IBM Launches New Software and Social Business Consulting Services
IBM announced new software and services to help organizations improve business performance in an increasingly connected global environment. The new enterprise social software delivers advanced analytics capabilities that helps users gain access to information and people on the fly to accelerate collaboration and be more effective in their jobs. New IBM services will draw from experts in IBM's Strategy and Transformation consulting practice and the company's deep understanding of vertical industries and people management issues to help companies understand how social software can be used within an organization and to identify a roadmap to systematically embed social business tools throughout their organization.

Counter Culture Coffee Brews Success with Salesforce.com's Cloud 2 Technologies
Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, announced the success of Counter Culture Coffee in expanding its business by running its specialty coffee roasting and wholesaling operations by moving to Cloud 2, the next generation of enterprise cloud computing that is social, mobile and real-time. Counter Culture Coffee is using Salesforce CRM and Chatter to support its business of finding and bringing to market the best coffees in the world. In addition, Counter Culture Coffee is able to strengthen ties to its customers and vendors and realize breakthrough collaboration within the company.

iEnterprises Releases Mobile Edge Version 5
iEnterprises announced multiple enhancements to Mobile Edge, its wireless CRM solution. Mobile Edge Version 5 brings mobile business users more convenient features for multi-tasking, as well as faster performance and expanded mobile device and operating systems support. Enhancements have been made for the full support of the Apple iPad with exceptional graphics and resolution, iPhone Version 4 and all RIM BlackBerry smartphones running on OS 6. Support for the freshly launched RIM Playbook as well as Android is also on the horizon.

Research Finds Nearly 90% of IT Organizations Lack a Collaborative Interdepartmental Web Strategy
InformationWeek Analytics announced the release of its latest research report, The Well-Integrated Web, which provides strategies and practices to create a cohesive customer-facing online presence.

The report, based on an analysis of 326 business technology professionals, shows that 44% of respondents run more than five distinct sites, and only 39% of those with consumer sites provide integrated cross-site search and navigation. The vast majority --89%-- lack a collaborative interdepartmental online approach.

Companies aiming to improve their business online must coordinate their Web efforts across departments and divisions; simplify access, navigation and search; and incorporate social networking -- all without jeopardizing security. After years of scrambling to keep up with new Internet technology amid budget and staff cuts, it's time for IT, working collaboratively with the business office, sales, marketing and customer service, to guide this essential change.

Other Key Findings:

• 44% of respondents rate their customer-facing Web setups average to poor.
• Nearly 45% say they operate more than five distinct sites; 14% run more than 50 sites.
• Only 39% offer consistent navigation and search across their customer-facing Web sites.
• Just 56% provide customers with single sign-on access to their various sites.
• Only 11% report a truly collaborative approach to their company Web strategy; 6% say their strategy "changes with the wind."

More...

EMEA Enterprise IT Spending to Rebound in 2011 with 1.3 Percent Growth After Two Consecutive Years of Decline
Enterprise IT spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) is forecast to rebound in 2011 and reach $795.2 billion, a 1.3 percent increase from 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. However EMEA will be the only region to show a decline in IT spending in both 2009 and 2010, with enterprise IT spending forecast to total $784.8 billion in 2010, a decline of 2.1 percent from 2009.

The European sovereign debt crisis is heralding a period of austerity that is affecting the mature economies of Western Europe. Faced with increased market scrutiny of their public finances and hoping to avoid following in Greece's footsteps, a number of other European countries, most notably the U.K., have since followed suit and adopted public sector austerity measures of their own in an effort to scale back their public deficits and debt.

Looking forward, the ongoing drop in the value of the Euro and the British pound should promote healthy export growth in Western Europe and with it, positive economic growth. Gartner analysts said as governments scale back their spending and social support, Western Europe is not expected to return to stronger enterprise IT spending growth until 2012.

The IT services market continues to struggle in EMEA and will be the slowest to return to growth. It is forecast to decline 5.6 percent and reach $234.0 billion in 2010. Unlike in the past where IT services spending showed relative resiliency in tight times, a risk-averse and cost-focused mindset is today broadly persisting. While a lot of efficiency can be won through a productive focus on controlling cost, the emerging problem is a lack of balance, which inhibits investment in changing the business through new strategies, productivity enhancement, and process and product innovation.

From 2012, Gartner predicts that enterprise software spending in EMEA will surpass growth in spending on hardware, and this trend will continue through 2014 as organizations begin a new software applications replacement cycle. In Western Europe, countries leading the rebound, such as Germany and France, contrast sharply with those including, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal still struggling with weak growth.
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Cloud Computing: Why You Can't Ignore Chargeback
One of the most controversial issues in cloud computing is chargeback: pricing consumed resources on a granular basis. Chargeback in the cloud computing arena is the same kind of highly granular pricing associated with use of internal resources. The reason chargeback is controversial is not, perhaps, for the reason you might expect. You might think that resource users would prefer to avoid chargeback is because they currently get resources for free, and implementing chargeback would result in more budgetary outflow. But you'd be wrong.
Full Article...

5 Ways to Align Contact Center Engagement with Customer Preferences
Understanding customer preferences -- and designing communication strategies upon them -- is a complex feat. Each customer behaves differently, and carries different sets of preferences across different scenarios, requiring more than one form of communication. For instance, one bank customer might prefer to receive account statements via email, fraud notifications with mobile calls, and overdraft notices via text message. This article presents five steps contact centers can use to take back control -- aligning their communications delivery with how, when and why customers want it for long-lasting, profitable relationships:
Full Article...

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 summarize common errors that can lead to corrupted CRM records, or worse. How much worse? Read on.
Full Article...

Why Businesses Need to Start out Being ''Antisocial''
While going social in customer service makes sense for many businesses, it might pay to be "antisocial" first, meaning a deliberate approach to social media customer service will maximize the odds of success. It is not uncommon for businesses to simply rush into social without giving themselves adequate time to assess the need, develop a strategy, formulate policy and practices, and put the required technology, process and people infrastructures in place. The Web is rife with examples of poor social practices caused by rushing in. Here are five "antisocial" steps businesses need to take before making the social plunge, in order to avoid such missteps and the resultant damage to their brands.
Full Article...

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. The iconic bad product of the 1950s was the Edsel, yet it was the result of the most thorough surveying processes of its era. Fortunately, CRM systems naturally contain information about products, customers, and features. Further, modern CRM systems store a sequence of interactions that make the data support richer inferences about "what's important to customers."
Full Article...

Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance
by Paul W. Farris, Neil T. Bendle, Phillip E. Pfeifer, David J. Reibstein

Marketing Metrics, Second Edition, is the definitive guide to today's most valuable marketing metrics. The authors show how to use marketing dashboards to view market dynamics from multiple perspectives, maximize accuracy, and "triangulate" to optimal solutions. You'll discover high-value metrics for virtually every facet of marketing: promotional strategy, advertising, and distribution; customer perceptions; market share; competitors' power; margins and pricing; products and portfolios; customer profitability; sales forces and channels; and more. This edition introduces essential new metrics ranging from Net Promoter to social media and brand equity measurement.

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