Running Head: Essay

Supply Chain and CRM

Motaz Al-Saqqa

Ontario Learn

Canadore College

July 30th 2020

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Table of Contents

Part A...............................................................................................................................................3

Part B...............................................................................................................................................4

Part C...............................................................................................................................................5

Part D...............................................................................................................................................7

References........................................................................................................................................8
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Part A

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a combination of people processes, and

technology that seeks to understand a company’s customers (Chen & Popovich, 2003). CRM

programs are established to help manage three things: a company’s customers, sales force, and

customer service level. CRM software can make this crucial task easier and possible for

companies.

Nimble is a software that can help organizations with customer prospecting. When a company’s

sales rep is customer prospecting, most of their time is spent in finding correct contact

information and then aligning those contacts commendably. Monday.com is a website that

allows companies to customize and create their own dashboards and has many other features that

extend help when it comes to the customers’ department. It also allows the organization to share

the dashboards with their clients.

For the area concerning with salesforce, Salesforce sales cloud is an app that focuses on bringing

more and more sales opportunities. The CRM tool implanted in the Sales Cloud software is a

customer contact database and it integrates social media into the software through a mobile app.

Zoho CRM is a similar software but it also has tools that make the work of salesforce fun and

smart. Nutshell is a software that comes with a variety of customization techniques, has

automatic features and reporting options which are very useful for managers that need to report

the sales team. It’s affordable and simple.

Softwares for customer service levels are plenty. Apptivo comes with all kinds of features, fit for

any use, and also provides a platform that has financial and supply chain functions and also helps

in managing contacts and sales. Insightly is another app that helps with CRM and has functions

that will be of interest to all customer service teams. It has automation properties and
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customization options like special setup, repeating tasks and processes, and managing sales and

customers alike along with a better-streamlined way to handle projects.

Part B

A bank can apply the following four customer value measurements to their international

customer call center services to increase their customers and optimize the customer experience.

1. Queuing Management is an approach that the bank can use for developing more efficient

and effective systems to attract more customers which will reduce customer waiting times

and eliminate long lines resulting in customer satisfaction. There are different types of

queue management systems that can be implemented in the bank such as the ticket based

management that allows every visitor to take a numbered ticket and wait until that

number appears on the display screen which prevents long queues, digital management

that allows customers to take care of the registration information themselves by entering

data, and human management that gives every customer the access to a personal server

who guides them to every step of the process.

2. Facilitating platforms can be developed by banks with the incentive of providing their

customers with a platform that can be accessed using the web or an app where existing

and potential customers can interact with each other and also enables providers to

communicate with their customers directly.

3. Banks should provide global call center services by identifying their potential global

customers and meet their customers’ expectations with personalized products and

services, low fees, and exceptional customer services in countries all around the world

even if they don’t operate a branch over there. They should consider setting up a global
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virtual contact center to pay attention to customers globally ensuring worldwide

consistency in their offerings despite language barriers and differences in time zones.

4. Quality in servicing customers is a very important issue for banks and after providing

customers with several services, banks usually demand feedbacks to ensure whether they

were able to serve them as per their requirements and expectations.

Part C

Tang (2006a), as cited in Musa (2012), defined Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) as the

management of supply chain risk through coordination or collaboration among the supply chain

partners for achieving profitability and continuity. Several strategies can be exerted by supply

chain managers to identify, assess, and mitigate risk for maximum supply chain protection as

described below, but there are several drawbacks.

1. Safety stock is the extra stock maintained by supply chain managers in addition to what is

operationally necessary to mitigate the risk of stock-outs due to demand and supply

uncertainties. If they fear any disruption in the supply chain, they engage in forward

buying and purchase more than their usual amount to increase safety stocks and avoid

stock-outs to keep customer satisfaction levels high. However, if the company is large

and huge amounts of inventory are maintained, it becomes costly for the company as

increased inventory significantly increases the costs of inventory. Holding excess

inventory can also result in stock obsolescence, affecting the demand for inventory, since

it increases the company’s working capital by ideally sitting and generating no revenue,

resulting in inefficient working capital management.

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2. Manufacturers often identify acceptable backup suppliers and logistic services and create

agreements with them in advance to guard against supply shortages, i.e. a delay in the

level of production if the supplier doesn’t deliver inventory on time or an unexpected

increase in demand. However, it can take a long time for manufacturers to build a

trustworthy relationship with their backup suppliers and if the suppliers are overseas,

quality problems might also arise since manufacturers won’t be able to identify any

problems until after the order arrives.

