A RESEARCH MODEL OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR MOBILE DEVICES
Description of a Research Model about Customer Relationship
Management Projects
Rebecca Bulander
Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, Englerstr. 11, 76 128 Karlsruhe, Germany
Keywords: Customer Relationship Management, CRM, IT, CRM systems, CRM projects, mobile devices, mobile
actors, business to business.
Abstract: In literature we can find evidence about a high number of failed CRM projects. However concerning CRM
projects in combination with the implementation of mobile devices for field staff in sales and services there
aren’t many results published. So there are missing information about the success of such projects, the
success factors and the objectives. This paper presents a research model about such CRM projects. A CRM
project in this paper is defined as an implementation of a CRM system together with mobile devices. The
research model will give further insight into the success factors of such projects and the achieved objectives.
1 INTRODUCTION
Several studies (e. g. Alt 2004; Thomson et. al 2002;
Ryals 2000) document the failure of CRM projects
in the past. But concerning CRM projects related
with the implementation of mobile devices for field
staff in sales and services we find nearly no
information so we can make no statement about how
many of these projects failed. To gain more infor-
mation about this and to prevent such CRM projects
from failing it seems reasonable to inspect such
projects. Therefore it is important to know what are
the success factors and the achieved objectives of
such projects. For this reason a research model will
be given in this paper. The research model focuses
on companies which sell their products and services
to other companies – this is the so called business to
business (B2B) sector. The B2B sector is more
appropriate because in this sector we find a higher
number of field staff working with mobile devices in
combination with a CRM solutions than in the B2C
sector.
For a better understanding there will be given
some definitions. Customer Relationship Manage-
ment (CRM) is a customer oriented strategy which is
supported by information technology (IT) (Hippner
2004). CRM “[…] is the infrastructure that enables
the delineation of and increase in customer value,
and the correct means by which to motivate valuable
customers to remain loyal – indeed, to buy again”
(Dyché 2002, p. 4).
The information technology respective the CRM
systems help to enhance the customer relation and to
standardise the CRM activities and processes in
fields of marketing, sales and service. This paper is
focussing on CRM systems integrating actors using
mobile devices. In terms of our research mobile
devices are mobile handheld devices like cellular
phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) and
Smartphones but also on-board vehicle computers or
notebooks.
A CRM project is a project which includes the
implementation of a CRM system together with
mobile devices but also the adoption of a customer
oriented strategy. A project is a timely restricted
endeavour to archive stated objectives; it has an
assigned budget.
CRM systems together with mobile devices
expand the channels of CRM to the customer
(Sundararajan 2002) and assist both actors of CRM
– employees of the suppliers and of the customers
using mobile devices via public and private com-
munication networks. Because the employees of the
supplier (e. g. field manager gets mobile access to
customer information) and/or of the customer (e. g.
customer receives flight information on his cellular
phone) can be in the working state mobile or
413
Bulander R. (2008).
A RESEARCH MODEL OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR MOBILE DEVICES - Description of a Research Model
about Customer Relationship Management Projects.
In Proceedings of the International Conference on e-Business, pages 413-418
DOI: 10.5220/0001913604130418
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

stationary we can differentiate between four CRM
scenarios like shown in Figure 1 (Hampe 2002). In
the mobile state the mobile actor is not located
within its homelike infrastructure. The research
model will enclose the three scenarios “classical
CRM system”, “field staff” and “mobile link”. The
scenario “mobile services” covers other aspects of
CRM like mobile marketing and needs therefore
other IT infrastructure.
Classical CRM
system
Mobile Link
Mobile Services
Field staff
Supplier
Customer
Working state
of an
employee
stationary mobile
stationary
mobile
Figure 1: CRM scenarios using mobile devices.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Up to now, little research has been conducted in this
described field of research (Salomann et al. 2005).
To get a better overview about the research that has
already been done, they will be grouped by the
following aspects:
• Author and year
• Objective, research item and research
focus business to business or business
to customer sector
• Method of data analysis
• Database (sample size, kind of ques-
tionning, kind of investigation and
countries in which the enterprises of
the study are)
• Success factors of the CRM project
• Achieved objectives
The success factors are grouped by:
• CRM as strategy
• Implementation of CRM system
• Implementation of mobile information
technology (mobile IT)
Also the achieved objectives of the CRM pro-
jects are sub-classified after the following aspects:
• related to the enterprise
• containing information about the
objectives of the field staff
The last point is important because this infor-
mation gives more insights about the result of an
implementation of mobile devices. The last column
in Table 1 shows if the research about the
relationship between the success factors and the
objectives is part of the study. This aspect is
described with “connection between the variables”.
All studies concerning this research topic are listed
in Table 1.
