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I don't know how many old movies there are in which the good guys say, "You're surrounded, come out with your hands up!" Somehow being surrounded is a bad thing -- or at least it was -- until it became a hot trend in the back office. Let me explain ...

You might remember Garry Kasparov, the last chess grand master to beat a computer. That was about 20 years ago when he went up against Deep Blue, the IBM megaframe that is the direct ancestor of Jeopardy-winning Watson. A rematch between Deep Blue and Kasparov a year later did not go so well for the human -- and that was the end of an era. ...

Part of my new year routine has been ordering new business cards. In this electronic age, they are the only things I actually print, and I'm a writer! Well, actually, in a few weeks I'll publish a book, Solve for the Customer (SftC), in paperback, and the two are related. ...

No, this is not an article about fracking -- drilling for gas and oil in shale. This is about "drilling down" into big data. We've been using the term for a long time and it provides a useful metaphor for data analysis. However, we've conditioned ourselves to think of drilling down only to a superficial degree, and that needs a rethink ...

The continuing rollout of platform technology is bringing many applications together to support better, and in many cases new, business processes. Not long ago, it was nearly impossible for back-office people to know about what the front office was doing. In fact, it was hard for marketing and sales to know how they were affecting each other. ...

2. Denis Pombriant - Beagle Research Group, CRM Buyer CRM does not exist in a vacuum -- what it does and what it's able to do are shaped by the business structure in which it exists. Similarly, each business' ability to do things is shaped by the bigger world in which it exis...

"I might be in violent agreement with [Temkin's findings], and I have a book coming out in a few weeks -- Solve for the Customer -- to prove it," said Denis Pombriant, principal at Beagle Research Group. Still, the Temkin report isn't really disruptive, he told CRM Buyer. "Th...

James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds and business and finance columnist for The New Yorker, published an article in the magazine's Nov. 10, 2014, issue entitled, "Better All The Time." The piece connects the importance of culture-wide continuous incremental improvement using data and analytics -- what the Japanese call kaizen -- to business and employees...

CRM makes several promises to its users, including selling more or selling faster, resolving service issues faster or at least quickly, and generating more leads. If you do root cause analysis, however, you can quickly conclude that at least in some cases, you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope ...

Several news stories have provided interesting insights into the Black Friday phenomenon and into customer behavior. The first story, from The New York Times, reports that sales slipped by 0.5 percent from the same period last year, despite sharp discounting and stores opening on Thanksgiving. ...

The idea of an omnipotent software platform and the evolution of customer science go hand in hand. Customer science is the upshot of my idea that we're in the process of converting from random acts of CRM in the front office to a more structured, efficient and predictable approach to conducting front-office business. Platforms make customer science possible...

The integration tools should be welcome to developers and users because integration technology, for all its advances over the years, is still not "idiot proof," Denis Prombriant, principal of Beagle Research, told CRM Buyer. "SIs and contractors still do a lot of business br...

Xactly continues its pioneering ways by analyzing anonymous data collected by its customers in compensation management. If you aren't familiar with the company or its groundbreaking market analysis, you might be in for a treat. ...

"This version self-replicates," Denis Maslennikov, a security analyst with AdaptiveMobile, told TechNewsWorld. "This is the first time we've seen self-replicating ransomware on Android." After a user downloads the new Koler to a phone, the software commandeers the mobile's add...

Bluewolf, the consultancy that was founded to assist customers implementing and deploying Salesforce.com, has released its annual State of Salesforce report. The company started this practice a few years ago, using MIT Sloan School of Management personnel to interview Salesforce customers, and the methodology is tight ...

Dreamforce has always been about many things happening at once -- a three-ring circus, in a good way. There are announcements about applications, platforms, philanthropy, entertainment and, importantly, parties. This year there was all of that and then some -- I was a guest with a ringside seat ...

If Oracle didn't build another product for a while, it would be OK. In fact, no one might notice. The company already has thousands, and if the recent OpenWorld 2014 is any indication, there are enough to go around. ...

There was a lot to like at Salesforce ExactTarget's Connections 2014 user conference in Indianapolis last week. Now all that's needed is a shorter name. The words "marketing cloud" need to be fitted in there too, but I forget how. ...

Sales forecasting never has been easy, and over time it has gotten a lot harder. This brings up a couple of points that every sales manager and CEO has to deal with: how to forecast deals and how to track them ...

The wearables market heated up last week with Apple's introduction of its Watch and payment processing service, and the implications for CRM are interesting. ...