Increased Integration of Business Intelligence Analytical Tools in CRM Solutions

Here is my discussion on a key movement within the CRM marketplace: Increased Integration of Business Intelligence Analytical Tools in CRM Solutions    

Business Intelligence Analytical tools, or predictive modeling, now can predict the monetary value and profitability of a particular customer: from profiling customers based on their behavior to segmenting markets, from predicting customer purchases based on past purchase information and psychographic/demographic data and from determining cross-selling opportunities.  Marketers are finding out that analytics programs are beneficial for tailoring marketing messages without violating privacy and other government regulations.  Business Intelligence Analytics will remain an important part of the corporate agenda as companies find that they face a 10-fold increase in the amount of data generated by their IT systems until 2011.  The expansion of social networking will lead to a tremendous increase in unstructured data, leading to an increased demand for business analytics software that combines text analytics, sentiment extraction and related technologies to find patterns and trends among social networking users.  In addition with the current economic downturn, businesses will use their business intelligence analytical tools to carefully scrutinize the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and sales endeavors in adding value to their firm.

The Gartner Group projects that the worldwide market for Business Intelligence (BI) platforms will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1% through 2012, to reach $7.7 billion in 2012.  The BI platform revenue will be less affected by the current economic downturn than other technologies because of the high priority that BI platforms hold with CIOs.

Concerning Business Intelligence, here is an interesting article on the effect of the iPad on CRM and Business Intelligence: http://bit.ly/h8Ve50

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

Trend of CRM Integration with Social Media Applications

Here is my explanation on a key trend that within the CRM marketplace: CRM software Integration with Social Media applications

With the tremendous growth in Social Media spending in today’s marketplace, a number of prominent CRM vendors now offer direct integration with major Social Media applications and platforms, rather than taking the time to develop such functionality internally.  The reasoning behind the direct integration with Social Media vendor applications and platforms is that developing such comprehensive functionality internally will take too much time and effort, leading to the CRM vendor losing numerous sales opportunities and revenue from the present growth in Social Media spending. 

As a consequence of the increasing need for Social Media information, ISM foresees that major CRM vendors will need to open up their collaboration platforms in order to accelerate their integration of Social Media tools to provide services that they do not presently offer.  Unless these major CRM vendors act towards opening their platforms, smaller Social Media companies such as INgage Networks, Lithium, Jive, Socialtext will increase their presence in the marketplace with their ability to have a more open platform that can integrate easily with other Social Media applications.

As an example of such movement by Social Media companies: recently, the Social Media vendor Lithium rolled out a Social CRM suite as discussed in this article: http://bit.ly/fQN0Mn

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

Highlights of My CRM User Adoption Webinar

On Tuesday, Nov 16, I held an hourly Webinar on the topic: CRM User Adoption: Securing this Critical Success Factor Once and For All!  It was a very successful Webinar as we had several hundred attendees and lots of questions posted by the Webinar attendees.  Due to high demand, here are the highlights of the CRM User Adoption Webinar.

The key question to ask is: How do you secure CRM adoption & productivity gains?

I discussed three major topics concerning CRM User Adoption:

Key CRM Risks are:

• Executive team not on board
• Little/no commitment to process enhancement
• Unwillingness to commit to change
• Non-prioritized business functions
• PPT out of whack, e.g., technology-driven
• Lack of user adoption (little/no WIIFM)

Best Practices To Secure High User Adoption & Productivity include:

• Executive Leadership
• Training
• Change management
• Communications
• Champion program
• Rewards & incentives
• User experience

Also include two key elements of CRM in your best practices: Mobile and Social CRM

User Adoption Metrics include Metrics For:

• User Activity
• Operational
• Executive 

Conclusions

User adoption is based on achieving meaningful WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?)

The same features that encourage user adoption also enable users to enter, find, apply, and understand CRM data more efficiently, thus increasing productivity.

The entire Webinar recording is available under the ISM Webinar Archives heading within this Weblink: http://bit.ly/cxUric

Please also register for any ISM Webinars that may be of your interest on the same Webpage.

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

The Emergence of the Cloud and SaaS Applications into the Market Mainstream

Here is a discussion on a key trend that within the CRM marketplace: Cloud computing and SaaS applications are rapidly moving into the enterprise-wide CRM marketplace. 

CRM software vendors are increasingly offering CRM software solutions via the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, which is also referred to as Application Service Provider (ASP), on-demand solution or the cloud ”(Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand) is accessible from work, from home, from any location with an Internet connection, and increasingly, from our ever-smarter mobile devices.”

A 2008 IDC report predicted that many software companies would derive a majority of their revenues from subscription agreements rather than perpetual licenses by the end of 2011.  This outlook for the SaaS model contrasts to the late 1990s when a host of startups began offering ASP applications over the Web.  Many of these startups went out of business because companies were hesitant to let outside companies run their important applications and because integration toolsets were not sufficiently robust. However, in the past few years, large and small companies have become more comfortable with SaaS.  The SaaS model can circumvent traditional problems with the client-server model including high prices, cumbersome deployments, and the inevitable software upgrades.  A 2008 Gartner Group report projected that during the next four years, half of the software sold to companies would be paid for on a monthly basis as part of a long-term contract, as a monthly rental fee, or as a pay-per-use basis. Research company Saugatuck furthermore predicts that by 2011 at least 65% of US companies will be running at least one SaaS application.

For your information: here is an article about four Cloud and SaaS Application Firms Worth Watching: http://bit.ly/9vA9M8

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

The Emergence of Social CRM in the Current Marketplace

Here is a key trend that I have been noticing: the CRM integration with Social Media applications to create a new social element in the CRM marketplace: Social CRM.  Here are my thoughts on the reasons behind the emergence of Social CRM.