As can be seen in Table 1 there is no study which
covers all listed aspects. Most of the studies focus on
the sector of B2C or B2B and B2C. There is only
one study that focuses only on B2B. No study covers
the aspect of mobile information technology and the
achieved objectives in field staff. Some studies are
influenced by a company which delivered the CRM
systems or which did the consulting during the CRM
projects.
According to the described research gaps there is
a need of more research concerning mobile infor-
mation technology in combination with CRM
systems and CRM strategy. It is also necessary to
analyse the objectives which are achieved by
implementing CRM systems together with mobile
devices by looking at the field staff. Therefore a
conceptual development will be given and a research
model will be presented.
3 CONCEPTUAL
DEVELOPMENT
In the next paragraphs the research model in
Figure 2 will be explained. The ellipses represent
latent variables; these are the constructs of the
model. The relationships between the variables are
shown by the arrows between the ellipses. Each
arrow is marked with ‘H’ and a number, which
stands for the number of the hypothesis. The whole
model contains 20 hypotheses. As shown in Figure 2
the success factors are on the left side and the
objectives on the right side of the figure. According
to Table 1 the success factors are divided into “CRM
as strategy” and “implementation of CRM together
with mobile IT”. The objectives are categorized into
three groups: The first group is the over all
satisfaction with the CRM project. The remaining
groups are the objectives achieved in the whole
enterprise. They are measured in four dimensions.
The objectives referring to the field staff and the use
of mobile devices are measured in three variables,
also called dimensions.
ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business
414

Table 1: Selected studies on CRM systems.
success factors achieved
object-
tives
Author and
year
objective, research item and
research focus business to
business (B2B) or business to
customer (B2C)
method of data
analysis
database
- Sample size
- Kind of questioning
- Kind of investigation
- Country in which the
survey did take place
CRM as strategy CRM system Mobile information technology enterprise field staff Connections between variables
Alt,
Pushmann,
Österle
2004
- Success factors of CRM
projects
- Research item: enterprises
- B2C
Explorative
analysis and
benchmarking
- N = 6
- Personal interviews
- Half standardized
questionnaire
- Countries: Germany,
Switzerland, USA
Day, Van
den Bulte
2002
- Positional advantages and
relative performance through
customer relating capability
and competitive strategy
- Research item: middle and
big enterprises
- B2B and B2C
Qualitative
analysis,
factor analysis
- N = 299
- Written and online
questioning
- Standardized questionnaire
- Country: USA
Greve
2006
- Success factors of the
implementation of CRM
systems
- Research item: enterprises
which are consulted by the
company Accenture
- B2C
Qualitative
analysis,
descriptive
statistics, PLS
analysis
- N = 90
- Written questioning
- Standardized questionnaire
- Countries: Europe, mostly
Germany
Jayachan-
dran et al.
2004
- Influence of the CRM
information process ands the
use of CRM technology to
the customer relationship
performance
- Research item: enterprises
- B2B and B2C
Qualitative
analysis,
factor analysis
- N = 172
- Written and online
questioning
- Standardized questionnaire
- Country: no information
Reinartz,
Krafft,
Hoyer
2003
- Success factors and
objectives of CRM
implementations
- Research item: enterprises
- B2C
Qualitative
analysis,
descriptive
statistics, PLS
analysis
- N = 211 and N = 95
- Written and online
questioning
- Standardized questionnaire
- Countries: Germany,
Austria, Switzerland
Selchert
2005
- Measurement of success of
CRM projects in companies
which have chosen CRM
systems of SAG AG
- Research item: enterprises
- B2B and B2C
Descriptive
statistics,
Key performance
indicators
- N = 32
- Telephone interviews
- Standardized questionnaire
- Countries: Germany,
Austria, Switzerland
Wilson et al.
2002
- Success factors in CRM
- Research item: enterprises
- B2B and B2C
Explorative
analysis
- N = 5
- Personal interviews
- Half standardized
questionnaire
- Country: no information
Zahay,
Griffin
2002
- Investigation about the
customer based performance
and the business growth
- Research item: enterprises
- B2B
Quantitative
analysis,
descriptive
statistics,
factor analysis
- N = 206
- Telephone interview
- Standardized questionnaire
- Countries: USA
A RESEARCH MODEL OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR MOBILE DEVICES -
Description of a Research Model about Customer Relationship Management Projects
415

Implementation of
mobile information
technology
Implementation of
mobile information
technology
Implementation of
CRM system
Implementation of
CRM system
H3
H4
H5
H6
Dimension
finances
Dimension
customer
Dimension
employee
Dimension
processes
Achieved objectives in the
enterpsie
H7-H10
H14-H17
Achieved objectives in the
field staff
Dimension
time and costs
- mobile
Dimension
quality - mobile
Dimension
processes - mobile
H11-H13
H18-H20
Success factors
Satisfaction
Complete satisfaction with the
CRM project
Implementation of
information technology
Implementation of
information technology
Actions for
acquisition
of customers
Actions for
acquisition
of customers
Actions for
customer retention
Actions for
customer retention
H1
H2
CRM performance
CRM performance
Figure 2: Research model.
