CRM

Software systems -- from off-the-shelf applications to enterprise suites -- have become easier to use and implement, consultant Stephen Kerr is the first to admit. That relative ease of implementation is obvious from the end-user's perspective, at any rate. Does that mean that systems integration of...

The service revolution in CRM -- and, in fact, throughout customer-facing strategies -- is well underway in many companies. The reason the remainder of the industry doesn't see it yet is because many CRM vendors' responses to the revolution are so slow that they make lagging economic indicators loo...

Wincor Nixdorf, a German-based provider of IT applications for the banking and retail industries, has introduced its eServices platform in the United States for the first time. Bits and pieces of the application, which connects Wincor Nixdorf service management with customers via an electronic netw...

As senior director of product marketing for the identity practice at Sun Microsystems, Rob Beauchamp remembers -- and it was not that long ago -- when integration was considered a tactical process with the objective of knitting together systems and applications as quickly as possible. To be sure, th...

Earlier this year, IBM announced that its joint sales revenues with mid-market independent software vendors (ISVs) reached US$1 billion worldwide. This is just one measure of the success IBM has realized in the SMB partner strategy it launched in 2002, finds a new report by Access Markets Internatio...

For many companies, there is an uncomfortable truth that even with CRM systems in place, one big gaping hole comes up again and again in customer experience: it's the nagging issue of saving customers time. Does your CRM system really respect your customer's time, rather than your sales person's tim...

When designing a Web page, where exactly should one place the icon to let the consumer know Live Chat is available? On the home page? In the service section? Should that icon be flashing? What color should it be? Believe or not, a group of executives spent at least half an hour of earnest conversati...

A wireless expert I met on a flight to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago told me that more than 58 percent of people don't even know the brand of cell phone they use, and it made me wonder what else we don't know about wireless. More important, is that a good or a bad thing? I usually loath splitting ...

Assemble Connect may be a small company -- but because it is a distributor of custom-manufactured products, its operations are complex enough to rival the largest of manufacturers. That means just about every aspect of its business must be customized -- down to the software that manages the operatio...

A group of leading technology vendors is reporting significant progress in the standardization of service-oriented architecture, or SOA, standards. The Open Service Oriented Architecture collaboration represents an informal alliance of 17 companies that have worked together to create and agree upon ...

The high level of mergers and acquisitions in the CRM market will continue through 2008, research firm Gartner predicts, with one in three CRM software vendors involved in such a transaction each year. There has already been a series of very high profile M&As in the space, of course, including O...

Trying to get your hands around organizational change is a difficult challenge for most companies, but it is even more daunting when you are trying to identify the needs of employees that support multiple product lines and span numerous geographic locations. Today, Web-based surveys continue to tak...

Like most retailers, supermarket conglomerate Ahold has a customer loyalty card program, and like most retailers, it mines that data as much as it can to help it sell more products. The data it has gathered over the years range far beyond what a certain customer buys every week. It can also determin...

With the CRM vendor landscape going through so many changes today, it's an excellent time to check up and see what your vendor's viability is, what their future prospects look like, and especially for the best-of-breed vendors, what their exit strategy is, if they have one. I have compiled some quic...

German software giant SAP said Thursday its net profit rose 43 percent in the second quarter on higher U.S. revenues and better margins. The company reported net income of US$519 million, or $1.69 a share, compared with $366 million or $1.18 in the same quarter last year. SAP had already reported l...