Supply chains and information flows are two sides of the same coin. In fact, today, when international
security is being tightened, sending information about goods before they actually leave for the
destination is considered a best practice.
Customer relationship management (CRM) has been the buzzword making the rounds these days.
In the ‘02 ETIG-IBM Business Consulting Survey, 11% of the respondents had said that they had already
implanted CRM programmes. In ‘04, 33% respondents have already done so. And over 97% of them said that
these programmes have been effective in segmenting, targetting and servicing customers better. Within
industries, 13% of the FMCG companies surveyed had already implemented CRM programmes.
But every company surveyed declared that CRM had only been ‘somewhat effective’, possibly because
of the nature of the business. Consumers are in the millions and information can come from a vast
array of sources. In contrast, each and every steel company which had implemented CRM rated it as
the programme of its choice. Paint, electrical, electronics and pharma companies surveyed are
also very satisfied with CRM. Significantly, they have large chunks of industrial or trade customers
who are handled by customer account managers, who play a key role in the success of any CRM programme.
ERP is touted as the lifeline of the company, the integrator and the one that sees all. 52% of
the respondents had already implemented ERP, and three-fourths of these had found ERP to be extremely
effective in business. In practically every industry, more companies have already implanted some ERP:
auto (64%); ancillaries (50%); durables (75%); and paints (67%). More than half of the companies which
have implemented ERP are happy with its results. That should be good news for the Rs 1,200-crore ERP
industry which is growing at over 15% a year. A renewed focus on manufacturing is visible in the fact
that 46% of the companies surveyed had a Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) programme installed,
and 75% of them are finding it to be a great help.
Today’s businesses generate a vast amount of data for every conceivable product, service, customer
and other aspects in an effort to understand the markets better. Not surprisingly, converting that
data into valuable information is big business and an investment for companies. 44% of the companies
surveyed had already implemented data warehousing (up from 32% in 2002) and mining applications, and
another 26% have plans to do so. Almost every company – over 97% of the users – found this practice
to yield good results in revealing consumer trends, patterns and potential segments.
A large numbers of paints, steel, pharma and cement companies have already some manner of data
warehousing and mining but satisfaction levels vary, mainly due to how the data is interpreted and used.
One of the options which has opened up because of the focus on costs and IT-enabled services is
electronic procurement, with all its promises to cut time and costs (including transaction costs),
transparency and speed. In ‘02, 26% of the respondents had said they already had electronic
procurement; in ‘04, this figure is 30%. Another 38% are planning to go in for electronic
procurement. 63% of the implementers have found electronic procurement to be extremely effective.
- Compiled by SANCHIT