As a supply chain professional, you already know the value in establishing and maintaining relationships, but are you maximizing your communication strategy? For millennials, the use of social media is natural; it’s a part of our everyday lives. For other generations, it’s hit-or-miss. Some people are social media privy, some are experts and some avoid it like the plague. Whether or not individuals choose to use social media from a personal standpoint is their own prerogative. Whether or not companies use social media for their brands shouldn’t be a question at all. We live in a digital age where virtually (no pun intended) everything is online. So, it makes perfect sense for you to market your brand online. While having a website is absolutely essential, you also need vehicles to drive traffic to it—one major channel for that is social media. If you’ve totally been ignoring digital transformation for your brand, let’s make a U-turn, take the bull by the horns and start with the following seven steps.
Choose your Platforms
There are 1.5 billion people using social media. Exciting, right? There is a whole virtual universe out there for you to explore. Each social media platform was designed for a different (sometimes just slightly) purpose. In addition, each platform generally reaches unique (yet sometimes overlapping) audiences. Once you understand each platform, you can develop your segmentation strategy. Don’t underestimate the power of these platforms for connecting with your suppliers, vendors and customers. They are using them too and you can learn a lot by being on the platforms they are frequenting.
Create a Voice That’s Consistent Across All Platforms
You work hard to build a reputation that’s trustworthy. You’ve created a beautiful logo, compelling marketing collateral, engaging online campaigns and held endless photo shoots – and the list goes on. However, all your hard work is in vain, if you don’t know what others are saying about you or your suppliers. For example, most companies don’t know if there are slaves in their supply chains. It might sound far-fetched, but human traffickers target unskilled workers to fulfill shortages all along a supply chain and if you’re like most companies, you aren’t even aware of it. Monitoring your online presence, in addition to the reputation of companies you do business with, will provide valuable insights for your brand, and more importantly – will keep you in the know when the reputation of others in question.
These social media tools can help you better monitor your online presence and the reputation of others.
Mention - Paid Service
Mention is an online platform that provides real-time web and social media monitoring. Mention is very user-friendly and is a great way to stay informed every time someone mentions your name, brand or dedicated keywords. The platform is able to monitor billions of online sources in various languages, providing you with super rich data as to what is trending or popular. You can set the platform to receive daily alerts, instantly respond to social media alerts from inside the web portal, set priority status and collaborate with your social media team to improve customer support. This is a great tool for people looking to increase their brand’s awareness, monitor their reputation and grow relationships both online and through social media.
One-on-One is a new Q&A series with leaders in the SIG community. Cost savings. Process efficiencies. They're synonymous with procurement and among the terms most used to describe its role within the enterprise. And with good reason. Over the last decade, procurement has transformed itself from a back-room function to a strategic capability by delivering them. But a new term has entered the lexicon: innovation. There's no doubt that procurement today is a different game. It's more connected, informed and some might even say "social" than ever. Just as consumers tap into personal networks to learn, share and shop better, procurement is beginning to tap into business networks. To learn more on how these digital communities are transforming the function, SIG sat down with Dr. Chakib Bouhdary, President of Business Networks for SAP.
SIG: Social tools much like those used to manage our personal lives have infiltrated the enterprise. How is this changing procurement?
Bouhdary: There are officially more mobile devices than people in the world. More than a billion of us participate in social networks. Over 15 billion web-enabled devices connect us to the people and information we need to manage our daily lives. And data is exploding—doubling about every 18 months. So we are mobile, and apps on our phones and tablets give us new ways to discover and collaborate with our peers and trading partners. Just as consumers tap into social networks to keep tabs on their relatives and friends, procurement is now leveraging business networks to manage trading relationships and commerce activities.
SIG: There seems to be a complete shift in the way trading partners communicate, transact and collaborate. How are business networks driving this?
The "cloud" is allowing Procurement organizations to engage beyond their four walls with peer organizations - for benchmarking and collaborative buying - and with suppliers for new product innovations and supply chain efficiencies. Procurement organizations have long focused most of their attention on getting their own houses in order...streamlining internal transactional processes to promote efficiency, realigning organizational resources to focus more on strategic and less on tactical or transactional activities...all for the betterment of their organizations. With foundational internal platforms and processes in place, more organizations will begin utilizing the cloud to get connected outside their enterprises in a number of new and exciting ways. Cloud technologies make it easier than ever before to collaborate with external enterprises – both suppliers and their peer group. And according to Capgemini Consulting, procurement needs to rapidly shift their attention to supplier collaboration, especially early involvement in new product introduction, in order to drive innovation: "Organizations are still reluctant to involve procurement and suppliers early enough in product development and innovation. And Procurement is still viewed as a silo function with KPIs that remain focused on tactical and cost reduction activities." While 80% of more than 1,000 CPOs surveyed by Capgemini concede that suppliers are involved too late in the corporate innovation process, they recognize that suppliers contribute value beyond the products and services they provide, both in terms of the quantity, speed and agility with which they provide them:
Richard Waugh, Vice President, Corporate Development, Zycus Inc.
One-on-One is a new Q&A series with leaders in the SIG community. Cost savings. Process efficiencies. They're synonymous with procurement and among the terms most used to describe its role within the enterprise. And with good reason. Over the last decade, procurement has transformed itself from a back-room function to a strategic capability by delivering them. But a new term has entered the lexicon: innovation. There's no doubt that procurement today is a different game. It's more connected, informed and some might even say "social" than ever. Just as consumers tap into personal networks to learn, share and shop better, procurement is beginning to tap into business networks. To learn more on how these digital communities are transforming the function, SIG sat down with Dr. Chakib Bouhdary, President of Business Networks for SAP.
Improve Your Supply Chain Management with Social Media
As a supply chain professional, you already know the value in establishing and maintaining relationships, but are you maximizing your communication strategy? For millennials, the use of social media is natural; it’s a part of our everyday lives. For other generations, it’s hit-or-miss. Some people are social media privy, some are experts and some avoid it like the plague. Whether or not individuals choose to use social media from a personal standpoint is their own prerogative. Whether or not companies use social media for their brands shouldn’t be a question at all. We live in a digital age where virtually (no pun intended) everything is online. So, it makes perfect sense for you to market your brand online. While having a website is absolutely essential, you also need vehicles to drive traffic to it—one major channel for that is social media. If you’ve totally been ignoring digital transformation for your brand, let’s make a U-turn, take the bull by the horns and start with the following seven steps.
Choose your Platforms
There are 1.5 billion people using social media. Exciting, right? There is a whole virtual universe out there for you to explore. Each social media platform was designed for a different (sometimes just slightly) purpose. In addition, each platform generally reaches unique (yet sometimes overlapping) audiences. Once you understand each platform, you can develop your segmentation strategy. Don’t underestimate the power of these platforms for connecting with your suppliers, vendors and customers. They are using them too and you can learn a lot by being on the platforms they are frequenting.
Create a Voice That’s Consistent Across All Platforms