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When it comes to measuring their customers' satisfaction, too many companies have settled into a comfortable rut of changing their approaches to get the results they want. It's like buying a treadmill with the mile counter sped up; if we all could perform at such accelerated levels we'd all be Olym...

There's a burning question on the minds of many marketing, sales and support execs these days and it is: "How do I reach the influencers that really matter to my business?" A common question that comes up often in marketing planning meetings, these execs are realizing that the influencers most visi...

There's a growing ground-swell of interest in many companies today around the valuation of their homegrown ERP, CRM, order capture and service applications. This issue has come to the forefront for several reasons, the two most dominant ones being many companies are looking seriously at the marketa...

The torrent of facts, data, figures and insights that blogs deliver daily are random and chaotic, yet immensely valuable in the right context. For companies committed to getting to the truth of where they stand with their prospects, customers, suppliers and many other stakeholders, blogs are becomi...

In good times marketing and sales get all the credit for increases in sales and profits, but in bad times, IT gets the brunt of the cost-cutting pressure. What have been missing are truer measures of Return on Investment (ROI) for companies adopting customer-facing strategies. What's really needed ...

The bottom line is that despite promising a 360 degree view of the customer, and all the benefits of that level of visibility into customer relationships, CRM systems continue to suffer from lack of the one essential element that would make all these applications come together: trust. It's not the l...

During the last downturn nearly every enterprise software vendor stayed alive for a quarter or more due to their support and maintenance revenue streams. Today, support and maintenance comprises the majority of revenue for many CRM vendors, both public and private. Existing customers are carrying t...

The bottom line is that today the analytics used in many small manufacturing companies starts and ends with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. There are entire manufacturing operations run off Excel, fulfilling the roles of demand planner, manufacturing scheduling, and the continual maintenance of bills...

Prospects, customers and investors must have a lingering question in their minds with the announcement of a new CEO at Siebel: "Since George Shaheen was already on the board and capable of major influence, why haven't things changed already?" Putting a board member into the CEO slot seems like wind...

For the last four years I've been teaching an international business course occasionally for a local MBA Program. My students are all working professionals who come to class for discussion and debate, not sermons. Case studies are the perfect teaching tool for this audience; there is plenty of roo...

In the CRM arena, there are several myths surrounding best practices, and these myths get more pronounced the closer systems are to channels and customers. The situation gets worse as the pressure is increased to produce results from people you have no direct control over. Despite all the hype, best...

Having become the centerpiece of thousands of companies' marketing efforts, CeBIT, which was held this year in Hannover, Germany from March 10-16, serves as a great industry barometer. With so many announcements made across the entire IT industry, I focused only on the business process halls, where ...

Home-grown ERP systems are the Oscar Madisons of the IT world. Grizzled by years of service yet reluctant to change, these massive home-grown systems resist the efforts of CIOs to transform them. More often than not, the home-grown ERP system ends up changing the CIO. The complexity and lack of c...

Blogging is quickly becoming part of the online lexicon of marketing, sales and support organizations as companies look for better ways to connect with customers. The Pew Internet and American Life Project published a report in January based on two blog surveys. The report is free and can be downl...

There's a dangerous undercurrent tugging at even the best manufacturer and distribution channel relationships: the inability to set and manage expectations based on supply chain visibility. While many manufacturers insist they have the ability to make and keep commitments based on visibility into mu...

The allure of automating the most common tasks involving channel partners, manufacturers and distributors is so sexy that this corner of the CRM market erupted with growth during the dot-com bubble. Today it's collapsing faster than a souffle pulled from the oven too fast. When the number of firms ...

Many manufacturers rely on special pricing requests, or exceptions to standard pricing, for a large part of their indirect channel revenue. Even for direct accounts, many manufacturers have given their sales managers and regional directors control over price limits to increase responsiveness. But ...

In discussing weight or golf scores it's easier to exaggerate the positive than to tell the truth. The same holds true when it comes to SAP ERP integrations. Integrating to any ERP system is hard work, but SAP integration around meaningful business processes can be much more challenging than integ...

What makes channel, sales and service partnerships messy? Contracts, lots of them, for office leases, for equipment, even to prove the partnerships' existence to local, state and national governments. Problems coordinating all these commitments -- buried in contracts that are stuffed into filing cab...

Too many companies seem to believe that the right technology is the key to e-commerce success. But the firms that really make e-commerce pay off don't simply hand over their e-commerce destinies to consultants, system integrators or vendors. Instead, they undertake the hard work of self-examination....