CRM

RightNow Technologies announced it has acquired Salesnet, a provider of specialized, on-demand sales force automation (SFA) methodology, in an all-cash transaction for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition, which is being hailed as a smart move on the part of RightNow, will expand its customer base an...

The recent run-up of gas prices has lead to many U.S. companies rethinking their stance on telecommuting, and in the more global context, the increasing acceptance of outsourcing is creating virtual teams at an unprecedented rate. Given the euphoria over Software-as-a-Service applications, the ques...

In a major leap for a company that only recently introduced the Software as a Service model, SAP announced it is combining its on-demand CRM application with its on-premise CRM suite in a new product it calls SAP CRM 2006s. "We are moving our entire CRM product [line] to the hybrid model," Angela Ba...

Onyx has upgraded its analytics application with the introduction of Onyx Analytics 3.0, a product within the vendor's Performance Management portfolio. New features in this release include scorecarding and event monitoring functionality. Scorecarding allows users to monitor and rate performance aga...

Business intelligence vendor SAS has added five new software-as-a-service applications to join its original on-demand offering, SAS Solutions OnDemand: Web Analytics. The SaaS product line, first introduced in 2001 as an ASP service, is growing steadily, Richard Roach, senior director of SAS Soluti...

When the phone stops ringing, we all know what we need to do: Open up our overpriced CRM databases and start making calls. My CRM makes it very easy for me. It prioritizes calls based upon their probability of success. Now, it isn't rocket science, and I could really do the same thing with an Excel ...

I am a bit of an economics junkie. My interest in the dismal science carries over from my interest in evolution and can be summarized as, why things are the way they are and how they got that way. I am currently finishing up a book that gets me where I live, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinc...

When the sales team operates with urgency, the soul of a company is alive, thriving and growing. The sales department is the company's heartbeat and is absolutely necessary to create a sense of purpose and maintain a constant focus on delivering value to customers. Great salespeople are constantly t...

ACT has launched its first vertical-focused product. Called ACT by Sage Premium for Real Estate 2006, the application is aimed at the 6 percent or so of the overall ACT user base that works directly in the real estate industry. A higher proportion of users work in related fields, according to the c...

A new start-up called Genius has introduced an on-demand application that combines Web analytics, marketing and sales functionality to help reps improve their tracking of prospect leads and respond to queries with tailored marketing pitches. Called SalesGenius, the software empowers users to capture...

Customer events have replaced trade shows as the big-spend item in many software vendors' and analyst and advisory firms' marketing budgets. Implicit in this shift of spending is the precision possible for targeting CEOs and CIOs with relevant content. The challenge however is getting these senior ...

Personal banking is called retail banking in the biz because traditionally consumer banking occurred in a building on Main Street, Anytown, U.S.A. The bank sat among department and hardware stores, coffee and flower shops. In the eyes of consumers, it was another downtown retailer. But in the mid-1...

You don't need to go far to see how different the 00s are from the 90s, just take a look at selling. Ahh, the 90s, lots of people in sales tell me you didn't make sales calls in the 90s, it was more like making appointments to take orders. Gurus of selling like Jim Dickie of CSO Insights, reported...

ACT is offering users new collaboration and productivity functionality with the addition of five companies to its Add On partner network. Launched in August 2004, the program grew to include 25 featured products in the first year. It currently includes 61 add ons. The new partners announced Monday, ...

For retailers, there is nothing more sacred, outside of the holiday shopping season, than a successful multichannel operation. Same-store multichannel buyers -- that is, those who shop both in a retail store and online -- spend 14 percent more annually than single channel buyers do, according to Jup...