Customer data integration (CDI) is becoming important for enterprises who want to target, acquire, develop and retain customers. In order to benefit from it, however, an enterprise needs to create a unified and comprehensive customer view from all disparate data sources -- including CRM, financial,...
When is a sales representative not a sales representative? That sounds like one of those brain teasers we learned as kids. Back when we had all the time in the world we could spend hours puzzling about the seeming contradictions in a simple question like, "What walks on four legs when young, two whe...
Customer data integration (CDI) is becoming important for enterprises who want to target, acquire, develop and retain customers. In order to benefit from it, however, an enterprise needs to create a unified and comprehensive customer view from disparate data sources -- including CRM, financial, pro...
Last week a small piece of our world changed. Did you catch it? It happened Thursday, when NetSuite, with its NetFlex announcement, became the second company to offer development and customization capabilities. The week before, in New York, Salesforce.com announced Multiforce, an ambitious additio...
Sales systems are a regular feature of the CRM suite, and if you didn't know better you might think that garden-variety sales force automation (SFA) is about the only thing you need. That might have been true a few years ago, but we're seeing that changes in markets and economies can have a great e...
The indirect sales channel has emerged as a sales environment distinctly different from conventional business-to-business or business-to-consumer selling. This shifting focus is long overdue, especially in industries such as technology, where a high percentage of products are sold through distributo...
Back when I sold software for a living -- this would be during the last ice age -- a witty software developer in my company stuck a floppy disk to his filing cabinet with a refrigerator magnet. Scrawled on the disk's label were our flagship product's name and the words "source code." A magnet applie...
The allure of automating the most common tasks involving channel partners, manufacturers and distributors is so sexy that this corner of the CRM market erupted with growth during the dot-com bubble. Today it's collapsing faster than a souffle pulled from the oven too fast. When the number of firms ...
Many manufacturers rely on special pricing requests, or exceptions to standard pricing, for a large part of their indirect channel revenue. Even for direct accounts, many manufacturers have given their sales managers and regional directors control over price limits to increase responsiveness. But ...
In discussing weight or golf scores it's easier to exaggerate the positive than to tell the truth. The same holds true when it comes to SAP ERP integrations. Integrating to any ERP system is hard work, but SAP integration around meaningful business processes can be much more challenging than integ...
Too many companies seem to believe that the right technology is the key to e-commerce success. But the firms that really make e-commerce pay off don't simply hand over their e-commerce destinies to consultants, system integrators or vendors. Instead, they undertake the hard work of self-examination...
Too often channel strategies ranging from the most tactical and short-term to the most strategic and multiyear fail. Success or failure of a channel management strategy has nothing to do with the time horizon and everything to do with perspective, timing and getting away from a "one-and-done" menta...
Over the last few weeks, I have been busy putting the finishing touches on a new report scheduled for delivery to market later this month. My premise was that there might be a lot of enterprising companies in CRM or closely associated markets that are either new or that have new ideas that we should...
While all eyes were focused on Oracle closing the PeopleSoft deal this week, a series of announcements from SAP and Microsoft may prove to be even more significant to the IT industry overall and to CRM specifically in the long term. Within the next five years SAP and Microsoft will change the landsc...
At its best the selling life can be great fun, full of action and accomplishment. At its worst it can make pushing on a string look like the essence of productivity. As a practitioner, the thing you either love or hate about selling is change. As a market emerges and matures, the techniques that on...
Visionary leader shaping the future of tech
Disruptive innovator shaking up traditional industries
Risk-taker with both successes and failures
Overhyped and sometimes out of touch
Polarizing figure causing more harm than good
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Next-Gen Super Bots Built To Enhance Customer Communications
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Surefront Unified Toolkit Modernizes CRM and Retail Management
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Beyond the Cart: UX Hits and Misses Can Make or Break a Virtual Storefront
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Morphing Demographics Require Imaginative PR Strategies
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How To Leverage Gen AI Without Losing the Corporate Shirt
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To Deploy a Better CRM With AI, Keep Humans on the Help Desk
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Retailers Turn to AI for Holiday Shopping Season Success
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Bigeye’s Dependency-Driven Monitoring Boosts Reliability of CRM Data
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