Business Relationship Management at Coles Supermarkets - Case Study Example

Running Head: Relationship Management Name Course Lecturer Date Executive summery The relationship management concept has lead to a paradigm change in the management of relationships in organisations. There are various impacts of the strategies for relationship management such as loyalty and customer satisfaction. Using Cole’s supermarkets as a case study, this report reviews relationship management strategies that a firm or an organization can apply to improve its business operations and management. The report provides a systematic evaluation of relationship management strategies that Coles supermarket might employ to improve their relationships with the suppliers and customers. Table of Contents Table of Contents iii 1.0 Introduction 1 1.1 Cole’s Supermarkets 1 2.0 Network Surrounding the Company 2 3.0 Relationship Management Strategies 4 4.0 Conclusion 7 5.0 References 9 Business Relationship Management 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Cole’s Supermarkets This company operates a chain of supermarkets and retail chains in Australia. It is the second largest retail chain in Australia just behind the Woolworths limited. Among the supplies that this company sells are office supplies, school supplies, stocking stationary, computer software and hardware as well as office furniture. It operates a series of discount departmental stores. It offers and sells wide range of goods, services in its chain of retail supermarkets and stores. The wide range of services for its retail industry includes merchandising, product rollout, stock counts, mystery shopping, and stock refill among others. Cole’s supermarket acquires these services and products from upstream business suppliers. The com also has its own branded products in addition to the acquired products and services. It provides these services and products to the downstream business customers. Ninety percent of the customers are end users or the final consumers of the products. Some of the company suppliers are coca cola, Heinz, VB, Greanseas, Liquor land, First Choice, Vintage Cellars, county choice group, Aussie meat and others. The straight rebuy products are such as liquor, foodstuffs, clothing and stationery. The modified rebuy products and services are such as furniture, cosmetics and home appliances products. On the other hand, the new task products and services are such as sales services. 2.0 Network Surrounding the Company There is a direct contact with customers; this is one of the important information flows in this company. The company gets data and information from the customers. This information helps it to provide products and services that the customers need and want. The information is very useful to the company because it is able to provide improved customer service, up sell and cross sell more effectively. This is crucial in retaining current customers and in understanding the needs of the customers. The company has a well-established online shopping that provides unique experience to its customers. The mass customization involves tools such as email organizers, help desk software and different enterprise applications. This information flow enables the company to have a central position of managing customer information and customizing services and products (Kumar, 2010). This is because it stores and accesses the customer information from a single location that is supported by variety of customer information. It therefore makes it easy to access and make decisions. The company a wide view of its customers in terms of knowledge, information and general market wants. It is therefore able to integrate its existing applications to consolidate all its business information (Hutt & Speh, 2013). Supplier chain connection is another information flow in this company. Through this information flow, the company integrates its key business process from the final consumers through its original suppliers that provide it with services, products and information that add value for its customers as well as other stakeholders (Payne & Frow, 2013). This is essential in developing a structure for building and maintaining relationships with its suppliers. Importantly, the company builds a business relationship based on shared rewards, shared risk, openness and mutual trust. It results in greater business performance for company and its suppliers. Cole’s supermarket does not manufacture its own products and therefore it sources them from suppliers. Some of the company suppliers are coca cola, Heinz, VB, Greanseas, Liquor land, First Choice, Vintage Cellars, county choice group, Aussie meat and others. It adds value to some of the products while it sells other directly to customers without adding value. In addition, Coles supermarkets packages some products in its own name, it brands the products to its own name. It pays special attention to the quality of the products and the ability o the suppliers to provide the products consistently and with availability (Vitale et al., 2010). Mapping supplier and customer relationships for immediate action are evident in the organization. The information flow between the company and its customers and suppliers is efficient and does not contain errors (Dwyer & Tanner, 2008). The company avoids information gaps that may make it to lose business opportunities. Through the company's integrated information management as well as analytical applications, it will be able to leverage its investments in operating systems and other applications by adding intelligence in their management. Furthermore, the supplier intelligence will assist the company to turn its existing purchasing data to meaningful information not only for purchasing but also for buying trends of the customers. This will help the company to navigate future trends thereby providing competitive advantage and long-term strategy for streamlining its operations. It will deliver information to the appropriate people thereby attaining effectiveness in communication and reaching to the suppliers and customers (Ngai et al., 2009). Gradual increment of information sharing gives rise to a positive increase in the local and regional performance of the supply. By developing its own data collection and processing of information, the company beats competition and develops competitive advantage over its competitors. 