Value Chain Category

Relationship Management Systems:  The Customer Relationship Management Systems Workshop helps participants improve their understanding of advanced CRM programs.  CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer base, whether it is service or sales related. Computerization has changed the way organizations are approaching their day to day CRM strategies because it has also changed consumer buying behavior. With each new advance in technology, much more of the relationship is being managed electronically.

Building Customer Alliances:  The Building Customer Alliances Workshop first investigates the attributes of an alliance so participants can determine whether their organization's current customer relationships are indeed alliances or some other type of relationship.  Best practices in the course are presented in the context of a Customer Alliance Program that participants can take back and implement at their organization. Through the Customer Alliance Program, an organization can maintain its focus on existing customer alliances while simultaneously creating new customer alliances through innovative product and service offerings.

Alliance Management: The Alliance Management Workshop reviews Alliance Management.  Supply Alliances Management focuses on all the elements of relationship management, including trust building, communications, joint efforts, planning and fostering inter-dependency to achieve competitive advantage.  Major gains in cost, quality, time to market and optimization of supplier technology are achieved through Alliance Management.  Lower total costs are the common result of alliance relationships.

Management of Chains:  The Management of Chains workshop covers best practices in Supply Chain Management.  Essentially, the supply chain extends from the ultimate customer back to Mother Earth.  In the course, the chain is viewed as a whole, a single entity rather than fragmented groups, each performing its own function.  Money enters the supply chain only when the ultimate customer buys a product or service.  Transactions within the supply chain simply allocate the ultimate customer’s money among the members of the chain. A firm's supply system includes all internal functions plus external suppliers involved in the identification and fulfillment of needs for materials, equipment and services in an optimized fashion. 

Supplier Development: The Supplier Development Workshop reviews best practices in supplier development.  Supplier development plays the key role in helping suppliers achieve and maintain world-class status.  Supplier development can be defined as any activity that a buying firm undertakes to improve a supplier's performance and capabilities to meet the buying firm's supply needs.  Buying firms use a variety of activities to improve supplier performance including: assessing suppliers' operations, providing incentives to improve performance, instigating competition among suppliers, and working directly with suppliers, either through training or activities.

Supplier Resource Management Systems:  The Supplier Resource Management Systems Workshop addresses how many organizations are taking a more holistic approach to procurement by establishing Supplier Resource Management (SRM) systems.  SRM systems help organizations manage many aspects of supplier management, including: negotiation, assessment of suppliers, paying for orders, placing orders, approving requests, connecting with suppliers, and more.