Relationship Between Management of Supply Chains, Operations, Quality, Customer
Relationships and Customer Service
Copyright, Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD
It helps significantly to understand the overall context of each of the following topics and how they all are related to each other. Note that the most important driver to determining the activities in an organization, along with the order in which they occur, should always be satisfying the needs and expectations of its customers.
- Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the chain of activities to get outside supplies and materials into the company, produce high-quality goods and services, and deliver them to the customer. Although there are many components in the supply chain, they are aligned to be focused first on meeting the actual, or forecasted, needs of customers.
- Quality management (QM) is the management of the activities to ensure that all of the components
of the SCM operate with the highest quality for optimum effectiveness and efficiencies. - Operations management (OM) is the management of the recurring, high-quality organizational activities needed to achieve the organization’s strategic goals, and this includes the parts of the supply chain that occur within the organization. Thus, much of SCM overlaps with OM.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) is the management of the activities to ensure high-quality relationships with customers, especially at those points where the customer interacts with the organization. Thus, CRM is sometimes seen as a component of SCM.
- Customer service management (CSM) is the management of the activities to ensure the organization always understands the expectations of customers and always meets or exceeds those expectations. CSM is focused first on understanding and meeting the needs and expectations of customers. Thus, CSM could be seen as a component of CRM.
For the Category of Operations Management:
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