crm - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Aussie outsourcing CRM budgets to soar in 2011: Ovum

  Australian outsourcing Client Relationship Management (CRM) budgets are set to climb throughout 2011 according to a CRM survey conducted by analyst firm Ovum.

• Microsoft updates Dynamics CRM 2011

  Microsoft has completed and released the latest version of Dynamics CRM 2011 for on-premises and partner-hosted deployments. Customers can download the new release, which the vendor claims complements the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.
  

• Microsoft accuses former manager of stealing 600MB of confidential docs

  Microsoft yesterday accused a former manager of taking hundreds of megabytes of confidential company material when he left the firm for a new position at CRM rival Salesforce.com.

• Do you need a cloud CRM platform or cloud CRM product

  The snappy answer is, you need both. Large enterprises with diverse needs fundamentally need a complete CRM application with a versatile toolkit and solid platform. But not everyone is a large enterprise, and even in the enterprise there may be good reasons to have separate CRM instances - for example, in Corporate Development or HR.

• South Australia makes moves to public Cloud

  South Australian government agencies are in continuing talks with private and public Cloud providers, with the Office of the Chief Information Officer looking specifically at whole-of-government Web-based collaboration tools.

• CRM and HRM leading the way for Aussie Cloud computing: Frost and Sullivan

  Customer relationship management (CRM) and human resources management (HRM) technologies are leading the charge for cloud computing adoption in Australia, according to analyst firm, Frost and Sullivan.

• TechnologyOne takes on Cloud competitors

  ASX-listed business software provider TechnologyOne (ASX:TNE) has restructured its business as it sets its sights on winning Cloud business from overseas vendors such as SAP and Oracle.

• Verizon Business service adds mobile device toolkit

  Verizon Business today announced a hosted service to help customers develop and deploy applications such as CRM software across multiple devices such as the iPhone, Symbian, Windows Phone 7 and, soon, Android.

• Use CRM to crowd-source your product strategy

  Product strategy needs to be a mix of engineering/operations plan and market survey, but most market survey techniques are quite vulnerable to big procedural and statistical problems.

• SAP Business One now available on iPhones

  In a sign of the growing penetration of iPhones and iPads into the enterprise, SAP has released a mobile version of its SAP Business One management software for Apple's smartphone and tablet devices.

• Stupid data corruption tricks: Take our CRM quiz

  In the spirit of David Letterman's occasional feature "Stupid People Tricks," I thought it was time to summarise common errors that can lead to corrupted CRM records, or worse. How much worse? Read on.

• The App Store effect on BI applications and IT

  Of the many consequential effects of the "App Store" phenomenon, there is one staring down IT departments today: Not only does your average consumer now expect application selection, purchase and delivery to be pretty darn seamless, so too does your smartphone-toting knowledge worker and line-of-business manager.

• CRM: Playing the percentages correctly

  The Opportunities object (OK, table) is where CRM and SFA systems hold the data about prospective deals. And nearly every system uses some sort of stage pick-list that's an indicator of the deal's current status in the sales cycle. Each stage typically has a percentage assigned to it, and a forecast category (such as "pipeline" or "upside") that is used to drive the opportunity pipeline report and bookings forecast. Simple. Rational. Wrong.

• Globalisation: Choosing technology that fits your market

  Aegon Religare wants to grow its insurance sales in tandem with the salaries of a burgeoning middle class in India. The fastest way to do it, company executives determined last year, would be to sell policies on the Internet-a novel way to market insurance in that country.

• CMOs and CIOs: Can this relationship be saved?

  A new report from the CMO Council and Accenture on the strategic relations between CIOs and CMOs offers a grim outlook: "Marketing and IT executives do not believe they are highly effective partners, as they struggle to achieve common goals in the race to adopt and keep pace with rapidly evolving digital marketing capabilities," notes the report.