Managing Customer Relations in a Modern Business Environment: Towards an Ecosystem-Based Sustainable CRM Model

Abstract The adoption of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has witnessed tremendous growth across sectors, geographies, and management cultures in the last several decades. The perception of CRM as an IT-based tool has undergone a paradigm shift and is now treated as a strategic indulgence by modern-day businesses where IT is an indispensable enabler. CRM has garnered the interest of both academicians and practitioners over the years. In this article, the authors establish the value of sustainability in CRM and make an attempt at proposing a conceptual framework for modern businesses through its integration with various social networking sites that produces volumes of real-time data. The article also explores the importance of Customer Experience Management (CEM). The authors provide a thorough investigation of CRM models in the period of 1990 to 2016 through a survey of the literature explaining the need for managing experiences and engagement around existing CRM processes. In addition to exploring the intricate relationship between CRM and CEM, the authors also provide an interactive ecosystem-based framework for the creation of a sustainable CRM framework.