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Extending Customer Relationship Management to Value Chain Partners for Competitive

Advantage

SAMIT CHAKRAVORTI Department of Marketing and Finance, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL, USA

Globalization coupled with uncertain economic times has made managing customer relationships critical for the success of firms. The objective of this theoretical article is to show why the process of customer relationship management (CRM) needs to be extended to value chain partners and how this can be done. I utilize the tenets of the resource-based view to argue that inter-firm CRM pro- cesses can lead to competitive advantage through the generation and strengthening of inter-organizational learning and inter-firm relationships. Inter-firm CRM processes are conceptualized and de- scribed, and a framework of inter-firm CRM process is developed. Managerial implications are also discussed.

KEYWORDS competitive advantage, customer relationship man- agement, inter-firm CRM processes, inter-firm relationship, partner relationship management, resource-based view

In the global market, managing long-term relationships with customers is imperative. At the same time, markets are littered with stories of companies failing to implement customer relationship management (CRM) or struggling with it (Lager, 2008). Accounts of companies successfully implementing CRM and reaping its benefits in the form of higher customer satisfaction and profits are few and far between (Britt, 2008; Goldenberg, 2008). The organization- spanning, complex nature of CRM implementation coupled with its rare successes indicates that CRM can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage.

Providing customers with exceptional value is one of the major aspects of CRM. Organizations in the process of CRM implementation realize that

Address correspondence to Samit Chakravorti, Western Illinois University, ST 430, One University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455. E-mail: [email protected]

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delivering value to customers almost always depends on the interaction and integration of partner organizations in the value chain (M. Day, Magnan, Webb, & Hughes, 2008; Lager, 2008; Myers & Cheung, 2008). “The quality of supplier relationships affects the quality of customer relationships and vice versa” (Sawhney & Zabin, 2002, p. 315). Hence, for CRM to be really effective it should be implemented in all partner organizations in the value chain. This action should facilitate inter-firm interactions and integration. Considering that the implementation of CRM within an organization is still not fully understood and is not always successful, the task of implementing CRM across organizations is monumental at best. Once CRM is successfully implemented across organizations in the value chain, however, it should en- hance inter-firm capabilities in terms of value delivery and, hence, customer satisfaction.

This article has two objectives. One is to develop an understanding of how CRM processes can be extended to partners in the value chain, and the other is to see how these inter-firm CRM processes may in turn help estab- lish competitive advantage. This investigation is done under the light of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. The RBV suggests that the posses- sion and development of a set of heterogeneous, valuable, rare, imperfectly inimitable and not strategically substitutable resources lead a firm to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors in the marketplace. More specif- ically, I develop a process framework of inter-firm strategic CRM, including propositions, and also inquire about the contribution of the resulting CRM inter-firm processes and inter-firm relationships to competitive advantage as laid down by the RBV.

This article makes multiple contributions. First and foremost, it helps highlight the importance of inter-firm processes and relationships to CRM and competitive advantage. Second, it enhances understanding of CRM through managing and integrating processes and relationships in the value chain. Third, the theoretical framework developed in the process of this investiga- tion helps to further the discipline of CRM. As far as I know, no research has been undertaken utilizing the RBV to understand and explain the contribu- tion of inter-firm CRM processes.

INTER-FIRM CRM PROCESSES

For successful companies, “CRM is a series of strategies and processes that create new and mutual value for individual customers, builds preferences for their organizations and improves business results over a lifetime of as- sociation with their customers” (Gordon, 2002, p. 1). Thus, all processes involving the creation of a CRM strategy, the development and sharing of customer knowledge across organizational touchpoints, the segmentation and targeting of customers, the interaction with customers to develop and

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sustain relationships, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of CRM should fall under the purview of CRM (Payne & Frow, 2005; Zablah, Bellenger, & Johnston, 2004).

