Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The CRM Software Solution for automotive suppliers

The Part-Book is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that was designed specifically for Automotive Suppliers.

Traditional CRM Features:  

With the Part-Book we cover basic CRM features, such as the ability to keep track of customer contacts, including location, title, phone number and email address.  These basic CRM features can be helpful for new employees trying to figure out their surroundings.

Another important element of effective customer relationship management is the legal aspect.  The Part-Book keeps track of the terms and conditions for each customer, program, part or project; and it allows user’s to create or note exceptions to those when appropriate.

Of course the Part-Book also has a document warehouse.  The Part-Book eliminates the need to go searching through folders and files hoping to find find the latest, accurate information.  Each key document has a standard location in the Part-Book, which makes it really easy to find the latest customer cost breakdown, PPAP submission, packaging specifications, etc.

We recently added a new feature, Part-Book Notes, which is a CRM system masterpiece for automotive suppliers.  Instead of sending emails to cover important matters, users add a note to the customer, program, part or project and its automatically cascaded to the program/part/projects effected.  Don’t just send an email that can easily get lost in the shuffle; the Part-Book adds the note to a database, so it becomes a matter of permanent record; and the system will send the email for you.  That’s our best practice approach to customer relationship management, but the CRM features of the Part-Book don’t stop there.

Most Customer Relationship Management software solutions are centered around Sales Forecasting and the Part-Book doesn’t fall short.  In fact, the Part-Book does sales and complete financial forecasting – that’s right, you get top line revenue, bottom line profit and everything in between.  Most importantly, since the Part-Book is an all-in-one CRM, quoting, sales and financial forecasting system; every time something changes data doesn’t have to be moved across multiple systems and spreadsheets to keep it up to date, the Part-Book does it all for you!

Unique Automotive Supplier CRM Software Features:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is especially complicated for automotive supplier.  For now, forget about the fact that the auto industry has it’s own language and just consider the unique things that happen within the automotive industry; and how each customer puts their own spin on what’s necessary to effectively manage:

• • Platforms, Programs & Derivatives:  One unique aspect of being an automotive supplier is that sometimes a part is associated with a platform and is used in multiple vehicles, sometimes it’s used on one program or vehicle; and sometimes it’s only used on some vehicles, such as a sunroof.  Understanding the relationship of the part an automotive supplier sells to the platform/program/derivative it’s associated with is one of the key’s to effectively understanding long term sales, financial and capacity planning, which is an important aspect of customer relationship management.
  • Program Build Events:  When you’re an automotive supplier, one challenge to good customer relationship management is managing the pre-production build events.  Customers usually have different names for these events, which can add confusion, but the biggest issue is that people often don’t have clear visibility of these part requirements.  These parts may not be ordered through typical EDI releases, plus customer’s seem to wait until the very last minute to drop the orders.  The Part-Book helps improve Customer Relationship Management by providing clear visibility of approximately how many parts are needed and when for all known pre-production build events.
  • Project Management:  The automotive supplier world is complex, with lots of variables and things always changing – here’s how the Part-Book customer relationship manages it:  Each time the customer issues a request for quote (RFQ) a new project is created to track it.  When the customer issues a Purchase Order for a new part or engineering change a project is created to track the part launch or change.  A project can also be created to track part deviations or quality issues.  The Part-Book project management approach provides a simple solution to the automotive supplier’s CRM challenges; and it’s how we make sure everything stays front and center; and nothing slips through the cracks.
  • Raw Material Economics & Scrap Revenue Sharing:  Some customer’s have raw material re-sale programs.  Some customers adjust the piece price quarterly based on changes to the market price of raw material.  Some customer have scrap revenue sharing programs.  In many cases, these raw material and scrap revenue sharing programs are tied to benchmark indexes which may note correlate with your actual costs and revenues.  These material economic and scrap revenue sharing line items seem like small things, but in many cases their are thousands, or millions, of dollars being exchanged here.  Careful management of these aspects is a critical element of part profit.
  • Long Term Agreements (LTA’s) & Productivity Reductions:  One of the unique things about customer relationship management for automotive suppliers is managing LTA’s and productivity reduction agreements; where there is a contractual agreement to reduce the price of a part at given points during the life of the contract.  These reductions can be on the overall price, or on the value add only.  The reductions can be triggered when the customer meets certain volumes, or on specified dates.  No automotive supplier wants to give price reductions, but it’s a condition of playing the game.  Having the right customer relationship management tool to manage your LTA and Productivity Reduction agreements can be the difference between being profitable and going bankrupt.

     There is no shortages of customer relationship management challenges for automotive suppliers; and having the right CRM solution can make a huge difference.     

The Part-Book leverages Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence) to create dashboards that provide clear visibility of key metrics with actionable items that help automotive suppliers seize opportunities through an improved Customer Relationship Management experience that helps deepen customer loyalty and grow sales more profitably.