I enjoyed writing a post at the end of last year called ‘Reflections on CRM in 2011…’ and wanted to start to do a more regular piece on what’s been happening in the CRM market. January was a little quiet, so I’m covering January and February in this post. As Continue Reading

The last six weeks or so have reinforced just how important it is to be on the front-line when a CRM system is rolled out. We’re in the process of going live on an initial deployment to a few hundred users spread across multiple locations, and sitting through training and Continue Reading

Over the years many wonderful CRM systems have been built, but rather less have been used, or at least used in a way that generates significant value. Persuading people to use CRM systems in a consistent and structured way, over a prolonged period of time, is challenging. While user adoption Continue Reading

I’m in the process of putting a piece together on training on CRM systems, but as a quick preliminary I thought would walk through some of the options for training delivery, and their relative strengths and weaknesses: Externally delivered training This is generally by using the CRM vendor or implementation Continue Reading

Anyone involved with implementing CRM systems will be familiar with the conversations that go on in the background. A whole range of quibbles, gripes, concerns, and issues, are answered with the stock standard response, that of course when the new CRM is implemented, then quibble x, gripe x, concern x, Continue Reading

There are a number of challenges and unknowns when implementing CRM technology. No matter how thorough your requirements gathering, one or many of the following may occur: Users fail to engage with the system Additional functional needs are identified to support business processes Users use the system in a different Continue Reading

Chris Bucholz has done an admirable job over the years of collating an annual top twenty CRM blogs, firstly at Inside CRM, then Forecasting Clouds, and now at CRM Outsiders. So, if you’re looking for additional blogs in the CRM sphere, then the Top Twenty Blogs Of 2011 is the Continue Reading

If you’re a good freelancer or consultant working in the CRM space in the UK, it may well be worth you passing your details on to us. We’re regularly asked for recommendations or to point people in the right direction, or we may wish to involve additional people in the Continue Reading

Once upon a time there was a small department in a much bigger business who were exemplary users of CRM technology. They used their system to help manage all their key processes. The marketing team used it to precisely target relevant communications to prospects and customers to generate new leads. Continue Reading

It’s been an interesting year on the CRM vendor front. Salesforce.com alone ensured it would never be a dull 2011. It felt like hardly a week went by without them buying another company.  Acquisitions included Heroku, Dimdim, Assistly, Model Metrics, Radian6, and Rypple. They clearly have a bold vision of Continue Reading