Thomas Cutler asked:
According to manufacturing journalist, Thomas R. Cutler, author of The Machinist article titled, “A paradigm shift in Technology†describes how vendor relationship management has replaced and extended traditional customer relationship management. VRM, or vendor relationship management, is the reciprocal of CRM (Customer Relationship Management). VRM provides industrial, distribution, and a wide range of enterprises with the technology and tools for efficient vendor interactions that benefit both parties.â€
ProjectVRM is headquartered at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and headed by Doc Searls, a fellow with the Center. The group has identified certain principles and encouraged input and participation in the development of the VRM concept.
The principles of VRM identified by ProjectVRM are:
1. User-centricity
2. Reduce, reuse, recycle (don’t
reinvent the wheel)
3. Reciprocity & everybody wins
4. Leverage network effects
5. Relationships are more than
transactions
6. Solve real-world problems
“Until recently, CRM systems took on the full burden of relating with customers,†explained Larry Caretsky, president of Commence Corporation. “VRM technology provides complex enterprises with the means to take some of the CRM functionality and to help make markets work for both the vendors and customers. The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between demand and supply by providing new and better ways to relate to each other.â€
In a true business processing model, VRM improves markets by providing mechanisms that equip full-service organizations to be independent leaders rather than lagging participants in relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace. VRM works because vendors have reason to value it, and industrial and distribution organizations have reasons to invest the necessary time, effort, and attention to implementation.
Commence (www.commence.com) offers industrial companies complete VRM to select the solutions and platform that best meets the business requirements of manufacturers and distributors. The comprehensive VRM Industrial application suite is available for use on premise or on-demand as a hosted service. Industrial leaders often build departmental VRM solutions with the award winning Commence Industrial CRM Framework. These choices are why so many industrial companies choose Commence as the solution for managing customer relationships. All Commence Industrial solutions support mobile or wireless connectivity and integration to back-office accounting and ERP systems.
The article may be read in its entirety at http://trcutlerinc.com/August%2007%20The%20Machinist%20VRM.pdf,