Archive

Salesforce.com is venturing into the partner relationship management space with the release of Partnerforce, Salesforce Partner Edition. PRM, a software category related to CRM, focuses on connecting and maintaining relationships with direct and indirect partners instead of customers. Processes supp...

Implementing a Web Analytics Solution for your site can be fraught with all kinds of peril, but knowing what you're in for goes a long way toward avoiding the biggest headaches, as Part 1 of this two-part series points out. Part 2 continues the discussion of effective ways to deal with potential pro...

There are a few challenges facing the North American customer care outsourcing industry that may dampen growth in the coming years, according to a new Frost & Sullivan report that projects earned revenues to reach US$20.1 billion in 2012 from $19.5 billion in 2005. These predictions are intentio...

QuickBase, a division of Intuit, has upgraded its hosted-model product to make it easier for sales reps and sales executives -- two user groups that often have competing application requirements -- to use the sales module. New functionality in the application, called "Manage Your Sales Team," includ...

A 2005 study by AMR Research found 91 percent of companies increased or maintained their customer relationship management budgets for 2006. With so many companies shopping for new CRM solutions or reviewing upgrade opportunities, businesses need help finding the right solution to meet their current...

By definition Search Engine Marketing refers to both paid search and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The former is based on a pay-per-click advertising model as companies bid on specific search terms or in the case of Google, AdWords, to get a more visible placement within search engine results. ...

Implementing a tag-based Web analytics solution is rarely the slam-dunk that vendors imply. Depending on how your site is structured and how dynamic your content is, tagging can range from fairly straightforward to fiendishly complex. How can you tell which experience you're likely to be in for? Thi...

CDC Software has made its third offer to acquire mid-market CRM vendor Onyx, offering shareholders a choice of all-cash or cash-and-shares in CDC. The offer -- US$4.85 per share in cash, or $2.50 in cash and $2.50 in CDC stock -- comes a few weeks after Onyx signed a definitive agreement to be acqui...

As the trend toward outsourcing grows, companies are gradually turning to "smartsourcing" to make the practice work for optimum effect. "When a company is smartsourcing, it is leveraging its strengths and managing its 'weaknesses' -- so to speak -- through strategic partnering," said Carl Frappaolo...

Identifying a paradigm shift is most easily done in hindsight because separating a fad from a long term trend is something that requires a bit of historical perspective to get right. About the only professionals who make it a habit of prognosticating about changing trends are economists and, as the...

While enterprise PBX product lines continue to register the highest level of growth in the telephony market, newly emerging trends will eventually realign use and deployment patterns, according to a survey conducted by market researcher Dell'Oro Group. These include a shift to hybrid systems and a n...

SSA has finished retooling its CRM suite -- one of the company's most significant steps since its acquisition of E.piphany last year -- with the release of its sales and services modules, SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0. The company released SSA Marketing 7.0 in April. The latest upgrades incorpor...

Witness Systems has upgraded the workforce management module of its Impact 360 Workforce Optimization application to provide tighter integration into the workforce optimization engine, as well as new functionality. Impact 360, released last September, combines Witness Systems' software with technolo...

Choosing the right system in the first place is key to optimizing your investment in a customer relationship management system -- and that process can be strewn with potential pitfalls. While the selection process can be unnerving, implementation can be a downright nightmare -- and, in some cases, w...

Oracle has acquired Telephony@Work, an on-demand provider of IP-based software infrastructure for hosted contact center services. Telephony@Work provided much of the functionality in Oracle's OnDemand Contact Center application via an OEM deal the company had with Siebel, which Oracle has since acqu...