Best of ECT News

"Sustainability" has been the key issue capturing my attention this year, so it makes sense to tease apart just what that term means for CRM. To me, sustainability is about business processes that are repeatable and, more to the point, processes that both sides readily engage in. However, in addit...

It had to happen sooner or later; the only question in my mind is why it has taken so long. It appears that the backlash against social media is beginning. All I can say is, yippee! With trends like social media -- or almost any trend -- we tend to over-imbue the idea or offering with our own expe...

Business software has long been described as "front office" and "back office," which essentially mirrors the arrangement of real-world processes within most businesses. That arrangement made sense in the past -- what went on within the business was usually shielded from the customer. That dichotomy ...

By this point, most businesses understand that they exist in a new reality -- the reality that allows customers to communicate with them and with each other in new, faster and in a more pervasive way. Some businesses are actually doing something about it, too -- hence, the emergence of social CRM, s...

Over the years, Salesforce.com has gradually transformed itself from being a CRM company to a cloud services provider. Along the way, it partnered with leading-edge Web 2.0 companies such as Google and Facebook, and most recently, it teamed up with virtualization giant VMware to offer VMforce, a new...

You might say that supply chain management has entered the philosophical realm. SCM investment has flatlined to a large extent, and the market's focus has changed as supply chain headaches become more complex and cut a broader swath. Although there is no one compelling trend in the SCM space, the in...

Making sure that every customer gets the personal touch may be fairly easy for the owner of a neighborhood bakery, but in a mass market of millions, making each customer feel like an individual is a formidable challenge. In the information age, tools like customer relationship management software ma...

Small businesses frequently rely on a haphazard assortment of tools to manage their CRM processes, such as email, contact managers and spreadsheets. However, such methods are usually not sustainable or scalable. "Their customer data ends up fragmented across 10 different applications and physical lo...

In the past, businesses typically used lists of leads in a type of marketing strategy that Michael Port, author of "Book Yourself Solid," refers to as "interruption marketing." The goal was to get in front of a potential customer, book an appointment, and sell the product. However, that model is ch...

Many small businesses fail to fully utilize automated time-reporting tools or shy away from them altogether. However, once a business starts to reach about 30 staff members, time reporting helps them understand costs, improve efficiency, and focus on the right areas, said Journyx CEO Curt Finch. It ...

Zappos, online shoe emporium extraordinaire, has been expanding its line of merchandise in recent years -- offering clothes, watches and other jewelry, and even housewares. For the consumer, the shift has appeared effortless -- just more categories to explore on the Web site. Behind the scenes, thou...

It's been four months since Google announced it would guarantee 99.9 percent system accessibility for users of its Google Apps Premier Edition -- a cloud-based productivity suite of business-oriented messaging and collaboration apps, including integration capabilities and support. At the time, it se...

In this age of hype and hysteria, nearly every IT product peddled comes with the dire warning "if you do not buy, you die." On a few occasions, however, that claim proves true in the biggest, most unmistakable ways. "It can easily be argued that our current world economic crisis can be partially bla...

It may be as sexy as grandma's underpants, but data is the foundation upon which everything else is layered. Without the right support underneath, the fat will roll over your margins, creating an unsightly, unseemly, unprofitable business bulge. "While it sounds a little boring, managing data as the...

Working from home has become an acceptable option for a wide range of professionals, including salespeople and lawyers. Until recently, this option, dubbed "homeshoring," was unpopular in the call center, although that perception has been changing. "Companies are becoming more comfortable in letting...