Conceptual Framework of Anything Relationship Management
Jonathan Philip Knoblauch and Rebecca Bulander
Hochschule Pforzheim, Tiefenbronner Straße 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany
Keywords: Anything Relationship Management, Management Concept, Customer Relationship Management,
Relationship Management, Internet of Everything.
Abstract: An increasing interconnectedness of people, physical objects and virtual objects through ICT (information
and communication technology) has been observable for years. This is reflected in various fields such as
business contacts (e.g. LinkedIn and Xing), social media (e.g. Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter) or the
emerging Internet of Everything (IoE). Particularly companies and organizations have a variety of
relationships with their stakeholders, as well as other physical things (cars, machines etc.) and virtual
objects (cloud services, documents etc.) today. All those things have to be managed with appropriate
approaches. xRM can be used for this purpose as a further development of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), allowing the management of any kind of objects with appropriate mechanisms on a
information technology (IT) platform. This document summarizes the results of a research project, whose
aims were to develop a conceptual framework for Anything Relationship Management (xRM). Some basic
background about xRM, the difference between xRM and CRM and some theoretical foundations of
management concepts are described for this purpose. Additionally, the main objectives and principles of
xRM will be explained. The development of a conceptual framework for xRM as well as the different
components is explained on this basis. Finally, the conceptual framework for xRM gets validated through an
implemented example.
1 INTRODUCTION
An increasing interconnectedness of people,
physical objects and virtual objects through ICT
(information and communication technology) has
been observable for years. This is reflected in
various fields such as business contacts (e.g.
LinkedIn and Xing), social media (e.g. Facebook,
WhatsApp and Twitter) or the emerging Internet of
Everything. Cisco estimates that in 2020 50 billion
devices and objects will be connected to the internet
(Evans, 2011). Particularly companies and
organizations have a variety of relationships with
their stakeholders, as well as other physical things
(cars, machines etc.) and virtual objects (cloud
services, documents etc.) today. All those things
have to be managed with appropriate approaches.
xRM can be used for this purpose as a further
development of Customer Relationship
Management, allowing the management of any kind
of objects with appropriate mechanisms on a IT
platform. Compared to existing relationship
management systems, which usually only represent a
partial area of a company, the xRM approach is
implemented on a flexible and generic xRM
platform that enables a uniform mapping of all
relationship management areas of a company. While
there are a lot of offers of xRM platforms (Microsoft
Dynamics CRM, SugarCRM etc.), there is still a
lack of appropriate management strategies and
concepts for xRM. Britsch et al. (2012) see this as
“one of the central research questions of Anything
Relationship Management” (Britsch et al., 2012).
The lack of management strategies has often
emerged in the ICT sector. The objective in this
document is therefore to the development a
conceptual framework for xRM as an associated
management concept.
This document summarizes the results of a
research project. Some basic background about
xRM, the difference between xRM and CRM and
some theoretical foundations of management
concepts are described for this purpose.
Additionally, the main objectives and principles of
xRM will be explained. The development of a
conceptual framework for xRM is explained on this
basis as well as the different components. Then the
108
Philip Knoblauch J. and Bulander R..
Conceptual Framework of Anything Relationship Management.
DOI: 10.5220/0005356301080120
In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2015), pages 108-120
ISBN: 978-989-758-096-3
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
conceptual framework gets validated through an
implemented example. Finally a conclusion and an
outlook for further use are given.
2 FUNDAMENTALS OF XRM
2.1 Definition of xRM
The term xRM has already been defined several
times in a variety of ways, by different authors like
Radjou et al. (2001), Microsoft (2010) and Britsch et
al. (2012). In most definitions xRM is seen as the
further stage of CRM as well as the implementation
of the theoretical foundations of relationship
management. In addition, xRM includes a
technological component (IT system or platform)
and a conceptual component (management concept
and management strategy). In newer definitions
xRM is seen as an opportunity to manage objects in
the internet of everything (Knoblauch & Bulander,
2014, pp. 237). The following definition covers the
main aspects of past and previous definitions of
xRM: “Anything Relationship Management (xRM),
as an advancement of CRM, is a consistent and
holistic concept of Relationship Management
between and in-between enterprises, people,
physical things and virtual assets. It is based on one
or more flexible, modular and scalable IT platforms,
which can be focussed on different branches. xRM
helps enterprises to capture, coordinate and analyse
entities and their relationships as well as processes
in the Internet of Everything” (Knoblauch &
Bulander, 2014).
