SRM is about building value

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 16:45:33 +0100

In a recent Linux Journal piece called Turning the world I-side out Doc Searls wraps out a problem with which PAOGA is intimately familiar. CRM is all about the vendor:

All the identities in our wallets and purses, from social security numbers to credit card numbers to library and museum memberships, are given to us by organizations. More importantly, they represent "customer relationship management" (CRM) systems that at best respect a tiny fraction of who we are and what we might bring to a "relationship". What CRM systems call a "relationship" is so confined, so minimal, so impoverished and so incomplete that it insults the word.

The key to understanding our long term mission with PAOGAperson is seeing how far beyond these identities we can go. I hinted at this with the "identity is not just for christmas" piece last week.

To recap: I see my Amazon purchasing history as part of my lifetime identity. Same for things I bought at other online stores (and offline but that's another post). At the moment all this information that I am co-creating lives independent lives, beyond my reach, on the many different service I use (and have used in the past but use no longer).

The best I can hope is that, through the magic of CRM maybe they improve their purchasing suggestions to me. But in reality this is unlikely and most CRM delivers little value to either party because it is inconsistently applied and using data which is out-of-date. This problem is compounded by the hostility I feel towards companies that hold my data prisoner.

It seems to me that, in this respect, CRM plays out much like the Napster argument. I know my data has value because companies are buying and selling it for one reason or another. But they're not buying it from me so I don't get the value of the information, someone else does. That's wrong.

As well as being wrong it's very inefficient because I am willing to tell companies that are prepared to invest in our relationship much more than they can find out about me from Equifax or Experian.

Doc again:

On the latest Gillmor Gang, Mike Vizard called it "VRM", for Vendor Relationship Management. Whatever we call it, we need to equip it on our side: the customer side, the citizen side, the member side. "Vendor" may not be a broad enough label to include government agencies, public radio stations, museums and the other noncommercial organizations we relate with, but it applies to the place to where we need the most help — in the marketplace.

VRM needs to do more than contain the virtual equivalent of credit and membership cards. It needs to contain (or hook into) our transaction histories, our reputations, our preferences, our intentions. A few months ago in Linux Journal I wrote about "The Intention Economy" that will grow from equipping sellers to meet customer demand after customer minds are made up and they're ready to buy — a territory still sorely lacking in existence.

At PAOGA we call it Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) but it amounts to the same thing. This isn't user centric, it's the user in control, the user at the centre of their relationship with their trusted suppliers.

I think Doc has really got it when he says:

No matter how "user centric" systems may get on the vendor's side, we need a system, or set of systems, on the individual's side, that is at least as powerful — that supports and enables the full measure of independence, freedom and liberty. And as long as we lack that system, we will only have partial solutions to a larger problem, and partial steps toward the last stage of the personal computing revolution.

The answer is inside-out. It's going from the individual out to the marketplace. Individuals needs to be in charge of their independence, their freedom, their liberty, their assets, their choices, their relationships. They will drive market growth in businesses that appreciate how much more can come from independent customers than from dependent ones.

This is one of the reasons I am so passionate about what PAOGA is doing. Whether it's us who succeeds here or not, we're trying to change the world in a way that will benefit everyone. Even those people in companies who may be thinking this isn't for them because hell they're someones customer: the chief executive of Vodaphone still has a gas supplier, still buys his shopping at Sainsburies, etc...

We're all the customer in one context or another!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on srm

SRM is about building value