Authors: Maria S. Uusikoski; Olavi H. Uusitalo
In our case study of a MNC we arranged internal benchmarking of purchasing and selling. Our research question is: “,How organizational learning can improve supplier relationship management (SRM) and customer relationship management (CRM) of the focal organization”,. With SRM a company manages suppliers, finds new ones whilst reducing costs, making procurement repeatable, pooling buyer experience and exploiting partnerships. With CRM companies try by maximizing customer information to increase customer value and loyalty plus to retain customers. SRM and CRM are symmetrical and they can be benchmarked as strategies, processes and value creators. We see organizational learning as an outcome of sense making, knowledge creation and decision-making. Sense making brings into focus learning possibilities while knowledge creation is a conversion of different types of knowledge. Created knowledge should then be used in decision-making to improve their SRM and CRM activities.The study showed several learning possibilities were identified through benchmarking SRM and CRM as strategies, processes and value creators at different organizational levels. Knowledge creation requires similar kind of business understanding, learning drivers to support cross-learning, and carefully designed learning environment. Shared practices (mentoring and training programs) support transforming created knowledge into decision-making.
Journal: ( – )
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Publish Year: 2008
Conference: Uppsala, Sweden (2008)