In a perfect world

Over the last months I had the privilege to have time to think things over. The strategic framework of Yunomi, the RM-platform of Unilever was set. The outline of the platform was ready as well & now other people of the Emakina Group were realizing this multi brand, multi country platform. New opportunities were there but I deliberately didn’t go for them, I felt it was time for something different (like every once in a while).

During one of the school holidays my family & me made a trip to Rio de Janeiro as we had never been to South America & one of my former employees (and by now good friend) Bram Stevens would attend to Rio as well on his sailingtrip around the world with his girlfriend Vivian. How much more reasons should one have to visit Rio? As Karin (my best friend and wife) & I thought it would be nice to catch up over a longer period (instead of just one diner) we invited them in our hotel and booked them a room; we had great laughs, good stories and after a long night it was morning again. Time for breakfast.

Breakfast is one of the best things in a hotel, we always can look forward to that. During our previous days in Rio my family had extended breakfast sessions & we had good recognition of the personnel. So this morning Bram and Viv did join us as well. Bram & I were talking business, as usual; on how the market was changing, opportunities that occur, so basically we continued were we ended last evening. According to us the market was shifting towards a more “customer in control” situation than ever before. We wouldn’t find the news, the news would find us based on our preferences, social entity etc. This would extend to products and services. In a perfect world products & services would find us, in a contextual manner, relevant & in time. In a perfect world customers would influence the products & services to make a perfect fit.

When we sat down at our table, the waitress came to Karin with a very nice orange juice. The previous days Karin always had chosen the orange juice out of all very nice fresh juices (from pineapple to watermelon and everything in between). This time the waitress didn’t ask Karin what she wanted but brought here the orange juice proactive. And just today Karin felt like trying the watermelon juice; it wasn't a perfect world yet.

We laughed when Bram said the memorable words: “……..and this is one of the problems with CRM; based on previous data the vendor thinks to know what the customer wants.” And that was the moment I switched in my mind from CRM to VRM; The ability for a vendor to anticipate in the process of the consumer and give them as much control as possible. So I was convinced about my 'new' thing. VRM instead of CRM, only one letter different, yet an whole perfect new world to explore.