Debenhams Assignment
MODULE: INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
ASSIGNMENT TITLE: STRATEGIC INFORMATION ANALYSIS REPORT
SESSION: JUNE 2011
STUDENT NAME: HARDEEP KAUR
STUDENT ID:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page……………………………………………………………………………………….1
Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………2
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………..2
1.About Debenhams…………………………………………………………………………3
2.The main body of the report………………………………………………………….
2.1.Strategic information needs of Debenhams……………………………….
2.2.strategic information system of Debenhams……………………………..
2.3.Knowledge management and CRM………………………………………..
2.3.1.Knowledge management………………………………………………………
2.3.2.Customer relationship management……………………………………….
3.Recommendations……………………………………………………………………… …show more content…
4.Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..
5.Reference……………………………………………………………………………………
Abstract
This report deals with strategic information analysis of Debenhams. It particular emphasised on the strategic analysis of information system of this organisation. Its initial lines contains the basic information of the organisation. The second part of the report gives the information about the strategic information needs, strategic information system and e-business planning activities of Debenhams. It also bring into light the concept of knowledge management and customer relationship management. This report explain how Debenhams manage these activities within the organisation. The last segment of this report is the submission of conclusion and references.
1.About Debenhams
Founded in 1778 as a draper’s shop selling expensive fabric, bonnets, gloves and parasols, is owned by Harvey Nichols by 1920 to1991 and was part of theBurton Group from1985 to1998.Debenhams is now UK’s leading department stores with 167 retail stores in the UK and Ireland.it also has 61 franchises stores in 24 countries and six store in Denmark. Besides of this it has an on line store on www.debenhams.com. Debenhams has a strong presence in key product categories including women’swear, menswear, kidswear, lingerie, home and furniture, health and beauty products, accessories and wedding. A unique mix of exclusive own brands, including designers, and third-party brands helps differentiate Debenhams from its competitors. The organisation employ 29000 people to run their business.it has strong continual growth in multi-channel business.
Debenhams’ product range includes their own brand as well as international brands. Although, they haven’t really focused on international expansion, like their competitors, they have been doing really well domestically. In fact, it seems they have created the right product mix that appeals to the larger audience.
2.1 Strategic information needs of Debenhams: Before considering the strategic information needs of Debenhams we describe the meaning of information needs for an organisation in short.
In simple words we can say that what type of information is needed for an organisation to achieve their set goals and objectives. Information play a vital role to coordinate the internal and external environment. The four factors that determines the usefulness of information: quality, timeliness, completeness and relevance. Accuracy and reliability determines the quality of information. So I think useful information should be accurate and reliable. As world is changing day by day, with changes in time so it leads to information changing frequently. Real information is that information which is reflecting by time. So to catch the real information we have to consider the timeliness factor in …show more content…
accounting.
Timeliness is very important in accounting information. If information is not considered the time factor then it will not helpful for decision-makers. So information system should be updated time to time before it loses its capacity to influence decisions.
A manager or director can only take right decision if he has the complete information about all determinents of business. Thus if any organisation wants to earn profits or set up a new business have the available information about production, profit, capital etc. should be complete. Information should be relevant to particular needs and circumstances. It shows relevant information is most important because if the data is not based on that information will go to wrong decisions.
These are the basic needs of information for any organisation.
Moreover, the information needs are different from a strategic point of view in comparison from operational information needs. On operational level the information needs circle around lists of "things-to-do", statusses of routers, servers or services, or re-active email alerts. The operation is basically focused on keeping the IT systems running, and its information needs are focused on doing that as efficiently and effectively as possible.
In between sits a somewhat 'gray ' area: the tactical level. This level has its focus on short term, smaller objectives. The tactical level probably needs a combination of tracking trends in metrics (for short-term measurement of objectives), and access to operational information for decision-making.
