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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....
Too often channel strategies ranging from the most tactical and short-term to the most strategic and multiyear fail. Success or failure of a channel management strategy has nothing to do with the time horizon and everything to do with perspective, timing and getting away from a "one-and-done" menta...
While all eyes were focused on Oracle closing the PeopleSoft deal this week, a series of announcements from SAP and Microsoft may prove to be even more significant to the IT industry overall and to CRM specifically in the long term. Within the next five years SAP and Microsoft will change the landsc...
While January 1 is a great mile-marker in any business timeline, the urgency for change needs to be dictated by honest assessments rather than by the flip of calendar pages. We all have enough to do already, and no one wants another action item list. That's why resolutions can turn out to be counte...
Think of this scenario: You're shopping for a new home and instead of guiding you into a single-digit fixed-rate mortgage, lenders try to persuade you that an adjustable mortgage indexed to your income makes more sense. Structuring mortgages like that makes no sense, and it's making less and less se...
Many companies question if the dollars spent with research and advisory firms are delivering unbiased, accurate guidance. This is particularly true in the CRM industry, where analysts influence short lists, sales cycles, and media coverage extensively. Analysts, in short, can make or break a start-u...
It's time for a reality check: When it comes to managing e-commerce strategies in your company, how do results line up with expectations? Too many companies hold on to incredibly inefficient Web sites chock full of order capture systems that lead nowhere except to someone's Outlook folders, or catal...
The CRM systems of many companies fail because they don't properly manage the expectations of prospects and customers. What's been missing is the ability to capture the moment of truth with every prospect or customer and then bring these insights into a broader mosaic of what the many segments of ...
In the last U.S. presidential election the candidates clashed on the issue of privatizing the Social Security system. I'll leave the political debate to the professional politicians, but I would like to address this matter from the standpoint of millions of U.S. workers. Many of them are already b...
It's that time again; the earnings calls for CRM, ERP, hardware and services vendors are being scheduled, rehearsed and delivered to shareholders, industry and financial analysts. What's common across the more than two dozen calls I've listened to that span CRM, ERP and SCM software, hardware and se...
The irony is too strong to ignore. Gartner, Forrester, IDC and other analyst firms are all forecasting that outsourcing will continue growing rapidly. Yet not one is forecasting when industry analysis itself will move offshore. With so many conceptual thinkers in these companies, someone has got to...
Making inroads into the next major market for software isn't going to happen from enterprise vendors trying to wedge expensive, large application footprints into a product strategy that appeals to medium-sized companies. Despite Oracle, Siebel and others proclaiming they can make this strategy work...
There's a major disconnect between the expectations and results companies are getting when they realign processes aimed at serving their customers, as I've discovered in conversations with several manufacturers. There are several reasons why these unrealistic expectations take hold. First, nearly ev...
Research firms benchmark other companies, but they don't benchmark themselves. This is one of the biggest ironies of the research industry. Financial analysts are now benchmarked as they give their stock recommendations on CNBC. When you watch CNBC and see a positive endorsement of a stock from an ...
Two major CRM events took place this week, with Gartner and Siebel coaxing CRM users out of their cubicles to warm West Coast locations. Gartner's Customer Relationship Management Summit took place in Scottsdale, Arizona, while Siebel hosted its annual User Week in Los Angeles. Both tried to add a v...
The debate over whether Oracle will prevail in its attempt to acquire PeopleSoft is over. Mario Monti, the European Union's competition commissioner, is expected to approve the merger before October 31. With the European Union on board, Oracle has the legal momentum to make this merger happen. The d...
There are many common threads that tie together shopping for an analyst firm and kicking the tires of a sports utility vehicle. The power promised by the marketing behind both is impressive. The trick is finding one that fits what you want to accomplish. Both have high expectations associated with t...
It's time the software industry quit ducking the tougher questions of growth by blindly claiming that every segment will either be conquered by or collapse into the domain of enterprise resource planning systems. It's getting tiresome to have so many industry insiders, financial analysts, journalist...
It is often said what separates one company's ability to develop, execute and sustain a CRM strategy is the active involvement of the CEO. But it goes deeper than that. Too many times channel management, pricing, order capture and even order management initiatives fail because the CEO pays lip servi...
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The Future of Gen AI in Retail: Balancing Human Factors With Revenue Growth
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2024 Retail Action Item: Satisfy Gen Z Demand for Payment Options
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Spectrio Digital Signage Gives AI Assist to In-Store Marketing
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Omnichannel, Online Consumers Shift to Mindful Shopping Practices
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