3.0 Relationship Management Strategies Relationship management is maintaining a continuous engagement level between an organization and the suppliers, customers and other audiences. It also involves sharing, consolidating and leveraging information across the company in order to optimize communication as well as facilitate transactional interactions. The strategies help to create companywide understanding of the customer’s values and needs hence increasing customer satisfaction, profitability as well as build loyalty (Manuj & Mentzer, 2008). They also help the company to maintain a positive communication with its suppliers and other business partners. It takes many forms such as organization and its customers (customer relationship management) and business to other businesses (business relationship management). It creates a partnership between the audiences and the organization (Richards & Jones, 2008). It makes audiences feel that the organization responds to their needs and therefore continue using the products, information and services provided by an organization. It also enables to maintain a good level of communication with the audiences and therefore allows the organization to identify sources of potential problems before they crop up. Once an organization implements relationship management strategies, they modify their mission and vision in order to use customer-bonding capabilities, develops competitive advantage and learning leadership. These strategies will help the company to seek additional sales from its existing customers as well as improve relationship with its suppliers (Woodside, 2010). They are also best practices that will enable the company to focus on the enablers of end user relationship. One of the strategies is processes; this is collaborating with the customers by jointly planning and creating new value differentiated by the customer class. The company will also be in a position to collaborate with the intermediaries and other suppliers to achieve value that the end users or customers want. Processes will involve embedding business rules in to the customer and supplier databases so that supplier and customer behaviours trigger appropriate actions. The above are fresh business processes and they involve both rethinking how the processes appear to the suppliers and customers and reengineering the processes to be more customers centric. This will ensure that that the supplier supply products that satisfy customer needs and wants while Cole’s supermarket make available quality services and products that meet wants and needs of their customers. A critical aspect of this strategy is identifying the strategic processes taking place between the customers and the company. The company will need business strategy. This commences by articulating or reviewing the company's vision particularly relating to customer relations as (Brennan, Canning & McDowell (2014) asserts. The next step is reviewing the competitive environment and augmenting them by contemporary approaches. While business strategy is essential, customer strategy is equally important. It will involve evaluating the potential and existing customer base and identifying the most appropriate forms of segmentation. Individualised market is better than mass market especially in retailing business. Exploiting other opportunities presented by the strategies such as e-commerce opportunities are fundamental can enable deeper understanding and establishment of segmentation at affordable costs (Ford et al., 2011). Generally, this will provide the company with clearer platform on which to develop, establish and implement the relationship management strategies. The company's supplier portal enables support effective working relationship between the company and its suppliers thereby providing better communication and coordination (Buttle, 2009). This drives efficiency in the supply chain. The portal is crucial in providing information to the suppliers. Operating within the current business model requires real time connectivity to an organisations network of trading partners. This is a critical need for business-to-business (B2B) and it is crucial to the integration of interactions between organisations, their suppliers and customers. B2B capabilities enables and allows and organization to integrate its systems with those of its suppliers, customers and other partners (Ellis, 2011). It therefore makes it easy for data and document exchange with the trading partners. It boosts efficiency and productivity across the supply chain of the organization. As such, the strategies will help the company to improve their performance regularly as well as identity opportunities for improvement for its value chain business. The company will maintain continuous improvement because of using the strategies. Technology is another relationship management strategy. Technology will help in integrating customer’s variety of touch points with the company (Biermans, 2010). It will help the company to develop a single real time view of its customers according to segmentation or any other classification in place. As such, it will create the ability to sell its products when their customers are ready to buy and knowing what their customers want. It will offer what the customers want as well as how to appeal to the different customers. Technology will also help the people around the company to create a self-serve capability and therefore enable them to control business processes and activities effectively. The customers and employees will be able to interact with technology easily and communication will be real time. In essence, technology will present the company with endless possibilities (Nguyen et al., 2007). 4.0 Conclusion Relationship management is one of the crucial roles of the management of any organization. The ever-increasing competitiveness of organisations adds to the necessity of relationship management. As such, putting in place strategies for improving relationship management is essential. The report has evaluated various strategies for managing relationships in the organization. Application of the strategies by any organisation will improve its performance tremendously (Egan, 2011). The report analyses these strategies using Cole’s supermarkets to explain the strategies. Triumphant progression will result to enhanced relationship worth; reflect on the customers trust perceptions of the company products and services. Customers will trust the company's ability as well as willingness to meet their needs and satisfy them as well. Consequently, customers will trust the company and commit to the relationship. This is the case with the suppliers and other stakeholders in the company. There will be steady supply of services and products. This report confirms the need for relationship management strategies to enhance the quality of relationships as well as long-term loyalty of the company brand. 5.0 References Biermans, W.G. (2010). Business to business marketing: A value-driven approach. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Bingham, F., Gomes, R. & Knowles, P. (2008). Business marketing (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Brennan, R., Canning, L.& McDowell, R. (2014). Business-to business marketing (3rd ed.). London: Sage. Buttle, F. (2009). Customer relationship management: concepts and technologies. Routledge. Donaldson, B. & O'Toole, T. (2007). 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