In most IT organizations a number of reporting tools are used to serve each of these layers. However, t the information needs on strategic level are in most companies fulfilled by "cut & paste" activities in Excel or Powerpoint. That does seem very inefficient, but foremost it leaves room for error, and in some cases, room for "gaming the system".(http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/kpi-blog/strategic-vs-operational-information-needs-18622)
Now we are considering Debenhams from these particular points. As we know Debenhams provide all information through internet by using its own website (www.debenhams.com). So information that is provided by this website is correct and accurate. The company always updates its website time to time with new changes. So the timeliness factor is also considered by the organisation. It provides security about the information to the customers.
Debenhams plan about 2011 to focus on location-based marketing strategy. So its information needs are related to provide information about new location and suitable strategies to these locations to the management. They also have the information about their potential competetors in these locations.
2.2Strategic information system and e-business planning
Before starting to talk about the information system of Debenhams, we have to answer this question, what is strategic information system?
‘’strategic information systems are created in response to business initiatives to provide a competitive advantage’’ Dr Charles Wiseman in 1982. So in general we can say that strategic information system is a combination of hardware, software, infrastructure and trained personnel organised to facilitate planning, control, coordination and decision making in any organisation, which helps to employs the strategy and in the achievement of strategic goals. Moreover, these are the techniques through which an organisation contact internally and externally with its employees, customer, suppliers etc.
And why information systems are important for an organisation? An understanding of the effective and responsible use and management of information systems and technologies is important for managers, business professionals, and other knowledge workers in today’s internetworked enterprises. Information systems play a vital role in the e-business and e-commerce operations, enterprise collaboration and management, and strategic success of businesses that must operate in an internetworked global environment. Thus, the field of information systems has become a major functional area of business administration.E-business is such kind of business in which an organisation operates its day-to-day activities on internet or other electronic network such as electronic data interchange. Electronic businessincludes collaborating with distributorsonsales promotions, interacting with and servicing the customers, and conducting jointresearch with business partners.
Debenhams primarily use its own website (www.debenhams .co.uk) to provide information about their products, offers and policies. The company uses different blogs, facebook, beauty club facebok, flicker, twitter, you tube, foursquare, polyvore and Debenhams apps etc. A customer who wants to do shopping online, it provide all information about contact, order and payment, delivery, return and refund policy to the customer. For online shoppers it has another option ‘Debenhams Direct’. Debenhams Direct offers customers a fantastic online shopping experience from a comprehensive UK department store. Debenhams Direct has firmly established itself as a successful online retailer as well as a leading department store with nearly 3 million customers monthly.
As weknow Debenhams has a number of huge stores but side by side it is running their business through internet also. On the internet it provides insurance (travel insurance, home insurance, wedding life insurance, car and pet insurance etc) and travel money to the customers. Besides of this they issues a number of cards like credit card, shop card, gold card, prepaid card and loyalty rewards.
Debenhams employs e-business technology, strategically advertise its products. It also uses e-business to identify any emerging trend in consumer demands as well as studying the activities of rival companies. By inter changing e-business system there has been an increase in orders placed by potential consumers. This has seen the sales turn over £24bn in the year ended 31st December 2005 to £28bn for the period ended 31st December 2006. (http//academicwriting.org/component/content/article/34-business-studies-/501/-debenhams-in-the-unitedkingdom-html)
2.3KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
With the rapid and constant changes taking place in information technology and the Internet, traditional business models must continue to meet the changing business environment in order to survive. Only firms participating in the creation and utilization of knowledge can hope to enjoy the rewards of business reform in today’s knowledge-based economy. Thus, the issues surrounding knowledge management have attracted more and more concern from both industry and academia. Due to the technological features of the profession, the processing industry has a close relationship with the adoption, creation and warehousing of knowledge, research and marketing being one of its core competencies. Effective knowledge management can help the processing industry to accumulate core knowledge, build corporate intelligence and gain a competitive edge.
