Having a good Supply Chain Management (SCM) process is crucial for offering excellent customer service. Research from Gartner found that 83% of businesses believe that the supply chain is key to enhancing customer experience. And one of the keys for a good supply chain management (SCM) is gathering data from various areas of the business. You should then process this data using a well-organized and unified approach.
So far, we’ve seen how data is an integral part of the demand planning cycle. However, completing this task becomes complex when multiple systems store demand planning data. First, you would need to extract the data, then consolidate it. Therefore, a crucial step to take into consideration is where you store the information.
You may have acquired new facilities or expanded to new territories. You also might have different departments using different tools to house their information. It’s fair to say that your information is likely not unified in one system offering a single source of truth. But, it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with siloed or disjointed data by department, facility, and/or function.
Multiple ERPs, CRM and PLM are common in global businesses. But what do each of these tools do and what kind of information does each one provide? Here is a quick overview of them.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is an integrated business management tool that maintains business processes in real time. It organizes, collects, stores, manages, and interprets data from many business functions. From quality assurance, interactive technology, manufacturing, item masters, new development and finance, ERP solutions can house this and much more.
The ERP is the nerve center of the business. This software helps businesses keep track of raw materials, orders, cash, production capacity, purchase orders, inventory levels, and more. The demand planning process can use all the information in the ERP. This will allow you to improve the forecasting of demand and inventory management, as well as production planning.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business process that manages interactions with customers using data analysis. CRM platforms compile communication information from a range of sources, email, telephone, website, and even social media. It also stores data from the company’s sales and marketing strategies and results. Therefore, the data stored in CRM systems provide a comprehensive view of a business target audience and customer engagement.
Using CRM data effectively helps sales and marketing analyze customer behavior, preferences, and trends. This data-driven approach enables personalized marketing strategies, tailored product offerings, and enhanced customer experiences to increase both sales and customer engagement and satisfaction. It also helps the company develop demand plans based on assumed conversions and sales KPIs. This way you can gain the competitive edge needed in today’s dynamic market landscape.
In summary, a CRM serves as a comprehensive solution for a business to manage its customer relationships effectively, drive revenue, and define data-based demand planning strategies. A comprehensive CRM tool and process helps keep your ecosystem connected.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools handle the information surrounding goods as they move through the stages of product life:
- Introduction of raw materials
- Development of product
- Growth
- Maturity
- Stability
- Decline
It helps determine whether a product is worth pursuing or not. Businesses must know if a product will be marketable to consumers, and its profitability.
The information in your PLM will help define strategies, detailed activities and resource mapping. An effective PLM plan can increase productivity, eliminate waste and reduce costs. It can also minimize company risks and reduce the time it takes to get a product to market.
This also allows companies to understand when a product has reached the end of its lifecycle. As a result, it enhances innovations that will help maintain growth.
Finally, to create a data lake for your demand planning lifecycle you need to interconnect these siloed data pools. So you should consider moving to a cloud-based supply chain operations management system.
By plugging in multiple systems, you take your data from flat file to web API. In other words, you’re able to connect different apps together to sync up your information. This prevents manual processes, loss of information, and allows you to interconnect apps for modern and dynamic data gathering.
In the end, data management allows you to easily pull up information. Companies become proactive, rather than reactive to changes in your business environment. This is a crucial step on the path to becoming an adaptive enterprise.
Want to know more about Demand Planning? Check out other valuable resources:
- What is Demand Planning?
- The Demand Planning cycle
- Why is Demand Planning important?
- Roles and Responsibilities of Demand Planning
- Demand Planning Key Features
- What is a Collaboration and Demand Review?
- Responsibilities of a Demand Planner
- Sales Managers’ Role in Demand Planning
- The Power of Real-time Planning
- QAD Announces the Next Release of Digital Supply Chain Planning (DSCP)
- Harnessing Artificial Intelligence in New Era of Predictive Analytics, Demand
- Planning, Business Forecasting
- Extending Sales and Operations Planning Throughout the Supply Chain
