Product Strategy
Product Strategy is a term that is used to refer to the process of developing a product. A product strategy can be derived from the product’s ultimate vision, which has been described above. It specifies where the product will be used after it has been manufactured. It can be determined how your product development efforts will be directed by developing a product strategy. It specifies how the product integrates market aspects and how the market accepts it.
When product requirements are planned early in the process, the overall product vision is often unclear, making it difficult to determine which features and functionality are required. It’s also not always clear what technical options are available. The product team must help the customer plan production requirements and select the best development solution. Create a product requirements document (PRD) to turn your specifications into precise product specifications (Chen et al., 2017, p. 5). Because initial ideas are often vague and non-technical, communicating with your product team is critical. Ineffective communication may prevent you from identifying the various implications of product features on performance.
The use of social feedback is a viable option for mitigating the issues concerns that arise from product strategy issues concern of confusing product and customer requirements, among other things. It entails customers providing feedback on their company experience through various channels, such as social media. Additionally, it allows the management to understand better customer requirements and desirable product standards, which helps reduce customer confusion.
Justification of social feedback is the accuracy at the most fundamental abstractions, as it is concerned with how the customer feels and what the customer expects from the product. It provides the organization with the ability to implement appropriate and effective measures to reduce the consequences of dissatisfactions in service and product areas. However, limitations would be due to the influencing factors and geographical variations, complicating the feedback mechanism and evaluation analysis.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
CRM is a business strategy for managing interactions with customers and prospects, which implements customer relationships. With CRM software, businesses can streamline processes, strengthen customer relationships, increase sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability (Haddara, 2018, p. 52). Most companies use a sophisticated CRM system to track and manage orders, revenue, and business operations. Increasing salespeople’s ability to accelerate the sales cycle and gain greater control over opportunities allows companies to modernize their sales processes while simultaneously improving the customer experience.
Companies know that the right CRM tool can significantly improve their sales workflow and productivity, so they use one. Unfortunately, buying a CRM system does not guarantee widespread user adoption (Alshurideh et al., 2019, p. 392). According to research, only 40 percent of businesses report a 90 percent CRM adoption rate, with most firms struggling to promote system adoption in their organizations. As a result, we can conclude that implementing a customer relationship management system in your organization will not always be successful. If organizations want to turn the tide, they must first address the underlying cause of this failure, which is a lack of user adoption. Unfortunately, despite their stated goal of increasing efficiency and productivity, CRM projects frequently fail to translate into real-world usage by those who stand to gain the most from them.
Perhaps a lack of commitment on the part of individuals within the organization keeps a customer relationship management solution from being implemented. Changing an organization’s culture to adopt a customer-centric approach may be necessary. If no one in the organization is committed to viewing operations through the eyes of their customers, customer relationships may deteriorate in the future. Customers have a negative customer experience, which results in long-term revenue loss.
A variety of strategies can increase the adoption of the CRM model system among stakeholders at various levels of an organization’s structure. A successful CRM implementation begins with open and honest communication. All stakeholders in the CRM adoption process are interested in one way or another, whether they are executives, end-users, CRM developers, or even CRM trainers. Collaboration among all stakeholders is essential for a successful CRM project simply because they are all stakeholders.
Effective communication in implementing CRM adoption creates an efficient platform for reaching out to potential system users. Communication is the most important factor at all levels of an organization’s structure (Zhao & Liu, 2019, p. 735). It is particularly effective because it involves the active transfer of information from one organization to another. As a limitation, communication processes in the organizational structure can be flawed due to improper and inconsistent channels and even public information access issues.
Distribution and Logistics
The field of distribution logistics, also known as sales logistics, is concerned with the planning, implementing, and controlling the movement of goods. Logistics is a cross-organizational system whose goal is to optimize the logistics channel between a supplier and a customer, mainly cost and performance, by identifying and eliminating inefficiencies. It includes all storage, handling, and transportation processes that take goods from the manufacturing facility to the customer. Distribution logistics is essential because it connects a company’s manufacturing and sales operations. To put it simply, distribution logistics is the process that a company must follow to deliver its products as quickly as possible after they have been purchased. Distribution logistics tasks are divided into three categories: strategic, tactical, and operational logistics tasks.
Disruptions of any kind can cause distributional issues. The following effects of extreme weather, raw material shortages, pest damage, epidemics, or pandemics are listed. Human disturbances include violence, protests, armed conflict, and strikes. Transport vehicle failures, maintenance issues, and accidents can all disrupt transportation. Delayed flights and new transportation regulations can also cause problems, especially in the trucking industry. Recent or changing fees or compliance costs, currency exchange rate fluctuation, and payment issues are all examples of economic difficulties.
Product disruptions can occur due to product recalls, packaging issues, or quality control issues. Order changes, shipment address changes, and product returns are examples of buyer disruptions. A mid-sized 3PL provider struggles to keep track of daily shipments. Communicating with vendors to obtain shipment information to generate a monthly statement is a highly time-consuming activity. Mid-sized 3PL companies, on the other hand, can only invest in a reporting system that is both cost-effective and compatible with their operating policies, even though a sound reporting system will make these tasks much more manageable.
When it comes to ensuring seamless processes for goods and services transitioning from one location to another, adoption tracking and reporting management systems are critical. They serve as a strategy for improving the implementation of mitigations to counter the adverse effects of poor reporting and monitoring in the logistics and distribution strategies. In addition, the method is feasible because it is comprehensive and addresses all of the major transportation and logistics issues in real time. To make transportation and distribution more efficient, sophisticated technologies must be integrated to make activity control more straightforward and more efficient in general. The setback in the mitigation strategy is with the concern that the adoption of intelligent reporting systems is relatively expensive and resource-intensive. It makes the process not viable for small firms and businesses.
References
Alshurideh, M., Alsharari, N. M., & Al Kurdi, B. (2019). Supply chain integration and customer relationship management in airline logistics. Theoretical Economics Letters, 9(02), 392.
Chen, T., Tribbitt, M. A., Yang, Y., & Li, X. (2017). Does rivals’ innovation matter? A competitive dynamics perspective on firms’ product strategy. Journal of Business Research, 76, 1-7.
Haddara, M. (2018). ERP systems selection in multinational enterprises: a practical guide. International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management, 6(1), 43-57. Web.
Zhao, M., & Liu, X. (2019). The Practical Research of Situational Simulation Teaching Method in the Course of Customer Relation Management. In 2019 5th International Conference on Social Science and Higher Education (ICSSHE 2019) (pp. 733-736). Atlantis Press.