Lowe launches relationship solutions  ( November '1,2003, HBL)

LOWE Personal, a division of the Integrated Marketing Action Group (IMAG) of Lintas India, has launched strategic relationship solutions (SRS) to provide end-to-end customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for consumers and for the trade, including distributors, stockists and retailers.

SRS will help clients create a platform for "interaction management" with a robust software solution as a back-end, and a Web interface or call centre as a front end, according to Mr Ashish Bhasin, Director, IMAG.

This will enable corporates to reach key stakeholders or constituents of their business — distributors, employees and consumers — more efficiently.

"In CRM, in its truest form, we are focusing on the client, but the trade is getting increasingly important, and in a country of our size, you need to have a constant interaction with the trade," Mr Bhasin said.

"So this takes CRM beyond just the customer to also include the trade and employees."

The SRS will be involved right from the conceptualisation of a programme, strategising and developing, and the back-end tools, including software solutions, as well as in managing the implementation and actual running of the programmes.

A proprietary suite of solutions, TRIMS (Trade Relationship and Interaction Management System) had been developed and been used in projects for Johnson & Johnson and HLL.

It was being offered to other companies, Mr Bhasin said. The Lowe Personal President, Mr C.D. Mitra, will oversee SRS functioning.