CRM Better Relationships, Better Business Partner or Perish Sales and Marketing Effectiveness Win-Win with E-Service
	Advertisers' Web Sites Avaya www.avaya.com PeopleSoft www.peoplesoft.com Precision Response Corp. www.prcnet.com Salesforce.com, Inc. www.salesforce.com SAS www.sas.com Siebel Systems, Inc. www.siebel.com UpShot www.upshot.com

Improving collaboration between partners and customers isn't optional anymore. A survey of the InformationWeek 500 found that the top 100 companies are the most avid collaborators. Nearly all operate an electronic supply chain or Extranet, compared with 71 percent of the remaining 400 companies on the list. 89 percent of the top companies use customer relationship management software, compared with 55 percent of the others.

At one time, Ford was so vertically integrated that it even owned rubber plantations. Today, in the face of a global competitive assault, Ford outsources as much as possible in order to keep its supply chain hyper-responsive to demand fluctuations -- and its costs as low as possible.

For sustainable competitive advantage, companies must move beyond the easily duplicated automation projects to create win-win relationships.

Cisco Systems' efforts to create a "virtual enterprise" are well chronicled. "Barriers to information at Cisco are incredibly low," says Ran Kelsi, London-based head of strategic initiatives at EMEA for Cisco Systems. "We've been successful in opening up the guts of our organization as much as we can to our customers. They can deal not only with the front office, but gain access to knowledge and information they need at a particular point in time. This eliminates bottlenecks, and exposes the internal value chain to external customers." Channel partners are treated almost as if they're part of Cisco.

What's driving collaboration? Economic pressures. According to Karen Smith, Aberdeen's CRM research director, "A slow economy increases the premium placed on additional revenue-building channels. As a result, a growing priority among enterprises is building superior partnerships that can help differentiate and sell their product lines through value-added services; a wider selection of related products; and relevant local expertise." In short, you can't afford to do it all yourself. So don't.

SHIFT FROM AUTOMATION TO COLLABORATION

In the past decade, businesses have focused on strengthening customer and partner relationships, leading to a proliferation of enterprise software applications: 1. Sales Force Automation (SFA) applications for the direct sales force, 2. Customer Service & Support (CSS) applications for the direct customer service department, and 3. Partner Relationship Management (PRM) applications for indirect channels. While CRM should be about both receiving and delivering value, too often it's been about automation and control. Is it any wonder that true CRM success stories are few and far between?

For sustainable competitive advantage, companies must move beyond the easily duplicated automation projects to create win-win relationships. Front Line Solutions' research has revealed three stages of CRM maturity, each with an increasing opportunity for competitive advantage:

Stage 1: Automate. Computers were designed to automate routine tasks, from word processing to the shop floor to airline reservations. It's not surprising that the early focus on CRM software was automating contact information and then sales force management. The focus was on efficiency and better management of information. Relationships? Largely unchanged.

Stage 2: Innovate. The next stage is to create new methods of interacting with customers and stakeholders. Use Internet-based "eCRM" applications to enable customers to sell and service themselves online instead of using traditional sales and service organizations. Or implement PRM applications to help partners be more effective in their roles as value-added intermediaries. This shift to customer/partner benefits is a step in the right direction.

Stage 3: Collaborate. This stage offers the best opportunity for long-term advantage. Advanced "collaborative e-business" systems connect the enterprise with its customers and partners, enabling the seamless exchange of information. Mutual benefits motivate all parties to continue to invest in the relationship, raising imposing competitive barriers.

ENABLING THE "PLUG AND PLAY" ENTERPRISE

Internet-based "collaborative e-business" applications supported by the latest Web architectures and B2B standards are emerging to solve multi-enterprise integration challenges. New applications will eliminate the process gaps caused by lack of integration between disparate IT systems, enabling a business to easily collaborate with networks of trading partners, leveraging its existing IT investments.

Emerging Web services standards will play a starring role in the next wave of collaborative CRM solutions, enabling true "plug and play" process integration, while handling both structured and unstructured information. Forms of collaboration may include:

Integrating business processes between enterprises. For example, leads distributed from a vendor's PRM system should flow automatically into partners' CRM systems, leveraging the business processes used by both enterprises. Process gaps should be eliminated.

Managing structured content, such as personalized Web portals driven by partner profiles. A collaborative approach means the content can be easily syndicated throughout the value chain without republishing.

Enabling multi-company group collaboration. That means working with the unstructured information that we use every day to get the real work done, such as e-mails, documents, project plans, etc.

Companies succeeding in collaboration are asking customers what kind of access they want, and then they give it to them. However, a culture of trust is crucial. "People have to be willing and unafraid to share," says sales and marketing consultant Barry Trailer. "The tools are much less important than a culture that encourages sharing information and creating an open environment wherein people do not feel they need to hold trump cards as bargaining chips."



Author: Bob Thompson
Contributing Writer: David Sims, SharpAngle.com
Print Design: Sundberg & Associates Inc.
Produced by: Frank Long, International Media Associates, Sandwich, MA, E-mail: flongima@aol.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bob Thompson is founder and president of Front Line Solutions, an independent CRM consulting and research firm. Mr. Thompson is a leading authority on the role of CRM in the extended enterprise, specializing in emerging CRM-related strategies and technologies for Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Collaborative eBusiness, an emerging trend that is the fusion of eCRM, PRM and group collaboration tools. Throughout his career, he has advised leading companies on the strategic use of Information Technology to solve business problems and gain a competitive advantage. Mr. Thompson is also the editor and publisher of CRM.Insight, an award-winning CRM newsletter. In January 2000, he launched CRMGuru.com, which has become the world's largest and fastest-growing CRM portal with over 100,000 members. For more information, visit the Front Line Solutions Web site at www.frontlinehq.com or CRMGuru.com at www.crmguru.com.