3. Companies should diversify their supply base by engaging with several suppliers at the

same time, preferably in different locations to protect themselves against supply

disruptions as well as geographic disruptions. However, this can reduce economies of

scale and significantly increase fiscal costs, and thus needs to be balanced with the value

of the disruption impact. Manufacturers are also expected to develop strategies for

maintaining consistent quality between several suppliers so that the quality of their

products is not compromised.

4. Companies need to develop a formal risk management program to identify potential

disruptions in the supply chain such as natural disasters, theft, delay in supplies, etc. and

take appropriate responses to minimize them so that even a small disruption doesn’t harm

their customer relationships. However, this process involves complex calculations and it

is very difficult to implement. If the program is not developed properly, the organization

can face significant losses.

5. Supply chain IT systems can be utilized by companies to efficiently handle the flow of

goods from suppliers to manufacturers through the collection and sharing of appropriate

information with supply chain partners which can minimize inventory as well as
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inventory costs. However, if the system implementation isn’t done properly, system

outages might result in supply chain problems such as significant delays in deliveries and

missed deadlines which can result in huge costs.

Part D

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a wireless technology that works on radio frequency,

i.e. it is the use of radio waves to read and capture information stored on a tag attached to an

object, and provides a unique identifier for an object while tracking and tracing its movement

without any human intervention. This technology can be used in supply chain management

processes and promises significant benefits since its adoption results in accurate information

about inventories and eliminates inaccuracies that arise from human error, while also avoiding

unnecessary costs and mistakes such as sending an item to a wrong destination at the wrong time

(Sabbaghi & Vaidyanathan, 2008).

Companies all around the world such as Adidas, Inditex, BJC HealthCare, Walmart, and Levi

Strauss & Co. have successfully been implementing the RFID technology in their supply chain

management process. RFID is regarded as a promising technology for optimizing supply chain

processes since it improves manufacturing and retail operations from forecasting inventory

demand to planning, managing, and distributing (Ustundag & Tanyas, 2009).

BJC HealthCare has implemented the RFID system for inventory management and was

recognized for Innovation in Supply Chain Management in 2015 when it achieved incredible

results during the first year pilot of BJC SupplyPlus End-to-End Real-time Supply Chain

Visibility (RFID drives $68 Million Expected Savings at Hospital, 2020). This technology is

used by BJC HealthCare in their daily operations resulting in several benefits to the industry’s

supply chain by using electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags that are
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attached to healthcare supplies completely transforming the way that suppliers, distributors, and

healthcare providers work together to cut down healthcare costs in an integrated and transparent

manner (BJC HealthCare - Supply Chain Best Practices, 2020). Moreover, with RFID inventory

management techniques like smart cabinets, the hospital can have full visibility into their

inventory and know how much they have to order and when which reduces their amount of

inventory on hand.

The implementation of RFID technology by BJC HealthCare has resulted in several customer

value benefits such as improved patient safety and increased patient care time. With RFID, the

hospital can track a large number of surgical tools and medicinal stock supplies as well as their

validity dates while also using RFID on their patients to keep track of their health records,

through which it is easy for them to retrieve information about their patients and understand their

conditions faster in case of an emergency (Kumar, 2020).

References

1. Supply Chain Best Practices. 2020. BJC Healthcare - Supply Chain Best Practices.

[online] Available at: <https://www.bestsupplychainpractices.com/2018/05/bjc-

healthcare-2/> [Accessed 17 July 2020].

2. Musa, S. N. (2012). Supply chain risk management: identification, evaluation and

mitigation techniques (Doctoral dissertation, Linköping University Electronic Press).

3. Ustundag, A., & Tanyas, M. (2009). The impacts of radio frequency identification

(RFID) technology on supply chain costs. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and

Transportation Review, 45(1), 29-38.

4. Sabbaghi, A., & Vaidyanathan, G. (2008). Effectiveness and efficiency of RFID

technology in supply chain management: strategic values and challenges. Journal of

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theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, 3(2), 71-81.

5. Chen, I. J., & Popovich, K. (2003). Understanding customer relationship management

(CRM). Business process management journal.

6. eChain Technology. 2020. RFID Drives $68 Million Expected Savings At Hospital.

[online] Available at: <https://echaintechnology.com/rfid-drives-68-million-expected-

savings-at-hospital/> [Accessed 17 July 2020].

7. Kumar, A., 2020. 5 Big Brands That Uses RFID Technology In Business Smartly - Asset

Infinity. [online] Asset Infinity Blog. Available at:

<https://www.assetinfinity.com/blog/big-brands-uses-rfid-technology> [Accessed 17 July

2020].