As I’ve touched on in previous posts, the art of getting value out of CRM is to embed key business processes within the technology. While a lot of attention gets paid to sales and marketing processes, ‘downstream’ areas, such as order fulfilment, are often overlooked but often offer rich potential Continue Reading

One of the points I made in a recent post on CRM requirements specification, was the part that education plays in CRM requirements gathering. In brief, the more people understand about the use of CRM technology, the better their contribution to the requirements gathering process. Expanding on that a little; Continue Reading

I was talking to a salesman the other day about a sale he’s working on. We discussed his potential client’s requirements, and I asked him what pricing he was putting forward. The figure he came up with was considerably less than I would have expected, and considerably less than I Continue Reading

I was asked this week what the pit-falls were of implementing CRM technology. This is the sort of question that can tempt you into gushing out a long list of potential hazards, but, when you come to think about it, for many, maybe most people there are very few pit-falls Continue Reading

Well another week brings more economic bad news. Recession seems inevitable, so I figure it might be a good time to try and work out what it means for the CRM industry. Anyway these are my thoughts: Firstly, you’d figure that people are going to spend a lot less on Continue Reading

In retrospect, suggesting that the Titanic was unsinkable, was hardly the most accurate of representations. The origins are interesting though. ‘The Shipbuilder’ magazine published an article in 1911 where the term ‘practically unsinkable’ was used. The article in turn seems to have borrowed extensively from a White Star Line publicity Continue Reading

As promised, shameless plug number two. Last week I mentioned CRM VM, but the other new service we’ve launched is CRM SOS (second opinion service). As the name suggests we’re giving people the opportunity to get an independent second opinion if something a vendor tells them doesn’t feel quite right. Continue Reading

As a long standing veteran of the CRM market, I can recall what happened in the last down-turn in the economy post 9/11. Up to that point CRM vendors seemed to be springing up all over the place, thereafter there was a rapid consolidation. In recent years we’ve seen a Continue Reading

One of the things that never ceases to depress me is the hundreds of millions spent on CRM software that while live is generating marginal value for the organisation using it. In my experience the vast majority of CRM systems under perform against their potential. There are a number of Continue Reading

Quite a nice video interview on the SearchCRM site with Gartner analyst Scott Nelson at the recent Gartner CRM Summit entitled ‘CRM’s Not Dead’. Interesting observation that he feels there’s an awakening in the market that while technology is important, so too is a vision about what you are trying Continue Reading