Customer Relationship Management Discussion
Chapter 11: Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management
- What is the definition of customer relationship management? Why is CRM so important to any organization?
- What are some of the functions of analytical CRM?
- Why are companies so interested in e-CRM applications?
- What is a supply chain? Describe the three segments of a supply chain.
What is a supply chain? Describe the three segments of a supply chain.
Supply chain is the flow of materials, information, money, and services across organizations and businesses. Supply chain is a system in which people, information, organizations, etc. are involved in supplying a product or service to a consumer. The three segments of a supply chain are upstream, internal, and downstream.
Ihab El Zein
Upstream: Suppliers deliver the goods and services to the company that needs to produce products/services.
Internal: Packaging, assembly, and manufacturing
Downstream: distribution part of supply chain
There are also flows of supply chain; financial flow, material flow, and information flow:
Financial flow: money transfers, payments, and credit card information
Material flow: physical products, raw materials, and supplies
Information flow: data related to demand, shipments, orders, returns, and schedules
Anthony Arcos-Duque
Discussion #12
1.What is a supply chain? Describe the three segments of a supply chain.
A supply chain is the flow of materials, information, money, and services from raw material suppliers, through factories and warehouses to the customers. It consists of 5 basic components which are planning, sourcing, making, delivering, and returning. In planning, a set of metrics are established to help measure an organizations supply chain to make sure it is efficient and delivers high quality and value to its customers for the lowest costs. In sourcing, the organization chooses suppliers that will deliver their raw materials for them to make their goods and services, this is also known as upstream. In making, the internal component takes place, which is one of the three segments. In delivering, it’s where the organization finds others to deliever their products for their customers, also known as downstream. And in return, itn allows for customers to return the products that they either didn’t like or find suit them.The three segments of the supply chain are upstream, downstream, and internal. In the upstream process, the sourcing and procurement from extrenal suppliers occurs. Meaning that this is where all the raw material and processes for managing the relationships with the suppliers are made. The internal process consists of packaging, assembly, or manufacturing in the warehouses. Such as with Amazon, their warehouses are all just packaging, assorting, and loading onto the trucks to be taken in the downstream process. The downstream process is where the distribution takes place, usually by extrenal distributors such as UPS, FedEx, Amazon, etc. to be delivered to their customers.