Best Practices in Enterprise Relationship Management

Best Practices in Enterprise Relationship Management Andy Moore . 2 Overture Article: The River That Runs Through It The authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto have introduced into our lexicon a great new bumper-sticker phrase: Business is Conversation . Steve Pappas,KGain. 4 V2T2™: Model and Method to Reduce Relationship Risk Two factors increase the threat to the expected LifeTime Value (LTV) of your enterprise relationships . Jim Pflaging,Intraspect . 6 Enterprise Collaboration: The Big Payoff Business is more than just transactions. Business is about trust, relationships and delivering long-term, sustained value . Karen L.Case and Rita Lochner,IBM . 8 Customer Service: A Holistic Approach When customers contact a customer service center, they are often anxious or agitated. It is a moment of truth between the company and its customer . Mark E.Atkins,Vality . 11 The Importance of Data Quality for Effective Relationships Opening systems offers opportunities for faster product development and fulfillment and better relationships. Or does it? There are risks in exposing internal data . Alex Dayon,InStranet. 12 Going External: Content Management for Exchanging Information An important part of the bottom line for corporations is maintaining long-term, individualized relationships with their top corporate customers . Phil Lavery,OnDemand. 13 Demand Management: Where Supply and Demand Chains Converge The last several decades have seen an explosion in demand for enterprise software applications that can streamline supply chain processes and deliver “just in time” manufacturing capability . Andy Moore . 14 Ground Zero for E-Commerce The essential requirement for a global enterprise is self awareness. Every nerve ending in a successful e-enterprise is tuned to detect change and chance, and the opportunities they bring . Sponsored by Special Supplement to September 2001 Andy Moore is an editor by profession and temperament, having held senior editorial and publishing positions The River That for more than two decades. As a publication editor, Moore most recently was editor-in-chief and co-publisher of KMWorld Andy Moore (formerly ImagingWorld) Runs Through It Editor Magazine.Moore now acts as a contract editorial consultant and conference designer. As KMWorld's Specialty Publishing Editorial Director,Moore By Andy Moore, Editorial Director,KMWorld Specialty Publishing Group acts as chair for the current series of "Best Practices White Papers," overseeing editorial content,conducting market research and writing the opening essays for each of the white papers in the series. The authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto get of self-interest, earnestness and disre- have introduced into our lexicon a great gard. “What I care about, you don’t. What I new bumper-sticker phrase: “Business is cared about this morning, I no longer care Conversation.” about. But now, I DO care about...” It’s Ba- As high metaphors go, it’s a pretty good bel all over again. one. The gist of the message is that the hu- And that’s just in one dimension. As Jim ways to exchange enough information, agree man factor of two people talking is what Pflaging, CEO of Intraspect correctly points on enough terms and get ourselves heard makes the world go ’round. Steve Pappas, out, work is done not within silos or domains above the din. “There’s a common denomi- President of KGain, who wrote the essay of interest, nor is it carried out in a linear, nator that cuts across all these many pro- following this one has another way of say- orderly fashion. Work is somehow accom- cesses and people ... a river runs through it,” ing it: The “touch” that adds value to a re- plished in complex and messy webs of sales- says Intraspect’s Pflaging. And the river that lationship requires human dialog. people, engineers, marketers, support staff runs through business right now is called col- It’s comforting that the new business lit- and customers, usually talking with another laboration. Conversation. Touch. erature has come full circle, retreating from messy web of process specialists in another Regaining the Touch That’s the way it’s supposed to be, any- way. But face it, the depersonalization of the relationship between your customers and “Each time we deploy a solution, we you is deeply ingrained. We have deployed tons of expensive and complicated systems to address the Babel-problem. And each time we deploy a solution, we add yet another add yet another layer that prevents layer that prevents actual touch, actual human contact. Over time these layers have ac- cumulated, silting up the river so badly that we hardly know it’s there. actual touch, actual human contact.” The temptation is to blow up the dam, somehow undo the damage that all those systems have inflicted on our ability to touch our customers and partners. But that really wouldn’t work, would it? The volume, haste