ford were going to implement a virtual integration model they would have to manage a larger number of component parts suppliers than Dell is managing, which would add costs. Ford, if moving towards virtual integration, must also address their network of privately owned dealerships. Dell's model of virtual integration includes no dealers or retailers. If Ford were to adopt complete virtual integration, they would technically not have dealers. Having no dealers would not be possible for Ford. These dealerships are franchises that are owned legally by individuals. Also a person that is going to buy a car may not be receptive to ordering one off the Internet. Most people test-drive an automobile before they buy, which could not be done if cars were ordered strictly from the manufacturer. If Ford did not offer test-drives and other companies such as GM did, Ford would have a large disadvantage. Conclusion In order to implement the type of virtual integration model that Dell currently employs, Ford would have to overcome some obstacles. These obstacles come from every aspect of their current supply chain. They would have to partner with suppliers and provide these suppliers the infrastructure and training they would need in order to communicate over the Internet. They would also have to change the way their dealers worked with customers. Since most customers would not accept buying a car directly off the Internet, Ford would have to implement other methods of changing this aspect of their supply chain. Recommendations Although there are several differences between Ford and Dell, I do recommend that Ford implement some of Dell's virtual integration model. I recommend that they set-up an extranet, or extend their current system so that they may use JIT ordering with their suppliers. They could use some sort of incentive plan to encourage their supplier to invest in their technology systems so that they would be able to use this extranet for accepting orders. The amount of money Ford would save from the direct link they would have to their suppliers should supplement the investment they would have to make in developing an extranet. I also recommend that Ford make some changes in the way they interact with their customers. Ford could set-up some type of virtual showroom. This may encourage more customers to order direct from Ford instead of going to a dealer. They could also create an intranet, or enhance their current intranet, in which dealers could check the stock of other dealers for the vehicle a customer is looking for. If they could have this vehicle shipped from one dealer to the other it would not only reduce dealer inventory, but would also please the customer since the lead-time for them receiving their new vehicle would be reduced. Although Ford may never be able to virtually integrate to the extent that Dell has, the company will be able to see cost savings from their integration efforts. Ford should be able to reduce dealer inventories and should be able to move towards a pull strategy of manufacture if they implement these changes.

Critical Evaluation of a poem “Out, Out” by Robert Frost

A poem which I have read recently is â€Å"Out, Out† by Robert Frost. This poem is memorable as it affected me in several ways. It shocked me because the little boy cut off his hand and then died, but also because after the boy died people turned back to their work and didn't seem to care about the boy. When I had read the poem for the first time the title did not seem important because I could not tell what the poem was about, from it. After I had studied the poem in more detail, I considered the poem to be particularly effective. The title â€Å"Out, Out† is a famous quotation from Macbeth which was written by Shakespeare. It intrigues the reader by keeping them in suspense which makes them read on. The poet intrigued me the first time I read the title as I thought it was a very peculiar title for this poem. This made me study the poem in more detail; it was the title of this poem which made me keep the poem vividly in my head. The title of this poem was effective because the poet was comparing our life to the life of candle flame and how it can be put out. He is trying to stress to us how short life is. Robert Frost appeals to my sense of smell, sight and hearing by the writing: â€Å"Sweet scented stuff† The techniques he used were alliteration and onomatopoeia. He uses alliteration by starting all the words in the quotation above with an â€Å"S† sound. Also onomatopoeia by using the quotation: â€Å"The buzz saw snarled and rattled† This line in the poem is showing us what the saw is doing. He also used repetition by using: â€Å"the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled† This quotation is effective because it is stressing to us how boring but repetitive this job was. I think Frost appeals to our senses because he is trying to make us imagine we were at the scene of this horrific incident. As he appeals to my senses I can imagine I was at the scene of the accident, which is what Robert Frost wanted to achieve. This leaves a deep impression on me because I was able to picture the scene of the incident clearly in my head. Another technique Robert Frost used in this poem was personification. An example of it being in this poem is: â€Å"As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leapt out at the boy's hand† This quotation is giving the personality of a living thing to the saw. In using this quotation Frost explains to us that it wasn't only the boy who was hungry but also the saw. Another phrase which contains the personification of the saw is: â€Å"the saw snarled† This shows us how aggressive the saw was while cutting the wood. It also told us that in general saws are angry and aggressive and the boy shouldn't of being using the saw. I think this as I think â€Å"snarled† is some form of movement a wild animal does. I think the poet uses personification to show us how aggressive the saw was. The poet's use of personification helps me to remember the poem vaguely. One of the lessons I learnt from the poem was from the last two lines of the poem: â€Å"And they, since they were not the ones dead, turned to their other affairs† I think that after reading that Robert Frost wrote this poem to criticise our society today as we are hard hearted. Also because people who might have known the boy didn't care they just turned to their other work. The other lesson I learnt from the poem was from the poem and how life is short and could end easily. I think these two points that Frost is making are valid points because today in our society today people only care about themselves and don't consider the fact about how short life is. This affected me in two ways, firstly I have started to think about others whose loved one has died and I have found out that life's too short. The poem â€Å"Out, Out† by Robert Frost will remain vividly in my head because of all the effective techniques he used to get us to think about how hard hearted society is and also, how short life is. He was very successful in getting me to think about the two lessons I learnt. Although the best technique I thought was the way he managed to get me to think towards our society as hard hearted and how short life is. After reading the poem I was affected emotionally as I could relate the point which Frost brought up about us being hard hearted to the people who I have turned my back to in my life. Also I was emotionally upset as I had never given life a thought but after reading the poem I realise how precious life is to me.

Good Samaritan Laws Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Good Samaritan Laws - Personal Statement Example Moreover, the paper will also look at the impact of these issues on the patients. The paper will also list the ways to promote health and reduce the risk in ethical and legal situations. One of the legal issues that relate to the current healthcare setting includes vaccination of the healthcare workforce. This legal issue rests on the notion that healthcare workers who have direct contact with patients should be vaccinated since they can suffer from infectious diseases in healthcare centres. In a study conducted by Stewart and Rosenbaum in 2010, it was concluded that direct contact can lead to the contracting of infections such as influenza. Such infections can be transmitted through sharing space with infected patients or through handling equipment, which the patients come into contact with during treatment. Whereas vaccination of healthcare workers can be regarded as crucial in the prevention of infections, making vaccination of healthcare workers mandatory can be termed as controv ersial due to the legality of such an issue (Stewart and Rosenbaum 615). Based on the law, healthcare workers should have the freewill to choose whether they should accept a vaccination or not. Therefore, it is not appropriate to force them to undergo vaccination when they do not want to do so (Babcock et al. 459). In my own analysis, there are certain personal and professional issues relating to the vaccination of healthcare workers. Personally, I think it is necessary to undergo mandatory vaccination in order not to put the health of the patients at stake. On the same note, I suppose that it is professionally wrong to force an employee to undergo some tests or vaccination, which they do not want. This issue affects the patient in that it may comprise his or her health. For example, if a healthcare worker contracts a disease from a patient, they may pass the same disease to another patient. The other legal issue that relates to current healthcare setting encompasses the use of soci al media in the healthcare setting. This issue revolves around the use of platforms such the internet to post information about clients or an experience in a healthcare setting (Saleh et al. 294). Some healthcare workers may post information about the experiences of patients, and this can be termed as illegal since such issues should not happen. For example, a legal battle may ensue when a healthcare worker posts some information about a patient suffering from trauma. A study conducted by Lambert and others in 2012 revealed that doctors may be reprimanded by the board when they post sensitive information about patients (Lambert et al. 41). Personally and professionally, I do not think it is acceptable to post some information online about patients. The experiences of doctors other healthcare workers, when dealing with clients, should not be exposed to the public. Such an issue may cause stigma to the patient and affect is interactions with other people. Core values such as upholding ethical standards should be followed in order to address such an issue. The other legal issue in the current healthcare encompasses language access in healthcare settings. This issue revolves around the increase in the number of persons who do not speak English. This diversity has forced healthcare settings to adhere to new legal requirements, which require that non-native speakers of the English language should be treated equally with

