Sales

Infor, a provider of business application software and cloud services, has agreed to acquire Saleslogix, a CRM application that is currently owned by Swiftpage. The transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks. Financial details were not disclosed. For Swiftpage, the reason for the sale is s...

Take a look at almost any sales software on the market, and you'll find the vendor's claim that the product accelerates the sales process. It's a given. For years, we've been trying to achieve this acceleration, and we've been succeeding. The only problem with this approach is that it can't go on fo...

Qstream, which has developed a gamification-based app to help sales reps learn complex sales-related content, has broadened and deepened its functionality so the platform can be used in a number of new scenarios. It has expanded the types of situations in which a company can use its Qstream license,...

I was impressed by the announcement by Salesforce.com last week of a new product combination it calls "Sales Reach." It's supposed to be a mashup of sorts between Sales Cloud, Pardot and Communities functionality that helps reps run micro-campaigns, perform nurturing and develop communities. As some...

Tellwise, a two-and-a-half year old startup, has introduced a new collaboration platform for sales reps to target prospects. Called "Smart Messages," the multichannel platform comes equipped with such tools as intelligent notifications, behavioral analytics and mobile functionality. Smart Messages i...

Your company has a CRM system that employees love and use regularly, and marketing automation tools to help streamline and automate all of your online marketing activities. That's a great start, but did you know that most marketing qualified leads -- more than 94 percent by some estimates -- don't c...

It's general practice to have multiple sales forecasts, and that typically means low and upside potential as well as what's committed -- but the idea of teasing those threads apart only at forecasting time might be old school and no longer applicable. Long before you compile a forecast, you have a g...

As much as we may wax on about engaging, enchanting and delighting our customers, most of them are not expecting such an experience. In most cases, their purchase is prelude to something else pleasurable, in the case of B2C -- or profitable, in the case of B2B. They want to get what they need and go...

If you live in the English-speaking world, you've been exposed to the stereotype of the snotty Parisian. One of the characteristics of this stereotype is that Parisians refuse to speak English. They know how -- but they won't -- and they turn up their noses at anyone who won't speak French. In my ex...

I don't know anyone who was ever great at sales forecasting. This is not to say that it can't be done, but it's a hard problem -- like forecasting the weather. Today, we can get weather forecasts for many days in advance with temperatures accurate within a few degrees, because we've invested in many...

Most companies of any size have a CRM application. Every company says it wants to build great relationships with its customers. Almost as many say they want to be "customer-centric." However, as any customer can tell you, the companies that attain these goals are few and far between. What is it that...

The idea of the subscription economy is not new -- at least not to anyone who's familiar with the idea of software as a service -- but it's an idea that can sneak up on businesses. Many in the SaaS space started as more traditional vendors that saw subscriptions as simply a different delivery mechan...

I think about the future -- perhaps too much. I recently read Jeremy Rifkin's new book, The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism, and it made me think about the future of work. Rifkin's thesis is that automation is taking on mor...

Microsoft on Monday announced global availability of the latest feature set in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which was introduced earlier this year. It offers new marketing functionality, enhanced customer service features, a Unified Service Desk for call centers, and additional social listening features....

SAP has updated its cloud-based CRM portfolio with the rollout last week of three industry-specific applications. These applications, designed for the insurance, utilities and retail sectors, are the first cloud-based verticals for CRM, aside from a broader-based application with functionality tailo...