2.3.1knowledge management
As we knowledge management is a broad concept. No single definition can meet the requirements of whole knowledge. There are many definitions given by many authors but we are considering here knowledge management from a organisational point of view.Knowledge is not easily measured or audited, so organizations must manage knowledge effectively in order to take full advantage of the skills and experience inherent in their systems and structures as well as the tacit knowledge belonging to the employees of the firm. ‘’knowledge management is to discover, develop, utilize, deliver and absorb knowledge inside and outside the organisation through an appropriate management process to meet current and future needs.’’ Ouintas,1997 Knowledge management is a managerial activity which develops, transfers, transmits, stores and applies knowledge, as well as providing the members of the organization with real information to react and make the right decisions, in order to attain the organization’s goals”. We can discuss Debenhams knowledge management under the following points:
Maximise sales during economic downturn: as we know world economy is passing by economic downturn but Debenhams policy is continuing for expansion. Due to this economic position there are changes in consumer demand that needs tight management of stock, costs and capital expenditure. And high rate of investment is also essential for meeting these challenges. Technology is the key to helping Debenhams to meet these strategic objectives. The company has implemented a number of IT system which helps to automate the core business. This helps retailers because they are able to free up store staff from back office tasks to focus on serving customer.
Debenhams also adopts the ITIL-based support processes, it could not only speed up its responses to IT problems but also take advantage of cost savings. Although Debenhams’ existing service desk tool was adequate, it did not have the capabilities to support new ITIL-compatible processes without significant investment.
Enabling self-service support: To manage their knowledge properly Debenhams introduce a CA service desk which enables the managers to do their work efficiently. “CA Service Desk Manager’s self-service tools mean that users can log issues and incidents directly, which reduces the IT administration burden,” comments Lovegrove.
By leveraging the knowledge management component, Debenhams has also been able to provide users with access to information and advice that helps them resolve their own IT issues. This has massively increased the efficiency of Debenhams’ IT support operation; it is estimated that up to 15 per cent of problems are now resolved without direct involvement from the IT department.
Issues that do require assistance from the IT department are automatically routed to the appropriate team via CA Service Desk Manager to ensure a rapid response. As well as streamlining IT support, CA Service Desk Manager provides centralised metrics to enable Debenhams to analyse incident data and identify recurring problems. This means the retailer can take proactive measures to reduce the number of incidents and enable continuous service improvement.
Maximising the time staff spend helping customers: with the adoption of a more efficient IT service desk, Debenhams can ensure that its strategic IT systems continue to offer high levels of performance and availability. it improves the productivity and satisfaction of employees. It also provide time to up store staff to spend more time with customers. With the help of CA service desk managers are able to find out the solution for its faulty foodservice helpdesk for staff and customer restaurant. By using CA service desk managers are able to solve to Debenhams’ financial service operations centre to centralise the appointment of temporary agency staff and facility services, such as electricitions and plumbers. This will help to increase efficiency across the company and the return on investment from a CA solution.
Adopting an ITIL strategy for incident and problem management: To help align its IT support operation with ITIL best practice, Debenhams turned to trusted IT partner CA and its CA Service Desk Management solution. Debenhams was already using a number of CA solutions, including CA Clarity Project & Portfolio Management, with great success.
“As well as featuring out-of-the-box ITIL capabilities, CA Service Desk Manager is Web based, which means we would not have to install additional software on users’ desktops around the country,” comments Lovegrove. The implementation was carried out in partnership with CA Services, who assisted with infrastructure decisions and configuring the solution to ensure that it met Debenhams’ needs. The service desk component of CA Service Desk Manager went live in August 2008 - just five months after initial discussions began. The implementation of the Service Desk Management solution was accompanied by the adoption of ITIL best practice processes, which have helped to streamline and automate core tasks.
2.3.2Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management has vital importance in management studies because customer has an important place in every field.
‘Customer is a king’ according to Business Management and ‘customer is always right’ from the perspective of Hospitality Management. Moreover if any organisation or business want to survive in the industry and wants toachieve its goals and objectives then it should focus on the industry. Customer is also a source of competitive advantage and to gain market share. CRM is the system or process how to deal with the customer. In other words we can say that CRM is a such kind of detailed study through which we can gather information about customer’s behaviour and needs ,preferences and buying patterns of
consumers.
‘’CRM is a management philosophy according to which a company’s goals can be best achieved through identification and satisfaction of the customer’s stated and unstated needs and wants’’www.businessdictionary.com
Now with the advance technology different software are used to identifying consumer needs and demands. It is also helpful in maintaining relationship with customers by providing them best suitable products and services.
