CRM start-up: how to survive and flourish in highly competitive CRM marketplace with a lean strategy? : Case study: LiiD

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis, as the title indicates, is about finding possible areas of improvements and strategy following the Lean Start-Up methodology, for a Finnish start-up that works in the CRM market. The case study conducted from a start-up LiiD. LiiD was founded in 2014. Their product is a mobile application for salespeople that allows them to update their CRM system on-the-go. It automatically logs sales activities, pushes reminders and allows to create tasks straight after the call/meeting /email which allows having a structured and optimized sales process, with none of the important data went missing. Currently, their application integrates only with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM

For a research author selected a qualitative approach, which consisted of an interview with company CEO – Maria Sundström. In addition to that, the author applied his own personal experience working in that company, and data that company allowed to use (customer acquisition, customer acquisition cost, lifetime value of a customer and internal data about their client's behaviour.

The results showed that LiiD has a potential for growth, to become a big player in the market of B2B mobile applications for CRM. The company just started to apply the lean methodology in late 2017 and already had visible improvements. In order to become successful LiiD needs to make a faster shift towards lean approach and customer development.

The author recommends the company to focus their attention on the customer acquisition process, and find possible areas of improvements of their current online channels for driving new customers to the business, to reduce customer acquisition costs.