China Food Manufacturer Upgrading CRM System

January 21, 2005

Here at TMCnet, we receive a constant stream of news releases submitted by companies and directed into our site via news feeds. As the person who has primary responsibility to monitor these feeds and apply a human filter to them, I have become fascinated by the daily, weekly and seasonal flow of news, most of which comes from companies in the technology arenas that we cover.

About 6:30 AM each morning, I usually hunch over my laptop from home to see what has come in during the night. That's usually when I get to look over a few press releases that have come in from Asia, such as this one:

Oki Delivers CTstage 4i for .NET to Yashili, China's Major Food Manufacturer; Achieves One-to-One Marketing by CRM Collaboration

To be frank, as an American I don't have much of a clue about the significance of news like this. I asked my colleague Tracey Schelmetic, who is editor of Customer Inter@ction Solutions, and her response was similar. She says that CRM in China is not written about much. She does have this to say:

"Obviously, it's a huge nation full of consumers with a growing market economy, so the Chinese market is fertile for contact center equipment and services to serve its own internal needs."

I have to think that the implementation of CRM in China has to be of growing importance, given the increasing presence of China in the global economy. In order to function effectively and gain investor support, Chinese companies must have a need to do a better job leveraging customer relationships.

Any thoughts? Comments? What are the important things we should know about CRM in the China market? What challenges are Chinese companies facing in this realm?

AB -- 1/21/05