Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is an essential part of modern business management. Customer Relationship Management concerns the relationship between the organization and its customers. Customers are the lifeblood of any organization be it a global corporation with thousands of employees and a multi-billion turnover, or a sole trader with a handful of regular customers. Customer Relationship Management is the same in principle for these two examples - it is the scope of CRM which can vary drastically.
Successful organizations use three steps to build customer relationships:
• determine mutually satisfying goals between organization and customers
• establish and maintain customer rapport
• produce positive feelings in the organization and the customers
The organization and the customers both have sets of conditions to consider when building the relationship, such as wants and needs of both parties;
• organizations need to make a profit to survive and grow
• customers want good service, a quality product and an acceptable price
Good CRM can influence both sets of conditions.
The ultimate purpose of CRM, like any organizational initiative, is to increase profit. In the case of CRM this is achieved mainly by providing a better service to your customers than your competitors. CRM not only improves the service to customers though; a good CRM capability will also reduce costs, wastage, and complaints (although you may see some increase initially, simply because you hear about things that without CRM would have stayed hidden). Effective CRM also reduces staff stress, because attrition - a major cause of stress - reduces as services and relationships improve. CRM enables instant market research as well: opening the lines of communications with your customers gives you direct constant market reaction to your products, services and performance, far better than any market survey. Good CRM also helps you grow your business: customers stay with you longer; customer churn rates reduce; referrals to new customers increase from increasing numbers of satisfied customers; demand reduces on fire-fighting and trouble-shooting staff, and overall the organization's service flows and teams work more efficiently and more happily.
There is little doubt that CRM is a high growth market. It is an area in which executives are doing everything they can to build a strong partner network. IBM has become a leader in CRM market with the launch of new products and services. Earlier this year, IBM announced that its joint sales revenues with mid-market independent software vendors reached US$1 billion worldwide.
The preceeding post might have cast a shadow over IBM’s capabilities in the CRM and outsourcing space, but here is some cheer for the company: In terms of business opportunities, IBM is making serious headway in the CRM space through strategic tie-ups with SMB partners. The CRM market has huge growth opportunities and IBM is cultivating a useful partner network, including links with industry biggies such as Siebel (now acquired by Oracle) and SAP.
If you are responsible for the deployment an effective CRM system in your company, the least you can expect from your vendor is deployment of the system within a set time frame and within the allocated budget. It is only after these two prerequisites that the CRM software can emerge as a true winner in the long run.
However, what do you do if your vendor is unable to complete its side of the agreement? For a start, you have to go in the red by allocating an extra budget. Then, you have to explain the time overrun to your superiors. When you eventually deploy the CRM system, you might well have lost out on several selling points. This is exactly the scenario with Vodofone, who selected IBM to provide CRM, billing, and provisioning systems “down under”.
The CRM deployment is a key strategic platform in IBM’s e-business infrastructure, and there are plans for further expansion and enhancement. “As a result of this ongoing initiative, we have developed tried-and-tested strategies for achieving the goals of CRM on an unprecedented scale,” said Wright. “We can offer our clients a set of unique skills and insights into how to leverage CRM technology and processes to serve customers better. We’ve proved we can build complex customer contact management environments and help global companies establish worldwide processes around intelligent data management and marketing. As a result, many companies can now benefit from our experience.”
Jumat, 17 Desember 2010
The Bullwhip Effect in Grocery Store and Other Company
The bullwhip effect is when a company (like a grocery store) receives far more or less inventory than it needs. For example, a Finnish grocery store found that customer demand for laundry detergent fluctuated by up to 10 percent every week, but the store received more than twice the stock it needed to replenish it. The causes include a lack of visibility into the supply chain--for example, not seeing that replenishment stock is en route and so placing an unnecessary order. The solution is visibility into the supply chain, something technologies like radio-frequency identification (RFID) enable.
The bullwhip effect as being that "information about the final customer's actual demand is often distorted from one end of the supply chain to the other." The supply chain is that long stream of manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, logistics companies, and so forth that handle a product on its way to the customer. The consequences are excess inventory or not enough inventory. Excess inventory forces a company to sell that inventory at discounted prices. With too little inventory, a company risks losing customers or paying high prices to expedite a replenishment order, which drives profits down.
