Vendor Relationship Management
Wikipedia
VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management, is the reciprocal of CRM or Customer Relationship Management. VRM describes a set of tools, technologies and services that help individuals go to market and manage relationships with vendors. In turn, vendors who align themselves to these tools, technologies and services will have the opportunity to build better relationships with their customers.
The goal of VRM is to improve the relationship between the demand-side and the supply-side of markets by providing new and better ways for the former to relate to the latter. In a larger sense, VRM has the potential to improve markets and their mechanisms by equipping customers to be independent leaders and not just captive followers in their relationships with vendors and other parties on the supply side of the marketplace.
ProjectVRM, at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, is working to support development of VRM tools and methodologies to provide customers with both independence from vendors and ways to engage with vendors. The project is headed by Doc Searls, a fellow with the Berkman Center.
