CRM at Moore Medical Corporation - Response to questions about Harvard Business Review Case #9-601-142 Moore Medical Corporation

What problems and challenges are faced by Moore at the time of the case? Moore Medical is a medium-sized distributor of medical supplies to practitioners such as podiatrists and emergency medical technicians. Up to the time of the case, it has relied on traditional customer channels such as catalogs, phones, and faxes to communicate product offerings, promotions, and availability, and to take orders. It is now attempting to transition into a "bricks and clicks" distributor …

…ERP package and buy the Demand Planning System (with other 3 modules). The CRM package is down in the priority list and can be bought at a later stage. Furthermore, it is not clear that Moore?s issues with customer acquisition and retention could be corrected by CRM. Thus at this stage it is advisable to go in for the ?Bolt-on? software to address the problems with ERP and put the CRM package deal on hold.