2.2 Major Differences between CRM
and xRM
Since xRM is a further stage of CRM a comparison
is useful. Next these two terms are compared
according to different criteria.
Entities and Relationships: The main entities in
CRM are the customers and their relationships to the
company, the products and the services or the brand.
In xRM the customers are only one of many entities,
but still the most important one. Besides virtual
assets and physical objects xRM also includes all
relevant primary and secondary stakeholders of the
company. Furthermore xRM connects stakeholders
and physical objects in the real world with virtual
assets in the virtual world (information world). Each
relevant object of the real world always exists as a
digital replication in the virtual world.
Management Tasks: A company serves a
particular selection of customers. These customers
can be differentiated by e.g. their buying behavior,
revenue or customer value. Therefore it is important
to manage them each in an individual way. An
established approach, especially for marketing and
sales, is to manage customers depending on their
customer value (Günter & Helm, 2006, p. 622).
With xRM, however, all relevant relationships of the
company have to be managed systematically. This
leads to a significantly higher complexity of
relationships management. That complexity isn’t
contained in the individual relationships, but rather
in the variation of the relationships.
Objectives: According to Hippner and Wild
(2006), the objectives of CRM are to establish
profitable customer relationships and a holistic
customer-oriented business strategy with CRM
systems. The relevant departments of a company
must be interconnected and aligned towards the
customers for this purpose (Hippner & Wild, 2006).
By contrast, the objectives of xRM are to identify
and manage all profitable relationships of the
company and to map them in a consistent and
holistic approach with ICT. Additionally, xRM
seeks to increase the relationship quality in all
relevant stakeholder relationships, e.g. using quality
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Processes: The most important operational
processes in CRM can be divided into marketing,
sales and service processes. For example, marketing
processes include campaign and lead management,
sales processes, the opportunity, contract and order
management and service processes the feedback and
support management (Hippner et al., 2011a).
Compared with CRM, xRM can map and manage all
business processes that involve xRM entities and
their relationships (Britsch & Kölmel, 2011). xRM
comprises interactive processes that include different
stakeholders, physical objects and virtual assets.
This leads to an improvement of internal business
processes through a consistent and holistic mapping
and managing (Britsch et al., 2012). Besides internal
business processes xRM also enables the
implementation of cross-company business
processes (CAS Software AG, 2012). Such
functionality is important for business cooperation in
the form of virtual enterprises and organizations.
Integration: On the one hand CRM systems
merge isolated marketing, sales and service
applications as well as specific internet applications
and call center departments into one coordinated
system landscape with a Single Source Of Truth
(SSOT). On the other hand CRM systems are
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integrated between other systems like ERP or SCM
systems (Hippner et al., 2011b). xRM in turn cannot
be seen as a system, but as a central integration
platform that integrates all kind of systems and
applications. An xRM platform has a high flexibility
and can therefore adopt historically grown systems
with their related structures (Radjou et al., 2001).
Future xRM platforms must also integrate smart
objects like cyber-physical systems (CPS) or virtual
objects like cloud computing services (Britsch &
Kölmel, 2011).
2.3 Management Concepts for xRM
The authors Britsch et al. (2012) see xRM as “a
strategic management approach that integrates and
aligns all levels of relationships. In this sense xRM
contributes to the systematic management of
relationships to all partners, be they horizontal (e.g.,
joint ventures), vertical (e.g., franchising), or lateral
co-operations (e.g., authorities)” (Britsch et al.,
2012). One of the central research questions of
Anything Relationship Management and BISE
(Business & Information Systems Engineering) is
how a strategic management concept may look and
which design principles have to be used (Britsch et
al., 2012). While there are plenty of xRM platforms
offered through the ICT market, there is still a gap
between appropriate management concepts for
corresponding xRM platforms. Therefore, we want
to introduce a conceptual framework for xRM
consisting of a management concept and a general
platform architecture that provides a comprehensive
approach to manage xRM in connected society.
