ENTERPRISE BUSINESS SYSTEMS

The three enterprise-wide operations Customer Relationships, Resource Planning, and Supply Chain require a unique focus for each and, thus, a unique system to support it, but they all share one common goal: to get the entire organization to line up and head in the same direction.
Today, customers are faced with more choices. They have high bargaining power. The e-commerce allows information from suppliers to be readily available. With the click of a mouse they can switch companies. Consequently, customer relationship has become a company’s very valuable asset. It is more important than the company’s plant, websites, and even employees. Strategies should address how to find and maintain the most profitable customers.
Managing the full range of the customer relationship involves two related objectives: one, to provide the organization and all of its customer-facing employees with a single, complete view of every customer at every touch-point and across all channels; and, two, to provide the customer with a single, complete view of the company and its extended channels.
Customer Relationships Management (CRM) software allow professionals to store and review past customer experience and data that will guide them in future dealings. Information can be gathered through phone, fax, e-mail, kiosks, retail stores and personal contact. CRM softwares store data in a common customer database that integrates all information and makes it available throughout the company via internet, intranet, or other network links for sales, marketing and other CRM applications.
There are three phases of CRM: acquisition – adding new customers by doing a superior job of contact management, enhancement – help keep customers happy by supporting superior service from a responsive networked team of sales and service specialists and business partners, and retention – rewarding the most profitable customers.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the technological backbone of e-business, an enterprise-wide transaction framework with links into sales order processing, inventory management and control, production and distribution planning, and finance.
ERP gives a company an integrated real-time view of its core business processes. ERP systems track business resources (such as cash, raw materials, and production capacity), and the status commitments made by the business (such as customer orders, purchase orders, and employee payroll), no matter which department has entered the data into the system. But what are the benefits of ERP? There are many including quality and efficiency, decreased costs, decision support, and enterprise agility.
Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a cross-functional inter-enterprise system that uses information technology to help support and manage the links between some of a company’s key business processes and those of its suppliers, customers, and business partners. The goal of SCM is to create a fast, efficient, and low-cost network of business relationships, or supply chain, to get a company’s products from concept to market.

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These types of management systems are not new for me. In fact I encounter these every time I make my grocery purchase in SM North Edsa as I swipe my SM Advantage Card. It contains my name, and most probably they list the things I buy and the frequency and times of my visit. My Healthy Options Loyalty Card is another proof that these systems are benefiting both the firm and me. As a loyal customer I get 10% rebate or discount and that is a great incentive for me to go back into their store and buy more of their products.
Information Technology has done tremendous benefits to managing suppliers, customers and monitoring the day-to-day activities of the firm. It presents great costs, challenge and benefits. As a word of caution any IT project requires initial planning and evaluation in order to asses whether these systems would profit the firm.