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Thunderhead.com Smooths Out the Wrinkles in Customer Communication June 17, 2013 
Almost a year after launching its ONE Correspond for Salesforce, Thunderhead.com rolled out version 2.0. A part of the company's flagship ONE customer engagement platform, ONE Correspond for Salesforce allows users to create communications for customers. Via Salesforce's Chatter, it also has strong collaborative features that give users a way to review, edit and approve documents internally.
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Integrating the Enterprise's Old and New Worlds June 15, 2013 
With nearly every market forecast and growing anecdotal evidence pointing to escalating demand for cloud-based alternatives to traditional on-premises systems and software, the challenges of integrating the new on-demand solutions with existing applications and data sources are becoming even more critical. Data integration continues to be a pivotal part of successful "as a Service" adoption.
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5 Places Customer Relationships Go to Die June 14, 2013 
Building a customer relationship -- the kind that lasts a long time -- is a not an easy thing. There are lots of occasions where things can go awry, touch points where signals can get crossed and communications that can unwittingly turn a customer off. In a lot of cases, the conclusion is triggered by something the business does that brings the relationship to a premature end.
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Where CRM and BPM Meet June 13, 2013 
Pegasystems held PegaWorld in "PegOrlando" this week, and a good show it was. I have always wondered about the difference between CRM (social and otherwise) and BPM, or business process management, so I was happy to attend. Both CRM and BPM deal with the interaction between the vendor and customer, and each is involved in doing the things that make customers come back.
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SAP Pulls Hybris Into Its Stable June 11, 2013 
SAP acquired Switzerland-based enterprise resource planning company Hybris last week in order to add cloud-based, next-generation e-commerce capabilities to its offerings.
Hybris has developed an omnichannel commerce platform that allows businesses to incorporate Web, mobile, call center and store actions in their efforts to track and respond to customer activity.
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When Mobile CRM Goes Too Far, Part 3 June 10, 2013 
Mobile everything is the current computing zeitgeist and if that means turning an app or function that is perfectly suited for desktop use into a mobilized one, well, as the thinking goes at so many companies now, just do it. However, mobilizing an app -- even a front-office CRM app -- should not be undertaken lightly. Costs, security issues and customer attitudes all must be considered.
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Bonitasoft Revs Its Execution Engine in Bonita BPM 6 June 07, 2013 
It has been a busy three years for Bonitasoft. Since its launch, the company has: 1) commercialized its open source business process management technology, which it created out of the Bonita Project in the mid-2000s; 2) pulled in $28 million in venture funding; and 3) attracted some 600 customers. This week, the company hit a fourth milestone: the release of its first major upgrade.
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Salesforce Buys ExactTarget June 05, 2013 
Salesforce.com has made its biggest acquisition ever: It has snagged marketing automation and campaign management vendor ExactTarget for $2.5 billion. As part of the transaction, Salesforce will acquire all outstanding ExactTarget stock for $33.75 per share in cash. Both companies' boards of directors have approved the deal, which is expected to increase Salesforce revenue by $120-$125 million.
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Big Data on the Brain June 04, 2013 
I seem to be doing a lot of research and writing about Big Data this year. I am taking a lot of briefings from emerging analytics companies too, and I see it all as net good because the emphasis on data and analytics is really an emphasis on information, an economic indicator of sorts for me. The thirst for customer information tells me that more companies are working to discover new things.
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BigContacts Makes Complex Workflow Building Look Easy June 03, 2013 
BigContacts has unveiled a new iteration of its CRM application. BigContacts 2.0 is a full-featured CRM suite "that is couched in a simple and easy-to-use format," said founder and CEO Bob Walton. That is a point of pride for the company. "We have taken the pillars of what a CRM system needs and made them very robust but in a way that our customers tell us hides the complexity of that robustness."
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CRM Vendors Are the Worst CRM Practitioners May 31, 2013 
I've worked as a journalist covering CRM, and I've worked with vendors trying to explain and educate potential customers about CRM. In both roles, I've seen one troubling trend that very few vendors seem able to buck. That trend is this: Most CRM vendors suck at CRM. I know -- if anyone should get CRM right, it should be the CRM vendors. They should be modeling proper usage to their customers.
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Siebel at 20 May 30, 2013 
Siebel saved my life. Not really but sort of. By the early 1990s, I had been selling software for what seemed like a lifetime and dealing with the typical frustrations of life in sales. There weren't enough leads, and there was always more work to do than you could squeeze into a day. I kept records on legal pads and file folders, and I had a Rolodex that I would never update.
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Integration Plus Intelligence Equals Multichannel Campaign Success May 23, 2013 
The personality inventory known as the "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator" is premised on the idea that different people process information in different ways. Some people are verbal processors. Others are visual processors. Some people respond more strongly to images -- others to text. The most effective way to learn is to map the different learning styles to each individual's characteristic strengths.
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SuiteWorld Reveals Cloud ERP's Moment in the Sun May 22, 2013 
NetSuite bloomed this week, in part because of a very well-produced user meeting, SuiteWorld, held in San Jose. However, it also bloomed because there can no longer be any doubt that the market for ERP technology is turning to the cloud. What was once unthinkable -- that ERP could or would ever be delivered as a cloud solution -- has been gaining acceptance
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InsideView Provides New Insights Into Sales Leads May 17, 2013 
InsideView earlier this month debuted a new marketing offering housed on its InsideView CRM Intelligence Platform. This first iteration of InsideView for Marketing focuses on automated lead enrichment capabilities, said Marc Perramond, VP of product. It was built with an eye to enhancing a company's lead records with social, media and financial information.
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Bloomberg Caught With Hands in the Customer Data Jar May 16, 2013 
Bloomberg has been embroiled in scandal since news broke last week that its reporters were using the company's corporate terminals to monitor its customers' activities. The story began to unravel when news surfaced that Goldman Sachs had confronted Bloomberg over the possibility that reporters were accessing its account data.
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How to Muff a Mobile Marketing Campaign, Part 2 May 13, 2013 
You wouldn't think it was easy to bungle a mobile marketing campaign -- but it definitely is doable. Six in 10 decision makers planned to increase their companies' mobile marketing budgets in 2013, Forrester said earlier this year, reporting on a survey conducted for Acquent. However, 42 percent of those respondents were worried about achieving ROI. They have good reason to be.
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Trulia Rolls Out Welcome Mat for Real Estate Pros May 10, 2013 
In a move to bolster its offerings for the real estate market, Trulia said this week that it would acquire Market Leader, a Software as a Service-based CRM company targeting agents and brokers. The acquisition, expected to close in the fall, will provide Trulia with tools to help real estate professionals manage and track leads.
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From BI to KPIs to Benchmark Success in the Cloud May 10, 2013 
Organizations of all sizes across an assortment of industries are using a growing set of cloud analytics solutions to address their Big Data, business intelligence and data integration challenges. Escalating competitive pressures and customer expectations are forcing organizations to find new ways to tap internal and external data sources to achieve their business goals.
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Economics Imitates Life, and Life Has a Lot to Do With CRM May 08, 2013 
It's been wonderful this spring, being a part of all the vendor briefings now in high gear. That's because in short but sometimes painfully dense bursts, we get to know what each vendor has in store for the months ahead. It's a lot and that's a good sign. There seems to be a breakout happening. One of the themes running through all the events -- like a kid on a tricycle -- is marketing
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