Year: 2008

Well the invitation to vendors regarding show-case sites didn’t illicit an overwhelming response, though that could be a reflection on the breadth of readership rather than anything else. That said I did get an unexpected email from Jeff Thull the other week after my note about his ‘Mastering the Complex Continue Reading

When people think about independent CRM consultants they tend to see us as advisors on technology selection. While this is a key part of what CRM consultants do, in reality we tend to be involved throughout the implementation cycle and add value in ways that may surprise the uninitiated. The Continue Reading

I’ve been doing the CRM equivalent of wearing neon pink in a Wimbledon final, coughing when your opponent is about to take a vital putt on the 18th, or bowling underarm in a test match, in other words going against protocol. More specifically we’ve been asking for reference sites before Continue Reading

Nice piece in BusinessWeek entitled ‘Just say no to drug reps’ about a programme to help doctors to resist the influence of pharmaceutical salespeople. The article cites some interesting research: ‘A doctor who spends just one minute with a sales rep typically ends up prescribing 16% more of that rep’s Continue Reading

I had a phone call from a lady yesterday wanting to know what background/qualifications she needed to become a ‘CRM Consultant’. Before I could give her any advice I thought I’d better clarify with her the various definitions of the term CRM consultant, since it means very different things in Continue Reading

One aspect of implementer/vendor selection to get right is to choose a vendor where the potential project is of sufficient size or profile that it’s going to attract the vendor’s attention and interest, while being within their technical capability to deliver and support it. You may feel your investment in Continue Reading

I’m not too far into Jeff Thull’s ‘Mastering the Complex Sale’ but picked up several points which resonate with how we see the world. To quote Jeff: ‘Even if your customers could Diagnose their problems completely and Design optimal solutions, they may not have the ability to implement the solutions Continue Reading

One of our customers recently won a particularly large contract for the self service systems they manufacture, and had a post project de-brief with the customer last week. They were surprised when their Commercial Director observed that in a commodity market place their service capability was a key differentiator. While Continue Reading

Volker Hildebrand’s article on the MyCustomer.com site encapsulates all that confuses me about SAP’s approach to the CRM market. Entitled ‘CRM market trends: what buyers need to know’, the article’s first identified trend is that the CRM market is consolidating. This knocked me back a bit because my take is Continue Reading

I’ve had the phrase ‘sold to you by a gentleman with spiky gelled hair’ playing in the back of my mind for some while without being able to pin down where I read it. Perhaps it was the New Year’s celebrations that finally jolted my memory but I’ve tracked it Continue Reading