Trends

I am fond of Paul Greenberg because he's smart and knows a heck of a lot about CRM -- most importantly, he's a good judge of whether a company is for real or just playing around. I am also grateful to him for pointing out that I was the fortunate one to identify on-demand technology as a disruptive...

The purpose of a strategic plan is to guide an organization intelligently into the future -- but what happened to the last strategic plan you put together? It likely sits in a binder collecting dust on your office shelf, without ever fulfilling its intended purpose. With so much time, money and reso...

I almost couldn't have imagined it. I give myself a little leeway, but after years of writing and talking about "new, new things" it didn't really dawn on me that at some point we'd be talking about a new, new economy -- but we are. I was speaking with Brian Zanghi, CEO of Kadient, the other day, a...

The dismal state of the economy is causing companies everywhere to reassess their marketing budgets to ensure that they're allocating their limited marketing funds in the most productive ways possible. In many cases, this means curtailing, postponing or even eliminating previously planned marketing ...

By any measure, SaaS vendor RightNow Technologies closed the year on a high note, completing seven million-dollar-plus deals in the last quarter. In fact, CEO Greg Gianforte told CRM Buyer, "our sales teams delivered the highest total bookings in any quarter over the last two years. In the current e...

Late last week Salesforce laid off three executives, or so the story went. Actually two senior sales execs were let go and venerable president and former CFO, Steve Cakebread, just left. Immediately the knowledge-sphere started rumbling about what dire straits Salesforce must be in. I write a lot ...

The two biggest dogs in the CRM fight are Salesforce and Oracle. You could debate that, but not with me. Salesforce has had a good run lately with announcements about its platform technology, its community of developers and its new foray into social media and social networking. Oracle has been plowi...

"Not to beat about the bush, but the budgeting process at most companies has to be the most ineffective practice in management. It sucks the energy, time, fun and big dreams out of an organization. In fact, when companies win, in most cases it is despite their budgets, not because of them." These a...

The Federal Reserve Bank has issued new rules that will take effect in 2010, radically changing the way credit card companies treat their customers. Essentially, they are strong protections that regulate interest rates and billing methodologies. For instance, card companies will be prohibited from ...

Nearly five years ago, I wrote a white paper that resonated around the industry like a three-point shot clanging off the front of the rim as time expired. A "brick," in the vernacular of basketball; nonetheless, I view it as some of my finest work. The paper, "The New Garage," takes as its premise ...

We can all read the news. Credit is frozen, or nearly so, and the federal government is laboring mightily to get credit flowing again. Unfortunately, here in the U.S. as well as in other places, like the UK, banks have become averse to doing business. The news reports I read say that after being too...

Five years ago, Mark Goldstein and three partners recognized that loyalty programs were becoming a cottage industry. Coming up with the right way to manage those programs, he believed, would be a neat trick. So would finding an effective way to lure in customers. "The toughest part of the business i...

There is a considerable amount of speculation about how the molten mass of what was once our financial system will affect our real economy and, closer to home, the CRM industry. Many observers take as their first approximation the Great Depression, which started with the stock market implosion of 19...

Good news for the economy: Small business outsourcing has gone mainstream thanks to the increased use of automation technology -- computers, software and the Internet powering cost-efficient outside service provider teams. Bad news for outsourcing service providers: Small and mid-sized businesses ar...

The other day I had a conversation with some nice people from the market research company Coleman Parkes Research. They wanted to tell me about a study they have recently concluded about social networking. I have to say it was pretty interesting stuff. I will leave it to you to search for them and t...