The main focus is on a strategic management
concept for xRM. Generally, management concepts
show interpretations of people, their behavior and
the organization that is bound to market conditions,
to create an order in the variety of goals, ideas, plans
and methods. A management concept can be seen as
an abstract design model of the reality, which refers
to a desired future order that is achieved through the
proper usage of the management concept. Therefore
the essential components as well as the relationship
and effect structures are mapped, without giving
specific guidelines on the possible configurations.
The particularly important elements are displayed
and highlighted in a management concept.
Especially in complex systems and environments,
management concepts must have a sufficiently high
level of abstraction (Zielowski, 2006, p 112). Before
the developed conceptual framework is introduced
the most important principles and objectives of xRM
are described in the next section. These principles
and objectives as well as the general fundamentals
of management concepts will be used to design the
conceptual framework for xRM.
3 xRM PRINCIPLES AND
OBJECTIVES
Despite the fact that there are different publications
of xRM (e. g. Britsch et al., 2012 or Alexakis et al.,
2014), there is still no clear analysis of core
principles and objectives of xRM. In this section we
want to point out which xRM principles (table 1)
and xRM objectives (table 2) have to be considered
when dealing with xRM. The results of these tables
were investigated through literature research in
books, scientific magazines and on the web as well
as expert interviews and the visit of events with
topics about xRM (e.g. CeBIT 2014, CRM-expo
2014 and 2. Trendkonferenz forum!XRM). In
addition, different xRM platforms and xRM systems
were investigated and compared.
3.1 Principles
Table 1: Principles of xRM.
1. Flexible, scalable and interoperable platform
An xRM platform can be seen as a platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS) with a software development environment for
xRM applications (Britsch et al., 2012). Such a platform
has a flexible and scalable infrastructure. Furthermore
xRM platforms and their entities should have the ability
of interoperability
among themselves. Thus, the use of
well-defined communication models and communication
protocols is necessary (Günthner & Hompel, 2010, p. 79).
2. Configurable framework
A configurable framework is one of the basic elements of
xRM. Such a framework provides an implementation of
important application services like access management or
administration function, a first area of application
(typically CRM) and a development environment for
function extension. The software development
environment includes components like a repository or
debug functions and has the ability to install plug-ins.
3. Point & Click Apps/Customization
One benefit of xRM is the possibility to build “Point &
Click Apps” and to customize them easily out of the box.
This is one of the core principles that xRM contributes
and therefore allows the building of apps quickly and
easily without having to have deeper implementation
skills.
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Table 1: Principles of xRM. (cont.)
4. Flexible schema and extensibility
The underlying data model of xRM platforms does not
have a fixed schema but a flexible and extensible one.
This means that xRM platforms can hold any data model
and can generate or extend the data model without much
programming knowledge. The xRM platform undertakes
the database adjustments and queries for the user.
5. Integration/mapping of various entities
xRM enables the mapping of any kind of entity
(stakeholder, virtual asset or physical object) in an
application. This allows the fulfillment of comprehensive
b
usiness requirements on one platform. The next level of
xRM is integrating smart objects or shared virtual objects
through the internet of everything. As mentioned in point
one a standard for communication is required.
6. Implementation of service orientation capabilities
and architecture
Many xRM platforms follow the service orientation
paradigm and are built on a service-oriented architecture
(SOA). This allows serving the platform consumer with
service orientated capabilities like immediate availability
and well-defined behavior of servicers or service
composition.
7. Company-wide and cross-system workflows
Company-wide and cross-system workflows can be
established more easily with xRM since one or more
interoperable platforms or well-defined communication
standards are in place. This leads to less workflow
disruptions and a faster flow time as well as a more
consistent management of workflows and business
processes.
8. Custom GUIs for each user
Any graphical user interface (GUI) of an xRM
application can be customized by the user. Depending on
user preferences and access restrictions one and the same
xRM application can have a completely different GUI.
9. New software releases do not affect the customized
data model and application
A customized and extended data model has to be safe for
new software releases of the xRM platform. This means
that if the platform provider publishes new updates, these
updates do not lead to problems regarding the customized
data model and application.
3.2 Objectives
While several of the xRM objectives depend on the
respective organization or the business sectors, there
are also a number of general objectives that can be
identified. Those objectives are primarily conceptual
ones since the intention of this paper is to create a
management concept for xRM.
