Aberdeen analyst Beth Enslow has published a fascinating overview of the online supply chain management (SCM) market but in my opinion, she missed one crucial connection. Now before all you professionals switch off, trust me on this, you’ll want to get to the end. It’ll take less than a minute.
The Sandhill version of Beth’s analysis, while lauding the new online supply chain companies, fails to recognise the close connection between CRM and SCM. When you go to the main report (a short registration process is necessary here, it’s irritating but worth it)- surprise surprise, online SCM is at the top of the demand pile, closely followed by CRM. While Beth notes the growth in online CRM I was surprised she didn’t address the connection in the detailed report.
SCM is about optimising how companies execute against supply. One of the key components is logistics – the physical process of getting products to your door step. FedEX, TNT and DHL use sophisticated technologies that allow you, the customer, to track and trace packages. Now tell me there’s no connection between CRM and SCM? What does this mean for professionals?
You can think of accounts production as the supply chain for our industry. There’s a lot of processes involved but ideally we’d like the customer to be as engaged as possible in their production. This means many things but central is the idea of mutual collaboration based on a shared purpose with clear lines of responsibility and accountability executed through a readily accessible and easily understood accounting framework.
You can think of your interactive website as the start of your CRM mechanisms. Might you not capture the conversations that ebb and flow between staff and clients as a way of figuring out what your clients really need? Can you see how the two might be connected? It really is a crucial point. Unless that is understood then it is almost impossible to think about transforming your siloes of tax, audit, consulting and so on into a well-oiled learning organsation.
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