Life is full of surprises. And, you will be pleasantly surprised to know that a CRM solution can be used to manage vendors. Does that sounds unbelievable? Trust me it is not. After a little thought, you will understand the entire logic. You just need to start thinking of your vendors as your clients and replace customer with vendors to have a personalized vendor relationship management solution.
What Are the Benefits?
If you have ever accessed a CRM Software’s interface, you would relate how replacing customer information with vendor information is a useful solution to manage multiple vendors.
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Vendor Contact: A big retail business is dealing with multiple vendors and it is practically impossible to remember each vendor’s geographical restrictions and expertise. A CRM Software can be used to record vendors’ contact information just like a customers’ details. This can include addresses, contacts, type of vendor contact, etc.
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Vendor Communication: A CRM Software can be used to record interactions with vendors. These can be used while renewing contracts or levying penalties. For example, a vendor might not be performing well and has probably received a lot of warnings, a CRM solution will record this kind of information which you can later view.
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Vendor Management: This is a broad term which includes multiple things. A simple example is to think of a situation where multiple vendors are selling the same product in the same area. A CRM can help you divide sales equally between vendors so that the business is equally distributed.
Why Is It Important?
An organization employs a lot of people to manage vendors or business partners. Having a solution where all required vendor information and details are in place helps in a lot of different ways.
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Global: An organization might be having multiple centers across the world and having a common database with vendor information that can accessed globally can help in making seamless interaction with vendors and contacting them with the right opportunities.
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Independent: Having a vendor management process in place will also keep your vendor relationship healthy. For example, an employee leaves the organization, so the vendor database will have a track of everything needed to build a good relationship with your vendor.
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Automatic: A CRM solution has a lot of automation features that are beneficial in terms of customer management, these features can also help in managing vendor stock updates, sending notifications to vendors, etc.
It is a win-win situation for businesses to use a CRM solution that your employees are familiar with for both customer and vendor management. It should not take a lot of effort for businesses to orient their employees in using a CRM solution that works wonders for both the aspects of your business.
All the steps written here should be followed by you for best results. If you have not understood any point discussed in this post, ask dynamics CRM development consultants in comments.
