• Salesforce.com hypes social enterprise at Cloud conference

  By Kenneth Corbin | 26 April, 2012 08:06

  WASHINGTON -- To coincide with the debut of its new government cloud offering, Salesforce.com brought its Cloudforce conference here to the nation's capital to trumpet the emergence of the social enterprise, which the company is touting as the next major evolution in business computing.

• Salesforce to launch government Cloud

  By Kenneth Corbin | 25 April, 2012 23:27

  Salesforce.com, already a leading provider of cloud services to the public sector, is doubling down on its government business, unveiling on Wednesday a major initiative to host federal, state and local agencies' computing operations in a multi-tenant cloud environment, along with a new app marketplace and a training program to equip integrators with the skills to help government clients shift to the cloud.

• Big Data torpedoes sales forecasts, can Cloud tools fix the problem?

  By Jeff Vance | 04 April, 2012 07:23

  At the end of any quarter, the last thing CFOs want to hear is that more than half of forecasted sales did not close. Unfortunately, this scenario is quite common. CFOs blame sales staffs for faulty forecasts, while sales teams try to shift the blame to IT for not giving them the right tools to turn fuzzy forecasts into actionable data.

• How CIOs can help facilitate systems of engagement

  By Michael Friedenberg | 29 March, 2012 02:28

  As the U.S. economy begins to brighten, it's reassuring to see spending in the manufacturing, retail, financial and healthcare sectors starting to respond. Conversations within the IT leadership community also seem to be lightening up, as IT priorities are rebalanced to include strategies for revenue growth and customer engagement.

• Social CRM

  By Darren Horrigan | 01 March, 2012 10:08

  There is a reason IBM spent $14 billion over the past five years buying companies that make software to process human information, including social media, email, video, audio, text and Web pages.

• Is the future of CRM in the Cloud? - Part 1

  By Brad Howarth | 18 April, 2011 11:22

  It is just on 10 years since Salesforce.com unveiled the first preview of its customisable online customer relationship management (CRM) software at the annual DEMO conference in California. DEMO had previously been the launch platform for ground-breaking technology such as Netscape Navigator, Sun’s Java and Adobe Acrobat, but attendees in February 2001 would have had little idea that they were witnessing something that would turn the world of customer management software — and enterprise software generally — on its head.

• Advice for Evaluating CRM Cloud Platforms

  By David Taber | 04 May, 2010 02:07

  A day doesn't go by without headlines about cloud computing, virtualization, and the next computing platform. No doubt these computing models are important, but when it comes to CRM - what's important about cloud computing? And how should platforms be evaluated for CRM applications?

• Why Salesforce.com Chatter Matters

  By David Taber | 16 April, 2010 04:34

  CRM systems have large and intricate databases that describe customer interaction, and most of the effort goes into recording and managing the ongoing conversation between your firm and the customer. CRM systems have information about prospects, customers, e-mail/phone conversations, sales opportunities, and post-sale support. But look inside most CRM systems, and there's very little information about collaboration among your employees: just basic profile identification information and a dozen settings. In most CRM systems, it's difficult to see the totality of a user's activities: the system's focus is on the customer and the development of a deal, not about the conversations happening between users and their attempts to leverage information across your company.

• CRM's Identity Crisis: Duplicate Contacts

  By David Taber | 11 March, 2010 06:30

  At the core of customer relationship management is "who am I talking with?" In a simple SFA or CRM system, it's obvious: you called them, or they called you. But in enterprise CRM, it's tricky to identify exactly whom the interaction is with, and every new data source seems to make it harder. The problem occurs at two levels: contact information blur from multiple databases, and avatar confusion from multiple entry points into your company's web and social networking sites. This week, we'll cover the top layer of the problem.

• When Your CRM System Passes 1 Million Records

  By David Taber | 04 March, 2010 08:18

  There isn't a sales force in the world that says it has enough Leads. And you won't find many marketing VPs who want to do fewer campaigns. So there's a never-ending stream of new leads, prospect interactions, and conversations to be stored in the CRM system. At companies in consumer markets, open source software, and other categories it's not unusual to find a million leads or more. But that's just the beginning: if you're using the latest marketing automation system, every e-mail, web download, and prospect response is recorded in the CRM system. And if you have a large call center, every call and e-mail exchange should be recorded well.

Whitepapers about CRM

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  Business Processes and Customers - Difficult Domains to Integrate

  Despite spending many billions of dollars on Customer Relationship Management projects, poor customer service is still pervasive. Those projects that have succeeded have recognized the central role of a process-oriented approach. By understanding and supporting both the processes within the organization and those that exist between the fi rm and its customers, the enterprise can reduce costs, take agility to the next level, and at the same time, build truly effective relationships that customer’s value. (1) The net result is top line growth at the expense of competitors, all the while driving down costs. Read on.

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  Case Study: Crazy John’s - Fulfil their Speedy Expansion Plan

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  Microsoft Office 2010 upgrades: Four pitfalls to avoid

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  Data Sheet: LoadRunner Software