Archive

The reason for trade shows has always been the dissemination of information. Whether you are a vendor or a buyer, you go to trade shows to participate in an information exchange. Buyers get product information, and vendors justify the time and expense as lead-generation activity. At least that's the...

At Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI), the numbers told the story: About 180 customer-service reps were using old "green screen" technology. With dumb terminals connected to a claims-processing system, trying to handle a total of 900,000 calls per year. Each call took about 10 minutes, ...

The first week of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) trial against Oracle's US$7.7 billion hostile takeover attempt of PeopleSoft has proven to be as much a high-stakes poker game as the enterprise software market in which the two compete. Oracle opened its case with the previously undisclosed Mic...

The same week software giants SAP and Microsoft own up to merger discussions, a new study shows how consolidation forces within the enterprise-level applications and services space are working to shrink the number of vendors. The study, released Thursday by consulting firm Bain & Company, deline...

Hosted CRM vendor RightNow Technologies announced earlier this week that solutions and services provider 170 Systems has deployed RightNow Service to increase the quality, speed and resource efficiency of its technical support operations. Based in Bedford, Massachusetts, 170 Systems provides solutio...

SAP announced on Wednesday that global brand leader PepsiCo has selected mySAP Business Suite as the primary business platform for unifying its operations, standardizing business processes and increasing efficiency across its divisions. The US$27 billion convenience food and beverage company produce...

You generally can describe silly season as that time when a large portion of the population takes leave of its senses and confuses day and night. Every semi-organized human endeavor has one. In your world, maybe it's called spring break or Mardi Gras or the NCAA basketball tournament. Generally, the...

As more consumers and businesses turn to the Internet not just for information, but as a way to run their daily errands, the need for more sophisticated customer service grows unabated. The old one-two punch of call-center representatives and an online Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page does not ...

Revelations during the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit to block Oracle's hostile takeover of PeopleSoft have caused the world's biggest maker of enterprise software to declare it is not for sale. As part of a willingness to cooperate with the DOJ's case against the merger, Germany-based SAP...

It's time to leave behind the hype of each new application release and get fundamental about what you are doing with your CRM strategies in the first place. Here's the bottom line: You will only be able to reach your goals if the processes that feed your CRM applications with verifiable, reliable, r...

U.S. small- and medium-sized business (SMB) spending on enterprise software reached nearly $1 billion during 2003, according to a report authored by Access Markets International Partners. This includes SMB spending on customer-relationship management, sales-force automation, enterprise-resource plan...

Siebel Systems shipped its latest CRM module, Consumer Goods 7.7, this week, rolling out yet another in a long list of 23 vertical industry products that the company promised to release this year. The new software is designed to give Siebel's corporate customers better control over their consumer an...

Drugstore.com, an online provider of personal care, beauty, health, wellness, vision and pharmacy products, is turning to Kewill Solutions North America to meet its soaring shipping needs. Kewill Solutions North America is the shipping management division of Kewill Systems, an international company ...

An affiliate of a global acquisitions firm, Platinum Equity, LLC, has agreed to purchase a controlling interest in CompuCom Systems. Safeguard Scientifics, which has a 58 percent voting interest in CompuCom, has agreed to vote for the acquisition. The Platinum Equity affiliate will acquire CompuCom ...

Without hiking license fees, Microsoft will roll out its next upgrade to Microsoft CRM software in August, the company announced Tuesday. The new version, Microsoft CRM 1.2, will have several key improvements, including closer integration with Microsoft Office 2003, a new mobile component, reporting...