Black Americans suffers ater war Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Black Americans suffers ater war - Essay Example ime differences between the pre-war and post-war rights of the Black Americans were that after the war, they were able to cast vote, hold their own offices and also go to schools. In addition to these three differences, societal norms and practices had also altered in favor of the Black Americans. In 1867, one of the most integrated Southern cities, New Orleans distorted the long-prevailed segregation in the street cars, elected 95 black representatives and 32 black senators for the state from 1868 till 1896. Thus, more Black Americans were in politics than ever before. â€Å"African Americans so dominated the catering business that they formed the United Public Waiters’ Mutual Beneficial Association† (â€Å"After the Civil War†). Moreover, interracial marriages were also legalized. Nevertheless, life of the Black Americans in the South was yet quite imperfect in spite of all these changes. In the days of Reconstruction, opportunities for the black Americans were limited by the Black Codes according to which, Black Americans that went into professions other than agriculture were supposed to pay taxes. The Black Americans were also not allowed to possess guns or rent the land. Immediately following the Civil War, numerous anti-black agencies had surfaced one of which was the Ku Klux Klan. Lynching is the term used to refer to the illegal execution of an individual that is accused of a crime by the mob. This was originally used by White Americans to punish the Black slaves. Not just the slaves, even members of the White community that expressed their consent against lynching had had their lives put in risk. Alton Observer’s Editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy was assassinated by the White Americans on 7 November 1837 due to his criticism for lynching and consent for the eradication of slavery (â€Å"Lynching†). In the post-war era, lynching was frequently used by the Ku Klux Klan to execute the Black Americans. The period between 1868 and 1871 was when the lynching

Robinson-Patman Act Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Robinson-Patman Act - Assignment Example It required that the seller offer the same price terms to customers at a certain given level of trade. It is meant to cub discrimination on the sale of goods to equally-situated distributors when the effects of such sale are aimed at reducing competition (American Bar Association, 2002, p. 463). Large stores and wholesalers can undercut small stalls selling similar products and services in such a way that can attract customers to buy from them. This can force such small retailers to go out of business; hence the Act can stem the vice of undercutting other small general business. Wholesalers and chain stores have to operate under the same business environment with the small retailers so as to offer the same prices to the end users of the products. Without the law, competition will be lessened and monopolies created in the line of commerce hence injuring small retailers and granting huge benefits to the large stores. This law applies to goods and services of the same grade, calibration, and quality (American Bar Association, 2002, p. 495). Such big multinationals like Pepsi and its competitor Coca Cola are the two major soft drink manufacturers in the world. They enjoy wider market coverage around the world which can be considered to be monopolies in some cases, especially if one of them operates, and the other is not in that market. Their market positions have been considered harmful as they enjoy huge capital outlay and wider market coverage. These enable them to cause undesirable competition to small manufacturers. They yield harmful price controls which they can manipulate markets in their favor to reduce competition by reducing prices at will across their products; soft drinks, juices, bottled water, sports drinks, and snacks. Such antitrust law as Robinson-Patman Act is meant to prevent such multinational from creating restraints on trade and commerce and

Social Person Perspective Matrix Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Social Person Perspective Matrix - Assignment Example The government and unions supplied the workers with much needed safety & security per Maslow’s hierarchy; worker needs the organizational leaders appeared to be ignoring. This perspective includes psychological concepts such as self-awareness, self-esteem, and self-actualization, and effective interpersonal communication and relationships. Managing with the whole person concept in mind is critical for the manager’s role today to maximize available limited resources. The social person needs to be a primary focus for the manager as that is what determines the needs and motivations of the worker (Reza, 2009). Noe et al. (2003) state that the Social Person Perspective came at a time in history when there had previously been solely a focus on production and increasing efficiency and productivity, at the sake and discomfort of the people. The evolution of management received a well-needed infusion of human understanding which eased management – worker conflicts, ended misunderstandings, and continued to increase organizational production while improving employee morale. Within the motivational theories that were brought about as a result of the focus on the social person, the important thing to remember is to treat the staff you work with as team members, not staff that work for you. The manager is not above everyone else, but working with them to get the work completed timely and accurately. Do not resort to the autocratic method of management. The workplace is a collection of adults who value and respect their time and effort and expect the same in return. They will then return the same value and respect to their team members, which includes the manager (Noe et al., 2003). Warmoth, A. (1998, August). Humanistic psychology and humanistic social science. Reprinted from Humanity and Society (the journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology, 22(3) Retrieved March 20, 2011 from

MIH 514 - Cross Cultural Health Perspectives (Mod 1 CBT) Essay

MIH 514 - Cross Cultural Health Perspectives (Mod 1 CBT) - Essay Example From the cultural standpoint, one cannot but helping that Sharia laws are being used in this country to subvert all kinds of cultures except Islamic ones. Moreover, only selective laws to address professed activities against the culture are being used. For instance, action against corruption which is banned under Sharia is not enforced by the government. This could get exasperated if they were enforce Shariah laws not only for local population but also for other â€Å"non-Muslims† the expatriates and foreign visitors to this country. â€Å"The laws should be extended to non-Muslims, too, he said, a move that would place Aceh in the same ranks as Saudi Arabia† (Asia pacific: Indonesian province embraces Islamic law, 2006, para.4). The main external force, to my mind is the exertion of the dominant culture in the evolutionary pattern of this culture, and perhaps the low tolerance to cultures not akin to the reigning Islamic culture and Sharia laws. While it is necessary for local governments to enforce law and order to maintain the cultural identify and moral integrity of Islamic precepts, it is also necessary that the cultural aspects of other religions need also be respected, especially if does not do any harm to the administration. Besides the aspects of having a global multicultural work force of illegal and legal expatriates, refugees, asylum seekers, employment (multinational corporations and migrant workers) are also contributing, in no small measure, to the enforcement of laws that stem from external forces, mainly law enforcement. It would be injudicious to believe that one’s group is superior to others, especially in multi cultural settings such as the one witnessed in the Acehian context. While country specific laws are needed to keep the place safe, it should not be overstretched to accommodate and enforce corporeal punishment at the slightest non material offence. Drinking may be an offence under Islamic laws, and this could be kept within

Employment Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 7

Employment Law - Essay Example 38). The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 is founded on the principle of equal treatment to agency workers, in comparison to employees. The entitlement to equal treatment is restricted to fundamental employment and working conditions, like rest breaks and pay and not to protection from unfair dismissal and other such statutory rights (Agency Worker Regulations 2010 – a missed opportunity?, 2010). In order to advice Erica, the Human Resource Director of the Cranford Computers Ltd, with regard to Shirley; the major issue to be considered is whether Shirley’s frequent absence from work, on health grounds, is permitted by the employment legislation. It is also to be examined, whether the Cranford Computers Ltd, is in breach of the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. As an employee of Cranford Computers Ltd, for 2 years, Shirley is entitled to rights under the Employment Rights Act 1996. The time off rights of the Employment Protection Act 1975 (Employment Protection Act , 1975) were incorporated in the Employment Rights Act 1996. Some of these grant employees paid time off, whilst others permit unpaid time off. Section 50(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, specifies that the duration of time off and related conditions to be reasonable (Employment Rights Act , 1996). In our problem, Julie, who was one of Shirley’s colleagues covering her absences, had protested at having to shoulder Shirley’s duties frequently. Julie had also demanded additional remuneration for this work, entailing additional costs for the employer. Whilst taking decisions in respect of Shirley’s absence, these factors have to be taken into consideration by Cranford Computers Ltd. With regard to Julie, there is no legal entitlement for working overtime. Furthermore, there is no specification regarding overtime pay and the only requirement is that the average pay should not be less than the National Minimum Wage. However, no worker

Dove Marketing Analysis Essay Example for Free

