There's an old saying that tells us that in the world of business, you need to go where your customers are. But due to the digital revolution, your customers are in more places than ever before. This is true regardless of the type of business that you're running or even in the industry you're operating in.
But at the same time, that old saying is still very much true - you can't force your customers to interact with your brand the way you want them to, you have to do whatever you can to support how they want to make a purchase. Only by focusing on (and improving) how you engage with your customers will you be able to meet their needs, exceed their expectations, and guarantee the profitable growth you need when you need it the most.
This is also one of the many reasons why omnichannel revenue management is so important. It isn't just about being able to sell anywhere and everywhere - it's about doing so in the best possible way to guarantee the highest return, no exceptions. If you don't already care about ORM, there are a number of compelling reasons why you should start.
What is Omnichannel Revenue Management?
Omnichannel revenue management isn't just about being able to sell anywhere and everywhere - it's about giving you the visibility you need to understand just how profitable different flow paths really are. It's about not just being able to measure the financial impact of return, but using that information to make the most informed, actionable decisions moving forward.
Think about it like this: yes, your customers may want to use Order Path A, but if Order Path A isn't profitable it doesn't actually make sense to go after that "opportunity." With omnichannel revenue management practices and solutions designed for that purpose, it puts businesses in all types in a better position to both understand the true costs and margins of a particular path, which in turn allows you to focus on the most important factor of all: profitability.
How ORM is Being Used Successfully
Omnichannel revenue management is already being used in a wide range of different ways in virtually every industry that you can think of on both the business-to-consumer and business-to-business sides of the equation. Despite the fact that B2B orders are inherently more complicated than B2C ones, omnichannel revenue management is valuable in a number of ways.See
An excellent example of this is Telogis, a software provider that offers cloud-based, mobile fleet management software to customers around the country. By allowing their customers to manage workers remotely, those customers can extract additional value out of their fleets and optimize for maximum return on investment.
In an effort to better improve their omnichannel capabilities, Telgois has built their business model on the foundation of Oracle's Order Management Cloud solution. With this, they're able to bring in various customer orders and transactions from a wide range of places into a single Order Management Cloud Interface. At that point, they can process them and make a better determination about where those transactions need to go - all while maintaining an almost unprecedented level of visibility at the exact same time.
It's easy to see how this could positively affect other areas of the supply chain, too. In addition to driving additional cost efficiencies by way of better inventory planning, companies also have a much better idea of how much inventory is held across the supply chain. This helps to guarantee that B2B companies are able to reduce delivery times for products as much as possible, which itself goes a long way towards reducing costs as well.
Is it For You?
In the end, ORM is about two simple-yet-critical concepts. First, it's about positioning a business to better support an array of different customer classes across a diverse series of channels. Second comes the idea that, by doing so, you not only open the door to potential new revenue streams but you also better optimize the ones you already have.
In that way, this also becomes the primary reason why you should care about ORM in the first place. It's about creating the type of security, flexibility, and agility you need to support more customers in more diverse ways - getting your entire organization in the position it needs to be in to weather the transformation of the next decade and beyond.
