Building my new acquisition

Ok it’s been a busy few weeks and I haven’t had the chance to post anything. I looked back at my last post and remembered what I’d been up to. Well my new acquisition of a chest of drawers took me a week to complete. First no instructions where included so I called their help desk. Great I got a set of instructions emailed to me. It then turns out that the holes were not drilled right so I ended up taking the item back to the store.

So I’m sitting here and thinking ok what systems are involved here. Well the first one was a CRM system. As I rang up the support line it makes sense that they can identify the details of what I have purchased or at least see the inventory information. The operator taking the call needs to use the CRM system and have visibility to see information about the items the stock. Perhaps also be able to extract details like the assembly instructions. Then email them to me.

Then the return process. As I get back to the store it would be good if they can bring up the records from CRM at the returns desk and see that I’ve had some trouble with the item. The returns desk operator should have a system to log faults codes about why I returned this product, faulty manufacture, user error etc. So that they can include this information back into the quality control process in the manufacturing plant. Need to fix drilling machine or move manufacturing to a different country. Need to have better end user education etc.

Of course every operation has a financial impact on the business. It costs them firstly to run a support desk, secondly the returns desk and third the waste of the incorrectly made item. And potentially a customer if the process has caused them enough grief.

Long and short is that everything needs to be connected. A business needs to have complete visibility of the data in systems and turn this into knowledge. All these systems, CRM, ERP, SCM, Service Management and Email need to be connected with each other.

Hmmmm where is a company that can provide the platform, infrastructure, tools and partners to help a company make connected systems a reality ? Microsoft.

Cheers

LC

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.