The supply chain has its own ordering routines, reorder points, and quantities. So a retailer may order 10 percent replenishment inventory, but the number becomes distorted as it passes up the supply chain. Ordering to forecasts, rather than to actual need, distorts inventory as well. A company that orders what it thinks it will need rather than what it actually needs will likely end up with too much or too little inventory. (This is difficult to avoid in seasonal goods, such as Christmas decorations.) A retailer may also inflate its orders during a shortage, only to find that a shortage was short-lived.
Other example : have examined HP’s past global inventory problems with inkjet printers; Cisco’s global collaboration in developing and outsourcing production of a new telecom router; Starbucks’ “green” coffee-buying practices; Zappos.com’s offerings of a wide selection of shoes and strong customer service; Renault’s optimization of customs and duties in developing economies; and IDS Group’s “value chain logistics” in distributing its customers’ goods throughout Asia.(Corporate members include Cisco, Dow Chemicals, HP, Intel, Safeway, and Toyota.)
"Bullwhip" effect occurs because demand information passed along the supply chain up the process of being constantly misinterpreted. Products distribution business to become the retailer orders the victim of exaggerated; turn it further exaggerated orders to suppliers.
"Bullwhip effect" generated in the supply chain leading to excess inventory. The study shows that the entire supply chain, from product left the manufacturer's production line and their arrival at the retailer shelves, the product of the average inventory for more than 100 days. Distorted demand information in the supply chain have a corresponding increase in each individual stock. The report estimates that more than 300 billion dollars the United States have deposited in the food supply chain, other sectors of the economy is not the same. "Bullwhip effect" also resulted in poor production forecast. Unable to deal with the backlog of orders in a timely manner, increasing the uncertainty of production planning, such as too many amendments to the scheme and increase the cost of remedial measures, overtime costs and speed up transport costs.
"Bullwhip" effect causes
1. Update demand forecast
In order to arrange the production schedule, plan production, control inventory and planning material requirements, supply chain companies usually predict product demand. The forecast is usually based on direct contact with corporate customers to purchase history of. When the downstream firm order, the upstream firm's manager will put the information as to future product demand signal processing. Based on this signal, the upstream manager will adjust the demand forecast, while upstream firm will increase its supplier order, to make appropriate adjustments. Therefore, this demand signal processing is "bullwhip" effect in the main.
2. Bulk Order
In the supply chain, each company will report to the upstream firm orders, and would have a certain degree of monitoring inventory. As the storage of materials in the exhaust, the firm can not immediately get supplies from its suppliers, therefore, enterprises frequently carry out bulk orders, before the re-issue subscription to maintain a certain stock. High transport costs also hinder the company one of the obstacles frequently orders. Truck load full load, the lowest unit cost of transportation, so when ordering from the supplier companies, they will tend to order large quantities to reduce the unit cost of transportation.
3. Price volatility
Price volatility will lead to early to buy. Manufacturers typically conduct periodic promotions, such as price discounts, quantity discounts, coupons, etc., these concessions are essentially an indirect price concessions. Manufacturing business will lead to price ahead of its distributors to purchase the required products, to buy early for the Jieguo yes the number of customers purchased Bingbufanying their real-time requirements, Zhexie quantities sufficient for their Qianglaiyiduan Shijianshiyong.
This promotion is on the supply chain may be costly. When the price of the manufacturer at low levels (through discounts or other promotional tactics), customers often need to buy much larger than their actual number; when the manufacturer's price returned to normal levels, customer inventory because there is sufficient, so before being depleted of their stock, they will not buy. Results, customer buying patterns and do not reflect their consumption / spending patterns, and fluctuations in the number of its purchase of volatile than the consumption, resulting in "bullwhip" effect.
4. Limited supply and short game
When the product is in short supply, manufacturers often order according to the number of customers in accordance with a certain proportion of limited supply, the customer will be exaggerated in order when the actual demand; when the shortage eased, the order volume will suddenly drop, while a large number of customers will cancel their orders. Limited supply of potential for the game, customers will generate over-reaction. The result of this game can not distinguish between suppliers in the number of such growth is due to the increased market demand for real, how many retailers fear a limited supply of inflated, and therefore can not be obtained from the customer's order in the case of the product demand true information.
