CRM Implementation for a Spice Trader

Mr. Bean

Mr. Bean lives in Amsterdam and has been trading spices across Europe for the last 25 years. His annual turnover is $50 Mil (please see the annex 1) for details. His trading business started when young Mr Bean visited the Malaysia Spice market. He found the opportunity to sell spices across Europe (Market size is ~$7B). He set up his office in Germany & Switzerland in early 2000 to start the trading. He visited the market in Germany /Switzerland and found few buyers of species (specially organic), he visited Malaysia multiple times to establish relationships with sellers. This is how his business started 25 years ago. Now he is buying species from multiple countries specially China, India, Malaysia, Brazil etc.

In an interview with a local magazine, Mr Bean recalled magic sauce for his success:

1. Resilience: There will be times when things are not going your way, how to remain in the business.
2. Relationship: build a strong trusted partnership with buyer and seller
3. Smart business - always be on top of your business, understand what's happening in the market and
4. Risk management: Ensure that out of 10 trades you make money in at least 7 times (as one can buy the spice at high price and selling price can be very low in the market, price fluctuates very fast).

Mr Bean would like to expand his business, but he is not able to do so as he has to travel personally to find new customers. He is currently relying on emails which are not very effective. Of Late, he has hired marketing experts to help him in digital marketing (FB, Linked in, Instagram etc.) by posting his products and offers. It has not been very effective. Most of his customer and seller base is using Whatsapp or call and not tech savvy. His son, Mr Sean, has joined him and would like to revolutionise the Industry. He is planning to implement a CRM, built website for the company, build a digital RFQ system etc. When he asked for feedback from his father about his plan, Mr. Bean smiles and says “one day Industry will change, I dont know when and who will change it”

Questions

1. What should be the goals of CRM implementation (Mention top 3)?
2. How should Mr. Sean measure the success of CRM Implementation?
3. What capabilities of CRM Mr. Sean should prioritise?
4. What do you think will be the biggest challenge in CRM implementation and why (Top 5)?

Annex A

Annex B

Price of Clove

Whole Clove HS Code: 090710 - Spices; cloves (whole fruit, cloves and stems), neither crushed nor ground | FAO Code: 0698 - Cloves (whole stems)

Annex C

Indonesia, India, Tanzania

Annex D

This brief includes images that are only in the original file.