Companies that market manufactured goods usually work with value chain partner organizations to manufacture and deliver the product to the destination desired by the customer. Partner organizations, such as suppliers, distributors, retailers, and logistics providers, all play important complemen- tary roles in the process of satisfying the customer and generating customer loyalty and profitability. In 2006, AMR Research reported that about 70% of companies earn most of their revenue through indirect channels (Lager, 2008). Component or raw materials from suppliers need to be of good quality and need to be available in sufficient quantities at the right time; distribu- tors transport, store, and promote the product, retailers enhance customers’ shopping experiences, and logistics providers such as UPS provide time and location utilities. Hence, any effort by manufacturers to manage customer relationships should include all or some of these entities. G. S. Day (1999) stated that one of the three requirements for creating a successful market- driven company is a configuration that enables the whole organization to anticipate and respond to changing customer needs and market situations. Extending such a configuration to value chain partners who are closer to the market should make organizations more market and customer smart. Thus, all of the organizational processes that help develop and sustain cus- tomer relationships should, when extended to and integrated with those of the value chain partners, result in even stronger customer relationships and profitability, thus giving firms a possible competitive advantage.

In this section I identify and discuss five inter-organizational CRM pro- cesses that cut across the organizational boundaries of value chain partners. In the same way that these processes run across and up and down the manufacturer organization, they should be extended to include all corre- sponding functions and hierarchies in the partner organization relevant to and important for customer relationships.

Inter-Firm CRM Strategy Creation

All successful CRM implementation requires the creation of an overarching strategy that lays down the specific objectives of CRM, the processes and technologies that will help achieve those objectives, how get commitment across organizations, and how to assess the success of the implementation. The strategy development process demands the alignment of business and customer strategies. A company’s business strategy is the overall strategic outlook for the company and includes analyses of industry, co-opetition, networks, and discontinuous technologies (Payne & Frow, 2005). Customer strategy entails examining existing and potential customers and deciding how

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best to segment them. Once the business and customer strategies are aligned, this will tell the company what processes and capabilities to develop to create and strengthen relationships with customers. The key is to create the right set of processes that are performed by trained people with a CRM orientation, facilitated by technology. Value chain partners can certainly join forces to facilitate the creation of these CRM processes and capabilities by sharing costs, knowledge, and expertise. At the extreme, if value chain partners are not aligned with the CRM strategy, the desired customer relationships may not materialize or may be very difficult to create and sustain. At the same time, value chain partners can or will join forces only if they buy into the manufacturer’s business and customer strategies and align their own business and customer strategies with those of the manufacturer.

In order to engage partners in this process, companies need to involve them in the strategy creation process so that they become part of the CRM journey right from the beginning. CRM strategy creation takes place at the senior management level both at the board level and the marketing de- partment level, so the corresponding senior management from partner firms should be included in the strategy team so that the goals and objectives of the partners can be shared and aligned. This stage is very critical, because if the senior management in a partner firm does not take an active inter- est in the CRM project, or if it feels that the firm’s interests are not being fairly represented, it will have little inclination to motivate the rest of its organizations to collaborate on other inter-firm CRM processes. However, it is important to realize that not all partners are the same, and their lifetime value to the value chain varies, as some show more promise than others. It is primarily the high-value partners that should be brought into the fold of inter-firm CRM processes. Partners who possess complementary capabilities in research, marketing, sales, customer service, and so on would be good choices (M. Day et al., 2008). Research suggests that when deciding to en- gage a partner in inter-firm CRM processes, firms should look for senior-level strategic commitment and flexibility in adapting processes and technology (Angeles & Nath, 2003).

Inter-Firm Value-Enhancing Segmentation

This process takes the dictates of the inter-firm CRM strategy to determine who the most valuable customers are and what value they are looking to re- ceive from sellers. Determining the profitability of customers and delivering value to profitable customers depends to a large extent on understanding customers, and this requires the gathering and sharing of information. Zablah et al. (2004) said that CRM knowledge management processes need to pre- cede customer interaction management and that these two processes should be effectively bridged by customer segmentation and resource allocation processes. Knowledge management guides customer segmentation and the

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subsequent allocation of resources to the most profitable customers, thereby making the interaction processes effective.