How to solve the "bullwhip" effect
Understand the "bullwhip effect" causes to help managers develop effective strategies to reduce its impact. In different industries, some innovative companies found that they could supply chain with suppliers to share information, coordinate and adjust the plan to control the "bullwhip" effect. The company is how to eliminate the cause "bullwhip" effect in the cause?
1. Avoid the use of a variety of ways update demand forecasts
To avoid double handling of the data supply chain is one way to get downstream to upstream business needs of enterprise information. Thus, upstream and downstream enterprises of the original according to the same information to update their forecasts. For example, computer manufacturers will ask the distributor to the retailer central warehouse product back out of the feedback database. Although these data do not point of sale data from retailers, less comprehensive, but this is better than sending out the goods after the goods have lost the information much better. Now IBM, HP and Apple and other companies in the contract will ask the retailers to return the data feedback.
2. Break bulk orders
As the bulk order will have a "bullwhip" effect, so companies should adjust their ordering policy, the implementation of small quantities, several times the purchase order or mode of supply. Preference for high-volume business, the reasons for the low frequency of procurement strategy is the procurement cost, transportation cost. In fact, even through the EDI order costs can greatly decrease the efficiency but the order will still be limited by the full load or not. Now, many manufacturers are encouraging their distributors also order a variety of different products.
3. Price stability
Control as advance purchase or change caused by the "bullwhip effect" is the best way to reduce the frequency and extent of the discount wholesalers. Manufacturers through the development of a stable price strategy to reduce the incentive to buy early. When the business district and promotions, some retailers will be a large number of procurement in the region, and then put those products to other regions. Activity-based costing system can accurately calculate inventory, special handling and transportation costs, therefore, such systems can help enterprises everyday low price strategy.
4. Elimination Game behavior under shortage
When faced with shortage of supply, suppliers can sell to customer records for the previous limit of supply, rather than the quantity ordered, so that you can prevent the supply of customers to get more exaggerate your order.
The bullwhip effect as being that "information about the final customer's actual demand is often distorted from one end of the supply chain to the other." The supply chain is that long stream of manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, logistics companies, and so forth that handle a product on its way to the customer. The consequences are excess inventory or not enough inventory. Excess inventory forces a company to sell that inventory at discounted prices. With too little inventory, a company risks losing customers or paying high prices to expedite a replenishment order, which drives profits down.
The supply chain has its own ordering routines, reorder points, and quantities. So a retailer may order 10 percent replenishment inventory, but the number becomes distorted as it passes up the supply chain. Ordering to forecasts, rather than to actual need, distorts inventory as well. A company that orders what it thinks it will need rather than what it actually needs will likely end up with too much or too little inventory. (This is difficult to avoid in seasonal goods, such as Christmas decorations.) A retailer may also inflate its orders during a shortage, only to find that a shortage was short-lived.
Other example : have examined HP’s past global inventory problems with inkjet printers; Cisco’s global collaboration in developing and outsourcing production of a new telecom router; Starbucks’ “green” coffee-buying practices; Zappos.com’s offerings of a wide selection of shoes and strong customer service; Renault’s optimization of customs and duties in developing economies; and IDS Group’s “value chain logistics” in distributing its customers’ goods throughout Asia.(Corporate members include Cisco, Dow Chemicals, HP, Intel, Safeway, and Toyota.)
"Bullwhip" effect occurs because demand information passed along the supply chain up the process of being constantly misinterpreted. Products distribution business to become the retailer orders the victim of exaggerated; turn it further exaggerated orders to suppliers.
"Bullwhip effect" generated in the supply chain leading to excess inventory. The study shows that the entire supply chain, from product left the manufacturer's production line and their arrival at the retailer shelves, the product of the average inventory for more than 100 days. Distorted demand information in the supply chain have a corresponding increase in each individual stock. The report estimates that more than 300 billion dollars the United States have deposited in the food supply chain, other sectors of the economy is not the same. "Bullwhip effect" also resulted in poor production forecast. Unable to deal with the backlog of orders in a timely manner, increasing the uncertainty of production planning, such as too many amendments to the scheme and increase the cost of remedial measures, overtime costs and speed up transport costs.