Table 2: Objectives of xRM.
1. Identification and segmentation of entities and
relationships
To handle the different entities in xRM it is necessary to
identify and segment them. In addition to a basic
classification according to their characteristic
(stakeholder type etc.) a second step has to be taken to
evaluate them depending on criteria such as profitability
or potential. Furthermore all relevant relationships must
also be identified and segmented. Unique identification
of entities can be implemented by URI (Uniform
Resource Identifier), IPv6 or similar concepts and
technologies. The identification of people will be the big
challenge in terms of uniqueness and the privacy policy.
Projects such as "Integrated digita.me User goods" are
enormously important for this purpose (see
http://www.dime-project.eu/).
2. Control and management of entities and relationships
The right level for control and management for all
entities should be found through xRM. Since companies
and their organizational structures can be quite complex,
appropriate mechanisms are needed that allow the
control and management of entities, relationships and
corporate structures on different levels.
3. Reduction of complexity and consolidation of data
Using the concepts of xRM should help to deal with
enormous amounts of data (big data) the company is
faced with. Structured data as well as unstructured data
has to be assigned to the corresponding entities and
relationships for this. The correct assignment of
unstructured data is thereby the big challenge. New
knowledge is gained (like the supplier who is also
customer) and less storage space is needed through
merging data in one entity of the same actor that acts in
different roles or is used in different ways. Furthermore
the reduction of complexity and the dealing with big
data needs appropriate methods like predictive analytics,
prescriptive analytics and data mining.
4. Differentiated stakeholder approaches
Just as in CRM, where there are differentiated customer
approaches, these principles have to be extended to all
stakeholders in the organization. With xRM (concept
and platform) a foundation can be given to build and
establish differentiated approaches in a systematical and
holistic way.
5. Enhancing of relationship quality and contact
maintenance
With xRM, relationship quality and contact maintenance
should be enhanced for all relevant stakeholders
(customers, suppliers, employees etc.). This will lead to
a higher loyalty, better relationships and finally it will
increase the profitability of the organization.
Furthermore it will help to ensure long-term
competitiveness and will lead to a continuous
improvement of business through the creation of new
relationships with stakeholders and the stabilization or
the termination of existing ones (Riemer, 2005).
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Table 2: Objectives of xRM. (cont.)
6. Identify and know stakeholder objectives
An important objective is to know the individual goals
and expectations of your stakeholders, to document them
and to coordinate them among themselves in order to
strive for win-win situations.
7. Using xRM on the Internet of Everything
The future goal of xRM platforms will be to build a
well-defined link to the infrastructure of the IoE, to
objects of the IoE as an xRM entity as well as to manage
them systematically and to provide stakeholders access
and availability to them. This also means that xRM
p
latforms have to be flexibly expandable in terms of
their entities and interfaces (Uckelmann et al., 2011).
The concepts of the Semantic Web and the Web of
Things are therefore becoming increasingly important.
8. Horizontal integration with smart factory
Horizontal integration is a term to link various IT
systems used for the different process steps in
manufacturing and business planning processes within a
company or across multiple companies towards an
integrated solution (acatech, 2013). xRM concepts and
p
latforms can be used to build such a solution, if they
have capabilities like interoperable. But, more
importantly, xRM is not just an IT platform, it is a
b
usiness strategy and a management concept combined
with an IT platform. Thus, xRM can help to implement
the horizontal integration of an organization across
multiple companies (value added networks) to an
integrated solution.
9. Privacy policy
Since xRM is all about data from entities (stakeholders
etc.) and relationship management, it is necessary to
ensure privacy policy. This requirement is more
important than ever. Data and information have become
the oil of the twenty-first century. Therefore, a more
comprehensible and transparent handling of personal
data must be present for protection and trust building.
10. 10.Real-time communications and data safety
To exploit optimization potential in the interconnection
of distributed entities and the value creation processes
the exchange of data in real time is required. However,
real-time integration and communication leads to
numerous security threats. These threats can mostly be
eliminated by caching incoming data on an isolated
server and verifying the data through security software.
But in turn this influences real-time communication.
Real-time communications and data safety are affected
b
y each other (Federal Ministry of Education and
Research, 2013).
