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Eliminating
Boundaries
By Michael Alan Hamlin
June 27, 2001
Despite the gloomy headlines, business goes on. In
fact, for many companies, it's accelerating. Yes, the downturn in
the U.S. economy has hit exports hard, the Abu Sayyaf's murderous
shenanigans are hurting tourism and investment, and the apparently
inexplicable deterioration of law & order in Metro Manila and
Cebu are causing capital (and people) flight to accelerate. But
for most, life goes on. And although the handicaps are intimidating,
companies that keep their focus on enhancing business models, expanding
relationships with profitable customers, and improving efficiency
and productivity are getting results. And those results are impressive.
We saw this last week with BayanTrade (a client), which
celebrated its first-year anniversary by announcing blazing growth,
new alliances, and new products and services. But the reason BayanTrade
was able to do these things is that buyers and sellers are investing
in a relationship with BayanTrade because it makes them better companies.
Companies that are better able to compete because they are more
efficient and productive.
This week, SAP (another client) rolls out the red carpet
for executives and IT professionals in two separate meetings with
another profit-boosting focus: Customer Relationship Management,
or CRM. There are lots of CRM solutions around, but SAP's is unique
in a couple of ways, it seems to me. First, it's had a long incubation
period, which is pretty typical for SAP.
In good German tradition, SAP (yes, it's a German company)
has been able to resist competitive pressures to bring products
quickly to market. A good many other solution providers use the
initial version of their products as a trial run, and their customers
become informal beta testers. What's worse, they have to pay for
that dubious privilege. In SAP's case, the product arrives after
it's gone through trials, revisions, and fine-tuning. At least that's
been the experience of their customers I've interviewed in the course
of our work for SAP.
So SAP's CRM is quite a bit late arriving. But was
the wait worth it? Well, that's ultimately for SAP's clients to
judge, but some are in fact now implementing the solution. Why have
they waited? Well, that's where the second competitive distinction
SAP enjoys comes in: the tight integration of its CRM solution with
SAP enterprise software. SAP says its CRM is the only one that fully
integrates with all other business processes like supply chain management
and e-procurement, providing better efficiency and productivity
in terms of responsiveness to customers.
Now, the idea behind CRM is one that we've talked about
before: a larger share of profitable customers. A better understanding
of profitable customers is supposed to provide insights into how
to strengthen relationships with them, and encourage them to spend
even more money. Mining the existing customer base for increased
business is faster and less expensive than recruiting new customers.
A number of people outside SAP have shown that this
approach to building revenues works. Among the best well known are
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, founders of the Peppers+Rogers Group.
These two consultants are authors of a number of best sellers that
demonstrate how companies can leverage existing customers to build
business by developing one-to-one relationships with them. Their
first book was One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer
at a Time. Their most recent book, reflecting the trends we saw
last week, is One to One B2B, which focuses on how suppliers connected
to buyers over electronic exchanges can boost e-commerce revenues
by better managing digital relationships.
The SAP CRM meetings, which take place tomorrow, will
feature presentations by Peppers+Rogers Group Asia managing director
Tim Tyler, and he will be illustrating the principles of one to
one CRM with case studies from Asia as well as North America and
Europe. Mr. Tyler launched Peppers+Rogers Group Asia last year,
and works most extensively in the telecommunications, utilities,
financial, and manufacturing sectors. In terms of his credibility
as a speaker on CRM, he has helped companies across the region implement
CRM solutions.
What about the meetings? You'll be happy to know that
attendance is free, but you do have to qualify. If you are a C-level
executive (CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CMO, EVP, etc), not just an aspiring
one, you'll want to attend the CEO Breakfast Briefing. This meeting
will include a tight, one-hour presentation by Mr. Tyler, and an
interactive panel discussion with senior executives of SAP clients
and other technology companies. Incidentally, I'm moderating that
session, so it'll be fun. Better, it'll be interesting. The meeting
will end before lunch, so you can still make your lunch meeting,
and have the entire afternoon for work.
If you are an aspiring C-level executive, you should
attend the afternoon sessions. In fact, you'll get more time with
Mr. Tyler. He's speaking for an hour beginning around 1:00 pm, and
again for a little over an hour beginning at 4:15 pm. Instead of
a panel, however, this meeting features three breakout sessions
on workplaces, e-commerce, and supply chain management.
So forget the gloomy headlines for a while, and focus
on something more pleasant: growing revenues and profits. See you
tomorrow.
(Mr. Hamlin is managing director of the consultancy
TeamAsia and the author of two books on Asian economies and managing
in Asia. His latest book is The New Asian Corporation: Managing
for the Future in Post-Crisis Asia. His e-mail address is mahamlin@teamasia.com.ph.)
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