Archive

I've been at OpenWorld for two days as I file this, but so far I have little CRM-oriented material. CRM really kicks in on Wednesday when the company focuses on CX -- or customer experience -- the moniker that Oracle has given to much of its CRM focus. CX is good for what Oracle is about and some of...

CRM is a mature software category with a decades-plus history of development and evolution. Still, one important problem remains unsolved: A lot of employees, especially sales staff, just can't be bothered with it. Corporate "solutions" have ranged from bribing to arm-twisting to appeals to corporat...

Moxie Software recently released two separate, albeit highly complementary, CRM self-service applications. One is a revamped version of its self-service application called "Knowledge Spaces." Enhancements allow users to "widgetize" pieces of the application and embed just those portions on a website...

About five years ago, CRM analyst and author Paul Greenberg set out to develop a definition for social CRM, or CRM 2.0, as some called it at the time. It was this: "Social CRM is a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, ...

More companies than ever are seeking to understand project accounting costs as they realize that knowledge of this data impacts their bottom line and exposes areas where costs can be cut and profits can be made. By understanding project accounting costs, companies can discover financial problems wit...

It's over, Dreamforce that is, and I have gotten some needed sleep on the flight back to Boston. As I contemplate Dreamforce 2012 and its meaning, I have three observations. First, it was what I expected it to be. If you refer back to my post just before the show opened my expectations were more tha...

Discover Bank is refunding approximately $200 million to more than 3.5 million customers under a joint enforcement action by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Discover will also pay a $14 million civil money penalty, with half going to the U.S. Treasury ...

Bizo, an online marketing provider that focuses specifically on the business segment, has introduced two new apps that refine its marketing reach. Bizo Company Targeting and Bizo CRM Retargeting are tightly integrated with Salesforce.com, although it is not necessary to be a Salesforce.com client to...

To grow a business, you need leads. So how do you fill the funnel, especially if you're a small business that no one has heard of yet? Ten years ago, the formula was pretty simple. It was all about driving traffic to your website, getting people to fill out a form, and then following up with them us...

The CRM industry is used to getting a jolt every year from Dreamforce, Salesforce.com's annual mega-event. Each year, the number of attendees swells -- this year, it's more than 70,000 -- and that makes CEO Marc Benioff's bacchanal the epicenter of the CRM industry for a week. That give Salesfor...

As you read this, Dreamforce 2012 is underway and Marc Benioff is giving his keynote presentation. I've been in San Francisco since Monday and have watched the city -- especially near the Moscone Center -- swell like a pumpkin on a vine in late summer. If Salesforce's 70,000 registered attendees do...

Without a doubt, mobile CRM has become a must-have deployment in the B2C world. Expect that trend to move into the B2B community for similar reasons: The devices are becoming ever more equipped to serve multiple needs, and their uses can soothe a lot of pain points. B2B, more so than B2C, is highly ...

Aprimo has released its second app for Salesforce.com's AppExchange, called "Aprimo Service to Sales." It is an inbound marketing app with real-time interactive features. The first Aprimo app destined for the AppExchange was released in 2010. The newer app, however, is written on a different code b...

Back in my college days, I worked part-time for an insurance agent. It was an eye-opening job, and not just because it pointed out how many strange and silly ways people could get into car accidents (loose birthday balloons obstructing the driver's vision, concrete poured off an overpass into a bran...

With Salesforce.com's Dreamforce 2012 conference ready to kick off next week, there is little doubt the company has several new products ready to debut. Just in case, though, CEO Marc Benioff made sure the CRM world would be primed for the news. In a wide-ranging interview with TechCrunch founder M...