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For decades, organizations have been dealing with the challenges of driving better, more effective customer service. Traditional CRM solutions have focused on presenting consolidated customer information, but they still rely heavily on employees to resolve customer issues. This means that the custom...

Marketers can no longer afford to make decisions or measure results based on gut feel. For CMOs, this leads to one undeniable truism: Job security is directly correlated with data-driven marketing.

In the continuing discussion of cloud computing, Salesforce.com occupies a unique place. While most cloud vendors have kept to one component of cloud computing, Salesforce has inserted itself into all areas, and the company is using its flagship CRM applications as its first case example. Most peop...

Dell and Salesforce.com have added another tie that binds -- a service offering Salesforce.com's flagship CRM applications to Dell's SMB customers. Data integration and quality control are among the value-add features Dell is bringing to the table through its integration services division. This ini...

The economic stimulus assistance injected into major industrial countries to counter the effects of a global recession shone a spotlight on the need to rebuild their infrastructures. The need to manage such public works investments efficiently has generated a huge potential market for project manage...

Organizations with the most loyal customers not only measure and monitor employee interactions with customers, but also share that feedback with employees. This creates a closed-feedback loop that allows customer-facing staff members to understand the impact of their interactions on customers, enabl...

As luck would have it, I knew nothing about Larry Ellison's rant at the Churchill Club on Sept. 21 about cloud computing when I wrote last week's piece on cloud computing. I saw it on YouTube. You have to admit that Larry is a heck of a showman, and the video is fun to watch. But whenever someone...

Online measurement has become increasingly focused on the integration of online behavior with customer marketing touch-points. Taking a complete view of the customer acquisition life cycle will often generate numerous potential integration points that can be profitably exploited. The goal of every...

The announcement that Adobe was acquiring Web analytics firm Omniture took many in the marketing industry off guard last month. However, it's less surprising in view of trends that have recently been gaining traction: integration of social media technologies to mainstream platforms; mergers and acqu...

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 ...

I have an ongoing conversation with an industry executive about the nature of on-demand, SaaS and cloud computing. The central question is, what is it exactly? Our conversation is always thought provoking, and I come away from it with at least some additional perspective. Sometimes I think the di...

Some think of it as just an offshoot of CRM. Others view PRM, or partner relationship management, as interchangeable with sales force automation. The reality is PRM is coming of age in its own right, as manufacturers and technology companies struggle to manage their highly complex -- and constantly ...

Mzinga, a player in the evolving community platform space, has relaunched its flagship offering with a product that integrates many of its internally developed features with acquired technologies. The new platform, called "OmniSocial," provides external and internal communication and collaboration t...

Mobile marketing has at last emerged as an important part of the marketing mix. Through a confluence of technologies and standards related to mobile devices, including 3G networks and data packages, the mobile channel can now enable large-scale marketing activities capable of engaging consumers in u...

Modularity is next to motherhood, hot dogs and apple pie in the pantheon of unarguably good things. However, for every rule there are exceptions, and in technology, at least, we may have entered the age of demodularization. For the moment, hot dogs and all the rest are safe, at least at my house.