Debenhams is good at customer relationship management. It provides different types of facalities to its customers such as they can frequently asked the questions about shopping. If they are not satisfied with any product, they can easily refund it with the refund policy. It provides all information regarding delivery and charges through their website. So customer can easily buy any product online whether they are living in any location. It always welcome the customer’s suggestions and complaints so that they will improve them in future. It accept the all major UK credit and debit cards of payment when you are shopping online. It helps the customers in searching of products, placing an order and making payments. And it also accepts rating and reviews on different products given by new customers. It also ensure the customers that they try to meet their demands at the affordable prices. By following above policies Debenhams try to manage all important information about their customers it shows they are good at managing relations with them.
3.Recommendations:
* As Debenhams introduce CA service desk for managers to manage their activities properly it should provide self-service desk for customers in their retail stores also because it is the demand of time. All UK’s major retail operatives such as Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury have the self service desk for customers. It shows they pay special attention to the customer. Thus its competitors have competitive advantage for this factor. * Debenhams’ strategic focus mainly on domestic growth. This is a point of weaknesses of the organisation. Most of stores in UK and Ireland except two-three foreign countries. It should include Europe, Asia, Russia in their future plans of expansion. There is scope for business in these areas because demand of imported product is high in these areas.
4.Conclusion: Debenhams is one of the UK’s majors retail fashion and home appliances operatives.
5.References:
* Hislop Donald(2009), Knowledge Management in Organisatios, 2nd Edition, ISBN: 978-0-19-953497-5 * Pearlson and Saunders(2006), Managing and Using Information Systems, 3rd Edition, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, ISBN: o471715387 * www.debenhams .com * www.business.dictionary.com * http://hosteddocs.ittoolbox.com/kkrr411006.pdf * http://www.retailtechnologyreview.com/absolutenm/templates/retail_supply_chain.aspx?articleit=663&zoncid=1 * http//academicwriting.org/component/content/article/34-business-studies-/501/-debenhams-in-the-unitedkingdom-html * http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/kpi-blog/strategic-vs-operational-information-needs-18622
ASSIGNMENT TITLE: STRATEGIC INFORMATION ANALYSIS REPORT
SESSION: JUNE 2011
STUDENT NAME: HARDEEP KAUR
STUDENT ID:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page……………………………………………………………………………………….1
Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………2
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………..2
1.About Debenhams…………………………………………………………………………3
2.The main body of the report………………………………………………………….
2.1.Strategic information needs of Debenhams……………………………….
2.2.strategic information system of Debenhams……………………………..
2.3.Knowledge management and CRM………………………………………..
2.3.1.Knowledge management………………………………………………………
2.3.2.Customer relationship management……………………………………….
3.Recommendations……………………………………………………………………… …show more content…
4.Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..
5.Reference……………………………………………………………………………………
Abstract
This report deals with strategic information analysis of Debenhams. It particular emphasised on the strategic analysis of information system of this organisation. Its initial lines contains the basic information of the organisation. The second part of the report gives the information about the strategic information needs, strategic information system and e-business planning activities of Debenhams. It also bring into light the concept of knowledge management and customer relationship management. This report explain how Debenhams manage these activities within the organisation. The last segment of this report is the submission of conclusion and references.
1.About Debenhams
Founded in 1778 as a draper’s shop selling expensive fabric, bonnets, gloves and parasols, is owned by Harvey Nichols by 1920 to1991 and was part of theBurton Group from1985 to1998.Debenhams is now UK’s leading department stores with 167 retail stores in the UK and Ireland.it also has 61 franchises stores in 24 countries and six store in Denmark. Besides of this it has an on line store on www.debenhams.com. Debenhams has a strong presence in key product categories including women’swear, menswear, kidswear, lingerie, home and furniture, health and beauty products, accessories and wedding. A unique mix of exclusive own brands, including designers, and third-party brands helps differentiate Debenhams from its competitors. The organisation employ 29000 people to run their business.it has strong continual growth in multi-channel business.
Debenhams’ product range includes their own brand as well as international brands. Although, they haven’t really focused on international expansion, like their competitors, they have been doing really well domestically. In fact, it seems they have created the right product mix that appeals to the larger audience.
