Archive

In creating a supply chain that serves a company's specific needs, it may seem as if hundreds of details must be examined to formulate an effective strategy. But in looking at nuances like transportation costs or the price of warehousing software, companies may be missing the big picture. There is n...

Getting CRM wrong is more common than getting it right, according to a new study released by IBM and titled "Doing CRM right: What it takes to be successful with CRM." In fact, just 15 percent of companies seem to achieve that goal. The study, conducted in late 2003 and early 2004 by the IBM Institu...

Microsoft extended its move into the business intelligence market this week through its acquisition of ActiveViews, a privately held developer of ad hoc reporting software based in Provo, Utah. The purchase follows a general trend of consolidation in the business intelligence arena. The software gia...

How do you standardize trouble-ticket handling over e-mail and phone for 370,000 full- and part-time students? If you're Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MSCU), you opt for hosted CRM software from RightNow Technologies. MSCU formerly used Unicenter Service Desk from Computer Associates. "...

The state of Ohio is suing software maker PeopleSoft, seeking up to $510 million in damages and costs because of what it calls a faulty installation of the company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications at Cleveland State University. The lawsuit charges PeopleSoft with breach of contract ...

Nearly everyone who has ever phoned a company's call center has encountered long hold times, multiple transfers and agents who seem too rushed to pay attention to customer queries. With the introduction of a new contact-center application, Siemens is hoping to file those common customer experiences ...

Bozeman, Montana-based RightNow Technologies is a major player in the on-demand CRM space. In an interview with CRM Buyer, RightNow CEO Greg Gianforte explained that unlike hosted CRM leader salesforce.com, which has its roots in sales force automation, RightNow focuses primarily on customer service...

Hosted CRM software vendor salesforce.com released a spate of announcements Wednesday in advance of its impending IPO. The announcements included its largest implementation yet, a 2,000-seat deal with SunTrust Banks; the release of an sforce toolkit for IBM's WebSphere Web services platform; plans t...

A CIO or IT manager who is trying to decide which CRM path his or her company should take faces an extremely tough decision. In the first installment of this two-part article, analysts and CRM vendors weighed in on whether a company should purchase an in-house CRM system or outsource the project by ...

Jim Steele, president of worldwide operations at on-demand CRM provider salesforce.com, joined the company in October 2002 after a two-year stint as executive vice president of worldwide sales at Ariba. CRM Buyer caught up with Steele at salesforce.com's San Francisco headquarters earlier this month...

It is not a given that people dislike automation. When ATMs began to proliferate during the early 1980s, people flocked to them. Ask the average person about interactive voice response (IVR) systems, however, and he or she likely will rattle off at least one Kafkaesque story that induced near-homici...