Integration of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Quality Service Delivery

Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 3.92, Addis Ababa University (Business and Economics), course: Public Management and Policy, language: English, abstract: Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that companies must understand in order to remain competitive in business and hence grow and in the process of delivering quality service, technology plays a larger role. The purpose of this study was to explore the achievements, pinpoint the challenges and scrutinize the prospects of integrating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and analyze their impact on quality service delivery in Ethiopian Airlines. A structured questionnaire was designed, pretested, modified, and self-distributed to senior executives, employees and customers of the company to capture data. A total sample of 165 were taken as a respondent. Out of these, 115 were employees of the company and 50 were customers who have made a flight with Ethiopian airlines on any route. Quantitative & qualitative techniques were selected to collect the data. Non-probability purposive sampling was used during the selection of the sample. The SPSS computer package was used to analyze the collected data. Feedbacks received from 84 employees and 45 customers were analyzed & the response rate was 73.1 and 90 percent respectively. The analysis of employee responses revealed that the integrated systems has improved various functions of different department in the company by acting as a catalyst to support the tactical planning processes, ensures the right number and kinds of people at the right place and right time, reduced the financial cycle closing time and improve the supply chain performance by adding value to the company. In addition, since the integration, the company is enjoying the ultimate benefit of all-in-one system that can decrease errors, lower cycle times, reduces turnaround time, and support management decisions. The findings also indicated that delivering high quality service increase customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to high level of customer commitment and loyalty. Several challenges were also pointed out among which included lack of finance to update and maintain the systems, lack of expertise in IT to operate the systems, lack of training and development of staff on the systems. The study also assessed the perception of the customers about the quality of the service delivered by the Ethiopian Airlines by using five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model.