"Bullwhip" effect causes
1. Update demand forecast
In order to arrange the production schedule, plan production, control inventory and planning material requirements, supply chain companies usually predict product demand. The forecast is usually based on direct contact with corporate customers to purchase history of. When the downstream firm order, the upstream firm's manager will put the information as to future product demand signal processing. Based on this signal, the upstream manager will adjust the demand forecast, while upstream firm will increase its supplier order, to make appropriate adjustments. Therefore, this demand signal processing is "bullwhip" effect in the main.
2. Bulk Order
In the supply chain, each company will report to the upstream firm orders, and would have a certain degree of monitoring inventory. As the storage of materials in the exhaust, the firm can not immediately get supplies from its suppliers, therefore, enterprises frequently carry out bulk orders, before the re-issue subscription to maintain a certain stock. High transport costs also hinder the company one of the obstacles frequently orders. Truck load full load, the lowest unit cost of transportation, so when ordering from the supplier companies, they will tend to order large quantities to reduce the unit cost of transportation.
3. Price volatility
Price volatility will lead to early to buy. Manufacturers typically conduct periodic promotions, such as price discounts, quantity discounts, coupons, etc., these concessions are essentially an indirect price concessions. Manufacturing business will lead to price ahead of its distributors to purchase the required products, to buy early for the Jieguo yes the number of customers purchased Bingbufanying their real-time requirements, Zhexie quantities sufficient for their Qianglaiyiduan Shijianshiyong.
This promotion is on the supply chain may be costly. When the price of the manufacturer at low levels (through discounts or other promotional tactics), customers often need to buy much larger than their actual number; when the manufacturer's price returned to normal levels, customer inventory because there is sufficient, so before being depleted of their stock, they will not buy. Results, customer buying patterns and do not reflect their consumption / spending patterns, and fluctuations in the number of its purchase of volatile than the consumption, resulting in "bullwhip" effect.
4. Limited supply and short game
When the product is in short supply, manufacturers often order according to the number of customers in accordance with a certain proportion of limited supply, the customer will be exaggerated in order when the actual demand; when the shortage eased, the order volume will suddenly drop, while a large number of customers will cancel their orders. Limited supply of potential for the game, customers will generate over-reaction. The result of this game can not distinguish between suppliers in the number of such growth is due to the increased market demand for real, how many retailers fear a limited supply of inflated, and therefore can not be obtained from the customer's order in the case of the product demand true information.
How to solve the "bullwhip" effect
Understand the "bullwhip effect" causes to help managers develop effective strategies to reduce its impact. In different industries, some innovative companies found that they could supply chain with suppliers to share information, coordinate and adjust the plan to control the "bullwhip" effect. The company is how to eliminate the cause "bullwhip" effect in the cause?
1. Avoid the use of a variety of ways update demand forecasts
To avoid double handling of the data supply chain is one way to get downstream to upstream business needs of enterprise information. Thus, upstream and downstream enterprises of the original according to the same information to update their forecasts. For example, computer manufacturers will ask the distributor to the retailer central warehouse product back out of the feedback database. Although these data do not point of sale data from retailers, less comprehensive, but this is better than sending out the goods after the goods have lost the information much better. Now IBM, HP and Apple and other companies in the contract will ask the retailers to return the data feedback.
2. Break bulk orders
As the bulk order will have a "bullwhip" effect, so companies should adjust their ordering policy, the implementation of small quantities, several times the purchase order or mode of supply. Preference for high-volume business, the reasons for the low frequency of procurement strategy is the procurement cost, transportation cost. In fact, even through the EDI order costs can greatly decrease the efficiency but the order will still be limited by the full load or not. Now, many manufacturers are encouraging their distributors also order a variety of different products.
3. Price stability
Control as advance purchase or change caused by the "bullwhip effect" is the best way to reduce the frequency and extent of the discount wholesalers. Manufacturers through the development of a stable price strategy to reduce the incentive to buy early. When the business district and promotions, some retailers will be a large number of procurement in the region, and then put those products to other regions. Activity-based costing system can accurately calculate inventory, special handling and transportation costs, therefore, such systems can help enterprises everyday low price strategy.
4. Elimination Game behavior under shortage
When faced with shortage of supply, suppliers can sell to customer records for the previous limit of supply, rather than the quantity ordered, so that you can prevent the supply of customers to get more exaggerate your order.
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)