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Zurmo: Playing Games Is Serious Business January 04, 2013 
Last summer, open source CRM provider Zurmo threw its hat into the CRM ring with a beta version of its particular take on the hot new gamification software category.
The theory is simple: CRM, especially sales force automation, has notoriously poor user adoption figures. Why not use some of the fun features people are accustomed to seeing in games and social media to drive adoption?
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CRM Product Profiles: The Year in Review December 28, 2012 
CRM applications tend to embody a range of features, depending on the maker and the audience. Some applications are stripped-down products sporting a handful of features -- and only those features -- deemed necessary to the user. Other products have become de facto mini-ERP systems with their integrations into back-end systems and business analytics.
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With Great SOMO Tools Come Great Responsibilities December 17, 2012 
Enterprise CRM of the future is all about social and mobile. In fact, Blackbaud, which specializes in providing CRM products and services to the nonprofit sector, even has an acronym for it: SOMO. "We're looking at how we can extend our technology into social and mobile spheres," said Tiffany Crumpton, senior marketing manager for CRM with Blackbaud.
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Bringing Production Home December 12, 2012 
On Dec. 6, Apple announced that it would begin making some Macs in the U.S., reversing a trend building over several years of manufacturing computers in China and setting an interesting precedent. Apple isn't alone in this: HP has also begun shifting some of its PC production back to the U.S. of A. Before we start popping French champagne corks, we should think about what this means and why it is important.
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Courting the Prized Omnichannel Shopper November 16, 2012 
Holiday shopping this year will take place on multiple channels, with many shoppers doing research and buying online or on mobile devices. That's according to Deloitte's 2012 Annual Holiday Survey, which found that shoppers who use multiple channels plan to spend more money than retail shoppers.
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Following the Mobile CRM Money Trail November 09, 2012 
Mobile CRM and its related technologies have intrigued developers and users alike for years. However, it wasn't until Facebook announced it would acquire Instagram for an eye-popping $1 billion that the money began to pour into this space. "That was the transaction that crystallized for us and a lot of folks that mobile is a hot growth area deserving of investment," said CB Insights' Anand Sanwal.
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Companies Quake Under Social Sword of Damocles October 29, 2012 
Forty-seven percent of all social media users have used their networks to get customer service from a company, with usage as high as 59 percent among 18-24 year olds, according to a new study from NM Incite. Almost one in three social media users said they preferred to contact a company that way, and companies have learned to respond in kind.
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Mobile CRM Strikes Geolocation Gold October 23, 2012 
Increasingly, CRM vendors are incorporating geofunctionality into their offerings. It is a must-have marketing technique for brick-and-mortar retailers competing with e-commerce providers. While that use is indeed still a big driver, vendors are also beginning to view it as a technology that has multiple CRM-related uses, such as a complementary technology for contact management.
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Waiting for B2B Mobile CRM October 16, 2012 
It is not hard at all to find an example of a mobile B2C CRM app -- all one has to do is fire up the nearest smartphone. But B2B mobile CRM? That is a qualified yes -- assuming one is willing to limit one's thinking to salesforce automation as a B2B discipline. To be sure, there is a case to be made for that argument. When, though, will B2B mobile CRM expand beyond this traditional deployment?
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Mobile CRM Gives Retailers Ammo Against Showrooming October 09, 2012
Showrooming enabled by the proliferation of smartphones has become the bane of brick-and-mortar retailers. Basically, consumers waltz into a local Best Buy or similar big box store, find the product they are thinking of buying and check it out. So far, so good, from the retailer's perspective -- only then they go online to buy it from an etailer like Amazon.
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Mobile CRM Gets Gamified October 02, 2012 
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 corporate loyalty. None, though, have worked so well as building gamification features into the system.
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The Rise of Self-Service Mobile CRM September 04, 2012 
Increasingly, CRM vendors -- and their customers -- are recognizing the value of applying mobile technologies to the self-service piece of a CRM operations. In response, more and more vendors are rolling out new applications for companies that wish to target this emerging, but rapidly growing, demand point.
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Transmutation in the C Suite August 29, 2012 
My sources tell me that Salesforce.com will be handling its major Dreamforce announcements differently this year. Rather than letting us drink from a firehose at the event, they promise to tell us much of their news beforehand so that they can spend the keynotes, I assume, drilling down into more of the substance of their announcements.
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Credit Card Customer Satisfaction Charges Upward August 24, 2012 
Customer satisfaction with the credit card industry has stabilized after years of dramatic changes to the space, according to J.D. Power and Associates' 2012 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction study. It found that for the third consecutive year, customers' satisfaction with their credits cards has increased.
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How Mobile Can Help CRM Get Past Its Adoption Issues August 23, 2012 
If Winston Churchill had been a CRM pundit, he may have penned the immortal turn of phrase, "never in the course of human events have so many paid so much to have so few use an application." That would have made him a pretty awful CRM writer. But give fictional Winston a break -- it is difficult to summarize the ongoing struggle with user adoption in a concise way.
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August Rushed In August 15, 2012 
It's good to be busy, but I remember when August was a slow month, sort of like January, and for the same reasons. The holidays are out of the way, there's less to do -- other than eat the Christmas chocolates or the summer squash and tomatoes, and think about spring or going back to school. The August doldrums were a time of clambakes and vacations. Now? Clambake, si! Vacation, no mucho!
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Seeing Social Meet in the Middle August 08, 2012 
I'm just back from a week in the woods, trying to get my head around social media and CRM again. That means I'm in the middle of writing up a report on some research that uberanalyst Esteban Kolsky and I did over the last few months, and smack in the middle of CRM Idol judging. Everything's fine, and I see some interesting parallels, and without giving the store away, here is one interesting cross tab.
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IT Over Easy August 01, 2012 
I dropped a small stone in a large pool last week, and the ripples are still spreading. In a separate post I wrote that IT is over. I was very careful to say that IT is over as a disruptive innovation and as an economic engine, but few understood what I meant, so I thought this would be a good chance to clear it all up. Strictly as an economic driver, IT has lost a lot of steam.
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Embracing Change July 25, 2012 
What's the world coming to? Microsoft lost money in the software business last
quarter -- the first loss in a decades-long string of positive earnings from the world's biggest software company. Sheesh! Yes, there were extenuating circumstances, but the loss signals the breadth and depth of the impact that the tablet is having on the hardware market.
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Bringing Sexy Back to Hardware July 18, 2012 
Is hardware becoming sexy again? Why? I noticed an article in The New York Times the other day covering Eric Schmidt's announcement of Google's new gadgets, including a home entertainment device and a tablet. There's history here. Schmidt was CEO of Google, of course, before turning over that job to cofounder Larry Page, but he was also a longtime confidant of Steve Jobs.
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