The purpose of this thesis is to explore how stores in the retail sector and in business to consumers´ relations, are engaged in the CRM systems use and management. The purpose is also to see if the information that is gathered by the headquarters is transferred down to the stores.   The research follows a realistic philosophy combined with an abductive approach and a qualitative method. The choice of design to this research was an exploratory research combined with a case study strategy over a cross-sectional time horizon. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with managers in the six different retail stores.      The findings from this thesis showed various results when it came to the use of the CRM system and the amount of information that the stores got access to from the headquarter/partner. None of the stores managed their CRM systems themselves, it was only managed by the headquarters or partners of the retail chains. The amount of information that was transferred down from the headquarters or partners, affected how much the stores used the CRM system. The stores that got much information had more knowledge about the CRM system and used it a lot more than stores that got less information.   The limitations that can be found in this thesis is that it is only a small amount of stores within the retail market that has been examined, this might give a misleading result for the rest of the retail market and the global market as whole.

The need for information in real time and the technology development has become more fast and more efficient. Companies today need to be more responsive to their customers to stay on top. Also, companies’ business processes need effective support from information technology solutions. The fit, or alignment, between the business process and the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system design is crucial in order to leverage efforts within marketing and sales. If there is a misfit, companies do not take full advantage of the potential that CRM systems can leverage in terms of better managing relationships with customers, which in turn may result in higher rates of closed deals. The main purpose of this bachelor thesis in Information Systems is to identify and describe critical success factors influencing on the degree of alignment between a business process and a CRM system from an organisational perspective. The sub-purpose is to identify and describe the influence of process−system alignment on performance. The IT company Apica has been used as the case study company in the bachelor thesis. Apica is suitable for this study since it has already adopted a CRM system related to its sales process. A research literature-based analysis model was developed in order to be able to more precisely investigate the chosen purpose. The intention is to review critical success factors that influence the success of the process−system alignment. In the chosen qualitative approach, a semi-structured interview guide was developed, based on the analysis model. Five interviews with co-workers in the case study company were conducted. The analysis of the collected primary empirical data has led to the following conclusions. A high degree of process−system alignment concerning a well-defined and functional business process in relation to a CRM system has a positive influence on the company’s sales process performance. A higher degree of process−system alignment can improve the company’s process performance, increase the sales force productivity and lead to better decision making. According to the findings, the positive outcome of a process−system alignment depends mainly on three factors: management commitment, data management, and system integrations. The empirical results also suggests a new finding: A successfully aligned sales process with the CRM system also lead to knowledge sharing. Knowledge sharing contributes to that salespeople learn from deals made in the past. The historical data help salespeople in managing customer relationships, which may lead to shorter sales cycles and larger deal sizes, which implies increased sales.

Abstrakt (Svenska) - Vikten av att ha effektiv hantering av kundrelationer (CRM) inom företag väger mycket, för att på ett lyckat sätt öka förståelsen och samarbeten med kunder. Företag ändrar eller uppdaterar sina CRM system för att kunna öka arbetseffektiviteten. Kunder och marknad utvecklas ständigt, och för att kunna följa upp med större datamängder och ökad konkurrens bör företag använda sig utav effektiva sätt att arbeta på, när det gäller hjälp med att göra data mer tillgängligt. Om företag inte framgångsrikt integrerar sina CRM system kan de halka efter och försämras. Ett byte gällande CRM är oftast bestämt av ledning och ifrågasatt av de faktiska användarna. Mottagarna av förändringen upplever ofta osäkerhet och tvivel. I denna avhandling beskriver vi hur vår forskning kring CRM processer, CRM system och intressenterna i fallföretaget, leder till att hitta utmaningar och behov. Vårt främsta bidrag är vår analys av rekommendationer baserade på våra resultat, som kan användas som underlag för att skapa en kravspecifikation av fallföretaget. Med de empiriska uppgifter som samlas in i vår avhandling strävar vi efter att hjälpa fallföretaget och andra organisationer i deras process att implementera ett nytt CRM system. / Abstract (English) - Efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is critical for successful understanding and collaboration with Customers. Companies frequently change or update their CRM systems in order to increase their work effectiveness. Customers and markets are always evolving and in order to keep up with increasing amounts of data and competition, companies should use efficient ways of working, regarding assistance in making data more accessible. If companies do not successfully integrate their CRM systems they risk falling behind other possible competitors and deteriorate. Change is often approved by those who are commanding it and questioned by those who receive it. The recipients of the change often experience uncertainty and hesitation. In this thesis, we describe how our research of CRM process, CRM systems and the stakeholders within the case company lead to finding challenges and needs. Our main contribution is the analysis of recommendations based on our findings, which can be used as a basis for creating a requirement specification in the context of integrating a new CRM system. With the empirical data collected in our thesis, and with the literature that we reviewed, we aim to assist the case company and other organizations in their process of implementing a new CRM system.