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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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 these strategies don't pay off for either manufacturers or software vendors. That's because the systems that support special pricing are broken...
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 integrating to even a back-office production scheduling system...
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 ...
Too many companies seem to believe that the right technology is the key to e-commerce success ...
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" mentality ...
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 ...
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 counterproductive ...
When it comes to pricing, simpler is better. Vendors who are reading the market right are moving more and more to per-CPU pricing, and, in short, trying to minimize the burden of accounting on their OEMs and their customers. The more simplistic a vendors' pricing approach, the greater the competitive advantage. The bottom line is that all the pain of value-based pricing is no longer necessary, there are plenty of good alternatives with other applications that have comparable or better usability, performance and features. Louis Columbus, a CRM Buyer columnist, is a former senior analyst with AMR Research. He currently works in the software industry and recently published the e-book Best Practices in Industry Analyst Relations, which is available on Amazon.com. This story was originally published on August 20, 2004, and is brought to you today as part of our Best of ECT News series. ...
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-up company relatively quickly ...
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? ...
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 a customer base like, don't like and expect from you...
In the last U.S. presidential election the candidates clashed on the issue of privatizing the Social Security system ...
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 services companies is that every CEO is offering up a spin on how global outsourcing is making their business even more cost-competitive, responsive to global markets and stronger for the strategic long run...
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 ...
I'll never forget playing on a losing football team growing up and having my friends --my friends! -- yell from the sideline, "You guys stink!" Thankfully, I discovered a passion for baseball, played for years, and even won a city championship ...
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, the bottom line is that the financial pain of doing this is just too much for companies with their cost structures to bear...
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 ...
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