Very often distributors and retailers have more information than man- ufacturers about customers. Hence, the 360-degree view of the customer that is crucial for understanding that customer’s lifetime value can only be truly developed if partners such as distributors and retailers are brought into the fold of the information/knowledge management processes (Cuthbertson & Messenger, 2008). Partners more often than not play an important part in the value-enhancing segmentation process through the provision of informa- tion about customers; their purchasing pattern indicating their profitability; and their product, delivery, and service expectations. Distributors and retail- ers provide information, warranty and promote the product, and take back returns; logistics providers deliver the product to the doorstep as well as manage the organization’s whole supply chain system. This wealth of infor- mation, if shared, can help in aligning product/service attributes with the values customers are looking for as well as determining through analysis the lifetime value of the customer.

By investing in independent shopper marketing research that can be laid alongside the retailer’s customer level transactional data, manufacturers are obtaining deeper insights into each shopper’s motivations for buying from the category, how that category (and brand and product) drives their choice of where to buy their whole basket of goods (beyond simple locational convenience) and how to make the category more appealing. (Cuthbertson & Messenger, 2008, p. 359)

A good example of how companies and value chain partners can work to- gether to enhance customer value is the new shipping options that wine.com provides to its customers. This company provides standard shipping through UPS, an evening option for people who are not at home during the day, shipping by appointment (such that the carrier will call the customer at the number he or she provided to arrange the best time for delivery), and a com- bination that involves choosing a specific date (including Saturday). These options have made ordering wine from wine.com easier for a lot of people, including me. So, to provide superior value to customers and to receive su- perior value from customers in terms of share of wallet, value chain partners need to be seamlessly incorporated into the value-enhancing segmentation process.

Inter-Firm Customer Experience Management

In today’s era of multichannel shopping, companies need to make sure that interaction with customers across all channels (sales force, telephony, direct marketing, e-commerce, and mobile commerce) remains consistent, relevant,

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and appropriate so that customers seamlessly experience satisfaction. Multi- channel shopping is on the rise and will likely remain the trend in the fore- seeable future (Bailor, 2007; DeFelice, 2005; Warrington, Gangstad, Feinberg, & de Ruyter, 2007). In the next 3 years, 50% of high-value customers will engage in multichannel shopping. Retail customers engaged in multichannel shopping usually spend 4 to 5 times as much as single-channel customers and tend to be more profitable than single-channel customers (Goldenberg, 2008; Van Baal & Dach, 2005). The customer experience management pro- cess helps determine the most appropriate combination of channels to use to reach customers, how to provide valuable customer experience within those channels, and how to consistently provide the same face across all channels. It takes market intelligence and an outcome of superior value-enhancing segmentation to make one-on-one interaction between the supplier and the customer more productive (Zablah et al., 2004). This should help create competitive advantage for a company through building a superior customer experience at each touchpoint in which the customer and supplier interact.

Where distributors, retailers, and logistics providers are intermediaries in the value chain, they facilitate the transfer of core benefits by providing the product and/or service more cheaply, more conveniently, and more quickly; facilitate information exchange by allowing customers to track their deliv- eries and/or provide warranty or financing information; and facilitate social exchange by proactively seeking out customers for customer service and feedback. Firms and their value chain partners will have to collaborate on selling and redeeming coupons and gift cards, allowing customers to return materials bought on the company Web site in the store or to a distributor; matching prices on both channels; and offering shopper programs, such as discounts and services, and informing customers about these over the Web, face to face, and/or in the catalog (Beasty, 2006). All of these supportive activities on the part of the value chain partners thus should enhance the experience of customers in their process of consumption. Given the com- plexity of shopping behaviors, shoppers’ higher expectations, and stronger competitors, companies need to bring value chain partners within the fold of the customer experience management process to take advantage of the valuable role partners play in customer experience. Sales force and customer service employees of partner firms who are engaged in customer interaction management need to be adequately informed and trained so that their com- munication and interaction with customers is not only consistent but also relevant and appropriate.

