News

• 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.

• Big data helps drive math Ph.Ds to IBM

  By Patrick Thibodeau | 17 February, 2012 08:16

  Big data , and the need to analyze data that's collected from every interface and sensor imaginable, is increasing the demand for people with statistical and mathematics backgrounds.

• Accurate sales forecasts and other CRM fantasies

  By David Taber | 17 February, 2012 01:44

  Some companies are in the enviable position of having a sales backlog, and in many parts of the economy demand is starting to heat up. But prosperity has its own problems, including inventory shortages, guessing wrong on what the hot items will be, and excess work in progress that makes Wall Street cranky.

• 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).

• 2012 predictions for the CRM market

  By Lisa Banks | 21 November, 2011 12:50

  It is predicted that 2012 will be the year when customer relationship management (CRM) software becomes truly customer centric and based on an open, Cloud orientated model, SugarCRM’s country manager has claimed.

• WineMarket doubles sales thanks to Cloud

  By Lisa Banks | 21 November, 2011 10:12

  WineMarket has achieved a 50 per cent increase in sales after consolidating its CRM, e-commerce, accounting and inventory management software.

• How IT Helps Nissan Beat Chevy in the Electric Car Game

  By Stephanie Overby | 01 November, 2011 09:39

  The all-electric Nissan Leaf had the potential to woo eco-conscious shoppers away from the Chevy Volt when it was launched last December. But from a customer service and sales perspective, the Japanese automaker was at a distinct disadvantage. Chevrolet consistently scored four stars on J.D. Power's five-star customer service and sales experience scales; Nissan earned just two.