Dove Marketing Analysis Essay Imagine you have oversight of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. Are you comfortable with what is going on? Is this a brand that is out of control with its promotional messages? Dove released its first advertising on 1957, in which Dove called its product as cleaning cream instead of soap. After that, Dove launched some advertising to emphasized on its functional feature. In 2000, Dove became a Masterbrand of Unilever. In other words, it had to establish a meaning for Dove that could apply to and extend over the entire stable of products. In order to stand for a point of view, The Campaign for Real Beauty began to process. Then campaign focus on the self-esteem and confidence instead of appearances, it still could be include into female field. Just from external to inner, So Dove is not out of control with its promotional message. In my opinion, I am comfortable with Dove’s campaign due to the following reasons. First, Dove more concerned about women’s feeling and inner spirit. When the advertising plays too many shots on the beauty of girls, sometimes, the values and aesthetic of the society will be influence. Women and teenager girls would pay more money and time to fit their body. Therefore, Dove’s advertising will not add this misleading. Second, Dove choose YouTube and Blog as the major platform, it is a wise and trendy choice. Internet plays more and more important role in the modern life, especially the raise of the social networking. In the future, Dove has more opportunities to attract public and ahead of other companies. Third, Dove always guarantees the quality of ads. Their advertising is not a simple product promotion, but some interesting story and conversation. The products of Dove even do not need to be photographed. The consumers will remember such high-quality ad and are willing to share with others. Moreover, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign built a buzz and was widely exposed. People actively discussed the campaign through Internet and TV shows, even famous celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno talked about it in their TV shows. Though there were many parodies in the Internet, they were funny and generated more attentions on the brand. Last but not least, the campaign was contributed to the brand’s business growth and values. In 2006, Landor Associates identified Dove was one of the 10 brands with the greatest ercentage gain in brand health and business values. 2. Is Dove’s attempt to engender social engagement through its promotional campaigns too risky an endeavor given its lack of control over consumer parody and accusations of trying to sell under the pretense of contributing to the social good? In the business, every decision faced the profit and risk. Generally, th e greater the risks result in the greater rewards. The risks are as follow: Through the investigation, Dove found out that many women had discontent with the young, white blonde and thin models, because they could not attain that standard. Dove started the advertisement Campaign for Real Beauty, underlining their products will feel better, while other company always publicize look beautiful in the commercial. The risk is that whether or not the consumers understand and accept that change. On next stage, Dove was a very controversial event. Billboards were erected to vote on whether a woman on the billboard was outsized or outstanding. A counter showed the result. As a beauty brand, this campaign will attract public attention; simultaneously will challenge the brand cognitive. Whats more, Dove broke the traditional rule in the company and go forward without paid media at all. YouTube become the most important platform instead of television. When Dove made this decision, the risk is that maybe they will lose some traditional and classical consumers. Facing the negative responses, Dove did not ignore them, but positive embrace them. The company list both view in other medias and allow public to discuss these. They also sent interactive packages to media outlets to help spur the debate. Finally, Unilever established the global Dove Self-Esteem Fund to raise the self-esteem of girls and young women. Such activities give a support to the Real Beauty. Doves public relations channel strategy was to generate broad awareness for The Campaign for Real Beauty and establish an emotional connection with women. Therefore, a political figure or a major news organization or even a film is not as influence as an open dialogue. 3. After reviewing the blogs, what do the various discussions contribute to the meaning of the brand? There are mainly two opinions exists among the blogs. The supporters considered Dove’s Real Beauty campaign was an emotional touch from Dove to consumer. They thought the campaign has shed light on some important truths about the media’s unrealistic portrayals of women, and it’s important and necessary to send a health beauty message to the society. However, the criticisms thought that Dove is hypocritical and the campaign is just aimed to sell more products and gain more profits. The reason they thought Dove is hypocritical is because Dove comes from Unilever, which promotion young, thin and sexy woman in the Axe’s advertisements. They also criticized Dove’s advertisements had many untruthful details and inconsistent. What’s more, they thought the campaign has no major aspirational values attached to the product and was undermining the aspiration of consumers. Regardless of these different opinions towards the Real Beauty campaign, Dove’s brand name has successfully gone viral and drew a lot of attentions worldwide. People were spreading quickly the message of â€Å"Real Beauty† and they still continuously discuss it nowadays. This kind of exposure has extraordinary impact of Dove’s brand awareness and popularity. Therefore, it contributed to the brand’s long-term value and equity. Though there were many parodies exits in the Internet, for ordinary consumers, they might just remember how funny and interesting the parodies were, as well as the appealing â€Å"real beauty† messages that Dove tried to spread. It was a risk strategy for Dove, but as long as Dove manages its public relations and other advertisements carefully, consumers would still like Dove’s affordable good-quality products. The increasing sales growth of Dove could be a strong argument for it. Moreover, I think Dove was trying to be an inspirational brand to inspire positive self image among women. It successfully differentiated itself to other competitors. The Dove Self-Esteem Fund program was a plus to win over customers’ hearts. 4. Describe Dove’s brand management organization and the reason for it. Do you see any problems or issues that will result with this split-responsibility setup? In 2000, Dove was selected to be a Masterbrand and lent its name to Unilever entries in personal care categories. There are two split-responsibility groups in Dove’s brand management organization: Brand Development and Brand Building. Brand Development group charged with development of the brand, took responsibility for developing the idea behind the brand, developed the brand plan. It was accountable for medium-to long-term market share, for brand health, for measures of innovativeness, and for creating value in the category. It was centralized and global in scope. The other group Brand Building charged with building the brand in specific markets and was decentralized according to the major geographic regions in which Unilever operated. It was accountable for growth, profit, cash flow, and short-term market share. It managed public relations and informal communication. The pros of this split-responsibly setup brand management system are that the advertising messages could be more tailored to different markets. However, the problem might result with this split-responsibly system is the inconsistent management of the brand image. It’s a challenge for the two groups to balance between short-term values and long-term values for the brand. For example, the Brand Building group might develop an aggressive public relations strategy to generate attention in order to gain short-term market share, which might not be a smart move to build the brand’s long-term value and gain long-term market share.

Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking

Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking 1.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the study. 1.1 TOPIC OF THE RESEARCH Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Group PLC; A Critical Evaluation 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH Peter Drucker said, â€Å"The purpose of a business is to create customers†. Customer Relationship Management can be the single strongest weapon we have as manage to ensure that customers become and remain loyal. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management. CRM concerns the relation between the organisation and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any company be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers. CRM is the same in principle for both examples. Globalization and technology improvements have pushed companies into hard competition. In this new era organisations are targeting on managing customer relationships, mainly customer satisfaction, in order to maximize revenues (Constantinos 2003). Today, marketing is not just developing, delivering and selling; it is shifting towards developing and maintaining equally long term relationships with customers (Buttle, 1996). This new business values is called relationship marketing (RM), which has involved significant interest both from marketing academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1994). The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said that â€Å"what concern me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are† (Szwarch, 2005, p.3). The concepts of consumer satisfaction were depending on the thinking of consumer. Research suggests that customer satisfaction, basic concept of relationship marketing, is important in achieving and retaining competitive advantage. Research studies have discovered that retaining current customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers (Desatnick, 1988; Stone et al., 1996; Bitran and Mondschein, 1997; Chattopadhyay, 2001; Massey et al., 2001). The best way to retain customers is to keep them satisfied, a number of studies have shown that customer satisfaction can guide to brand loyalty, repurchases intention and repeat sales (Day, 1984; Swan and Oliver, 1989; Oliver, 1999). Customer retention, in turn, seems to be related to profitability (Oliver, 1999). Relationship marketing is becoming significant in financial services (Zineldin, 1995). If a bank develops and sustains a solid relationship with its customers, its competitors cannot easily replace them and so this relationship provides for a continued competitive advantage (Gilbert, 2003). Moriarty et al. (1983) has suggested relationship concept in the banking sector which states that banks can increase their profits by maximising the profitability of the total customer relationship over time, instead of looking for to get more profit from any single transaction. Perrien et al. (1992) observed severe competitive pressures that forces financial institution to restructure their marketing strategies by developing into long-term relationship with customers. And banking industry purely related to financial services, which needs to create the trust among the people. This research is exploratory in nature and design. The data which is collected is going to be mostly primary data collected from the relevant persons within the bank. The data has gathered from the face to face interviews with the help of structured and semi-structured questionnaire with those persons. The above describe interviews has last 40 (fourty) to 45 (fourty five) minutes (approx). On the other hand the researcher has decided to collect primary data from random interviews of Lloyds Banking Groups customers. Sample size is around 200 customers and of structured questionnaire. But of course this research paper has relied on reviewing the various secondary data available from various researches such as books, magazines, website, previous research and publication etc. The collected data has been analysed by graphs, table and pi chart drawn from Microsoft excel. 1.3 AIM OF THE RESEARCH The aim of the research is to study why CRM is important in bank, how the CRM works in banks and also the effectiveness of Lloyds Banking Group in obtaining long term customer relationship, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction by the use of CRM. And also suggest feasible recommendations to Lloyds Banking Group to increase the customer satisfaction and market share by the effective use of CRM. 