Current CRM Adoption in Korean Apparel Industry

The purpose of this study was to analyze the current CRM situation in Korean apparel industry. Specifically, research purposes were 1) to examine the concepts and benefits of CRM, 2) to examine CRM strategies, 3) to analyze CRM system(i.e., customer relationship management service, customer segmentation criteria, DB management system), and 4) to analyze the potential problems and CRM adoption plan. The subjects for this research were thirty CRM managers in Korean apparel firms classified by the company type(woman's wear, man's wear, casual wear, children's wear, retailer) interviewed from December 2003 to March 1004. The results of this study were as follows: First, the concept of CRM represented the prime customer relationship, continuous consideration, and customer management system. The benefits of CRM reflected re-sales, improvement of profit share, and acquisition of customer's data base. Second, concerning the CRM strategies, most companies focused on persistent customer management through mileage program, membership cards and also implemented product strategies such as demand forecasting, customization based on customer data analysis. We also found that industry preferred to use pricing strategies, for example, segmentation of customer through discrepancies of price in which customers are provided by discount and gift voucher services. Regarding distribution strategy, channel diversification, localized service, and convenient delivery system were used. As promotion strategies, they chose celebrating customers' personal events and promoting cultural events and issuing coupons. Third, regarding CRM system, information service was the most frequently adopted, important and highly beneficial category. Also POS/web-POS, homepage were main sources of information. RFM is the mostly commonly used customer segmentation criteria. Fourth, potential problems in CRM adoption were lack of CRM knowledge and performance measurement of CRM. Future CRM adoption plan included CRM education and development of CRM performance measures.

국내 의류업체의 CRM 도입현황