Vendor relationship management

VRM, or vendor relationship management is a category of business activity made possible by software tools that provide customers with both independence from vendors and better means for engaging with vendors. These same tools can also apply to individuals' relations with other institutions and organizations.

The term was coined by Mike Vizard on a Gillmor Gang podcast[1] on September 1, 2006, in a conversation with Doc Searls about the project Searls had recently started as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Vizard saw VRM as a natural counterpart of Customer relationship management. Searls' project then became named ProjectVRM, and has since worked to guide development of VRM tools and services.

VRM tools provide customers with the means to bear their share of the relationship burden with vendors and other organizations. They relieve CRM of the perceived need to "target," "capture," "acquire," "lock in," "direct," "own," "manage," and otherwise take the lead of relationships with customers. With VRM operating on the customer's side, Customers are also involved as participants, rather than as followers.

In its description of ProjectVRM[2], the Berkman Center says "The primary theory behind ProjectVRM is that many market problems (including the widespread belief that customer lock-in is a 'best practice') can only be solved from the customer side: by making the customer a fully empowered actor in the marketplace, rather than one whose power in many cases is dependent on exclusive relationships with vendors, by coerced agreement provided entirely by those vendors."

Doc Searls believes VRM will help create what he calls an "The Intention Economy," which he described first in an essay[3] by that name in Linux Journal. There, he writes, "The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers. It leverages the simple fact that buyers are the first source of money, and that they come ready-made. You don't need advertising to make them. The Intention Economy is about markets, not marketing. You don't need marketing to make Intention Markets." Searls is currently working on a book by the same title for Harvard Business Press. He also sees VRM addressing some of what he calls the "unfinished business"[4] of The Cluetrain Manifesto, which he co-wrote in 1999 with Christopher Locke, Rick Levine and David Weinberger. Here he refers to Cluetrain's preamble, which says "We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings—and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it."

CRM magazine devoted much of its May 2010 issue[5] to VRM. The magazine also named Doc Searls' one of its Influential Leaders in its August issue[6].

Contents

VRM development work

As of August 2010 ProjectVRM lists nineteen VRM development efforts[7]. These include:

See also

References

  1. ^ [1] Gillmor Gang: VRM Gang Part I
  2. ^ [2] ProjectVRM page at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society
  3. ^ [3] The Intention Economy, in the March 8, 2006 issue of Linux Journal
  4. ^ [4] It's Not Your Relationship to Manage, by Lauren McKay, in CRM Magazine, May 2010
  5. ^ [5] CRM Magazine: May, 2010
  6. ^ [6] Influential Leaders: The People Person — Doc Searls, fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, head of ProjectVRM, By Joshua Weinberger, for the August 2010 issue of CRM Magazine
  7. ^ [7] Development work list at the ProjectVRM wiki
  8. ^ [8] Azigo
  9. ^ [9] EmanciPay, at ProjectVRM
  10. ^ [10] Information Sharing Workgroup at the Kantara Initiative
  11. ^ [11] Kynetx
  12. ^ [12] ListenLog, at ProjectVRM
  13. ^ [13] myinfo.cl
  14. ^ [14] Mydex
  15. ^ [15] Paoga
  16. ^ [16] SwitchBook
  17. ^ [17] TrustFabric
  18. ^ [18] UMA
  19. ^ [19] The Banyan Project
  20. ^ [20] The Mine! Project
  21. ^ [21] Project Danube

External links