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH The followings are the objectives of this research; To study how critically practised in Lloyds Banking Group Analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group To find out how the bank segments their customers To analysis how the bank retaining their customers To find out how does the bank measure customer Life Time Value To verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of the study and research work has limited to Lloyds Banking Group only. This chosen level of aspects has stayed at large in the study so that it can be studied well and analyzed thoroughly to get a deeper understanding. Trying to cover too much ground may lead to a very superficial and confused analysis and may involve long time duration to complete the project work or report. Therefore a specified and narrow down approach with Lloyds Banking Group and an evaluation of its success has comprised with the researc 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter contains a review of literature relevant to the research. This literature review deals with, about CRM, the history and goals of an integrated banking CRM, the technological factor of CRM, the process cycle in banks, data warehouse technology, data mining process, how to analysis the data, customer segmentation process, communication strategies of bank to the customers etc. 2.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSIP MANAGEMENT Existing research states that ‘relationships are the base to the successful development and edition of new business viewpoint, though business have taken care of relationships with their customers for many centuries (Gronroos, 1994). Sheth and Parvathiyar, (1995) said that relationships demand much more than mere transactions. Rather, they symbolize strategic and tactical issues based on a new philosophical move that geared in the direction of long-term organisation survival. According to Storbacka, (1994) relationship marketing got popular in 1990s but it has a long history under different names. In its starting, one-to-one marketing appeared in the mid 1990s, which transformed into Customer Relationship Management. Parvatiyar and Sheth gave a static definition of CRM. â€Å"Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and the customer† (Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000, p.6) â€Å"What criteria determine who â€Å"How can we acquire this customer will be our most profitable in the most efficient and effective customers?† way?† â€Å"How can we increase the â€Å"How can we keep this customer loyalty and the profitability for as long as possible?† Of this customer?† 2.2 THE HISTORY AND GOALS OF AN INTEGRATED BANKING CRM According to Puccinelli (1999) the financial services industry as entering a new era where personal attention is decreasing because the institutions are using technology to replace human contact in many application areas. Sherif, 2002 advocated that, now global changes brought new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, which also brought new challenges and opportunities to financial institutions. In order to complete with newly increasing competitive pressures, financial institutions must recognize the need of balancing their performance by achieving their strategic goals and meeting continues volatile customer needs requirements. Different ways must be analyzed to meet customer needs. Foss said that banks are highly focusing on CRM for the last five years that is expected to continue. According to Peter (1998) and Chablo (1999) the main goals of an effective integrated CRM solution in the banking sector are to enable financial institutes to; a) Widen customer relationship through acquiring new customers, identifying and targeting new segments and expanding in new markets. b) Lengthen the existing relationship developing longer term relationships, increasing perceived value of products and introducing new products and c) Deepen the relationship with customers initiating the cross selling and up selling opportunities, understanding the propensity of different customer segments to purchase and increase sales. The implementation if CRM system in a bank helps the business organisation to obtain a complete picture of their existing customers, design both customer-oriented and market-driven financial products and services, as well as implement extensive and reliable financial marketing research and efficient campaigns, to achieve and enhance customer loyalty and profitability. The above goals can be achieved through the seamless integration of information technology solutions and business objectives at every process of the bank business that affects the customer. 2.3 THE PHASES OF CRM The main phases of CRM are as follows; 1. Customer selection or Segmentation According to Dave Chaffey (2009), customer selection defining the types of customers that a company will market to. It means identifying different groups of customers for which to develop offerings and to target during acquisition, retention and extension. Different ways of segmenting customers by value and by their detailed lifecycle with the customer are reviewed. Many companies are now only proactively marketing to favoured customers. Seth Godin (1999), says â€Å"Focus on share of customer, not market share fire 70 per cent customers and watch your profits go up!† According to Efraim Turban (2008), the most sophisticated segmentation and targeting schemes for extension of customers are often used by banks, which have full customer information and acquire history data as they search for to boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through encouraging increased use of products overtime. The segmentation approach used by banks is based on five main basics which in result are covered on top of each other. The amount of options used, and therefore the complexity of approach, will depend on resources obtainable, opportunities, capabilities and technology afforded by catalog. i. Identify customer lifecycle groups When guests use online services then they basically pass those seven or more stages. The organisations have clear these segments and establish the CRM infrastructure to categories customers in this manner; then they deliver focused messages, whichever by modified web messaging or by e-mails that are triggered routinely because of various rules. First-time guests recognized by a cookie placed on their PC. When guests registered, they are tracked through the residual stages. The customers who have purchased one or more products are one particular important group. The key challenge is for a company to encourage a customer to shift from the first product to the second and then go on. Explicit offers can be try to push customer for further products. In the same way, when customers turn into an inactive then the customer required follow-up. ii. Identify customer profit characteristics This is a conventional segmentation which is based on the nature of customer. For Business 2 Business Companies it includes sex, age and geography. It includes volume of the organisation and the type of sector or application, the organisation operates in. iii. Identify behaviour in response and purchase As shown in 2.2 through analysis of data base when customer progress through the lifecycle, company is capable to build up a detail reaction and buy history which judges the details of frequency, recency, group of product buy and monetary value. This approach is known as ‘RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) analysis. iv. Identify multi-channel behaviour In spite of of the eagerness of the company for online channels, various customers are chosen for using online channels and others customers are chosen conventional channels. This is, to an extent, be indicated by RFM and response examination since customers with a preference for an online channel is more reactive and make more use online. Customer who likes online channels is focused mostly by online communications such as e-mail, but when customer like conventional channels is focused by conventional communications such as direct mail or phone. This is known as ‘right-channelling. v. Tone and style preference In a same way to channel liking, customers are respond in their own way to various types of message. Some customers like rational application, in that time a detailed e-mail may work best. On the other hand some customers are preferred an emotional appeal. Companies are test for this in customers or conclude it using profit description and response performance and then expand various inventive treatments consequently. 2. Customer acquisition Processes used to add new customer. According to Turban (2008), customer acquisition refers to marketing activities intended to form relationship with new customers while reducing acquisition cost and targeting high-value customers. Service value and selecting the right path for various customers are essential at this stage and during the lifecycle. The conventional manner to customer acquisition include a marketing manager developing a blend of mass marketing (billboards, magazine advertisements etc.) and direct marketing (mail, telephone, etc.) campaigns based on their knowledge of the particular customer base that was being focussed. Marketing campaign trying to pressure new customers to buy a particular type of diapers, the mass marketing ads might be determined in parenting magazines. The advertisements could also be positioned in more conventional publications whose readership demographics were alike to those of new parents. Customer acquisition is comparatively similar to mass marketing. A marketing manager selects the demographics that they are involved in and after that works with a data vendor to obtain lists of buyers who meet those features. The data vendors have large database holding millions of eventual customers that can be segment based on explicit demographic criteria. The idea of â€Å"similar demographics† has conventionally been an art rather than a science. Usually there are not hard-and-fast systems about whether two groups of buyers share the similar features. Most of the segmentation that took place in conventional direct marketing involves hunches on the division of the marketing professional. 3. Customer retention Dafe Chaffey 2009 said that customer retention refers to the marketing actions taken by a company to keep its current customers. Identifying applicable offerings based on their personal needs and complete position in the customer lifecycle (e.g. purchase value or number) is key. Customer retention strategy aims to keep a high percentage of valuable customers and a customer development strategy aims to boost the value of those retained customer to the organisation. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty. And customer loyalty is the point to which a customer will continue with a specific brand or vendor. Customer acquisition to retain and extend create long-term customer relationship. We need to calculate customer satisfaction, as satisfaction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. This relationship is exposed below; The marketers aim is to push customers up the curve towards the affection zone. But the majority are not in that zone. Marketers must understand to achieve retention,why customers defers or are indifferent. 