Customers

Chinese Army Ends 3-Month Hacking Hiatus
May 20, 2013

After a three-month lull, China's People's Liberation Army has resumed hack attacks against United States companies and government agencies. Despite a ballyhooed February report from private security firm Mandiant, and despite public complaints from the Pentagon, Unit 61398, the PLA group made famous by the report, is again back to its hacking ways.

When Mobile CRM Goes Too Far, Part 1
May 20, 2013

The case for mobile CRM is an easy one to make. Smartphones are now ubiquitous, and the way most people work requires 24-7 accessibility. Also, not being tethered to a desktop to access customer records is a plus -- if not an outright necessity in some cases. For sales reps or anyone who interacts with customers in the field, mobile CRM is essential.

InsideView Provides New Insights Into Sales Leads
May 17, 2013

InsideView earlier this month debuted a new marketing offering housed on its InsideView CRM Intelligence Platform. This first iteration of InsideView for Marketing focuses on automated lead enrichment capabilities, said Marc Perramond, VP of product. It was built with an eye to enhancing a company's lead records with social, media and financial information.

Criticism: A Security Chief's Most Valuable Resource
May 17, 2013

This past week, a lesson about enterprise information security found its way to me via a somewhat unorthodox channel: specifically, an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. In this particular episode, the upshot was that Ramsay wasn't able to help. Why not? The owners weren't able to take criticism. There's a lesson in this for those of us in the network and security space.

Bloomberg Caught With Hands in the Customer Data Jar
May 16, 2013

Bloomberg has been embroiled in scandal since news broke last week that its reporters were using the company's corporate terminals to monitor its customers' activities. The story began to unravel when news surfaced that Goldman Sachs had confronted Bloomberg over the possibility that reporters were accessing its account data.

Sorry, the CRM Niche Is Full at the Moment
May 15, 2013

There are two questions that emerging companies in the CRM space hear when they face the analysts: When are you going public? Why don't you build out a full CRM capability? The first question is easily and deftly handled by most executives, and it must be. An IPO has its own cadence, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is very keen to protect its turf.

CRM's Stairway to Stardom
May 14, 2013

Although the acronym "CRM" has been around for a long time, most people have no idea what it means. That's kind of a shame, because they brush up against the effects of CRM every day in their interactions with the businesses they patronize. As a result, when I say I write about CRM, I'm often asked to explain what it is. That leads me to think a lot about a practical definition of "CRM."

How to Muff a Mobile Marketing Campaign, Part 2
May 13, 2013

You wouldn't think it was easy to bungle a mobile marketing campaign -- but it definitely is doable. Six in 10 decision makers planned to increase their companies' mobile marketing budgets in 2013, Forrester said earlier this year, reporting on a survey conducted for Acquent. However, 42 percent of those respondents were worried about achieving ROI. They have good reason to be.

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.

From BI to KPIs to Benchmark Success in the Cloud
May 10, 2013

Organizations of all sizes across an assortment of industries are using a growing set of cloud analytics solutions to address their Big Data, business intelligence and data integration challenges. Escalating competitive pressures and customer expectations are forcing organizations to find new ways to tap internal and external data sources to achieve their business goals.

Twilio Lets Devs Build Contact Centers in the Cloud
May 09, 2013

Twilio last week rolled out capabilities that extend its communications API platform into the cloud contact center market. The new functionality is aimed at companies that want to migrate part or all of their traditional contact center operations to the cloud, or those that want to enhance existing traditional operations with a cloud-based component.

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

Tap CRM to Give Your Customers a Pleasant Surprise
May 07, 2013

So you have your CRM application in place and humming, collecting information about customers and potential customers and organizing it -- but how are you using it? Most companies pour it back into sales, marketing and support to keep feeding those machines, which is good. It's the way you realize the value from your CRM investment.

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.

Social Savvy Beats Cold Read for Warming Up to Customers
April 30, 2013

If you're a dedicated skeptic like I am, you probably know the way a psychic's cold read works. Start by asking a broad question that fits almost anyone -- like, "Have you lost someone you love?" Allow the mark to fill in the blanks, and then ask further leading questions based on information fed to you until the mark thinks you're actually communicating with a dead relative.

PowerMap Lets Users Visualize the Lay of the CRM Land
April 29, 2013

PowerObjects has released PowerMap, a new add-on for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "It is a way to create a visualization of geolocation in the database," said PowerObjects CEO Dean Jones. At its core, PowerMap does what the name suggests -- allows users to plot addresses of a group of entities on a map within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Pegasystems App Susses Out Customers' Soft Spots
April 23, 2013

Pegasystems has rolled out the newest iteration of its marketing application. New or enhanced features include improved ability to perform real time event-triggered actions and new B2B recommendation functionality. The key to understanding this app is its name, "Next-Best-Action," said Steve Kraus, senior director of product marketing. "That is the concept behind our approach to marketing.

Improving IT Ops Service Levels and Efficiency
April 22, 2013

New tools are available to help with service level management, but they require a new perspective on how IT infrastructure components should be managed. The key is to embrace a new ideal of managing every infrastructure component from the perspective of how it impacts end-user service levels. To do this, IT operations teams must understand the three laws of service-oriented IT operations management.

The Hidden Risks of Mobile CRM, Part 2
April 19, 2013

Mobile marketing may just be in its infancy, but it already has ushered in a world of new risks -- or rather, existing risks that have been repackaged. They range from running afoul of still-developing regulations to security concerns, to consumers misinterpreting content. As people connect with the Internet through multiple access points, keeping a marketing message consistent is becoming more essential.