The customer is king and long term business success invariably follows your ability to keep the king happy! But let’s think about it a minute. The customer may be king but no two customers are ever exactly alike. It can be hard enough to keep just one member of royalty satisfied especially when their tastes and requirements may change in time, so what do you do when you have tens, hundreds if not thousands of kings to satisfy? Add to this the reality that today’s prince may be tomorrow’s king and that today’s king may be tomorrow’s traitor, and the complexities involved in developing and managing such relationships become all too apparent.
CRM systems promise much but as most manufacturers already know, it’s easier to make a promise than to deliver it. And the reality is that many CRM systems simply can’t handle the complexity and flexibility required by modern manufacturing & distribution businesses.
Integral to ERP
This is especially the case for modular CRM systems that are bolted-on to Enterprise Resource (ERP) systems with varying degrees of integration and success. Even the cleverest such system is always going to be handicapped by the reality that true CRM takes place at every level within an ERP system. CRM therefore needs to be at the very heart of an ERP system and not a later addition or afterthought. This is only possible when CRM has been an integral part of ERP right from the design stage.
Another reason why flexible CRM needs to be integral to flexible ERP is that ERP success is very much defined by the closeness of ‘fit’ achievable by the system to real world business processes. And with manufacturing increasingly having to adapt to highly flexible Make to Order (MTO) and Just in Time (JIT) methodologies, only modern ERP systems built to take advantage of the latest technology such as .NET provide the necessary flexibility to closely match the varied and variable business processes of today’s modern competitive manufacturer. In a like fashion, only such systems are appropriate for many manufacturers where the service element can be equally or even more important than the product element.
CRM, truly integrated into such a system therefore offers the only real potential to offer the flexibility required to deal with today’s highly diverse and frequently changing customer kings. In reality this means being able to access and intelligently work with data within an ERP system such as order enquiries, delivery performance, queries, returns, manufacturing status and accounts queries.
Let’s look at just a few specific examples that show how such a CRM system needs to work. A central pillar within CRM is the means to collect accurate and relevant information. But to be truly effective such a system should have the means to generate highly customised data collection mechanisms, for example custom forms, that can be accessed by the right people at the right place using the system. Clearly such forms would be radically different when dealing with an MTO environment with multiple, sequence dependent configurations as opposed to a standard batch manufacturing model. Yet manufacturers may require both levels of functionality and not have to invest in 2 separate systems.
Customised data
In a similar way, consider the example of a multi-tiered project sales for a large new opportunity at say, a new terminal at Heathrow. Here a system would need to be able to track sales through main architects through major contractors through to a smaller subcontractor who eventually places the order.
By also having customisable levels of process controls and events, workflow benefits can be delivered to a level of sophistication beyond standard ERP workflow capabilities. Again it comes back to providing maximum levels of business fit so the system becomes a true enabler of increased customer service.
For example, some companies might require a range of unique conditions relating to their industry and own business processes to be met before allowing a purchase order to be actioned by the system. Again, this ideally needs to be at a customer specific level. In a similar manner, a customer may have unique shipping and invoicing requirements, all of which are mission critical and too important to be left to an operative remembering or being aware of them. By having a CRM system embedded at the core of a flexible ERP system, such knowledge can be routed in the system providing maximum assurance and subsequent customer satisfaction.
Once you have the data, another central pillar within CRM is the means to accurately process it into meaningful information that is relevant to the person viewing it. Because different people within a business need access to differing information, an effective CRM system must offer highly customisable reporting, preferably by means of user specific dashboards.
Best possible user fit
The ability to pull real-time production or customer data anywhere from the CRM system, and present it in a fashion that immediately gives the user the best possible information, to meet the needs of the all important customer facilitates the best possible means of managing and building customer relationships.
An extension of this made possible by the latest underlying technologies is the means to even allow secure on demand viewing access of pre-determined information by the customer via web portals or via scheduled individual reports to fit the customer’s unique requirements.
Finally, CRM truly fit for a king needs to recognise that relationships with potential customers begin at the marketing stage. Accordingly, a powerful yet flexible CRM system embedded within an equally powerful yet flexible ERP system provides the means to monitor the effectiveness of individual campaigns and campaign components unique to any company and any product.
The level of success can be monitored and compared with other campaigns thereby providing the best possible information about today’s real world princes/prospects. And by doing so, such a system also provides the means of converting them into tomorrow’s real world kings and when they are, of also keeping them happy long into the future.
