VRM –
a new way of looking at relationships
a new way of looking at relationships
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| VRM – a new way of looking at relationships |
Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is the reciprocal of CRM. VRM in this context describes an emerging, progressive school of thought, technology, tools and services that help customers to manage relationships with vendors. VRM tools and services are still very much in their infancy, as is the concept of VRM.
VRM seeks to address the imbalance of power when it comes to customer and vendor relationships. Traditionally, vendors collect and hold information about a customer, and use it to get the most out of their relationship with the customer. For many vendors, “get the most out of the customer relationship” translates to making the most revenue for the lowest cost from a particular customer or group of customers. VRM notes that customers can be far better custodians of data that is very useful to vendors.
For example, Amazon.com collects data about a customer’s purchasing and browsing history, and makes recommendations based on that history. However, the customer possesses information that Amazon.com doesn’t: e.g. the customer knows which books were purchased as gifts and therefore are not indicative of personal preferences.
The goal of VRM, however, is not to make sure that vendors have access to this information, instead it is to give customers the power over the information that is shared with vendors. Traditional CRM locks that data into a single relationship, while VRM seeks to give the customer the power to share pertinent data with vendors as he sees fit. These relationships can be controlled by the customer as opposed to by the vendor.
VRM is a dynamic way of looking at customer-vendor relationships. Although the terms and tools may be new, the principles and the frustration with current practices are not.
For more information on VRM, visit the Project VRM wiki at the following webpage http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page, read the blog for the project at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vrm/ or visit VRM Hub at www.vrmhub.net or VRM Labs at www.vrmlabs.net.
VRM seeks to address the imbalance of power when it comes to customer and vendor relationships. Traditionally, vendors collect and hold information about a customer, and use it to get the most out of their relationship with the customer. For many vendors, “get the most out of the customer relationship” translates to making the most revenue for the lowest cost from a particular customer or group of customers. VRM notes that customers can be far better custodians of data that is very useful to vendors.
For example, Amazon.com collects data about a customer’s purchasing and browsing history, and makes recommendations based on that history. However, the customer possesses information that Amazon.com doesn’t: e.g. the customer knows which books were purchased as gifts and therefore are not indicative of personal preferences.
The goal of VRM, however, is not to make sure that vendors have access to this information, instead it is to give customers the power over the information that is shared with vendors. Traditional CRM locks that data into a single relationship, while VRM seeks to give the customer the power to share pertinent data with vendors as he sees fit. These relationships can be controlled by the customer as opposed to by the vendor.
VRM is a dynamic way of looking at customer-vendor relationships. Although the terms and tools may be new, the principles and the frustration with current practices are not.
For more information on VRM, visit the Project VRM wiki at the following webpage http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page, read the blog for the project at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/vrm/ or visit VRM Hub at www.vrmhub.net or VRM Labs at www.vrmlabs.net.
