Research

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a comprehensive business and marketing strategy that integrates technology, process and business activities around the customer.

Effective CRM is assumed to lead to bottom line benefits for the organisation. Advances in information and communication technologies have provided an effective platform to deliver electronic CRM functions.

Despite widespread agreement that CRM can have a direct and indirect impact on customer satisfaction, loyalty, sales and profit, the significance of e-CRM and its features in influencing customer satisfaction has not been well researched.

Specific objectives of the research are to: identify the factors used by managers to justify the implementation of CRM applications; develop dynamic performance measures to be used for evaluating CRM throughout its life cycle; and develop a CRM life cycle evaluation model.

Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FA SD) describe a range of effects that can occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy.

The effects may include physical, mental, behavioural, and/or learning disabilities with possible lifelong implications. Alcohol consumption in pregnancy and its effects, and FAS in particular, have received limited attention in Australia.

Many health professionals are not well prepared to provide guidance to women about alcohol consumption and its effects in pregnancy and FAS. The objectives of this research are to provide West Australian health professionals with best practice health promotion material for advising women on alcohol consumption during pregnancy and its effects and to increase the proportion of West Australian health professionals who provide advice to women consistent with NHMRC guidelines for women who are pregnant or might soon become pregnant.

It is widely recognised that training and education are effective ways to reduce small business failure. Current training delivery methods for small business owners tend to be static and do not address the real needs of new owners, which centre on just-in-time business specific skills development.

One method that has been suggested to overcome the time pressures for small business owners is to deliver training online. However, it is evident that small business owners and managers have different understandings of online training and therefore the current models of delivering training online may in fact not be the most suitable to address specific needs.

This research will explore the appropriateness of this training method for small business owner/managers and will develop a framework of appropriate training delivery.

Rapid growth in the wine industry over the past 20 years reflects the overall growth in small business ownership in Australia. However the industry is becoming increasingly competitive with consumption in domestic and traditional export markets reaching capacity.

The objectives of the research are to explore the managerial expertise of winery owners and managers and to identify the managerial skills training needs relevant to this industry and the implications for rural development.

The outcomes will be the development of management training strategies and programs aimed specifically at the wine industry, together with an analysis of wine industry managerial expertise, resulting in academic publications.