The effect of customer relationship management on competition advantage: An application in logistic sector

As a result of globalization and technological developments in the 21st century Information Age, the concept of customer relationship management (CRM) seems gaining importance. The success of a company at CRM has a key role to gain a competitive advantage of the company's standing out among its competitors. The rise of number of customers of the company directly leads to an increase in its competitive advantage. Only the companies which can gain competitive advantage by protecting existing customers and acquiring new clients can maintain their existence and profitability. In this study, it is aimed to investigate whether customer relationship management applications have an impact on company's competitive advantage. Additionally, CRM and competitive advantage of logistic sector will be discussed which become high importance and where competition increases day by day because of the Turkey's strategic and geopolitical position. At final chapter, to measure the application level of CRM and its effects to companies' competitive advantage, the 5(five) logistic companies in İzmir have been reached and the obtained questionnaire datas were evaluated. As a result of the evaluation through findings which obtained via literature and questionnaire study, recommendations have been made to businesses. Key Words: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Competitive Advantage, Logistic Sector