Inter-Firm Knowledge Management

“The knowledge management process is concerned with all of the activ- ities directed towards creating and leveraging the market intelligence that firms need to build and maintain a portfolio of customer relationships that

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maximizes organizational profitability” (Zablah et al., 2004, p. 482). This pro- cess includes collecting data, generating intelligence from data through data mining, and disseminating this information to all people who directly affect customer relationships through contact with customers or through impacting the marketing operations of the firm.

To provide a seamless, satisfying multichannel shopping experience to customers, firms have to understand the cross-channel purchase behaviors of customers. Organizations and their value chain partners need to invest in CRM-relevant information technology that will in a very broad sense facilitate the generation, storage, and dissemination of information and the streamlin- ing of operations. Building an information-generating, sharing, and analytical capability in collaboration with partners is critical to achieving and sustaining competitive advantage (Marabotti, 2003). However, a study of 1,000 compa- nies conducted by the University of Texas found that only 11% had some information-sharing capabilities with their value chain partners (Marabotti, 2003). The trend in value chain integration is toward analytics. Inter-firm value chain analytics (which is the process of extracting supply chain infor- mation for measurement, monitoring, forecasting, and management of the chain) forms the foundation of a inter-firm knowledge management process. Analytic processes resulting in knowledge of customers, sales, marketing, and logistics can, when shared and combined with those of partners, help grow the overall profit “pie,” as firms together with their partners can be- come more responsive to the market. Such a pool of shared knowledge will be richer and will allow the rest of the inter-firm CRM processes discussed previously to be more effective. Gathering and sharing knowledge in the value chain should help develop a more targeted inter-firm CRM strategy, which will give customers profitable to the value chain a more satisfying experience, in turn retaining these customers in the long run. For example, the European chemical industry estimated retaining an extra 2% of total in- dustry sales through sharing knowledge with its value chain partners (Myers & Cheung, 2008). Database and software companies provide technologies galore to help companies share information with partners. Pivotal Corp. has a PartnerHub online portal that allows partners to access internal selling, marketing, and customer information stored in Pivotal’s CRM applications (Maselli, 2001). Most CRM vendors have integrated partner relationship man- agement portals built into their overall CRM offerings. By implementing use of this software and by making partners a part and parcel of their CRM ef- forts, firms hope to increase sales and customer service and make inter-firm operations more efficient and effective.

Inter-Firm Performance Evaluation

Aligning strategies, processes, and technologies with partners in CRM ef- forts is highly complex. Along with promising returns comes the increasing

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challenge to manage conflict and partner performance. Inter-firm perfor- mance measures are needed to capture and cover performance in the whole gamut of inter-firm processes required for CRM. Firms, along with their part- ners, have to develop performance measures that will capture the contribu- tion of partners to the overall CRM effort of the organization. Recent efforts have successfully developed cross-functional measures, such as a balanced score card (Kaplan & Norton, 1996). This can be extended to include joint processes and a shared technology platform, which should help companies monitor the performance of value chain partners and communicate to reduce conflict.

INTER-FIRM CRM PROCESSES AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Researchers investigating the topic of competitive advantage to firms and the source of sustained superior performance have typically anchored their work in the RBV theory of the firm, which says that resources that are well protected from imitation can be a durable source of advantage (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993; Wernerfelt, 1995). Researchers over the years have used different terms to discuss a firm’s resources, including skills (Grant, 1991), competencies (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990), and strategic assets (Amit & Shoe- maker, 1993; Ross, Beath, & Goodhue, 1996). Resources include “all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information, knowl- edge, etc. controlled by a firm that enable the firm to conceive of and imple- ment strategies that improve its efficiency and effectiveness” (Barney, 1991, p. 101). Assets are anything tangible (such as information systems) or intangi- ble (such as patents) that the firm can use in its processes to cater to market opportunities and threats. Capabilities, in contrast, are repeatable patterns of activities that use assets to transform inputs into outputs of higher value. Capabilities can include skills (such as collaborative abilities) or processes (such as integration; Amit & Shoemaker, 1993; Sanchez, Heene, & Thomas, 1996; Wade & Hulland, 2004).

