Analisi del ruolo strategico del Customer Relationship Management nel segmento del lusso

Customer Relationship Management is for sure one of the most discussed topics in literature for a long time. As a matter of fact, researches about this subject and its related areas have attracted attention from several decades ago and studies on CRM are still rapidly growing in almost all industries. It is a subject that, like many others, evolves as the environment evolves. Indeed, new areas of CRM, such as information technology, data mining and CRM-related software, have increased researchers’ and academicians’ interest in CRM studies. This rapid growth in the literature on CRM linked to the new technologies and innovations of the last twenty years, demonstrates the importance of CRM activities and the benefits that they can bring to the organizations. Moreover, it is a topic that encompasses and influences many other areas of business and it is not possible to talk about Customer Relationship Management without taking into account concepts like customer loyalty and retention, design and control of customer experiences, management of organizational knowledge, brand identity’s role and the influences of customer centricity. After conducting an extensive review of the existing literature, there are discussions about the applicability of CRM strategies and processes in different industries and how they should be applied depending on the sector. In particular, there is only a minority of literature that covers the topic of CRM applied in the luxury segment. For this reason, the aim of this Master’s Thesis is to investigate and provide insights on the subject of Customer Relationship Management and which are the approaches that a company that operates in the luxury sector can adopt. This purpose will be accomplished by employing a comprehensive approach that includes reviewing relevant literature, conducting qualitative analysis and examining case studies of prominent luxury companies. I will first provide a review on the topic of CRM, its history and its developments in the last years, including an analysis of its broader business areas and subjects. This chapter will provide the reader a comprehensive understanding on how companies can implement a successful CRM strategy, the challenges that can be encountered, how the emerging technologies can be leveraged to enhance CRM capabilities and the impact and benefits that it can provide to organizations. Secondly, the idea of luxury and all the peculiarities that characterized its industry will be examined. This section will give the reader a complete contest of analysis for the strategies and applications of CRM in this sector, a review of specific methodologies that a luxury company can apply handling its customer relationships and how they differ from CRM practices in the mass market. Finally, I will analyze two case studies: Ferrari Spa and Ferrari Financial Services GmbH. Indeed, during my internship experience in the latter company, I was able to gain insights and understandings on how Ferrari and one if its foreign subsidiaries manage customer relationships. This case-study analysis will give a precious overview on how the vast topic of CRM and its values are transmitted from one company to its subsidiary. Furthermore, it will show how CRM’s strategies can be handled in two different luxury sector: automotive and financial services.