Business

Budget Roadblocks Stymie Federal IT Managers
May 14, 2013

Government information technology managers will no doubt spend every nickel of the Obama administration's 2014 proposed IT budget of $81 billion. They will also likely be dissatisfied with the business environment that affects IT acquisition and deployment. For starters, the proposed 2014 budget for IT, which actually shows a small gain versus anticipated 2013 spending, is not a sure thing.

Trulia Rolls Out Welcome Mat for Real Estate Pros
May 10, 2013

In a move to bolster its offerings for the real estate market, Trulia said this week that it would acquire Market Leader, a Software as a Service-based CRM company targeting agents and brokers. The acquisition, expected to close in the fall, will provide Trulia with tools to help real estate professionals manage and track leads.

Economics Imitates Life, and Life Has a Lot to Do With CRM
May 08, 2013

It's been wonderful this spring, being a part of all the vendor briefings now in high gear. That's because in short but sometimes painfully dense bursts, we get to know what each vendor has in store for the months ahead. It's a lot and that's a good sign. There seems to be a breakout happening. One of the themes running through all the events -- like a kid on a tricycle -- is marketing

New Tools Play Up Twitter Games, Polls for CRM
May 02, 2013

Fan Appz provided more tools for digital marketers Wednesday when it added a suite of Twitter features to its real-time customer feedback platform. The new features help brands interact with followers by running polls, hashtag games and loyalty-based reward activities on the social network. Those interactions can help build a brand's database.

The Ethics of Selling the Old vs. the New
May 01, 2013

It hit me last week while attending Oracle's Analyst World briefing. We met in a conference center on the Oracle campus in Redwood Shores to learn about the company's latest developments in hardware and software, and to be briefed on its future road map. How extensive was it? Let's just say that my brain hurt when it was over, and I had to sign a five-year NDA agreement to get out of the building.

Hoopla: It's a Brand New Sales Game
April 25, 2013

Hoopla has debuted Game Center, a new sales performance module that uses contests to incentivise CRM software users. It typically works this way: A sales organization identifies a certain behavior or goal, such as prompting sales staff to make more cold calls or follow up with prospects. Results are published on live animated leaderboards.

How to Ride the New Analytics Wave
April 24, 2013

I can't tell you how many emerging analytics companies have contacted me since January. Every day it seems there is another company -- smelling blood in the proverbial water -- wanting to brief me. I know why. Now that Big Data questions have transitioned from "how do we store all this stuff?" and "what's valuable in this pile?" to "how can we slice and dice this raw material," everybody wants a piece of the action.

SugarCon 2013: New Direction, Old Message
April 10, 2013

Sugar CRM took its annual customer and partner show on the road this week and brought what had been a Bay Area extravaganza to the Big Apple -- the better to attract a sizable population of customers and partners from Europe and other points beyond North America. It seems to have worked, because even though New York is one of the most cosmopolitan of cities, I heard a lot of European languages in the corridors, and I met many people from countries across the Pacific.

United Sinks to Bottom of Customer Satisfaction Barrel
April 09, 2013

Airline travel experiences were relatively satisfactory for passengers in 2012, based on a number of metrics -- except for the most telling one of all: customer complaints. Those rose sharply, according to the Airline Quality Rankings Report, which examined 14 of the largest U.S. airlines and their performance. Overall, Virgin America claimed the highest customer satisfaction rank, while United Airlines scored the lowest.

Fed IT Contract Window Still Open - but Budget Is Pinching
April 09, 2013

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking a broad range of information technology products and services with a potential contract value of $80 million over 10 years. That's a nice chunk of business, and it's just one of many potential federal IT contracts now available. In addition to providing these opportunities, federal agencies have remained active in awarding major IT contracts.

What's Driving Marketing's Renaissance?
April 08, 2013

Marketing is taking CRM by storm. While we've all been fixated on social media, many companies -- both vendors and end customers -- have been acting more broadly by acquiring and extending marketing solutions. At the recent Microsoft Convergence 2013 held in New Orleans in March, the company put a lot of emphasis on marketing.

Colosa Builds Better BPM Into SugarCRM
April 04, 2013

SugarCRM and Colosa are getting set to debut a new Sugar module based on a visual tool that lets users design business process workflows inside SugarCRM. They'll be able to control the way tasks get routed; track how long it takes to complete; and control which screens get displayed and their order. The module, ProcessMaker SugarCRM Edition, contains a full BMPN 2.0 designer and engine.

Marketo Winds Up for Risky IPO
April 03, 2013

Marketing automation company Marketo filed paperwork with the SEC on Tuesday to launch an initial public offering valued at $75 million. The company has not yet proposed a stock price. It does say in the filing that it is considered an "emerging growth company," and it plans to list on Nasdaq under the symbol "MKTO." The most telling portion of the filing was the company's description of risks.

Race Against the Machine
April 03, 2013

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of the MIT Center for Digital Business and the Sloan School of Management have written an interesting book for our times -- our economic times -- with an appealing metaphor that any technologist will appreciate. Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, is short and to the point.

Fed IT Funds Circle Drain Due to Poor Procurement Policies
March 27, 2013

Federal agencies routinely pass up opportunities to improve information technology performance, and save money at the same time, by failing to seek vendor competition in the procurement process, according to a recent survey. Federal IT professionals revealed that their agencies could save as much as $15.8 billion per year.

Travel Industry Grapples With Mobile App Challenges
March 26, 2013

Consumers give hotels, airlines and car rental companies high marks in customer satisfaction for the mobile experience they provide, according to the "ForeSee Mobile Satisfaction Index: Travel Edition." Online travel agencies, however -- not so much. Specifically, of the measured travel categories, hotel mobile sites and apps had an average score of 78.

Feds Stoke IT Vendor Competition
March 20, 2013

The continuing debates in Washington over federal government spending may be tiring to most Americans. The discussions have ranged from the political primaries a year ago, through the federal elections last fall, and now well into 2013. On the other hand, constant attention to better management of taxpayer funds may yield some better ideas -- and better actions -- for eliminating inefficiencies.

2 Steps Back: The Social Revolution
March 20, 2013

We have this idea of modern computing that is closely tied to social media, and rightly so. Social media is a kind of glue that ties us together in new and bigger configurations than our own human capabilities. However, it is also the unspoken issue in the Yahoo brouhaha about working from home -- the idea whose name shall not be spoken. How else to explain the ultra retro edict -- anachronism, really -- that all Yahoos must report to the brick-and-mortar in person rather than "telecommute."

Enterprises to Show CRM the Money
March 08, 2013

CRM will be a top spending focus for enterprises this year and next, according to a Gartner report. What's more, CRM will be THE top spending focus -- edging past the behemoth category of enterprise resource planning -- based on a newly released survey of IT investment priorities for 2013 and 2014. Following CRM are ERP and office and personal productivity tools.

Let's Hear It for The Ecosystems!
March 06, 2013

Could we have a moment of sustained loud noise for all of the companies that form the various ecosystems around major product lines? I mean it. The ecosystem -- and maybe not even social -- is the story of the last five years. While many of us have been talking up social, the ecosystems have been adding immeasurably to the customer experience.