Archive

Salesforce.com has released Summer '06, the quarterly update of its flagship on demand CRM application. Improved lead tracking is one of the enhancements in this version, which happens to be Salesforce.com's 20th release. Also, new scripting features for sales beef up the application's sales guidanc...

When it comes to CRM analytics, companies often make the same mistakes, many of which could be corrected by a change in focus and a better understanding of exactly what CRM analytics is, new research suggests. Improved understanding would lead to better opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling...

Three technology companies have joined together to propel radio frequency identification applications forward. OATSystems, ADT Security Systems and Intel are paying for technology implementation to win grocery retailers over to RFID investment. Grocers suffer from slim profit margins. That means the...

Microsoft has announced plans to write Dynamics CRM Live -- its own Software as a Service CRM offering -- on the same code base used for earlier versions of its on-premise application and for the hosted offerings of its partners. Right now, only the partner hosted offering and the on-premise applica...

SAP Business One will incorporate new e-commerce and CRM capabilities from the company's recently completed acquisition of Praxis Software, a privately held SAP Business One partner whose software allows users to set up online stores. The new functionality will also augment Business One's existing C...

Business intelligence applications have always delighted company executives -- at least as they watched simulated exercises on a sales rep's laptop. Real-world execution, though? Until recently, that has left much to be desired. To be sure, it is not entirely the fault of the vendor. Earlier generat...

For many manufacturers, indirect channels provide the majority of their revenue yet carry only a small percentage of their most profitable products. Instead, indirect channel partners opt to move literally tons of low-margin items, competing in the marketplace on price and availability alone. The el...

Erstwhile open source CRM vendor TechWhale Solutions is getting set to launch its beta 3.0 version of BlueWhaleCRM in August, which the company says will significantly leverage AJAX and ATLAS technologies. In preparation, TechWhale has rolled out an interim release, version 2.0, based on the .NET fr...

Channel partners serving U.S. small and medium-sized businesses can expect their sales to this group to rise by 17 percent to US$154 billion over the next year, according to AMI-Partners. SMBs can expect to see a greater selection of customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, ma...

Walk into a typical command center and what do you see? A wall or desktop filled with multiple screens reporting statistics from a number of disparate systems. Details from a leading-edge workforce management solution are prominently displayed on one screen, stats from the ACD are on another monitor...

Earlier this year I spent a couple weeks in Australia visiting subsidiaries. I was amazed to see how the seemingly smallest of processes Australian companies use to communicate internally have major implications globally. It's been tempting to create a maturity model that shows the wide gulf in or...

Earlier this month, Aprimo released Marketing 7.5, a milestone for the company in many respects. It is the first release that incorporates Ensemble, a product acquired from DoubleClick, and it provides business-to-consumer campaign management capability for the first time. Marketing 7.5 is also the ...

Sprint had a problem ubiquitous to all retailers: a percentage of customers unhappy with its products and services. However, for Sprint -- one of the nation's largest wireless telecom providers with a complex supply chain that touches upon numerous and overlapping related customer service processes ...

Oracle is replacing the IBM tech stack that has supported the Siebel OnDemand application with, not surprisingly, its own tech stack, according to statements made by executive vice president Charles Phillips during a recent conference call. Before its acquisition by Oracle, Siebel had a close relati...

Two things hit the wires this week relative to CRM that I think are interesting events, and in some ways they go beyond the on-demand space. Salesforce.com announced its partner relationship management solution, and NetSuite said it will sell its product in a retail configuration. At first NetSuit...