Know-How Exchange : Strategy

It isn't there yet, but has made great strides.

I worked as Asia Marketing Manager for a division of a Fortune 500. The ERP systems were pitiful - I couldn't even get reliable numbers for how well a product was selling in a country. No CRM functions at all.

But, the systems are getting there. Look at a company like Amazon and you know they have good CRM in place (though it helps when almost all contact points come through the Internet), and likely the ERP to go with that.

What is holding it back? ERP in general probably is pretty good if you have the most recent products (my company did not). You can track how much it costs to make stuff, sales (after the fact), etc. These are all pretty cut and dry numbers.

Then there is the P on ERP - planning. ERP systems are good at tracking past history. Someone has to then figure out how this relates to future expectations - the systems can not do this. Lots of variables play on this (economy, politics, laws, etc.).

I think the CRM side is also one of the challenges. There are so many ways for a customer/prospect to hear about you, to contact you, etc. It is hard to get each contact point to track the contact (and impossible to know whether the customer only heard about you from the ad you tracked them as calling off of, or have they also seen the article on your product or seen another ad or heard from a friend about you).

Unica seems to have a pretty good edge on creating helpful systems.

I like the idea of being able to punch in numbers and calculate complex metrics on the spot. But the customer predictablility features seem a little far-fetched. They claim to be able to calculate consumer trends and reactions based on pre-programmed parameters. One would have to have a lot of faith in the software to bank on that. Even though the alternative is human speculation based on trend analysis, I think it may be taking things a bit too far to say the computer can predict consumer reactions.


Especially since Unica's arms reach out into so many fields (pharma, banking, insurance, telecom, healthcare, etc)...the programming may be a bit bias.
I can't say this with exact certainty since I have never had a chance to see the program work.

I can see this as a way for large corporation with know-it-all upper management to downsize. I also see this as a tool that can be useful for marketing consultants and small marketing firms to aid in the management of their accounts. I couldn't find pricing so I assume it is outrageous.

So, when the price comes down and some demos are available for download, I think more marketers will open up. But it doesn't appear we are the target...looks like they are after big corps.

Interesting.....

Thanks for the responses so far. You're right Jett, Unica is a primary player the other is Intiqua www.intiua.com

They have been the most aggressive in claiming the EMM space. The bigger players have been noticeably quiet about EMM.

Hope to hear from others ...

www.intiqua.com

Much appreciation for all your responses. For this one I decided to give all the points to freddiedaniells (certainly had the most to say) It will be interesting to see how adding technology to marketing evolves at the enterprise level. Supply Chain Management has had a huge impact on corporate profits – perhaps the revenue side of the business equation can have similar results. It’s certainly not going to be easy or quick. It would be great to see other questions on this topic from time to time. Thanks to all.