Configure, price, quote software was once a barely thought about branch of CRM, falling under the heading of sales enablement. But lately, it's been getting a lot of attention. Last month, Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce's corporate investment group, swung into action. It led a Series B round of fun...
One of the most disconcerting phrases I hear these days whenever someone proposes a new business process is, "our system won't let us do that." So, at least in some cases, legacy systems are preventing businesses from evolving. If only there was a way to evolve while keeping the legacy systems in pl...
You might remember Garry Kasparov, the last chess grand master to beat a computer. That was about 20 years ago when he went up against Deep Blue, the IBM megaframe that is the direct ancestor of Jeopardy-winning Watson. A rematch between Deep Blue and Kasparov a year later did not go so well for the...
Part of my new year routine has been ordering new business cards. In this electronic age, they are the only things I actually print, and I'm a writer! Well, actually, in a few weeks I'll publish a book, Solve for the Customer, in paperback, and the two are related. I made a discovery while writing t...
No, this is not an article about fracking -- drilling for gas and oil in shale. This is about "drilling down" into big data. We've been using the term for a long time and it provides a useful metaphor for data analysis. However, we've conditioned ourselves to think of drilling down only to a superfi...
The continuing rollout of platform technology is bringing many applications together to support better business processes. Not long ago, it was nearly impossible for back-office people to know about what the front office was doing. In fact, it was hard for marketing and sales to know how they were a...
James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds and business and finance columnist for The New Yorker, published an article in the magazine's Nov. 10, 2014, issue entitled, "Better All The Time." The piece connects the importance of culture-wide continuous incremental improvement using data and ana...
CRM makes several promises to its users, including selling more or selling faster, resolving service issues faster or at least quickly, and generating more leads. If you do root cause analysis, however, you can quickly conclude that at least in some cases, you are looking through the wrong end of th...
Several news stories have provided interesting insights into the Black Friday phenomenon and into customer behavior. One indicates sales slipped by 0.5 percent from the same period last year, despite sharp discounting and stores opening on Thanksgiving. Another story shows how the Black Friday pheno...
The idea of an omnipotent software platform and the evolution of customer science go hand in hand. Customer science is the upshot of my idea that we're in the process of converting from random acts of CRM in the front office to a more structured, efficient and predictable approach to conducting fron...
Xactly continues its pioneering ways by analyzing anonymous data collected by its customers in compensation management. If you aren't familiar with the company or its groundbreaking market analysis, you might be in for a treat. Its approach is relatively simple but extremely powerful. With the permi...
Bluewolf, the consultancy that was founded to assist customers implementing and deploying Salesforce.com, has released its annual State of Salesforce report. There is very little that's controversial. Salesforce is a juggernaut at this point, growing at an exceptional and exponential pace. My only q...
Dreamforce has always been about many things happening at once -- a three-ring circus, in a good way. There are announcements about applications, platforms, philanthropy, entertainment and, importantly, parties. This year there was all of that and then some -- I was a guest with a ringside seat. Sin...
If Oracle didn't build another product for a while, it would be OK. In fact, no one might notice. The company already has thousands, and if the recent OpenWorld 2014 is any indication, there are enough to go around. Since I attended OpenWorld and it's my job to critique, I'll make a few observations...
There was a lot to like at Salesforce ExactTarget's Connections 2014 user conference in Indianapolis last week. Now all that's needed is a shorter name. The words "marketing cloud" need to be fitted in there too, but I forget how. Perhaps it's ExactTarget's Midwest roots, but I can see a genuine con...
Yes, communities and infrastructure can't keep up
Some projects are moving too fast
No, expansion is needed to meet demand
The pace seems about right
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Enterprises Are Trading ‘Press One’ for CRM-Native AI Agents
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Silent Churn Is the Biggest Customer Support Risk
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Overcoming GenAI Roadblocks: TaskUs Helps Retailers Compete
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The End of ‘Spray and Pray’ Email Marketing
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/adobe-positions-itself-as-the-ai-control-layer-for-cx-180293.html
Adobe Positions Itself as the AI Control Layer for CX
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/ai-is-forcing-companies-to-rethink-employee-experience-177608.html
AI Is Forcing Companies to Rethink Employee Experience
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/how-ai-is-changing-sales-teams-without-replacing-reps-178523.html
How AI Is Changing Sales Teams Without Replacing Reps
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https://www.crmbuyer.com/story/workbooks-takes-on-crm-giants-with-plain-english-ai-177589.html
Workbooks Takes On CRM Giants With Plain-English AI
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