4. Customer extension This technique is encouraging customers to increase their involvement with a company. According to Turban 2008, customer extension is increasing the range of products that a customer buys from an organisation. Sometime it is referred ‘customer development. Increasing the lifetime value (CLV) of a customer is the main objective of customer extension by encouraging cross-sell. For example a customer of Egg credit card may be offered the loan or a deposit account. There are many of customer extension technique for CRM as follows; Re-sell: same type of products to existing customers-particular vital in some Business 2 Business background as re-buys or modified re-buys. Cross-sell: sell extra products which may be closely related to the original buy. Up-sell: this is mean, selling more expensive products. Reactivation: Customers who have purchased for some time or have lapsed can be encouraged to buy again. Referrals: generating sells from recommendation from existing customers. 2.4 CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE MODELLING Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is also an important theory and practise of CRM. But the calculation of CLV is not straightforward. There are so many company, they do not calculate it. According to Dave Chaffey (2009) â€Å"Lifetime value is the total net benefits that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company†. CLV is based on estimating the income and costs related with each customer over a phase of time and then calculating the net present value in present monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the stage. Efraim Turban (2006) said there is various scale of complexity in calculating LTC. Those are exposed in 2.6. Option 1 is a realistic way or estimated proxy for future LTV, but the true LTV is the future value of the customer at individual level. CLV modelling at a segment level 4 is crucial within marketing since it answers the question; How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer? Lifetime value analysis helps marketers to: Create the true value of a companys customer base Recognize and compare crucial target segment Calculate the effectiveness of another customer retention strategy Plan and calculate investment in customer acquisition programmes Make decisions about product and offers 2.7 gives an example of how LTV can be used to develop a CRM strategy for different customer groups. There are 4 (four) main types of customers are indicated by their present and future value as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Separate customers groupings (circles) are recognized according to their current value (as indicated by current profitability) and future value as indicated by CLV calculation. Every group will have a customer segmentation based on their demographics. Therefore this is used for customer selection. Within the four main value groupings, there are various strategies are developed for various customer groups. Few bronze customers such as group A and B practically do not have development potential and are usually unprofitable, therefore the objective is to reduce costs in communications and if they do not stay as customers this is acceptable. Some bronze customers like group C may have potential for growth; therefore for group C the strategy is to extend their purchases. Silver customers are focused with customer extension offer and gold customers are extended. Platinum customers are the best customers; therefore the communication is very important with these customers. 2.5 THE TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CRM According to Davenport and Short, (1990); Porter, (1987) ‘information technology is an enabler to thoroughly redesign business process to achieve improvements in organisational performance. ‘Information Technology help helps a business process by facilitating changes to job practices and establishing new techniques to link a customer with organisations, suppliers and stakeholders (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Eckerson and Watson (2000) advocated that ‘CRM take full advantage of technology to collect and analyze data on customer patters, expand predictive models, interpret customer behaviour, proper respond with communications, and deliver product and service to individual customers. By using technology a company can create a 360 degree view of customers to find out from past interactions to optimize future ones. Peppard (2000) said that ‘the leading factors in CRM development is improvement in network infrastructure, client/server computing, and business intelligence applications. CRM collect, store, maintain and distribute customer knowledge all over the organisation. The effectual management of information has a vital role to play in CRM. In the case of calculating customer lifetime value, consolidated view, product tailoring and service innovation, the information is essential. Along with data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and the internet are the central infrastructures to CRM applications. Fickel (1999) said ‘CRM applications link front office (e.g. marketing, sales and customer service) and back office (e.g. financial, logistics, operations and human resources) functions with the companys customer touch point. A companys touch point is â€Å"all of the communication, human and physical interactions your customers experience during their relationship lifecycle with your organisation. Whether an ad, Web site, sales person, store or office, touch points are important because customers from perceptions of your organisation and brand based on their cumulative experiences† (Source; http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4508.imc at 16/10/2009 on 15:25) According to Eckerson and Watson (2000), ‘CRM integrated touch points is something like a common view of the customer. A separate information systems controlled these touch points. 2.8 demonstrates the relationship between customer touch point with back and front office operations Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said ‘In many companies, CRM is just a technology solution that extends divide databases and sales force automation tools to link sales and marketing functions in order to develop targeting efforts. On the other hand some organisations consider CRM as a tool that is exclusively designed for one-to-one relationship. According to Goldenberg (2000) ‘CRM is not just a technology applications for sales, marketing and service, but when CRM fully and successfully implemented, customer-driven, a cross-functional, technology-integrated business process management strategy that improves relationships and encompasses the whole organisation. 2.6 DATA WAREHOUSE TECHNOLOGY According to Watson (2000) ‘data warehouse is a tools of information technology management that helps business decision makers to instant access of information of customer data throughout the organisation by combining all database and operational systems like sales and transaction, human resource, inventory, purchasing, financial and marketing system. Data warehouse pull out, clean, convert and manage large volumes of data from various systems and creating a historical record of all customer. Data warehousing technology is the most crucial part of CRM because it makes CRM possible. Shepard et al. (1998) said ‘a better understanding of customer behaviour is possible because data warehousing technology consolidates correlates and convert customer data into customer intelligence. Understanding of customers and their purchase patterns can improve information related to customer service interactions, billing and account status, back orders, product returns, product shipment, and internal operating cost. The capacity of a data warehouse to store hundreds and thousands of gigabytes of data make an analysis feasible as well as immediate. Organisational benefits with a data warehouse are as follows; exact and faster access of information bad and duplicate data eliminate by quality data and filtering customer profiling and retention modelling it calculate total present value and estimate future value of every customer it gives detail report 2.7 DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said that ‘the first analytical step of data mining is to describe the data. Data mining summarize its statistical attributes like standard deviations and means, visually review it by use of charts and graphs and distributes the value of the field in our data. But alone data description can not provide an action plan. We have to build a predictive model based on patterns determined from known results and after that we have to test the model on result outside the original sample. An ideal model should never be confused with reality, but it is useful guide to understanding our businesses. According to Eckerson and Watson (2000) ‘we can use data mining for both classification and regression problems. In first problem we can predict what type something will fall into. In second problems we are predicting a number like probability that a person will respond to an offer. In CRM process, data mining is often used to allocate a score to a particular customer. Data mining is also often using to recognize a set of characteristics, which is called profile. Data mining segments customers in to groups with similar behaviour like purchasing a particular product. 2.8 THE CRM PROCESS CYCLE IN BANKS Pound (2000) said that exploration and alteration process should be done by the banks on basis of customer information captured; this shows the full value of CRM initiatives. Banks set up a closed CRM cycle with the help of an integrated CRM solution, which composed of a set of continuous iterative process. It manages the whole customer related process for bank, analysing customer profile, customer data and life time value, which is helping to making marketing decision and optimizing the execution of marketing campaigns, customer service strategies and sales strategies across various channels during the bank. According to Professor Constantin Zopounidis (2002) CRM process cycle is based on a generic business view. It presents a continuous improvement of value between customers and banks across touch points. The main stages are as follows; Customer data collection Customer data analysis Marketing strategy and action programs Back-office Data External Data Touch-Point Data Pound 2000 said that ‘recent banking data sources are extremely heterogeneous. Geographic information is dispersed due to continual acquisitions, mergers and reorganizations. For example a bank might use web site, ATMs, e-mail, sales, call centres and marketing automation applications that must be integrated in a unified environment of CRM banking. An effective multi-channels customer interface will not be possible without a centrally integrated warehouse driving the entire CRM process cycle. This should be update real time. The historical data should be recorded by it, which is used to create propensity models and customer life time value models to recognize past behaviour and action in order to take future marketing strategy. 