The importance of customer relationship management in the automotive supply industry

Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Customer Relationship Management, CRM, grade: B-, University of Leicester (Management Center), language: English, abstract: The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the importance of CRM in a specific industry for a specific company. More precisely, this work will explore the automotive supplier industry; and within that industry, the company Y will be analysed, discussed and explored. Y is a supplier of aluminium tubes and aluminium profiles to the global automotive industry. The research will encompass several key areas in an effort to present a multi-perspective work, including best practices, an overview of CRM, and key factors of success as well as an automotive industry survey that the author administered, documented and integrated into this dissertation to add an element from the real business world to the research. First, a broad overview of relevant CRM theories and their meaning will be presented in order to set the stage for a discussion of Y as a specific competitor in the automotive supplier industry and to facilitate realistic and effective comparison and contrast between industry trends and the chosen company in particular. Following the CRM theory overview, differences between business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets will be differentiated for a complete understanding of these two distinct segments of the industry. Success factors within CRM will be presented, together with the limitations and problems associated with the application of CRM. After that supplementing theories beyond CRM will be identified and discussed. A literature review will be included to add substance and relevance to the research. In the second part of this dissertation, a survey will be presented that the author composed and administered towards Y’s business-to-business automotive customers. After the survey and methodology is discussed, an analysis of the results of the survey will be discussed and graphically represented, bringing the paper full circle and representing real-world, current and relevant experiences, attitudes and comments. Based upon the results, interpretation will evolve into fact-based conclusions, and recommendations, all within the scope of the limitations that the author also will identify and reveal in order to give the readers of the research an accurate representation of possible limits in the research. In brief, the author aims to blend relevant literature, real-life industry experiences and a survey of current industry attitudes and opinions to provide a full-bodied, comprehensive work of effective research.