CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL COMPETETIVENESS OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN CHENNAI

Commercial Banks and Financial Institutions are recognizing that they can no longer look at a customer from a specific product but must encompass the entire customer relationship to fully understand a client‘s profitability. From a strategic standpoint, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) mobilizes resources around customer relationships rather than product groups and fosters activities that maximize the value of lifetime relationships. From an operational standpoint, CRM links business processes across the supply chain from back-office functions through all touch points, enabling continuity and consistency across customer relationships. From an analytical standpoint, CRM is a host of analytical data tools that enable banks to fully understand customer segments, assess and maximize lifetime value of each customer. To this effect, scholars have called for more rigorous studies to establish the usefulness of CRM as a strategic orientation. The general objective of this study was to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework of the influence of CRM practices on organizational competitiveness and conduct an empirical assessment of the framework on the commercial banks in Chennai.