Archive

The revolutionary changes in the buying process mean that the sales process seems to be shrinking while the marketing cycle is growing. How do we then stay engaged and determine when the time is right to strike? We need to get involved early -- when the buying process begins -- by providing educat...

More than ever before, project managers are looking to technology help mitigate the risk of project failure. According to a recent list of Top 10 Project Management Trends, "the implementation of new PPM solutions [in 2010] will soar. Program and project managers, under pressure from senior manage...

As a marketer, you need a control panel to make decisions. The world is moving faster and faster every day, enabling literally billions of interactions about your company and products around the globe. What you need is real-time intelligence. The term "real-time" used to only apply to Wall Street an...

Enterprise 2.0 came to Boston this week, and that made me happy because it is one of a very small number of events that I don't fly to. Being a native, it's nice to take the train into the city and to be able to sleep at home. Despite this convenience, I was only able to attend on Tuesday, and I c...

The last two years have been rough for many sales and marketing departments: Head counts have been cut, goals have increased, and the emergence of technology has boosted expectations. Those are recent issues, but the issue that persists is that sales and marketing are still too often working at cros...

In May and June of 2010, Aberdeen surveyed more than 260 executives regarding their plans for the second half of 2010 and the first half of calendar 2011. The results were clear and compelling -- marketing's ability to access and understand customer experience data means success or failure for compa...

Most technology buyers understand that system capabilities represent only one part of the buying decision. Service after the sale, ease of doing business, and a commitment to meeting customer needs are also critical in selecting the right technology partner. Most vendors talk a good game when it com...

As businesses worldwide increasingly focus on e-commerce as a vehicle for driving new revenue streams, most e-commerce sites still struggle to leverage the growing wealth of customer data to which they have access. This failure to integrate customer relationship management activities with online vis...

Do you want to close more sales? Do you want to sell more to existing customers? Do you want to get closer to your users online so you can know what they are thinking? A virtual agent could be an effective way for you to do all of the above. What is a virtual agent? Technically, a virtual agent ...

Building better relationships with customers is an ideal that's not limited to any one market, community, industry or even country. The basics are the same, for the most part; they involves collecting data and applying it where appropriate to drive sales and customer loyalty. Understanding this come...

It had to happen sooner or later; the only question in my mind is why it has taken so long. It appears that the backlash against social media is beginning. All I can say is, yippee! With trends like social media -- or almost any trend -- we tend to over-imbue the idea or offering with our own expe...

The consequences of providing poor customer service are well known. What is less obvious perhaps is the importance of providing on-target customer experience as a means to boost profitability -- in other words, neither underdelivering nor overdelivering in order to secure optimal customer satisfacti...

Making better business decisions is all about understanding what's happening today and then properly applying that knowledge to improve what will likely happen tomorrow. Because business leaders want this improved power, we've recently seen a resurgence of interest and coverage in predictive analyti...

Digital signage is a combination of electronic display devices and content that delivers information, advertising and other messages to a broad or narrow target audience. The benefits of digital signage over traditional static signs are centered on two basic concepts: For one, digital signage conten...

Business software has long been described as "front office" and "back office," which essentially mirrors the arrangement of real-world processes within most businesses. That arrangement made sense in the past -- what went on within the business was usually shielded from the customer. That dichotomy ...