Trends

American retailers are turning to radio frequency identification technology -- RFID tags -- to ensure that in-demand items are in stock this holiday season, hoping to bolster end-of-year revenues, experts say. Holiday revenue can account for 25 to 40 percent of a company's annual revenue, and retail...

Consumer satisfaction with wireless phone service providers has slipped significantly over the last year, according to an annual study released by J.D. Power and Associates yesterday. Overall, satisfaction fell 10 percent compared to 2004. That's the largest year-over-year change in satisfaction sin...

Today, the CDI market has attracted several technology vendors from areas like ERP, CRM, data quality, and master data management. Unfortunately, while there is consensus that a CDI hub is critical for tying distributed customer data into unified views, there is rampant confusion on how best to imp...

Is outsourcing still dragging down salaries of key IT talent in the U.S.? Not anymore, according to a new survey by Foote Partners, an IT consultancy based in New Canaan, Conn. According to the report, such adverse effects of outsourcing -- made an issue in last year's losing presidential campaign o...

Information technology experts warn that lingering security issues are making Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, another uncontrolled tool for identity theft. RFID is an old inventory control technology that is quietly being deployed throughout business and industry to track everything from pe...

These are exciting times to be a data analyst. I say this because two of the biggest barriers that have traditionally prevented analysts from effectively leveraging and acting upon data have been greatly reduced. The time required to compile and process data to make it useful for analysis plus our ...

Online ad spending is poised to grow by as much as 30 percent in 2005, according to recent surveys conducted by Deutsche Bank in conjunction with MediaPost. Online advertising is beginning once again to garner large venture capital dollars. The growing Internet ad market promises to be a US$10 billi...

You can possess a business card that says you're the boss, or be promoted to a position that gives you control and authority over other people, but that doesn't necessarily make you a leader. The definition of a true leader is someone who gets the job done, along with the efforts of other people who...

As database services become increasingly commoditized, the value of databases depends more and more upon advanced consumer analytics. The technology exists both for aggregating data to input into analyses and for acting on results of such analyses in a multitude of ways and through a variety of chan...

While January 1 is a great mile-marker in any business timeline, the urgency for change needs to be dictated by honest assessments rather than by the flip of calendar pages. We all have enough to do already, and no one wants another action item list. That's why resolutions can turn out to be counte...

Traditionally, e-mail program measurement focuses on overt consumer responses: We know that a customer has opened, clicked, perhaps even transacted -- but unless a coupon redemption is involved, our knowledge of why a response has occurred is often limited. With the focus in measuring e-mail progra...

It's time for a reality check: When it comes to managing e-commerce strategies in your company, how do results line up with expectations? Too many companies hold on to incredibly inefficient Web sites chock full of order capture systems that lead nowhere except to someone's Outlook folders, or catal...

We live in a data-rich world. Data is everywhere you look, and used in so many ways -- to build e-mails, generate lists, create target groups, form reports, even to construct the foundation of a valid strategy. Yet data remains an elusive and stubborn beast, and it can become a point of contention b...

The CRM systems of many companies fail because they don't properly manage the expectations of prospects and customers. What's been missing is the ability to capture the moment of truth with every prospect or customer and then bring these insights into a broader mosaic of what the many segments of ...

It is often said what separates one company's ability to develop, execute and sustain a CRM strategy is the active involvement of the CEO. But it goes deeper than that. Too many times channel management, pricing, order capture and even order management initiatives fail because the CEO pays lip servi...