"The client… is the only one capable of turning our financial statements in blue"
The concept of Customer-Centered Logistics is born from the CRM approach in channel logistics management. We could affirm that it is a philosophy that places the customer at the center of the business, reorienting the channel management model towards the development of new supplier-customer relationships, with mutual benefit in value.
To achieve this objective, suppliers and customers must work as a team, as links in the same supply chain; sharing information and developing value objectives towards the next link in the chain: the client's client.
It is more of a strategy than a process, as it is designed to understand and anticipate the needs of current and potential customers of the next two elements in the chain; systematizing both applications, channel management and CRM, together make this possible.
CRM, on the one hand, is not just a word that is fashionable and it is not new, what is new is to relate it to channel management and information technology (IT); which allows us to return, in this new century, to the philosophy of the little corner shop.
There is a misconception that still prevails in the minds of many managers; consider that CRM is just a software that would allow them to achieve a more intimate and personal relationship with their clients; We must then convince them that CRM is not just about implementing new technologies in company processes; even more so, customer-centric logistics is a NEW WAY of doing things, a new way to do business, managing value for the customer from the supplier-customer relationship, in the supply chain to which both companies belong. Therefore, before investing money in IT we must be very sure of: where we are, where we want to go, and how we want to do it; otherwise, we will be forced into activities that could possibly only lead us to other results.
It is then about developing skills for the design of new value creation and management relationships between supplier companies and clients of the same chain; It is also a different and joint role for logistics and marketing in decision-making for the management of value to the company. Finally, it is also about logistics and marketing management (Logimarket), using the Supply Chain as a new business model.
We believe that this is only one of the first forms of value management from these disciplines, the same ones that will redefine the management of companies for this new century where competition is no longer between companies, but between the chains to which our companies belong. Business.