4 STRUCTURE AND
COMPONENTS
4.1 Overview of the Conceptual
Framework
Based on the principles and objects of xRM an xRM
conceptual framework has been created with the
primary purpose to structure and systematically
order the various areas of application, use cases,
entities and relationships of an organization.
The xRM conceptual framework includes several
components with various elements, methods and
models that build an abstract structure of a higher
management layer to manage different areas of
application. The following figure shows the
components and their structure in the xRM
conceptual framework.
4.2 Components
4.2.1 Entities
The entities in xRM include three basic forms:
people and organizations (stakeholders), physical
objects and virtual assets.
People and Organizations (stakeholders): The
most important entities for organizations are
stakeholders. Based on the three basic types of xRM,
stakeholders can be divided into primary and
secondary stakeholders.
According to Clarkson (1995) primary
stakeholders are people, groups and organization
“without whose continuing participation the
corporation cannot survive as a going concern.
[Secondary Stakeholders however are] those who
influence or affect, or are influenced or affected by,
the corporation, but they are not engaged in
transactions with the corporation and are not
essential for its survival” (Clarkson, 1995).
Moreover primary stakeholders can be divided into
internal and external stakeholders. Secondary
stakeholders are always external stakeholders.
Physical Objects: Physical entities are objects of
the physical world and are therefore everything that
exists materially, except human beings, since they
have a distinctive and clearly definable role
regarding intelligence and sociality. These entities
can be classified in a first step into alive (e.g.
animals) and lifeless (e.g. cars).
In a second step, they can be further classified
regarding their communication ability with ICT into
representation (digital copy of an existing object),
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Figure 1: The conceptual framework of xRM.
Figure 2: Classification of xRM entities.
ConceptualFrameworkofAnythingRelationshipManagement
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identifiable object (has a unique ID for example an
RFID-Tag, which is identifiable through ICT) and
smart object (can communicate and interact
independently with other smart objects (e.g. cyber-
physical systems).
Virtual Assets: Virtual entities are objects that
only exist in the digital world (information world),
even though each object needs a physical storage
(e.g. hard disk). A virtual entity is made up of digital
data and can be divided into information (e.g. data
base, document), service (e.g. cloud service),
process (e.g. business process) or activity (e.g.
machine activity, machine state).
4.2.2 Relationships
In the component “Relationships” the connections
between the entities are identified, described,
restricted, and managed. While relationships of
virtual assets and physical things can be identified
through documentation, logs files or ICT tools, it is
more difficult to identify stakeholder relationships.
Basic approaches like employee or expert surveys,
checklist procedures, analysis of contractual
relations, environmental monitoring, analysis of
resource relationships and network analysis must be
implemented for this purpose (Tewes, 2008).
A basic classification of relationships can take
place according to Evans (2012) who divides
relationships into P2P (people-to-people), M2M
(machine-to-machine) and P2M divides (people-to-
machine) (Evans, 2012). Virtual assets and physical
things are grouped together as "Machine".
Communication Skills are the primary size for a
classification for M2M relations. Hence the
relationships of entities can have non
communication ability, passive communication
ability (e.g. RFID), and active communication
ability.
Furthermore there will be a future
communication classification according to standard
communication characteristics of entities. For
example the I40-compliant communication ability
which requires certain skills such as communication-
capable software components, a unique
identification in a network or standardized service
functions (VDI e. V., 2014).
Several dimensions have to be considered for
stakeholders. The first dimension is the relationship
direction. This dimension has on the one hand a
vertical, horizontal and lateral relationship view and
on the other hand an external as well as an internal
view (see figure 3) (Diller, 1995).
Another important dimension is the relationship
closeness which describes how strongly a
stakeholder can be influenced by another person or
organization. Thereby influence can be made
through a direct relationship (stakeholders can be
addressed directly) or an indirect relationship
(stakeholders can only be addressed through one or
more intermediate entities).
Next the psychological relationship dimension
Figure 3: Stakeholder relationships.
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has to be considered for relationship quality (Lorenz,
2009, p. 75). A basic classification is done by
dividing relationships into weak ones (some
interaction existing) and strong ones (fulfilling
defined criteria which measures the quality)
(Riemer, 2005).
