Supply chain management and CRM
Supply chain management is the management and organization of relationships between the components of the supply chain. Manufacturing companies acquire raw materials from suppliers, process those raw materials and transform to finished products, those finished products are labeled and packages and send to the market. In this process of producing finished products, components like suppliers, transportation company, factory floor, retailers, wholesalers, customers play very important role. All of these components must be able to get correct information of their need in time and in correct manner. Any kind of delay or error in the data/information acquisition process may bring down the supply chain of the organization and the company may have to pay huge price for it.
| Component of SCM | Information required by the component |
|---|---|
| Supplier | List and quantity of raw materials to supply, when to supply |
| Transportation company | Type of raw materials, when to supply and in which quantity |
| Factory Floor | Quantity of raw materials available, human resources and other resources available, date and time of completing production |
| packaging department | Quantity of the finished products, amount of packaging materials available, packaging completion date. |
| Transportation company | Quantity of finished products to deliver to retailers, wholesalers, when to deliver; information about the retailers, wholesalers, |
Manufacturing Organizations do market research to known about the demand of their products or services. Based on the research they decide how many products to make and calculate raw materials required to produce required number of products. This information about the raw materials is shared with the suppliers, the suppliers arrange the raw materials and send to the transportation company and the transportation company delivers the materials to the manufacturer. It is necessary for the transportation company to known when what type of raw materials, in what amount to be transported to which manufacturer; then only the transportation company manage shipments properly and delivery materials in time.
Information about the availability of raw materials, human and other resources, quantity of products to produce and time to deliver product in the market will enable factory employees to schedule the production process.
Customer are the one of the most important components of the organizations. Organizations are always in process of satisfying their customers and attracting new customers with quality products and services.
The most important things organization must have to improve relationship with customers are:
Data about the purchases made by the customers help to understand like and dislikes of the customers, when they purchase what, in what quantity they purchase. In addition to this information if customer data is also available then like and dislikes of customers can be known by age-group, gender, address etc.
Customer relationship management consists of three phases: