|
|
|
|
|
Comments or Suggestions?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Share this Article
|
|
By Bob Thompson, President, Front Line Solutions
Learn to be more profitable by managing your sell-side Collaborative Relationship Networks.
One of the perks of being an industry pundit is the freedom to create new buzzwords. Or at least propose them.
A couple of years ago Partnerware, a startup software vendor, coined the term Partner Relationship Management (PRM) to mean applying the CRM concept to indirect sales channels. PRM was quickly adopted by the industry, including myself. Prior to that I called this area "Extended Enterprise CRM," but PRM made more sense because the main focus was on managing vendor-to-partner relationships.
However, PRM is just the beginning of extended enterprise CRM, not the end. Multi-enterprise trading networks run on a complex web of relationships involving vendors, many types of partners, and customers. Looking forward, I see Collaborative eBusiness as an evolution of CRM beyond the firewall, incorporating elements of PRM, collaborative commerce, eCRM, eMarketPlaces, and two buzzwords to be named later.
What's the point? To be more profitable by managing sell-side Collaborative Relationship Networks—"C-Webs" for short—for the mutual benefit of all trading partners. While delivering the most competitive value to end customers, of course, because if you don't, they'll take their business (and your profits) elsewhere.
Three ingredients are crucial to make Collaborative eBusiness work:
1. Integrating business processes between enterprises.
A browser interface is not enough (a failing of most PRM systems). My favorite scenario is lead distribution. Why is that leads distributed from a PRM system don't automatically flow into partners' CRM systems? Do you really think partners have any spare time to re-key information?
2. Managing structured content.
Think personalized web portals driven by partner profiles. Except that a collaborative approach means the content can be syndicated throughout the value chain, managed securely across multiple enterprises and out to customers without re-publishing.
3. Enabling multi-company team collaboration.
That means working with the unstructured junk that we use every day to get the real work done. Think emails, documents, project plans, etc. About 80% of enterprise information is unstructured, and therefore never makes it into a CRM/PRM/ERP/SCM database or into a web-based content portal.
In my view, PRM was the first critical step in managing relationship networks outside the firewall. The next wave of Collaborative eBusiness solutions will support complex many-to-many relationship, handle more types of information, and will enable "plug and play" integration of multi-enterprise business processes.
Front Line Solutions is a Silicon Valley-based independent consulting firm specializing in Partner Relationship Management (PRM). As the industry's leading consultant and evangelist for PRM, Bob Thompson is frequently quoted in industry publications, speaks regularly at industry conferences worldwide, and writes extensively for channel- and CRM-related publications. Bob is the founder of CRMGuru.com, the largest and fastest-growing interactive CRM web site in the world, with over 40,000 members worldwide. For more information, please visit www.frontlinehq.com or www.crmguru.com.
Printer-friendly version
|
|
|
|