Finally, the communication type (personal,
digital etc.) and communication channel have to be
considered. This describes how the communication
with stakeholders is achieved (personal, digital etc.)
and through which tools. This dimension also brings
people and machines together (P2M). According to
the communication ability of machines people can
interact with them through different channels of
communication (e.g. user interfaces, speech
recognition etc.).
4.2.3 Objectives
Different objectives have to be defined to highlight
the purpose they are needed for based on the entities
and their relationships. In the component
“Objectives” this definition is done. Therefore it is
necessary to clearly specify the objectives, to derive
different objectives based on the corporate
objecttives and to build objective relationship
networks.
Particularly important are the objectives of
stakeholders. Here two views can be differentiated:
the individual goals that stakeholders have and the
objectives the organization has with stakeholders.
Information about individual stakeholder goals can
be saved within the entity and can be processed
when necessary. “Target relationship networks”
should be built to connect corporate objectives,
organizational stakeholder objectives and the
individual stakeholder goals. Referring to Görlitz
(2007) such a network could be built as shown in
figure 4.
Based on the main corporate objectives which
typically are organizational existence and growth,
the actual benefits out of stakeholder relationships
are derived and defined. Vice versa organizational
stakeholder objectives serve the management and
corporate objectives if they are achieved.
Depending on the identified stakeholder types,
the stakeholder classification and the modeling of
their characteristics a stakeholder target network
(STN) is built for each stakeholder group. The STN
maps, connects and coordinates individual
stakeholder goals and organizational stakeholder
objecttives through semantic web tools like a graph
database.
Furthermore STNs can also be connected among
Figure 4: Basic structure of a target relationship network
(referring to Görlitz, 2007).
themselves to see the big picture. Objectives in a
STN can be referred to operational objectives and
vice versa. The stakeholder value for each
stakeholder can be determined by measuring
operational objectives through measuring tools
(Görlitz, 2007). Additionally stakeholder objectives
can be compared in terms of possible conflict or
complementary objectives. Thus, future issues can
be detected early and counteracted. The connection
of objectives in and between STNs will allow seeing
the big picture and will allow implementing the right
services and processes.
4.2.4 Processes and Services
Processes and services are designed to achieve the
defined business goals. A process has an input at the
beginning, which was triggered by another process
or an event and an output at the end, which returns a
result. In addition, various entities, relationships and
information are involved in processes. Methods and
rules are necessary to effectively and efficiently
accomplish processes (Bach, 2012, p 136) The result
of a process may be a service (like a customer
service). But a service can also be a partial step of a
process. Services serve a consumer (Stakeholder or
other process step) with a specific need.
There are different areas of applications in xRM
(e.g. CRM, ERM or smart machine management).
Each area of applications has a number of use cases
(e.g. sales order, recruitment or real-time analysis of
machine data). These use cases again consist of
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different scenarios depending on criteria like input,
rules, methods and time. The correlation between
xRM applications, xRM use cases and xRM
scenarios as well as processes and services is shown
in the following figure 5.
Basically, business processes can be
distinguished between core processes, management
processes and supporting processes. But, processes
can also be distinguished by their structure.
One variety is the process that consists of a
sequence of activities (chain) and which leads to
clear predictable results. Such business processes are
important when certain quality standards have to be
accomplished. A disadvantage of this type of
business processes is that the individual process
steps are interdependent. If a process step performs
incorrectly, this has an impact on all other process
steps. In addition, modification, innovation and new
outcomes can only carefully be tried, because the
effects are often not predictable. The second form of
business processes is a network business process.
Thereby business activities and business tasks are
spread across multiple business services which in
turn are not sequenced in a business process, but
services that serve other services referring to their
respective business goals.
The entities (especially people) that are part of
such a service solve problems and deliver solutions
through creativity and innovation, instead of
executing pre-defined activities. The objective is to
give the customer what he wants. The structure can
be seen as a network with various connections. Just
like in the internet architecture, business processes
can take several possible ways towards their
outcome. This structure is useful when business
process activities cloud fail or are too slow when
taking a certain path. The disadvantage however, is
that redundancy in the tasks, activities and services
have to exist (Gray & Vander Wal, 2012).