3.1 Success Factor CRM Performance
The variable CRM performance stands for the ability
of an enterprise to adapt the CRM strategy in its
enterprise strategy and the CRM concepts and
activities in its marketing, sales and service con-
cepts. To measure the CRM performance three con-
structs are needed. Some aspects of these constructs
are transferred from the study of Reinartz 2004. But
the constructs of this study have to be converted
from the B2C sector to special aspects of the B2B
sector. Therefore the consciously determination of a
customer relationship is not part of this model (Rapp
2000). So we get two antecedents for CRM
performance.
First there are the actions to acquire new
customers and second there are the actions to force
the relationship to profitable customers and also to
recommit inactive profitable customers (Reinartz
2004).
The actions to acquire new profitable customers
and to build a relationship to the already profitable
customers haven an influence on the CRM per-
formance of an enterprise (hypotheses 1 and 2).
3.2 Success Factor Implementation of
Information Technology
The variable implementation of information
technology stands for the support of all customers
related and oriented activities by IT. Especially in
CRM are many activities, which wouldn’t be
possible in an efficient way without IT – e. g. per-
sonalized advertising and newsletters. Therefore you
find already in the definition of CRM the importance
of IT (Hippner 2004).
To get an IT that covers all aspects of CRM there
is a combination of the implementation of mobile IT
and of a CRM system necessary. Therefore the
variable implementation of information technology
has two antecedents.
Only if the mobile technology and all other
channels to the customer are integrated into the
CRM system to ensure a bidirectional data flow on a
consolidated customer data base all CRM processes
and activities can be properly supported. This aspect
is shown by hypotheses 3 and 4.
ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business
416

3.3 CRM Performance and
Implementation of IT as
Antecedents of Satisfaction
To measure enterprises satisfaction with the results
of its determined CRM project in combination with
the usage of mobile devices the variable
“satisfaction with the CRM project” will be used.
This variable shows the over all impression and
covers the success of the CRM project over all.
Therefore also the question is formulated, if the
enterprise would repeat the CRM project.
The satisfaction with the CRM project is in-
fluenced by the two variables CRM performance and
implementation of IT (see also hypotheses 5 and 6 in
Figure 2).
3.4 CRM Performance and
Implementation of IT as
Antecedents of Achieved Objectives
Unlike the variable satisfaction with the CRM
project the variables to measure the achieved
objective cover certain aspects of CRM projects.
Therefore a pre-study was undertaken to collect the
objectives of CRM projects for mobile devices
(Hartel 2006). The results of this pre.-study have
been grouped by topics. According to this pre-study
we can differ between objectives related to the
enterprise and to the field staff. Furthermore they
can be assigned to sub-groups – so called dimen-
sions.
The achieved objectives concerning the whole
enterprise are grouped by four dimensions con-
cerning the following aspects:
• finance (e. g. cost reduction or increase
of up- and cross-selling)
• customer (e. g. improvement of cus-
tommmer communication or reducetion
of complaints)
• employees (e. g. improvement of the
communication between employees)
• processes (e. g. improvement of effect-
tiveness in sales)
The achieved objectives concerning the filed
staff using mobile devices are grouped by the
following three dimensions:
• time and costs (e. g. reduction of cycle
time or time saving by administrative
work for sales people)
• quality (e. g. improvement of data and
information quality for sales people)
• process for mobile devices (e. g. in-
crease of process automation for sales
and service people)
The antecedents to these seven constructs are the
two variables “CRM performance” and the “im-
plementation of IT”. Hence the relationship between
these two variables and the variables in the certain
dimensions are described in the hypotheses 7 until
20 (see Figure 2). All hypotheses in the research
model show the following description – for example
H7:
“The CRM performance has an influence on the
achieved objectives of the enterprise in the
dimension finance.”
4 RESEARCH METHOD AND
FURTHER STEPS
4.1 Research Method
The proposed research model and its hypotheses
represent a structural equation path model. This
model can be tested by the Partial Least Squares
(PLS) analysis. The PLS procedure was invented by
Hermann Wold. It is a second-generation multi-
variate technique which has the ability to model
latent constructs under conditions of non-normality
(Chin 1999).
4.2 Further Steps
To prove the proposed research model further
empirical research is needed. Therefore the variables
have to be operationalized by indicator variables.
After this the concept of the study has to be planned.
This covers the aspects like: data base, sample size,
kind of questioning etc. Each indicator variable
refers to a question in the questionnaire.
Because of the different market of CRM systems
only enterprises of one CRM market should be
chosen for interviews – e. g. American CRM market
or German speaking CRM market. Thus an
influence by the market to the study results can be
excluded.
