The Role Of Customer Relationship Management Capability In The Relationship Of Electronic Business Investment And Business Performance

As information technology develops and consumer behavior changes,customer-oriented personal needs gradually dominate the market instead of the traditional production,which makes companies take customers' economic value into consideration and try to conduct some related activities to improve their business performance.Accordingly,customer relationship management attracts researchers' attention,but its capability is the key factor to increase profits.Customer relationship management capability is regarded as one of the most valuable capabilities with its non-imitativeness,resource integration and time-consuming.Researchers have mentioned that high level of customer relationship management capability is a distinct indicator of business performance.The rapid development of information technology and electronic business technically support customer relationship management.Many companies,especially manufacturing industries,enlarge their investment in electronic business to achieve the unique management in an organized and planned way,lower cost and enhance efficiency.Meanwhile,the capability of using and integrating electronic business resources not only helps information sharing,communication,but also improves customer satisfaction and business performance.Researchers indicate that it is worth to study the capability of companies using and integrating electronic business resources to improve customer satisfaction,and then increase business performance.Based on the above,this study develops the theoretical model of electronic business investment,electronic business capability,customer relationship management capability and business performance,investigates a private company in China and a foreign one to comparatively study the relationships among the four variables by proposing the propositions and hypothesis,explore their relationships using structure equation model,regression analysis and bootstrap methods.Findings show:(1)electronic business capability and its sub dimensions positively affect customer relationship management capability and its sub dimensions.(2)customer relationship management capability mediated the relationship between electronic business capability and business performance.(3)customer relationship management capability mediated the relationship between electronic business investment and business performance.(4)electronic business capability and customer relationship management capability serially mediate the relationship between electronic business investment and business performance.Finally,some instructive suggestions for manufacturing companies are given.