2.1 Strategic information needs of Debenhams: Before considering the strategic information needs of Debenhams we describe the meaning of information needs for an organisation in short.
In simple words we can say that what type of information is needed for an organisation to achieve their set goals and objectives. Information play a vital role to coordinate the internal and external environment. The four factors that determines the usefulness of information: quality, timeliness, completeness and relevance. Accuracy and reliability determines the quality of information. So I think useful information should be accurate and reliable. As world is changing day by day, with changes in time so it leads to information changing frequently. Real information is that information which is reflecting by time. So to catch the real information we have to consider the timeliness factor in …show more content…
accounting.
Timeliness is very important in accounting information. If information is not considered the time factor then it will not helpful for decision-makers. So information system should be updated time to time before it loses its capacity to influence decisions.
A manager or director can only take right decision if he has the complete information about all determinents of business. Thus if any organisation wants to earn profits or set up a new business have the available information about production, profit, capital etc. should be complete. Information should be relevant to particular needs and circumstances. It shows relevant information is most important because if the data is not based on that information will go to wrong decisions.
These are the basic needs of information for any organisation.
Moreover, the information needs are different from a strategic point of view in comparison from operational information needs. On operational level the information needs circle around lists of "things-to-do", statusses of routers, servers or services, or re-active email alerts. The operation is basically focused on keeping the IT systems running, and its information needs are focused on doing that as efficiently and effectively as possible.
In between sits a somewhat 'gray ' area: the tactical level. This level has its focus on short term, smaller objectives. The tactical level probably needs a combination of tracking trends in metrics (for short-term measurement of objectives), and access to operational information for decision-making.
In most IT organizations a number of reporting tools are used to serve each of these layers. However, t the information needs on strategic level are in most companies fulfilled by "cut & paste" activities in Excel or Powerpoint. That does seem very inefficient, but foremost it leaves room for error, and in some cases, room for "gaming the system".(http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/kpi-blog/strategic-vs-operational-information-needs-18622)
Now we are considering Debenhams from these particular points. As we know Debenhams provide all information through internet by using its own website (www.debenhams.com). So information that is provided by this website is correct and accurate. The company always updates its website time to time with new changes. So the timeliness factor is also considered by the organisation. It provides security about the information to the customers.
Debenhams plan about 2011 to focus on location-based marketing strategy. So its information needs are related to provide information about new location and suitable strategies to these locations to the management. They also have the information about their potential competetors in these locations.
2.2Strategic information system and e-business planning
Before starting to talk about the information system of Debenhams, we have to answer this question, what is strategic information system?
‘’strategic information systems are created in response to business initiatives to provide a competitive advantage’’ Dr Charles Wiseman in 1982. So in general we can say that strategic information system is a combination of hardware, software, infrastructure and trained personnel organised to facilitate planning, control, coordination and decision making in any organisation, which helps to employs the strategy and in the achievement of strategic goals. Moreover, these are the techniques through which an organisation contact internally and externally with its employees, customer, suppliers etc.
And why information systems are important for an organisation? An understanding of the effective and responsible use and management of information systems and technologies is important for managers, business professionals, and other knowledge workers in today’s internetworked enterprises. Information systems play a vital role in the e-business and e-commerce operations, enterprise collaboration and management, and strategic success of businesses that must operate in an internetworked global environment. Thus, the field of information systems has become a major functional area of business administration.E-business is such kind of business in which an organisation operates its day-to-day activities on internet or other electronic network such as electronic data interchange. Electronic businessincludes collaborating with distributorsonsales promotions, interacting with and servicing the customers, and conducting jointresearch with business partners.
Debenhams primarily use its own website (www.debenhams .co.uk) to provide information about their products, offers and policies. The company uses different blogs, facebook, beauty club facebok, flicker, twitter, you tube, foursquare, polyvore and Debenhams apps etc. A customer who wants to do shopping online, it provide all information about contact, order and payment, delivery, return and refund policy to the customer. For online shoppers it has another option ‘Debenhams Direct’. Debenhams Direct offers customers a fantastic online shopping experience from a comprehensive UK department store. Debenhams Direct has firmly established itself as a successful online retailer as well as a leading department store with nearly 3 million customers monthly.