Figure 5: Services and processes in xRM.
4.2.5 Functional Areas
The objectives, processes and services of xRM can
be assigned to one of the following functional areas.
Operative and Communicative xRM: The
operational and communicative area of xRM
includes all elements that are in direct or indirect
contact with stakeholders and include the
operational business (Hippner & Wilde, 2006). In
this area operational business processes and services
are implemented and executed and the touch points,
interfaces and communication channels with
stakeholders (especially customers) are established.
Cooperative and Collaborative xRM: Here
projects and strategic alliances are mapped as well
as collaboration in the form of "Social Business
Collaboration".
Analytical xRM: In this area operational,
communicative, cooperative and (social)
collaborative data is systematically collected and
analyzed to obtain relevant information for strategic
management decisions. Methods such as online
analytical processing (OLAP), or data mining,
stakeholder maps and predictive models for big data
scenarios can be used for this purpose.
Strategic xRM: Governance activities
depending on organizational structures, current
situations and future business goals are placed in the
strategic xRM area. In large complex and rapidly
chaining organizations (also called business
ecosystems) governance can never be located to a
single place, a person or top management since it
always depends on many different aspects (habits,
informal rules, attitudes, external circumstances etc.)
and therefore happens simultaneously in many
places at the same time (Exner et al., 2009). To
manage such an environment effectively governance
impulses have to be performed relaying on
information about the entities, relationships and
individual goals. Governance impulses are not just
commands they are mechanics that take all elements
and organizational structures into account.
4.2.6 Interaction Channels and Mechanisms
The interaction with the components and their
elements mapped on an xRM platform can be done
through different mechanisms and interaction
channels. Three basic approaches can be
distinguished.
Desktop and Mobile: The desktop and mobile
access is the most common interaction interface for
xRM. Here content is presented to the user through a
graphical user interface. The user performs actions
(read, save, update and delete) on the GUI using
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devices (e.g. mouse and keyboard) or touch screens.
In xRM a user can also customize his own individual
GUI depending on his used services and preferences.
Smart Environment: A smart environment is
typically provided with CPS and corresponding
sensors that can interact with the environment and
are able to exchange data over networks. People can
interact with a smart environment through language,
motions or gestures (e.g. smart home scenarios).
API (Application Programming Interface):
Here access to the xRM platform can be performed
via a programming interface used for M2M
communication. Such an interface provides
accessible services and functions for other systems
and machines.
4.2.7 Architecture
The architecture of the xRM platforms can have
different forms and layers depending on xRM
provider. The future architecture of xRM will follow
the principles of service-oriented architecture and
cloud computing. In consideration of these trends a
general three-tier architecture is shown in figure 6,
since it is a common way to illustrate the platform
elements.
Back-end Layer: All relevant data of entities
and business is stored in the back-end layer. Besides
a stakeholder and object database, in which all
entities with their attributes are stored, unstructured
data such as documents, social media data and
machine data are also stored in this layer and
addressed through appropriate metadata if able.
Theoretically, any databases could be used in
this layer. But, probably databases like SAP HANA,
which also is a platform with many basic services
and a strong linkage of data and business logic or
NoSQL databases like MongoDB, which is a
document-oriented database, will be used in the
future.
Middleware Layer: The business logic for xRM
applications is implemented in this layer. Therefore
this layer offers a framework with basic services
(administration, access management etc.) as well as
a development environment to implement
application via point-and-click or programming.
Furthermore the development environment and
existing software modules can be extended through
plug-ins. Tools for business process management
Figure 6: Basic architecture of xRM platforms.
ConceptualFrameworkofAnythingRelationshipManagement
117
(BPM) and business rules management (BRM) are
also provided. Services can be orchestrated,
processes can be implemented and finally consumer
applications for several stakeholders can be built
based on all of these elements.
Integration Layer: A connection to external
resources and services is set through the integration
layer. This enables the integration of web services,
xRM platform services or cyber-physical systems
besides legacy-systems.
Front-end Layer: Access mechanisms to the
xRM platform applications are provided by the use
of the front-end layer through desktops, mobile apps,
smart environments, web services and APIs. Each
consumer can create his own service bundle, and
customize its interface individually. Thus, the
different requirements of consumers can be satisfied
flexibly and fully.
