Just because your CRM project involves software, infrastructure and the cloud doesn't mean it's just an engineering project. There's some design work involved, too -- and, as any homeowner can tell you, sometimes the window dressing costs more than the window.
'The Producers' profited from an idea that was supposed to lose money. Most companies are happy if their call centers produce zero margins. It doesn't have to be that way.
It means a lot when two competitors actually cooperate, as Microsoft and Salesforce.com have agreed to do in a 'global, strategic partnership.' But to whom does it mean a lot -- and will anything tangible emerge?
What could be less news than the end of Windows XP support? Everybody on the planet has been told about it a hundred times. This article concerns the real danger you haven't been reading about.
Behavioral economics has proven that we're all pretty bad at making rational decisions. So what are you supposed to do about it? Make the people who want shiny new software pay for it themselves.
You'd think your SaaS vendors would know a lot more about you and their customers than IBM, Ma Bell or even the NSA. They know every click, login and data entry, right? Not necessarily.
The cornerstone of CRM systems (and any sales or service transaction) is interaction between your people and your customers. But more people records in the system isn't necessarily better, as many data quality problems in CRM are caused by the cacophony of too many contacts.
Even if you have high-quality customer relationship management data, there's a hidden monster that can gobble up management information system credibility. It's time to reign in user-generated CRM reports.
On many an old map, unknown territories were marked, 'Here be dragons!' Sure, it's actionable, but it's not very informative. Centuries later, do we have the same problem with software project management? Here's how to slay the dragons that threaten to set your cloud projects aflame.
Alan Shepard famously said, 'It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.' Don't let the purchasing department determine the success of your software project.
Over the holidays, CIO.com columnist David Taber spent way too much time discovering eternal truths while playing online poker. Take a look at what he learned along the way about agile project management.
At a conference as big and boisterous as Dreamforce, you hear a relentless stream of ideas. Some are good, but most are bad. At Dreamforce 2013, there was only one idea that really mattered: Whether smartphones are the future client for enterprise apps.
What can you say about a user conference that weighs in at 120,000 attendees and has a total budget rivaling a small city? Choose your technical sessions wisely and approach 'lessons learned' discussions with caution.
A smart person once said, 'As long as you're asking the wrong questions, it doesn't matter what answers you come up with.' When it comes to making the business case for CRM, the CFO is likely to ask too many of the wrong questions.
Everybody knows that the use case for CRM. It's in its name, after all: Customer relationship management. But how does that really improve the way your company does business?