• Q&A: Copyright Agency CIO, Jacob Dudzinski

  By Hamish Barwick | 09 February, 2012 09:36

  Jacob Dudzinski has been CIO of the Copyright Agency in Sydney for four years. Over the past two years, he has been responsible for a business process and systems improvement program.

• Eight CRM trends you need to watch

  By Jennifer Lonoff Schiff | 03 February, 2012 04:17

  Last year, the two hot customer relationship management trends to watch— and adopt — were social CRM and mobile CRM. To find out whether they will continue to dominate the CRM landscape and what other trends organizations should pay attention to, CIO.com talked to leading CRM solution vendors and analysts. In the process, we came up with eight CRM trends to watch—and implement— in 2012.

• New year's CRM resolution

  By David Taber | 06 January, 2012 02:40

  There's no question that every company needs a solid pipeline of business - that's what gives you predictability, profitability, and consistency. The question is: How do you get more pipeline?"

• Putting a lock on password management

  By Sandra Gittlen | 16 December, 2011 07:18

  Paul Aldridge, CIO of Genomic Health, Inc., wanted his technology team fully focused on supporting a next-generation network for cancer research. Yet with each user requiring logins for as many as a dozen software-as-a-service (SaaS) sites, password management such as lookups and resets were chewing up their time.

• 5 CRM trends to seize on in 2012

  By Ian Whiting | 30 November, 2011 10:20

  Next year will carry big expectations for Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs).

• 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