According to Barney (1991), companies can achieve a sustainable com- petitive advantage with the help of heterogeneous and immobile resources that also (a) are valuable for developing efficiencies and effectiveness in the market, (b) are rare among players in the industry, (c) are imperfectly inimitable, and (d) lack threat of substitution. Expanding on this, Barney emphasized that resources must be valuable to the extent of facilitating the exploitation of opportunities and/or the nullification of threats. They must also not be possessed by a significant number of competitors in the market. Moreover, they must also not be easily imitable or must be only imperfectly imitable. The reason for such inimitability could be that the resources are legacy based, that they are socially complex, or that the link between compet- itive advantage and the resources is causally ambiguous—or a combination

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of the three (Barney, 1991). Path-dependent models of economic perfor- mance (Arthur, Ermoliev, & Kaniovski, 1987) show that the performance of a firm is largely dependent on the path followed by the firm through history and the strategies taken over time. These actions might blur and complicate the relationship between resources and performance, making it difficult for other firms to understand this relationship, let alone manage and influence the resources. A wide variety of firm resources can fall under this category. Examples include interpersonal relations among managers in a firm, a firm’s organizational culture, a firm’s reputation among suppliers (Barney, 1991), relationships with suppliers, and customer knowledge (Hunt & Davies, 2008). Besides being direct sources of competitive advantage, certain resources in- directly affect competitive advantage by forming part of and strengthening a complex chain of assets and capabilities to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. The RBV also recognizes but does not elaborate on this issue of resource complementarity. Mahoney and Pandain (1992) further extended the RBV by saying that the possession of resources by themselves does not always result in competitive advantage. It is the ability to manage and make better use of these resources that counts.

Inter-firm CRM processes between a manufacturer and a value chain partner should fall under the category of resources as discussed in the RBV. As argued in the previous section, inter-firm CRM processes can give rise to inter-organizational capabilities to better manage market knowledge, creating differentiated value proposition for customers and customizing interactions with them. This facilitates the implementation of strategies in the market to enhance customer loyalty and the profitability of the firm. Inter-firm pro- cesses thus can help in making the operations of the firm and its partners more effective through higher inter-organizational learning.

In this network economy, assets and capabilities frequently lie outside a firm (Melville, Kraemer, & Gurbaxani, 2004). One such locus is the value chain and its participants. Researchers have contended that companies must make the supply chain an integral part of their business models to achieve performance goals such as increased market share, profits, and strategic ad- vantages (Chou, Tan, & Yen, 2004; M. Day et al., 2008; Myers & Cheung, 2008). Inter-firm CRM processes form an essential part of supply chain man- agement.

It can also be argued that inter-firm CRM process resources are both heterogeneous and not perfectly mobile. Inter-firm CRM capabilities are tied to the synergistic integration and interaction of skills and processes of in- dividual firms, where joint capabilities become more than the sum of the capabilities of the individual firms. This is further impacted by the extent of inter-organizational learning and the type and degree of collaboration and relationship that develop between the firms. Thus, inter-firm CRM pro- cess resources are ingrained in the very nature of the relationship that is formed between the two firms and evolve over time through the interaction

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of inter-organizational learning, the inter-firm relationship, and inter-firm processes. This idiosyncratic nature of resources also makes them immobile. Competitors may implement the same CRM processes, only to have those evolve in completely different ways with different effects because of how the skills and processes interact and align and how the learning and relationship between the partner firms evolve to affect the processes.