As weknow Debenhams has a number of huge stores but side by side it is running their business through internet also. On the internet it provides insurance (travel insurance, home insurance, wedding life insurance, car and pet insurance etc) and travel money to the customers. Besides of this they issues a number of cards like credit card, shop card, gold card, prepaid card and loyalty rewards.
Debenhams employs e-business technology, strategically advertise its products. It also uses e-business to identify any emerging trend in consumer demands as well as studying the activities of rival companies. By inter changing e-business system there has been an increase in orders placed by potential consumers. This has seen the sales turn over £24bn in the year ended 31st December 2005 to £28bn for the period ended 31st December 2006. (http//academicwriting.org/component/content/article/34-business-studies-/501/-debenhams-in-the-unitedkingdom-html)
2.3KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
With the rapid and constant changes taking place in information technology and the Internet, traditional business models must continue to meet the changing business environment in order to survive. Only firms participating in the creation and utilization of knowledge can hope to enjoy the rewards of business reform in today’s knowledge-based economy. Thus, the issues surrounding knowledge management have attracted more and more concern from both industry and academia. Due to the technological features of the profession, the processing industry has a close relationship with the adoption, creation and warehousing of knowledge, research and marketing being one of its core competencies. Effective knowledge management can help the processing industry to accumulate core knowledge, build corporate intelligence and gain a competitive edge.
2.3.1knowledge management
As we knowledge management is a broad concept. No single definition can meet the requirements of whole knowledge. There are many definitions given by many authors but we are considering here knowledge management from a organisational point of view.Knowledge is not easily measured or audited, so organizations must manage knowledge effectively in order to take full advantage of the skills and experience inherent in their systems and structures as well as the tacit knowledge belonging to the employees of the firm. ‘’knowledge management is to discover, develop, utilize, deliver and absorb knowledge inside and outside the organisation through an appropriate management process to meet current and future needs.’’ Ouintas,1997 Knowledge management is a managerial activity which develops, transfers, transmits, stores and applies knowledge, as well as providing the members of the organization with real information to react and make the right decisions, in order to attain the organization’s goals”. We can discuss Debenhams knowledge management under the following points:
Maximise sales during economic downturn: as we know world economy is passing by economic downturn but Debenhams policy is continuing for expansion. Due to this economic position there are changes in consumer demand that needs tight management of stock, costs and capital expenditure. And high rate of investment is also essential for meeting these challenges. Technology is the key to helping Debenhams to meet these strategic objectives. The company has implemented a number of IT system which helps to automate the core business. This helps retailers because they are able to free up store staff from back office tasks to focus on serving customer.
Debenhams also adopts the ITIL-based support processes, it could not only speed up its responses to IT problems but also take advantage of cost savings. Although Debenhams’ existing service desk tool was adequate, it did not have the capabilities to support new ITIL-compatible processes without significant investment.
Enabling self-service support: To manage their knowledge properly Debenhams introduce a CA service desk which enables the managers to do their work efficiently. “CA Service Desk Manager’s self-service tools mean that users can log issues and incidents directly, which reduces the IT administration burden,” comments Lovegrove.
By leveraging the knowledge management component, Debenhams has also been able to provide users with access to information and advice that helps them resolve their own IT issues. This has massively increased the efficiency of Debenhams’ IT support operation; it is estimated that up to 15 per cent of problems are now resolved without direct involvement from the IT department.
Issues that do require assistance from the IT department are automatically routed to the appropriate team via CA Service Desk Manager to ensure a rapid response. As well as streamlining IT support, CA Service Desk Manager provides centralised metrics to enable Debenhams to analyse incident data and identify recurring problems. This means the retailer can take proactive measures to reduce the number of incidents and enable continuous service improvement.
