The tables are turning on the suppliers of goods and services.

The web and penetration of broadband allows tools, previously only available to large public and private organisations to publish RFIs and RFQs to their preferred supplier list, to be developed to provide SMEs and individual Consumers to ‘pull’ relevant marketing information and quotations from potential suppliers.

Until now CRM, in its many forms, has been used to capture data about customers and prospects with the commendable intention of understanding their ‘needs’ and pushing appropriate marketing messages. This data may originally have been provided voluntarily and in good faith in exchange for a specific purpose (convenience) or reward (loyalty card). Unfortunately this has got so out of hand that today data about an individual, including personal and sensitive information, is being harvested, collected and stored on 1,000 data silos around the globe.

Some of this data is 10 minutes old - some of it 10 years old, much of it is out of date and inaccurate and organisations are making decisions which could, for example, affect the credit rating of an individual or SME based upon this erroneous data. It certainly wasn’t provided to be shared, sold or stolen without the individuals’ knowledge or permission resulting in an increasing avalanche of spam and junk mail. It also wasn’t provided for organisations, public and private, to treat identifying information in such a cavalier manner as to expose a company or individual to the risk of identity theft and fraud.

Never forget that the ‘R’ in CRM stands for 'Relationship' and, to make that worthwhile, the supply chain needs to participate in a two-way conversation between buyer and seller. There is no need to ‘guess’ what a customer or prospect may want when we now have the ability to let them tell a supplier precisely what they want – RFIs and RFQs for everyone right down to the all important consumer.

The reciprocal to CRM is VRM (vendor relationship management) which allows the individual to enter, store and maintain their information in their own data silo. From this they can anonymously ‘publish’ their wants and needs (RFIs) for suppliers to respond and correspond (RFQs) only revealing their relevant identity details at the appropriate time in the conversation/transaction.

The benefits for both parties in this scenario include:

• Both seller and buyer can be authenticated by a trusted third party;

•Only relevant information provided by buyer, with their permissio;

• data, if relevant, can be verified and certified by the trusted third party;

• the ability to ‘write once, use many’ reduces repetitive effort by the buyer and ensures consistency of information when comparing responses from suppliers;

• The communication channel, email address/phone number, can be unique to a supplier (unrelated spam to that address will immediately identify the source of the information breach);

• There is an audit trail for buyer of what data provided to whom, when and why;

• The data feed can be one-time or persistent so that suppliers are always up-to-date;

• The data feed can use machine-readable code to synchronise (two ways) with the seller's CRM;

• The data feed can be turned off at the end of the relationship;

• Unsuccessful potential suppliers are not able to ‘spam’ a prospect or to share, lose or sell data;

• The seller reinforces the relationship with the buyer by demonstrating respect for sensitive data;

• The seller demonstrates compliance with Data Protection Act.

The key issue here is that the buyer is now able to ‘pull’ relevant information rather than surfing, searching or filtering.

A buyer's ‘invitation’ could be specific and temporary (e.g. replacement double glazing) or more general and persistent (promotional gifts). The more ‘granular’ the invitation (let's say, the supplier has to be within 50 miles of your location, the maximum price is £5,000, and after-sales service capability is essential, and so on) then the more relevant the responses will be.

This ability to ‘invite’ relevant email marketing messages will result in spam becoming a sales inhibitor rather than a cheap, albeit increasingly ineffective, sales enabler. Spam used to be merey irritating (and you don’t want to irritate your customers and prospects) but it is now out of control. Reputable suppliers will want to distance themselves from such intrusive tactics – after all, customer relationships are at stake.

Numerous applications based upon consumer-driven VRM principals will be launched starting in 2008. Many of these will be simple, light widgets in the social networking space expressing an interest in, say, Chardonnay and requesting marketing information. Others will be heavier, providing highly secure personal digital safe deposit boxes from which an individual can confidently manage their health, wealth and happiness.

I often recall the classic marketing poster, spotted in a New York print shop window some years ago, which all buyers would do well to keep in mind. It read “Quality, Speed, Price – Choose any two”.