Database Reference
In-Depth Information
operations of the business. Because of the intense involvement of a sizable portion of the work-
force of the company with the CRM implementation from the beginning, the probability of users
embracing the system (and not struggling against it) is much higher. Users also act as the advocates
and facilitators during and after the implementation phase.
2.2 Anatomy of a CRM System
A comprehensive CRM system is massively complex. As mentioned in Section 2.1 “Introduction
to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System,” CRM essentially treats an application
development environment as an application
in itself
. The integrated application repository holds
a full set of correlated information regarding the application as well as the data that will reside
in the system when it's in production, which also greatly facilitates documentation, testing, and
maintenance. In this section, we briefly give an overview of the various systems that constitute a
comprehensive CRM like SAP CRM. Every system described in the following has two simultane-
ous aspects: managing the application data and also the metadata related to the very nature and
configuration of the implemented CRM itself.
The exhaustive list provided as follows illustrates the complexities of modern off-the-shelf
packages. It can also act as a reference list when we look at the issues related to the evaluation and
selection of CRM packages in later sections of this chapter.
2.2.1 Application Maintenance-Related Systems
2.2.1.1 Application Repository System
The application repository system forms the core of the CRM system. It provides the essential
information on the structure and design of the whole application to all other modules or systems.
It records the information regarding the information model of the system in terms of the entities,
attributes, relations, processes, views, user scenarios, and so on. It also promotes a methodology
that is native to the development and maintenance of the CRM system. It contains information on
every single program, file, and data item in the system. This includes information on the various
components and elements: identity, purpose, type and nature, defining attributes,
where-used
list,
tables accessed, processing cycles and times, and sizing.
This module provides facilities to check the consistencies and integrity of definitions for all
system components and elements within the CRM.
The application repository needs analysis and design modeling subsystems. It also needs a
graphics environment to represent the processing requirements of the company operations. The
graphic module provides a diagram representation of the processes that enable rapid changes
whenever necessary. Detailed requirements can be defined and stored in a related database that
can be analyzed for dependencies, consistencies, impact analysis, and so on. This is usually called
the
data dictionary
and provides support for the database and data tables or file design (including
forming data tables, normalization, indices, and referential integrity).
2.2.1.2 Fourth-Generation Language Development Environment
This environment provides facilities to customize or extend the CRM system's functionality to
meet the specific requirements of an enterprise. This has the standard tools set for the develop-
ment, testing, debugging, and documentation of the programs, especially data entry programs.