By choosing the enterprises for interviews there
should be avoided that there is any influence by a
special CRM software product or a consulting
company during the CRM project. The chosen
enterprises should be free from such influences.
It is also important to select companies which
have conducted a CRM project and completed it.
Therefore it can be ensured that first influences as
A RESEARCH MODEL OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR MOBILE DEVICES -
Description of a Research Model about Customer Relationship Management Projects
417

well as long term influences of the CRM project for
example in the dimension finance can be observed.
5 SUMMARY
The described research model shows a concept to
analyze CRM projects in enterprises of the business
to business sector. The model covers aspects of
CRM strategy and CRM concepts as well as the
support of the implemented information technology
respective CRM systems. The model points out that
the CRM performance and the IT have an influence
on the achieved objectives of an CRM project. So
the model shows that IT is not the only but an
important factor to the success of such a CRM
project.
The most important points of the model are that
the variable “implementation of mobile information
technology” covers all aspects for the use of mobile
devices for field staff in sales and services. It is also
important that the objectives of the field staff are
measured and analyzed by three dimensions con-
cerning aspects like time and costs, quality and
processes for mobile devices.
REFERENCES
Alt, R. & Puschmann, T., 2004. Successful Practices in
Customer Relationship Management. In Proceedings
of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences, Hawaii. IEEE Computer Society.
Chin, W. W.; Newsted, P. R., 1999: Structural equation
modeling analysis with small samples using least
squares. In: Statistical strategies for small sample
research. Hoyle, R. H. (Hrsg.), Thousand Oaks et al.
pages 307-342.
Day, S. G.; Van den Bulte, C., 2002. Superiority in
Customer Relationship Ma¬nagement: Consequences
for Competitive Advantages and Perfor¬mance. In:
Marketing Science Institute, Report No. 02-123,
Cambridge.
Dyché, J., 2002. The CRM-Handbook. Addison-Wesley,
Boston.
Greve, G., 2006 (in German). Erfolgsfaktoren von
Customer-Relationship-Management-Imple¬men¬
tierungen. Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden.
Hampe, F. & Schwabe, G., 2002 (in German). Mobiles
Customer Relationship Management. In Reichwald, R.
(Ed.), Mobile Kommunikation, Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Hartel, M.; Bulander, R., 2006: Success Factors of mobile
CRM Projekts - An Overview. In: Proceedings of the
International Conference on E-Business (ICE-B 2006).
INSTICC Press, Setúbal, Portugal, pages 306-311.
Hippner, H., 2004. Zur Konzeption von Kunden-
beziehungsstrategien (in German). In Hippner, H. &
Wilde, K. (Ed.), Management von CRM-Projekten,
Gabler, Wiesbaden, pages 33-66.
Jayachandran, S.; Hewett, K.; Kaufman, P., 2004.
Customer Response Capability in a Sense-and-
Response Era: The Role of Customer Knowledge
Process. In: Journal of Academy of Marketing Science
32, 3, pages 219-233.
Rapp, R., 2000 (in German). Customer Relationship
Management - Das neue Konzept zur Revolutio-
nierung der Kundenbeziehungen. Campus, Frankfurt a.
M.
Reinartz, W.; Krafft, M.; Hoyer, W. D., 2004: The
Customer Relationship Management Process: Its
Measurement and Impact on Performance. In: Journal
of Marketing Research XLI, pages 293-305.
Ryals, L.; Knox, S., Maklan, S., 2000. Customer Relation-
ship Management (CRM): Building the Business Case.
London: Financial Times Prentice-Hall.
Salomann, H., Dous, M., Kolbe, L. & Brenner, W., 2005.
Customer Relationship Management Survey – Status
Quo and Future Challenges. Institute of Information
Management at the University of St. Gallen.
Selchert, M., 2005. CFROI of Customer Relationship
Management. In: Managementschriften. Kremin-Buch,
B.; Unger, F.; Walz, H. (Hrsg.), Wissenschaft und
Praxis, Sternenfels.
Sundararajan, P., 2002. Emerging Mobile Customer
Relationship Management. In Applications in
Financial Services. EAI Journal, Mai 2002, S. 44-47.
Thompson, E., Davies, J. & Frey, N., 2002. Gartner's 2002
European CRM Survey: As Projects Progress,
Challenges Abound.
Wilson, H.; Daniel, E.; McDonald, M., 2002. Factors for
Success in Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) Systems. In: Journal of Marketing Mana-
gement 18, 1/2, pages 193-219.
Zahay, D.; Griffin, A., 2002. Are customer information
systems worth it? Results from B2B services. In:
Marketing Science Institute, Report No. 02-113,
Cambridge.
ICE-B 2008 - International Conference on e-Business
418