CRM Buyer : Archives

ANALYSIS
8 Steps to Getting Sales and Marketing to Play Nice

Thursday - July 2, 2009

There are dozens of webinars, seminars, research reports, whitepapers, and blog postings on the topic of sales and marketing alignment. Despite the endless flow of resources and suggestions, sales and marketing alignment continues to elude many organizations. Misalignment is often a byproduct of a lack of process and a natural result of traditional marketing and sales roles. Think about it -- sales is perhaps one of the most measured functions in an organization. In sales, performance is measured by tangible results. [More...]

INSIGHTS
Evolution, Revolution and Punctuated Equilibrium

Wednesday - July 1, 2009

Kudos to all those who participated in, organized or even attended the Enterprise 2.0 conference in drizzly Boston last week. There is a lot to write about. The big ideas that I took away include disruption and evolution, ROI and a need to sharpen our focus. Here are a few thoughts on a very good show. [More...]

Outsourcing's No Longer In

Tuesday - June 30, 2009

Companies used to turn to outsourcing during tough financial times. The current global recession, however, has curtailed outsourcing as much as it has other parts of the economy. "Oddly enough, the global recession has hurt outsourcing significantly," said Chad Hahn, principal owner of Hahn Consulting. [More...]

VENDOR WATCH
ERP Should Pay for Itself in a Year: Q&A With xTuple CEO Ned Lilly

Monday - June 29, 2009

xTuple is an open source ERP provider, and CEO Ned Lilly says there are few fellow travelers on his company's path. In this tanking economy, the company has been leveraging both its open source bona fides and the fundamental functionality that is inherent in an ERP system to gain market share. [More...]

EXPERT ADVICE
Usability: The Cornerstone of E-Commerce/CRM Convergence

Friday - June 26, 2009

When e-commerce was born some 13 years ago, systems were typically proprietary, requiring a large team of internal developers to constantly upgrade features while diligently working to integrate them into key legacy back-office systems. At times, these were near-impossible tasks that consumed vast amounts of money and time. [More...]

Analysis: Veramark's Performance Advisor for Telecom and IT Expenses

Thursday - June 25, 2009

This article draws on two discrete data sets: BI deployments of over 270 respondents in an Aberdeen Group April 2009 benchmark report; and the telecom lifecycle management solutions of 140 respondents in a March 2009 benchmark report. This data will be used to contextualize the value of integrated business intelligence functionalities and their ability to drive additional cost savings. [More...]

INSIGHTS
Socializing the Revolution

Wednesday - June 24, 2009

Events taking place on the streets of Tehran may have an important effect on how social networking rolls out across the rest of the world, and that includes the CRM world. Last week, the media began carrying stories about a "cyber revolution" that may be happening in the Islamic Republic, but those stories fail to account for the whole story -- the yin and yang of social media. [More...]

EXPERT ADVICE
Cross-Selling's Time Has Come

Tuesday - June 23, 2009

"You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!" -- "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" What the initially skeptical characters in Reese's famous candy commercials learned through a somewhat painful cross-sell process -- usually by bumping into each other -- was that these complementary ingredients together made each one better. [More...]

VENDOR WATCH
Collaborating in the Cloud: Q&A With PBworks CEO Jim Groff

Monday - June 22, 2009

Cloud computing is remaking just about every software category -- and project management is no exception. In the on-premise software era, collaboration was limited by the technology of a particular firm, as well as the security requirements of a particular industry. That was then, of course. [More...]

Will PCI Ever Make the Grade?

Friday - June 19, 2009

Every time you swipe your credit card and wait for the transaction to be approved, sensitive data including your name and account number are ferried from store to bank through computer networks, each step a potential opening for hackers. While you may take steps to protect yourself against identity theft, an Associated Press investigation has found the banks are not being nearly as cautious as they could. [More...]

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