A business partner enters the system once, but the relationship never stays in the same place
Every business partner relationship has a lifecycle. An organization first appears as a prospect at a trade fair contact or in a web form; it is qualified, receives a quotation, places its first order, becomes a regular customer,
perhaps also takes on a dealer or supplier role, grows, stagnates, begins to carry risk, is lost, and is sometimes won back. The same cycle runs for a supplier through the stages of prospect, approved, preferred, suspended, and terminated;
for a dealer through application, contract, active, performance monitoring, and termination. Lifecycle management is knowing which stage a business partner is in, tying transitions between stages to defined rules, and determining in advance
who must do what at each stage.
When the lifecycle is not defined, the business partner record stays for years the way it was on the day it was opened. A customer who has not ordered for five years still appears “active”; a dealer whose contract has expired still sees dealer prices;
a supplier whose performance has declined still sits on the preferred list; a company entered as a prospect receives a quotation without being qualified. Stage transitions happen through personal decisions, and silently; who counted whom as a prospect, a customer, or
lost, when, and why, is unknown. Because marketing cannot see how many business partners are at which point in the cycle, it sends acquisition, retention, and win-back campaigns to the wrong lists.
In Minerva, the business partner lifecycle is defined as stages attached to the business partner record and as the transition rules between these stages. Stages such as prospect, qualified, in quotation, active, dormant, at risk, lost, and
won back are set up separately for the customer, supplier, and dealer roles; stage transitions are managed through workflow and approval mechanisms, and the required documents, contracts, and evaluations are attached to the relevant stage.
Stage changes are proposed by the system or applied automatically through rules based on transaction data such as order frequency, turnover, payment performance, and supplier rating; price list, credit, and discount terms follow the stage.
Because every transition is recorded with its date, user, and reason, the business partner’s complete history can be read; marketing, sales, and purchasing direct their campaigns and actions to the right business partners at the right stage of the cycle.
Do not open a business partner record once and leave it; define every stage of the relationship, tie transitions to rules, and know at all times where in the cycle you stand.