Maximising the time staff spend helping customers: with the adoption of a more efficient IT service desk, Debenhams can ensure that its strategic IT systems continue to offer high levels of performance and availability. it improves the productivity and satisfaction of employees. It also provide time to up store staff to spend more time with customers. With the help of CA service desk managers are able to find out the solution for its faulty foodservice helpdesk for staff and customer restaurant. By using CA service desk managers are able to solve to Debenhams’ financial service operations centre to centralise the appointment of temporary agency staff and facility services, such as electricitions and plumbers. This will help to increase efficiency across the company and the return on investment from a CA solution.
Adopting an ITIL strategy for incident and problem management: To help align its IT support operation with ITIL best practice, Debenhams turned to trusted IT partner CA and its CA Service Desk Management solution. Debenhams was already using a number of CA solutions, including CA Clarity Project & Portfolio Management, with great success.
“As well as featuring out-of-the-box ITIL capabilities, CA Service Desk Manager is Web based, which means we would not have to install additional software on users’ desktops around the country,” comments Lovegrove. The implementation was carried out in partnership with CA Services, who assisted with infrastructure decisions and configuring the solution to ensure that it met Debenhams’ needs. The service desk component of CA Service Desk Manager went live in August 2008 - just five months after initial discussions began. The implementation of the Service Desk Management solution was accompanied by the adoption of ITIL best practice processes, which have helped to streamline and automate core tasks.
2.3.2Customer Relationship Management
Customer relationship management has vital importance in management studies because customer has an important place in every field.
‘Customer is a king’ according to Business Management and ‘customer is always right’ from the perspective of Hospitality Management. Moreover if any organisation or business want to survive in the industry and wants toachieve its goals and objectives then it should focus on the industry. Customer is also a source of competitive advantage and to gain market share. CRM is the system or process how to deal with the customer. In other words we can say that CRM is a such kind of detailed study through which we can gather information about customer’s behaviour and needs ,preferences and buying patterns of
consumers.
‘’CRM is a management philosophy according to which a company’s goals can be best achieved through identification and satisfaction of the customer’s stated and unstated needs and wants’’www.businessdictionary.com
Now with the advance technology different software are used to identifying consumer needs and demands. It is also helpful in maintaining relationship with customers by providing them best suitable products and services.
Debenhams is good at customer relationship management. It provides different types of facalities to its customers such as they can frequently asked the questions about shopping. If they are not satisfied with any product, they can easily refund it with the refund policy. It provides all information regarding delivery and charges through their website. So customer can easily buy any product online whether they are living in any location. It always welcome the customer’s suggestions and complaints so that they will improve them in future. It accept the all major UK credit and debit cards of payment when you are shopping online. It helps the customers in searching of products, placing an order and making payments. And it also accepts rating and reviews on different products given by new customers. It also ensure the customers that they try to meet their demands at the affordable prices. By following above policies Debenhams try to manage all important information about their customers it shows they are good at managing relations with them.
3.Recommendations:
* As Debenhams introduce CA service desk for managers to manage their activities properly it should provide self-service desk for customers in their retail stores also because it is the demand of time. All UK’s major retail operatives such as Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury have the self service desk for customers. It shows they pay special attention to the customer. Thus its competitors have competitive advantage for this factor. * Debenhams’ strategic focus mainly on domestic growth. This is a point of weaknesses of the organisation. Most of stores in UK and Ireland except two-three foreign countries. It should include Europe, Asia, Russia in their future plans of expansion. There is scope for business in these areas because demand of imported product is high in these areas.
4.Conclusion: Debenhams is one of the UK’s majors retail fashion and home appliances operatives.
5.References:
* Hislop Donald(2009), Knowledge Management in Organisatios, 2nd Edition, ISBN: 978-0-19-953497-5 * Pearlson and Saunders(2006), Managing and Using Information Systems, 3rd Edition, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, ISBN: o471715387 * www.debenhams .com * www.business.dictionary.com * http://hosteddocs.ittoolbox.com/kkrr411006.pdf * http://www.retailtechnologyreview.com/absolutenm/templates/retail_supply_chain.aspx?articleit=663&zoncid=1 * http//academicwriting.org/component/content/article/34-business-studies-/501/-debenhams-in-the-unitedkingdom-html * http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/kpi-blog/strategic-vs-operational-information-needs-18622