Reference no: EM132272232

Much has been written about the need for, and implementation of, enterprise-level systems for the management of customer, suppliers, and partners as part of an effective business strategy. (see p. 22-25 in Peppard & Ward) These discussions tend to take the traditional viewpoint of an organization that has those systems. As industrial engineers, we need to potentially look at a much broader systems perspective. We have to recognize that our customers view us as a supplier, so our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system overlaps their Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems. Our suppliers see us as their customer, so our SCM system overlaps their CRM systems. Given this broader perspective, CRM and SCM systems would benefit from being highly integrated, and might mature in the future to actually be the same systems. CRM and SCM might then be considered two sides of the same coin rather than as separate enterprise systems.

(If you have not had much exposure to enterprise systems, feel free to conduct some quick web-based research into CRM and SCM systems in order to become more familiar with the basic functionality of these kinds of enterprise systems. For this purpose of this discussion thread, you do not need to cite those sources in your response.)

Discuss your thoughts on what this possible evolution could mean in terms of integrating these two enterprise systems capabilities in the future. What would such an evolution mean in terms of the functionality of those two enterprise systems as they today exist? What aspects of their functionality might seem to offer the best integration points? What might it mean to an organization to have an enterprise system that would be used to manage both customers and suppliers rather than have those two types of relationships managed in different systems? What might be the major advantages or disadvantages of such an evolution?

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