2.9 CUSTOMER DATA COLLECTION Kristin Anderson Carol Kerr (2002), said that in banking transaction system data such as (e.g. Checking, Credit, Savings) are frequently organised around accounts, channels, products and other alike transactional concepts. This limits the bank ability on identifying the total relationship and unique customers. An Integrated CRM is a major goal it consolidates these â€Å"information islands† and separate solution, which forms an open cross-bank system from all executives, business area department officers and branch employees, shares the identical customer information. Integrated banking CRM structure can be obtained from this necessary basis of data supply. Operation (contact) sources: Chou, Chou 2000, said the customer communication touch-point (ATM, Branch, Call-Centre, Internet-Banking, Mobile banking, personal contact, etc.) Internal sources: Professor Constantion Zopounidis (2000) said internal sources that are the available information island, data bases and product oriented systems from other banks such as (Cards, Deposits, Investments, and loans etc.), Marketing campaign response, meta-data analysis and reliable data mining results. External Sources: Professor Constanin Zopounidis 2002, said marketing researches that of external sources, infomediaries etc. Providing geo-demographic, psycho-graphic data and lifestyle, these can help to improve customer images 2.11 CUSTOMER DATA ANALYSIS Heygate (1998), said Simple and sophisticated data analysis techniques are required for deriving the valuable customer insight from the data collected in a central customer warehouse. More advance data analytics includes OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) mining techniques and tools, these extracts applicable patterns or trends in the data. According to Lawer (2000), key incorporated customer management insights provided by customer data analysis are customer segmentation/differentiation, concentration and distribution of customers value; share of purchases/profits, analysis of strategies that widen/lengthen/deepen customer relationship. Hawkes 2000, advocated customer data analysis enables the recognition of customers profit and customers preferences for definite bank product and services, indicates the most suitable channels to reach the customers, and assesses the profitability and life time value of every personality. Additionally, Delto 1998 said that the future manners of the consumers can be predicted by analysing their past behaviour. Customer statistics, profit and segmentation are the main amount produced of the analysis stage feeding the marketing strategy planning and completing process. Having easily accessible information to marketing makes the difference between a winning campaign and a failure. 2.12 MARKETING STRATEGY AND PROGRAMES Kristin Anderson and Carol Kerr 2002 advocated captured results and data of customer analysis support marketers to route marketing messages, processes and strategies. True values of data of Lloyd TSB are discovered by tools and process for marketing decision making, marketing decision making and CRM initiatives and campaign are deployed from converted information to customer knowledge. Goal of marketing automation within CRM are which personalise and optimizes each customer contact from planning, execution, monitoring marketing strategies and action programmes. Bryan Foss 2003 said it is critical for bank CRM not only to extract their data source to uncover patterns and insight but also to operationalise the system through the bank performance to turn the customer knowledge into importance creating achievement. Merlin Stone 2003 advocated the grades from advertising and CRM activities and strategies continue the process knowledge acquisition enhancing the on-going assessment of marketing data intelligence, closing the feed-back loop. Hence, the final element of CRM process cycle is the valuation of the results of campaign driven by marketing data intelligence. It is crucial to measure performance and feed result back into the centre customer data warehouse, in order to convey Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking 1.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the study. 1.1 TOPIC OF THE RESEARCH Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Group PLC; A Critical Evaluation 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH Peter Drucker said, â€Å"The purpose of a business is to create customers†. Customer Relationship Management can be the single strongest weapon we have as manage to ensure that customers become and remain loyal. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management. CRM concerns the relation between the organisation and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any company be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers. CRM is the same in principle for both examples. Globalization and technology improvements have pushed companies into hard competition. In this new era organisations are targeting on managing customer relationships, mainly customer satisfaction, in order to maximize revenues (Constantinos 2003). Today, marketing is not just developing, delivering and selling; it is shifting towards developing and maintaining equally long term relationships with customers (Buttle, 1996). This new business values is called relationship marketing (RM), which has involved significant interest both from marketing academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1994). The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said that â€Å"what concern me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are† (Szwarch, 2005, p.3). The concepts of consumer satisfaction were depending on the thinking of consumer. Research suggests that customer satisfaction, basic concept of relationship marketing, is important in achieving and retaining competitive advantage. Research studies have discovered that retaining current customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers (Desatnick, 1988; Stone et al., 1996; Bitran and Mondschein, 1997; Chattopadhyay, 2001; Massey et al., 2001). The best way to retain customers is to keep them satisfied, a number of studies have shown that customer satisfaction can guide to brand loyalty, repurchases intention and repeat sales (Day, 1984; Swan and Oliver, 1989; Oliver, 1999). Customer retention, in turn, seems to be related to profitability (Oliver, 1999). Relationship marketing is becoming significant in financial services (Zineldin, 1995). If a bank develops and sustains a solid relationship with its customers, its competitors cannot easily replace them and so this relationship provides for a continued competitive advantage (Gilbert, 2003). Moriarty et al. (1983) has suggested relationship concept in the banking sector which states that banks can increase their profits by maximising the profitability of the total customer relationship over time, instead of looking for to get more profit from any single transaction. Perrien et al. (1992) observed severe competitive pressures that forces financial institution to restructure their marketing strategies by developing into long-term relationship with customers. And banking industry purely related to financial services, which needs to create the trust among the people. This research is exploratory in nature and design. The data which is collected is going to be mostly primary data collected from the relevant persons within the bank. The data has gathered from the face to face interviews with the help of structured and semi-structured questionnaire with those persons. The above describe interviews has last 40 (fourty) to 45 (fourty five) minutes (approx). On the other hand the researcher has decided to collect primary data from random interviews of Lloyds Banking Groups customers. Sample size is around 200 customers and of structured questionnaire. But of course this research paper has relied on reviewing the various secondary data available from various researches such as books, magazines, website, previous research and publication etc. The collected data has been analysed by graphs, table and pi chart drawn from Microsoft excel. 1.3 AIM OF THE RESEARCH The aim of the research is to study why CRM is important in bank, how the CRM works in banks and also the effectiveness of Lloyds Banking Group in obtaining long term customer relationship, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction by the use of CRM. And also suggest feasible recommendations to Lloyds Banking Group to increase the customer satisfaction and market share by the effective use of CRM. 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH The followings are the objectives of this research; To study how critically practised in Lloyds Banking Group Analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group To find out how the bank segments their customers To analysis how the bank retaining their customers To find out how does the bank measure customer Life Time Value To verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of the study and research work has limited to Lloyds Banking Group only. This chosen level of aspects has stayed at large in the study so that it can be studied well and analyzed thoroughly to get a deeper understanding. Trying to cover too much ground may lead to a very superficial and confused analysis and may involve long time duration to complete the project work or report. Therefore a specified and narrow down approach with Lloyds Banking Group and an evaluation of its success has comprised with the researc 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter contains a review of literature relevant to the research. This literature review deals with, about CRM, the history and goals of an integrated banking CRM, the technological factor of CRM, the process cycle in banks, data warehouse technology, data mining process, how to analysis the data, customer segmentation process, communication strategies of bank to the customers etc. 2.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSIP MANAGEMENT Existing research states that ‘relationships are the base to the successful development and edition of new business viewpoint, though business have taken care of relationships with their customers for many centuries (Gronroos, 1994). Sheth and Parvathiyar, (1995) said that relationships demand much more than mere transactions. Rather, they symbolize strategic and tactical issues based on a new philosophical move that geared in the direction of long-term organisation survival. According to Storbacka, (1994) relationship marketing got popular in 1990s but it has a long history under different names. In its starting, one-to-one marketing appeared in the mid 1990s, which transformed into Customer Relationship Management. Parvatiyar and Sheth gave a static definition of CRM. â€Å"Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring, retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company and the customer† (Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000, p.6) â€Å"What criteria determine who â€Å"How can we acquire this customer will be our most profitable in the most efficient and effective customers?† way?† â€Å"How can we increase the â€Å"How can we keep this customer loyalty and the profitability for as long as possible?† Of this customer?