Abstract:

According to ANECA’s White Paper (2005) on the Degree in Economics and Business Administration, students must have acquired the status of expert: a practical person, with unquestionable skills, experienced in his or her own field of knowledge so as to be capable of addressing management issues using a professional approach. Traditional teaching methods are based on passive learning where students listen, memorize and apply the contents often without a real learning that would enable them in practice to exercise their profession. Therefore, it is very important the development of new educational methodologies and the incorporation of the TIC in university teaching. Then, that paper has focused the attention in the explanation of an innovative practice that has been used for teaching marketing.
In today's environment, it is hard to find any area of a marketing organization that could function without software. Without marketing software, today's Managers and all front-line workers wouldn't be able to manage the amount or type of work we have to do as marketers. Marketing Software includes all computer programs and applications which help manage marketing work (eg., Marketing Databases, Call Center Software and Marketing Management Systems). CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is one of the more innovative and useful marketing software for implementing the relationship marketing strategies. CRM consists in implementing of a set of information technologies that focus on creating two-way exchanges with customers so that firms have knowledge of their needs, wants, and buying patterns.
With the evolution of marketing tools, comes the need for improved pedagogical approaches to training students. Although Spanish marketers are heavily involved in using or attempting to use CRM solutions to make data driven decisions, Spanish universities have not yet caught up with the industry practice of relationship marketing to the marketing discipline.
This paper explains the design and development of an applied experience in the classroom that consists in using the CRM application of Turyocio (through a remote access) with the objective that the student works the same functionalities of the software using real data bases.
That is an optional practice including in the “Relationship Marketing” subject of different academic degrees: Degree in Business Administration & Management, Degree in Marketing and Degree in Marketing Research Techniques. The activity was divided in many phases (theoretical background, seminar for learning the use of a CRM, a visit to the firm, development of the practice, results and evaluation), which developed in different sessions (two to four hours) throughout four weeks and it was applied to groups of ten students.
This activity enables the student to learn and develop some generic capabilities as the ability for applying the theoretical knowledge in the real word, problems resolution, decision making and managing complex system. The activity enables the motivation of the students and the assimilation of technical capabilities as the expert use of advanced computer applications (SAS, Oracle, SalesForce) that can enhance their employment opportunities. In that sense, students’ knowledge and learning are more suitable for firms’ necessities and students can achieve a better understanding of the firm word and the firm praxis.

Keywords:

Relationship marketing, Customer relationship management (CRM), TIC.