Heterogeneity and immobility cannot by themselves help resources to provide sustained competitive advantage. Resources need to be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and without any substitute that is equally valuable but neither rare nor imperfectly imitable. If seamlessly integrated across the up-and-down functions of enterprises, inter-firm CRM processes help develop 360-degree market and customer knowledge, allowing companies to implement strategies to increase customer satisfaction and profits. Thus, inter-firm processes are valuable. They are definitely rare among competitors. Companies still struggle to successfully implement CRM, and only a handful of companies reap the benefits (Foss, Stone, & Ekinci, 2008; King & Burgess, 2008). Organization-wide implementation of CRM processes is challenging enough; trying to link with other organizations in the value chain by synching CRM processes is doubly difficult.

The essence and secret of the success of inter-firm CRM processes lies in collaboration across organizations in knowledge development and shar- ing, segmentation, and interaction with customers in different channels. This collaboration develops tacit knowledge and capabilities over time that are not perfectly expressed or copied. Inter-firm CRM processes should span all functions across organizations, leading to superior knowledge sharing and learning that translates into effective interaction with customers. This should lead to higher customer loyalty, increased share of wallet, and increased prof- its. Successful inter-firm CRM processes across value chain partners should also affect two other essential organizational processes, supply chain man- agement and product development, through the sharing of information about evolving consumer needs, production schedules, inventories, and distribu- tion and better relationship building. It is hard to find any substitute resource whose effect would be as widespread and critical. Even if such a resource existed, there is little likelihood that it would be easily available and imi- tated. The workings of the five inter-firm CRM processes over time should thus give rise to higher inter-organizational learning and a stronger inter-firm relationship. These then should further impact the CRM processes, making them more efficient and effective. Through the workings of this vicious cycle of processes acting upon learning and relationship and vice versa, inter-firm CRM processes take on lives unique to the firms involved. Here, the orga- nizational learning and relationship resources that develop help the firm to achieve a competitive advantage.

This argument shows that inter-firm CRM processes with value chain partners can be considered resources that can lead these organizations

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to develop and sustain competitive advantage through strong inter-firm relationships and inter-organizational learning. This should happen provided these processes are implemented, utilized, and managed with due diligence and discipline, with the active involvement of senior management in either company involved in the relationship.

Thus, I propose the following:

Proposition 1: The inter-firm CRM processes of strategy creation, cus- tomer value enhancement, customer experience management, perfor- mance assessment, and knowledge management positively impact on inter-organizational learning and inter-firm relationships. Proposition 2: Inter-organizational learning and inter-firm relationships in turn positively impact on the inter-firm processes of strategy creation, customer value enhancement, customer experience management, perfor- mance assessment, and knowledge management. Proposition 3: The inter-firm CRM processes of strategy creation, cus- tomer value enhancement, customer experience management, perfor- mance assessment, and knowledge management positively impact on the competitive advantage of the firms involved. This impact is mediated by inter-organizational learning and the inter-firm relationship.

Figure 1 is a visual representation of the inter-firm CRM process.

IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

There are both theoretical and managerial implications of this research. The research highlights the importance and necessity of engaging value chain partners in the process of developing and managing successful relationships with valued customers. It describes what these CRM processes are and dis- cusses how they can be extended beyond the organization to value chain partners. Managers need to actively engage distributors, retailers, logistics providers, and other partner organizations in their CRM efforts.

The research also furthers the discipline and understanding of CRM by developing an inter-firm CRM process framework. It shows through the lens of the RBV of the firm how inter-firm CRM processes should, when effectively implemented in partner organizations, create a competitive advantage for all parties involved. It argues that the implementation of inter-firm CRM processes should generate stronger inter-organizational learning and inter- firm relationships, and the workings of these three factors to reinforce one another should lead to competitive advantage.

Future research opportunities lie in developing measures for the frame- work constructs and in empirically validating the model relationships through surveys, interviews, and focus groups with companies and members in- volved in joint CRM efforts in the value chain. Cross-industry comparison of

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FIGURE 1 Inter-Firm Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Process Framework. CEO = chief executive officer.

inter-firm CRM processes should also help elucidate whether the players or the structure and nature of the industry makes a difference.

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