† 2.2 THE HISTORY AND GOALS OF AN INTEGRATED BANKING CRM According to Puccinelli (1999) the financial services industry as entering a new era where personal attention is decreasing because the institutions are using technology to replace human contact in many application areas. Sherif, 2002 advocated that, now global changes brought new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, which also brought new challenges and opportunities to financial institutions. In order to complete with newly increasing competitive pressures, financial institutions must recognize the need of balancing their performance by achieving their strategic goals and meeting continues volatile customer needs requirements. Different ways must be analyzed to meet customer needs. Foss said that banks are highly focusing on CRM for the last five years that is expected to continue. According to Peter (1998) and Chablo (1999) the main goals of an effective integrated CRM solution in the banking sector are to enable financial institutes to; a) Widen customer relationship through acquiring new customers, identifying and targeting new segments and expanding in new markets. b) Lengthen the existing relationship developing longer term relationships, increasing perceived value of products and introducing new products and c) Deepen the relationship with customers initiating the cross selling and up selling opportunities, understanding the propensity of different customer segments to purchase and increase sales. The implementation if CRM system in a bank helps the business organisation to obtain a complete picture of their existing customers, design both customer-oriented and market-driven financial products and services, as well as implement extensive and reliable financial marketing research and efficient campaigns, to achieve and enhance customer loyalty and profitability. The above goals can be achieved through the seamless integration of information technology solutions and business objectives at every process of the bank business that affects the customer. 2.3 THE PHASES OF CRM The main phases of CRM are as follows; 1. Customer selection or Segmentation According to Dave Chaffey (2009), customer selection defining the types of customers that a company will market to. It means identifying different groups of customers for which to develop offerings and to target during acquisition, retention and extension. Different ways of segmenting customers by value and by their detailed lifecycle with the customer are reviewed. Many companies are now only proactively marketing to favoured customers. Seth Godin (1999), says â€Å"Focus on share of customer, not market share fire 70 per cent customers and watch your profits go up!† According to Efraim Turban (2008), the most sophisticated segmentation and targeting schemes for extension of customers are often used by banks, which have full customer information and acquire history data as they search for to boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through encouraging increased use of products overtime. The segmentation approach used by banks is based on five main basics which in result are covered on top of each other. The amount of options used, and therefore the complexity of approach, will depend on resources obtainable, opportunities, capabilities and technology afforded by catalog. i. Identify customer lifecycle groups When guests use online services then they basically pass those seven or more stages. The organisations have clear these segments and establish the CRM infrastructure to categories customers in this manner; then they deliver focused messages, whichever by modified web messaging or by e-mails that are triggered routinely because of various rules. First-time guests recognized by a cookie placed on their PC. When guests registered, they are tracked through the residual stages. The customers who have purchased one or more products are one particular important group. The key challenge is for a company to encourage a customer to shift from the first product to the second and then go on. Explicit offers can be try to push customer for further products. In the same way, when customers turn into an inactive then the customer required follow-up. ii. Identify customer profit characteristics This is a conventional segmentation which is based on the nature of customer. For Business 2 Business Companies it includes sex, age and geography. It includes volume of the organisation and the type of sector or application, the organisation operates in. iii. Identify behaviour in response and purchase As shown in 2.2 through analysis of data base when customer progress through the lifecycle, company is capable to build up a detail reaction and buy history which judges the details of frequency, recency, group of product buy and monetary value. This approach is known as ‘RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) analysis. iv. Identify multi-channel behaviour In spite of of the eagerness of the company for online channels, various customers are chosen for using online channels and others customers are chosen conventional channels. This is, to an extent, be indicated by RFM and response examination since customers with a preference for an online channel is more reactive and make more use online. Customer who likes online channels is focused mostly by online communications such as e-mail, but when customer like conventional channels is focused by conventional communications such as direct mail or phone. This is known as ‘right-channelling. v. Tone and style preference In a same way to channel liking, customers are respond in their own way to various types of message. Some customers like rational application, in that time a detailed e-mail may work best. On the other hand some customers are preferred an emotional appeal. Companies are test for this in customers or conclude it using profit description and response performance and then expand various inventive treatments consequently. 2. Customer acquisition Processes used to add new customer. According to Turban (2008), customer acquisition refers to marketing activities intended to form relationship with new customers while reducing acquisition cost and targeting high-value customers. Service value and selecting the right path for various customers are essential at this stage and during the lifecycle. The conventional manner to customer acquisition include a marketing manager developing a blend of mass marketing (billboards, magazine advertisements etc.) and direct marketing (mail, telephone, etc.) campaigns based on their knowledge of the particular customer base that was being focussed. Marketing campaign trying to pressure new customers to buy a particular type of diapers, the mass marketing ads might be determined in parenting magazines. The advertisements could also be positioned in more conventional publications whose readership demographics were alike to those of new parents. Customer acquisition is comparatively similar to mass marketing. A marketing manager selects the demographics that they are involved in and after that works with a data vendor to obtain lists of buyers who meet those features. The data vendors have large database holding millions of eventual customers that can be segment based on explicit demographic criteria. The idea of â€Å"similar demographics† has conventionally been an art rather than a science. Usually there are not hard-and-fast systems about whether two groups of buyers share the similar features. Most of the segmentation that took place in conventional direct marketing involves hunches on the division of the marketing professional. 3. Customer retention Dafe Chaffey 2009 said that customer retention refers to the marketing actions taken by a company to keep its current customers. Identifying applicable offerings based on their personal needs and complete position in the customer lifecycle (e.g. purchase value or number) is key. Customer retention strategy aims to keep a high percentage of valuable customers and a customer development strategy aims to boost the value of those retained customer to the organisation. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty. And customer loyalty is the point to which a customer will continue with a specific brand or vendor. Customer acquisition to retain and extend create long-term customer relationship. We need to calculate customer satisfaction, as satisfaction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. This relationship is exposed below; The marketers aim is to push customers up the curve towards the affection zone. But the majority are not in that zone. Marketers must understand to achieve retention,why customers defers or are indifferent. 4. Customer extension This technique is encouraging customers to increase their involvement with a company. According to Turban 2008, customer extension is increasing the range of products that a customer buys from an organisation. Sometime it is referred ‘customer development. Increasing the lifetime value (CLV) of a customer is the main objective of customer extension by encouraging cross-sell. For example a customer of Egg credit card may be offered the loan or a deposit account. There are many of customer extension technique for CRM as follows; Re-sell: same type of products to existing customers-particular vital in some Business 2 Business background as re-buys or modified re-buys. Cross-sell: sell extra products which may be closely related to the original buy. Up-sell: this is mean, selling more expensive products. Reactivation: Customers who have purchased for some time or have lapsed can be encouraged to buy again. Referrals: generating sells from recommendation from existing customers. 2.4 CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE MODELLING Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is also an important theory and practise of CRM. But the calculation of CLV is not straightforward. There are so many company, they do not calculate it. According to Dave Chaffey (2009) â€Å"Lifetime value is the total net benefits that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company†. CLV is based on estimating the income and costs related with each customer over a phase of time and then calculating the net present value in present monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the stage. Efraim Turban (2006) said there is various scale of complexity in calculating LTC. Those are exposed in 2.6. Option 1 is a realistic way or estimated proxy for future LTV, but the true LTV is the future value of the customer at individual level. CLV modelling at a segment level 4 is crucial within marketing since it answers the question; How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer? Lifetime value analysis helps marketers to: Create the true value of a companys customer base Recognize and compare crucial target segment Calculate the effectiveness of another customer retention strategy Plan and calculate investment in customer acquisition programmes Make decisions about product and offers 2.7 gives an example of how LTV can be used to develop a CRM strategy for different customer groups. There are 4 (four) main types of customers are indicated by their present and future value as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Separate customers groupings (circles) are recognized according to their current value (as indicated by current profitability) and future value as indicated by CLV calculation. Every group will have a customer segmentation based on their demographics. Therefore this is used for customer selection. Within the four main value groupings, there are various strategies are developed for various customer groups. Few bronze customers such as group A and B practically do not have development potential and are usually unprofitable, therefore the objective is to reduce costs in communications and if they do not stay as customers this is acceptable. Some bronze customers like group C may have potential for growth; therefore for group C the strategy is to extend their purchases. Silver customers are focused with customer extension offer and gold customers are extended. Platinum customers are the best customers; therefore the communication is very important with these customers. 