and dispersion of markets require the tech- the tyranny of “process improvement” and re- company in another time zone. How any- nology support. So, we’re stuck. turning to the cracker-barrel homespun of the thing gets done at all is one of the great mys- KGain’s Steve Pappas doesn’t see it as butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. teries of the early 21st century. an unsolvable problem. He suggest that we But the problem with the “conversation” “It’s true,” says Rian Gorey, Practice Ex- simply become more sensitive to the “touch” metaphor is that it doesn’t scale. Individu- ecutive, Knowledge & Content Management requirement, and take the steps necessary to, ally, conversations (or collaborations, or di- for IBM Global Services. “Companies have as the song says, “accentuate the positive, alogs or whatever you call them) are easy to disaggregated and focused on their core- eliminate the negative” and by all means, understand ... two parties, two sets of ex- competencies, requiring increased nimble- don’t mess with Mr. In Between. pectations, a little song, a little dance. But ness in working with buyers, suppliers, com- “We have to amplify high touch where the reality is that at any given moment, we petitors in increased volumes and intensity.” we are currently using it,” explains Pappas. are having multiple conversations with mul- But despite this Babel of biblical propor- “Wherever there’s human interaction, we tiple parties, each of whom is a moving tar- tions, we manage to chug along. We find need to amplify the quality of it.” This is ac- S2 Special Supplement to September 2001 complished, says Pappas, through cost-effec- Well, how DO people work? Usually not “How do you bring value to your suppli- tive and high-quality training of those mem- very well. You call a supplier and get his ers?” asks Pflaging, noting that the supply bers of your team who are customer-facing. voice mail. You leave a message ... “What’d chain runs in both directions. “Face it, some- At the same time, steps should taken to you think of the proposal?” Then you wait, times the value of my individual transaction “dampen the perception of coldness and and later you send an e-mail with the same just isn’t that important to them. But there is the impersonal image of technology where question. The supplier gets back to you the value in being easy to work with. There are it is being used,” adds Pappas. Systems next day, maybe, with an e-mail, and then he lots of definitions of value.” need to be better at mimicking high touch calls, “Did you get my e-mail? Here’s what So, being easy to work with ... providing by being sensitive to customer frustrations it said...” Then the reply cycle starts again. great service ... communicating freely ... with things like endless voice-mail loops Like I said, it’s a wonder anything gets knowing your customer ... isn’t this just and “all our agents are currently helping done at all. common sense?? other customers...” But there are at least two important un- “Yes! Exactly! It IS common sense!” says “There’s also an education process that derlying messages here: 1. Most commerce KGain’s Pappas enthusiastically. “It’s like, needs to take place,” says Pappas. “We need gets done over the old standbys—phone and the winner is the guy with the most keen gasp to let customers know that the technology is e-mail, and 2. Most commerce happens over of the bloody obvious! The problem is, the in place to help them, and not us.” time between two people who like each other. volume has spread out the complexity, and IBM Global Services’ Rian Gorey takes it a step further: “Customers will be expect- ing it,” he predicts. “The bar rises (for customer expectations) with every new innova- tion your competitors do.” “Get as close to your customers as you can, otherwise your competitors will, and “The naïve view is that all the put you out of business. But don’t put the burden on your customers; it is a cost of do- ing business for the company,’ says Gorey. “If you want to know what your customers value is derived from the transaction. want, Ask! But also keep innovating in ways to understand what customers WILL WANT and don’t know that they want it today.” But innovate smartly. As Gorey reminds The truth is that value accumulates us, “Companies have ignored many of the human components of making the ‘people systems’ work. ‘If you build it, they will come,’doesn’t work! What investments have over time from the relationship.” been made to increase the human capabili- ties, collaboration and interactions that make the content flow over that infrastructure? If these systems and people need to work better together and integrate, what has been done to make that happen? What human- And increasingly, it happens in a shared col- this volume dynamic has diminished that hu- capital investments have been made? The laborative environment of some kind ..

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