SOA part of social customer relationship management equation
Harish Kotadia, Ph.D published his view on the five key tech trends driving Social CRM -- and service-oriented architecture is a key building block to making it happen.
Social CRM potentially could help companies make sense of the abundant tweets, messages, and posts that form views and opinions about products and services. Typical CRM is based on internally generated collections of knowledge about customers and interactions. Social CRM digitizes information streaming in from virtual customer communities.
Here's the SOA connection, as explained by Kotadia:
"Service oriented architecture and cloud computing not only make it easy to integrate applications, but also facilitate 'plug-and-play' modules and add-ons that can dramatically reduce time and cost involved in extending functionality of the application. SOA design is of great help in Social CRM as new social media tools and functionality can be added without expensive customization or upgrades as was the case in traditional CRM systems."
There you have it -- the hot-swappability and vendor-independence of SOA-aware services and interfaces can be a part of a vibrant and flexible social CRM system. The other four building clocks to Social CRM include the following:
- Cloud computing/Software as a Service
- Real-time in-process analytics
- Smart phones and tablet PCs
- Enterprise application and data mashups