2.5 THE TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CRM According to Davenport and Short, (1990); Porter, (1987) ‘information technology is an enabler to thoroughly redesign business process to achieve improvements in organisational performance. ‘Information Technology help helps a business process by facilitating changes to job practices and establishing new techniques to link a customer with organisations, suppliers and stakeholders (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Eckerson and Watson (2000) advocated that ‘CRM take full advantage of technology to collect and analyze data on customer patters, expand predictive models, interpret customer behaviour, proper respond with communications, and deliver product and service to individual customers. By using technology a company can create a 360 degree view of customers to find out from past interactions to optimize future ones. Peppard (2000) said that ‘the leading factors in CRM development is improvement in network infrastructure, client/server computing, and business intelligence applications. CRM collect, store, maintain and distribute customer knowledge all over the organisation. The effectual management of information has a vital role to play in CRM. In the case of calculating customer lifetime value, consolidated view, product tailoring and service innovation, the information is essential. Along with data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and the internet are the central infrastructures to CRM applications. Fickel (1999) said ‘CRM applications link front office (e.g. marketing, sales and customer service) and back office (e.g. financial, logistics, operations and human resources) functions with the companys customer touch point. A companys touch point is â€Å"all of the communication, human and physical interactions your customers experience during their relationship lifecycle with your organisation. Whether an ad, Web site, sales person, store or office, touch points are important because customers from perceptions of your organisation and brand based on their cumulative experiences† (Source; http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4508.imc at 16/10/2009 on 15:25) According to Eckerson and Watson (2000), ‘CRM integrated touch points is something like a common view of the customer. A separate information systems controlled these touch points. 2.8 demonstrates the relationship between customer touch point with back and front office operations Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said ‘In many companies, CRM is just a technology solution that extends divide databases and sales force automation tools to link sales and marketing functions in order to develop targeting efforts. On the other hand some organisations consider CRM as a tool that is exclusively designed for one-to-one relationship. According to Goldenberg (2000) ‘CRM is not just a technology applications for sales, marketing and service, but when CRM fully and successfully implemented, customer-driven, a cross-functional, technology-integrated business process management strategy that improves relationships and encompasses the whole organisation. 2.6 DATA WAREHOUSE TECHNOLOGY According to Watson (2000) ‘data warehouse is a tools of information technology management that helps business decision makers to instant access of information of customer data throughout the organisation by combining all database and operational systems like sales and transaction, human resource, inventory, purchasing, financial and marketing system. Data warehouse pull out, clean, convert and manage large volumes of data from various systems and creating a historical record of all customer. Data warehousing technology is the most crucial part of CRM because it makes CRM possible. Shepard et al. (1998) said ‘a better understanding of customer behaviour is possible because data warehousing technology consolidates correlates and convert customer data into customer intelligence. Understanding of customers and their purchase patterns can improve information related to customer service interactions, billing and account status, back orders, product returns, product shipment, and internal operating cost. The capacity of a data warehouse to store hundreds and thousands of gigabytes of data make an analysis feasible as well as immediate. Organisational benefits with a data warehouse are as follows; exact and faster access of information bad and duplicate data eliminate by quality data and filtering customer profiling and retention modelling it calculate total present value and estimate future value of every customer it gives detail report 2.7 DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said that ‘the first analytical step of data mining is to describe the data. Data mining summarize its statistical attributes like standard deviations and means, visually review it by use of charts and graphs and distributes the value of the field in our data. But alone data description can not provide an action plan. We have to build a predictive model based on patterns determined from known results and after that we have to test the model on result outside the original sample. An ideal model should never be confused with reality, but it is useful guide to understanding our businesses. According to Eckerson and Watson (2000) ‘we can use data mining for both classification and regression problems. In first problem we can predict what type something will fall into. In second problems we are predicting a number like probability that a person will respond to an offer. In CRM process, data mining is often used to allocate a score to a particular customer. Data mining is also often using to recognize a set of characteristics, which is called profile. Data mining segments customers in to groups with similar behaviour like purchasing a particular product. 2.8 THE CRM PROCESS CYCLE IN BANKS Pound (2000) said that exploration and alteration process should be done by the banks on basis of customer information captured; this shows the full value of CRM initiatives. Banks set up a closed CRM cycle with the help of an integrated CRM solution, which composed of a set of continuous iterative process. It manages the whole customer related process for bank, analysing customer profile, customer data and life time value, which is helping to making marketing decision and optimizing the execution of marketing campaigns, customer service strategies and sales strategies across various channels during the bank. According to Professor Constantin Zopounidis (2002) CRM process cycle is based on a generic business view. It presents a continuous improvement of value between customers and banks across touch points. The main stages are as follows; Customer data collection Customer data analysis Marketing strategy and action programs Back-office Data External Data Touch-Point Data Pound 2000 said that ‘recent banking data sources are extremely heterogeneous. Geographic information is dispersed due to continual acquisitions, mergers and reorganizations. For example a bank might use web site, ATMs, e-mail, sales, call centres and marketing automation applications that must be integrated in a unified environment of CRM banking. An effective multi-channels customer interface will not be possible without a centrally integrated warehouse driving the entire CRM process cycle. This should be update real time. The historical data should be recorded by it, which is used to create propensity models and customer life time value models to recognize past behaviour and action in order to take future marketing strategy. 2.9 CUSTOMER DATA COLLECTION Kristin Anderson Carol Kerr (2002), said that in banking transaction system data such as (e.g. Checking, Credit, Savings) are frequently organised around accounts, channels, products and other alike transactional concepts. This limits the bank ability on identifying the total relationship and unique customers. An Integrated CRM is a major goal it consolidates these â€Å"information islands† and separate solution, which forms an open cross-bank system from all executives, business area department officers and branch employees, shares the identical customer information. Integrated banking CRM structure can be obtained from this necessary basis of data supply. Operation (contact) sources: Chou, Chou 2000, said the customer communication touch-point (ATM, Branch, Call-Centre, Internet-Banking, Mobile banking, personal contact, etc.) Internal sources: Professor Constantion Zopounidis (2000) said internal sources that are the available information island, data bases and product oriented systems from other banks such as (Cards, Deposits, Investments, and loans etc.), Marketing campaign response, meta-data analysis and reliable data mining results. External Sources: Professor Constanin Zopounidis 2002, said marketing researches that of external sources, infomediaries etc. Providing geo-demographic, psycho-graphic data and lifestyle, these can help to improve customer images 2.11 CUSTOMER DATA ANALYSIS Heygate (1998), said Simple and sophisticated data analysis techniques are required for deriving the valuable customer insight from the data collected in a central customer warehouse. More advance data analytics includes OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) mining techniques and tools, these extracts applicable patterns or trends in the data. According to Lawer (2000), key incorporated customer management insights provided by customer data analysis are customer segmentation/differentiation, concentration and distribution of customers value; share of purchases/profits, analysis of strategies that widen/lengthen/deepen customer relationship. Hawkes 2000, advocated customer data analysis enables the recognition of customers profit and customers preferences for definite bank product and services, indicates the most suitable channels to reach the customers, and assesses the profitability and life time value of every personality. Additionally, Delto 1998 said that the future manners of the consumers can be predicted by analysing their past behaviour. Customer statistics, profit and segmentation are the main amount produced of the analysis stage feeding the marketing strategy planning and completing process. Having easily accessible information to marketing makes the difference between a winning campaign and a failure. 2.12 MARKETING STRATEGY AND PROGRAMES Kristin Anderson and Carol Kerr 2002 advocated captured results and data of customer analysis support marketers to route marketing messages, processes and strategies. True values of data of Lloyd TSB are discovered by tools and process for marketing decision making, marketing decision making and CRM initiatives and campaign are deployed from converted information to customer knowledge. Goal of marketing automation within CRM are which personalise and optimizes each customer contact from planning, execution, monitoring marketing strategies and action programmes. Bryan Foss 2003 said it is critical for bank CRM not only to extract their data source to uncover patterns and insight but also to operationalise the system through the bank performance to turn the customer knowledge into importance creating achievement. Merlin Stone 2003 advocated the grades from advertising and CRM activities and strategies continue the process knowledge acquisition enhancing the on-going assessment of marketing data intelligence, closing the feed-back loop. Hence, the final element of CRM process cycle is the valuation of the results of campaign driven by marketing data intelligence. It is crucial to measure performance and feed result back into the centre customer data warehouse, in order to convey