5 VALIDATION AND EXAMPLE
To validate the developed conceptual framework for
xRM an experimental validation was chosen by
implementing an xRM prototype with the open
source xRM software SugerCRM. For this that the
usage of the conceptual framework is described by
passing all components form left to right. The
requirement was to build a prototype that recreates
the structure of a machine for mixing liquids as a
service and connecting that service to other entities.
The following table gives an overview of the
implemented entities.
Table 3: Entities of the prototype.
Entity name Entity type
Customer Primary stakeholder
Sales Order Activity
Order item Information
Ingredient Product
Supplier Primary stakeholder
CPPS-Service Service
CPPS-Module Smart object
CPPS-Component Smart object
Owner Primary stakeholder
Those entities were related among themselves by
developing a data model which was then
implemented in SugarCRM through an existing
point & click function. The main relationships were
between the CPPS-Service (Cyber-physical
Production Systems)-Service and other entities. A
CPPS-Service is built up out of one-to-many CPPS-
Modules which in turn are built up out of one-to-
many CPPS-Components (sensors and actuators).
Additionally, a CPPS-Service and a CPPS-Module
both have a many-to-one relationship to an owner
who is responsible for those entities. Finally, the
production task saved in an order item can be taken
over by one CPPS-Service. A CPPS-Service can
take over many production tasks. The main
objectives were to easily give customers and
employees access to a mixing liquid service on the
xRM platform as well as to view random created
sensor and actuator values through an xRM user
interface. Those values should be continuously
updated via web services. The main processes were
the sales order process and the production process of
mixing liquids. Besides mapping those processes on
the xRM platform an additional function was
implemented that enabled all relevant information of
each order item to be saved via XML to transmit it
to an existing mixing machine. The main service
was the CPPS-Service, mixing two chosen
ingredients in a designated mixing ratio, amount and
volume per filling. Another service we implemented
allowed viewing sensor and actuator values through
a user interface section in the home screen of the
SugarCRM software. The xRM prototype can be
allocated to operative and communicative xRM.
Access to interaction channels and mechanisms was
enabled through the inbuilt SugarCRM user
interfaces via web browser. We used the three-tier
architecture of SugarCRM to build our prototype by
saving entities and relationships in the back-end
layer, building processes and services in the
middleware layer, integrating sensor and actuator
values through the integration layer and finally
visualizing relevant data as well as functions in the
front-end layer.
6 CONCLUSIONS
At the beginning of this paper we explain important
fundamentals about xRM. Besides a definition of
xRM as well as a comparison of xRM with CRM we
also highlighted the need for management concepts
and explain what they are. By using the theoretical
fundamentals of management concepts as well as the
principles and objectives of xRM, which were
illustrated in chapter 3, we designed a conceptual
framework for xRM. This conceptual framework has
the primary purpose to structure and systematically
order the various areas of application, use cases,
scenarios of xRM in organizations. The main
components of the conceptual framework are:
entities, relationships, objectives, functional areas,
ICEIS2015-17thInternationalConferenceonEnterpriseInformationSystems
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services, processes, interaction mechanisms and
channels as well as the system architecture. The
conceptual framework for xRM consists of a static
management concept (how do I want to use the
conceptual framework and for which business goals)
and an xRM platform (which platform do I want to
implement the xRM applications with). By using
this conceptual framework a systematic approach is
given to build xRM application and to reduce the
complexity of business areas and relationship
varieties in relationship management.
The connections through ICT between people
and machines and among each other will expand in
the future. This will lead to a significant increase in
data volume and data traffic. Furthermore, the
Internet of Everything, the cloud computing
technology and the mobile internet as well as the
digitization and automation of knowledge work will
lead to an enormous economic potential. We will
have future challenges in data transmission
infrastructure and privacy policy. But the future
progress will also lead to new innovative business
models. xRM will become more and more important
in business and in private use (e.g. smart home). The
quick and secure connection of entities to xRM
platforms, as well as the interoperability of these
platforms is one of the future technological
challenges in the ICT sector.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank the research
program of Karl Steinbuch of the MFG Innovation
Agency for ICT and Media for the financial support
of the research project “Ma-x-RM – Management
concept of Anything Relationship Management”.
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