Abstract:

Possible uses of technical web service standards in customer relationship management (CRM) and market research (MR) are described. A single CRM web portal for a particular type of customer can interoperate with various relevant services in order to increase the service accessibility. MR facilities can be integrated into a CRM web portal to study the customers' behaviours and preferences. Web service standards enhance the interoperability of web-based business services. Formal ontologies as the basis of common semantics of different web services are also necessary but still very immature in CRM and MR industries. Despite various efforts in developing common electronic business standards such as ebXML, both CRM and MR ontologies should be developed to achieve the goals of integrated web-based services.