CRM vendors are now beginning to offer integration with third party comprehensive Social Media applications.  Social media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies to facilitate communications, influence and interaction with peers and with public audiences typically via the Internet and mobile communications networks.  This interaction and the manner in which information is presented in Social Media applications depends on the varied perspectives and the “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences through user-generated content or consumer-generated media.  Social media can take many different forms such as Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video.  Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, forums-postings, instant messaging and voice over IP, to name a few.

The CRM integration with Social Media application is creating a new social element in traditional CRM processes: Social CRM.  Social CRM leverages a social element that enables a business to connect customer conversations and relationships from social networking Websites in the CRM process.  Therefore, Social CRM engages customers, prospects and contacts through Social Media.  Social CRM will augment traditional CRM, but it will not replace it.  ISM sees Social CRM becoming integrated in CRM platforms and systems for a 360 degree view of customers through the use of feeds from Social Media channels.  Each customer can select which Social Media channel to use and organizations will communicate with each customer based on their Social Media channel selection.   The ultimate goal of engaging the customer through Social Media channels will be to build trust and brand loyalty.   What Social Media has done is to enable the ability to create a one-to-one relationship regardless of the geographical location.  This type of one-to-one relationship based on mutual trust is not possible through traditional CRM channels such as telephone or emails.

Social Media Integration with CRM is growing as evidenced by Cisco’s SocialMiner release: http://tinyurl.com/29m5unz 

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

My Thoughts on the Current State of Mobile CRM

To all my readers, I have some discussions recently with other CRM experts on the current state of mobile CRM.  Here are my thoughts:

CRM vendors are continuing to develop and release CRM application modules, especially those that are bundled with or work on a large variety of handheld and/or wireless devices. These include PDAs (with various operating systems), and smart phones that support wireless infrastructure technologies like CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), GSM (Global System for Multiple communications), TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access), CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), SMS (Short Messaging Services), and packet radio networks.  The smart phones use the cellular network—not wireless hotspots—to transfer information, which means the user does not have to go to a Starbucks or hotel lobby to access data in the CRM system.  

Platform standardization, such as the industry trend towards Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), is making it easier to implement and integrate mobile solutions with an enterprise.  SOA platforms provide flexibility to bring together application data from disparate applications and data sources for sales reps in the field.  

The release of Apple’s iPhone, along with the announcement of the release of a Software Development Kit (SDK) for the iPhone will further expand the number of mobile CRM offerings as the iPhone is the first smart phone with Broadband Internet connections.  The popularity of smartphones and the entry of the Apple iPad tablet computer furthermore boosted the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet to 1 billion at the end of 2009.  IDC predicts that there will be a new emergence of mash-up generation of mobile device business applications that will utilize social and collaborative networks and derive analytics from these networks.  Consequently, the main effect of the mobile CRM trend will be that wireless components will increasingly allow users to make business decisions in real-time, while simultaneously creating analytics in real-time; all of which points toward the growing direction of Real-Time CRM.

FYI, here is a very informative article on the current state of CRM and mobile enterprise: http://tinyurl.com/2avsbcn

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

Consolidation in the CRM Marketplace

Responding to customer pressure to provide comprehensive applications, CRM vendor consolidation by major players is likely to increase.

The Oracle acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel in 2005, along with the emergence of SaaS have encouraged further consolidation among CRM software companies as multimillion-dollar CRM enterprises saw other acquisitions as necessary to survive in an increasingly competitive CRM market.  CRM functionality is offered more often as part of a larger suite of products.  One example is the Salesnet software functionality having been rolled into the RightNow CRM application.  The significance of these key CRM acquisitions is still yet to be determined. Some of these organizations have already effectively integrated their offerings, such as CDC (which acquired Saratoga Systems) appears to have effectively integrated the Saratoga Systems CRM software application with its other applications, while others, such as RightNow’s acquisition of HiveLive have not.

Here is another example of consolidation in the CRM marketplace. Oracle recently acquired ATG.  For an article discussing this acquisition, please click on this Weblink: http://tinyurl.com/28966ly

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

The Importance of Data Integrity In a CRM Project

One of my clients that I am working for asked me for clarification concerning the importance of data integrity in a CRM project.  So, here is my discussion on the importance of data integrity within a CRM project.

Data integrity consists of two processes: data cleansing and data management. Data cleansing/data management is a core component of every successful CRM program, and it should be developed at the outset of any CRM program. Data integrity should include ways to document current data inventory, develop data standards, cleanse existing data, and develop processes to maintain, change, and enhance the quality of your data. The justification for data integrity is critical as illustrated in the following:

– Quality data is a strategic asset that will impact your CRM system success.

– The quality and accuracy of data (i.e., customer, market, competitor, product, and supplier data) in the CRM system will impact a consistent, error-free way to enhance the customer experience.

– Data inventory is important to determine the source, location, flow, and extent of existing data to understand which data may be used for the CRM system.

– Data cleansing is critical to eliminate any data duplication. For example, eliminating duplicate customer entries will reduce marketing costs by preventing duplicate marketing mailings, faxes, and emails.

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

Negotiating a Good Price for Your CRM System

I have been asked by one of ISM”s clients for negotiating tips for a CRM system.  So, consequently, here are 10 negotiating tips that work in the current buyers’ market. You’ll either need to do some homework to determine the competitive CRM software pricing, or ask a consulting company to help.

1. Be sure to understand the need for each optional software module being recommended by the vendor: “What is the value-added for each of their recommended optional software modules?”
2. Include as many of the vendor’s optional modules as you can into the base agreement. This way, you can lock in prices regardless of when the modules will actually be used.
3. Be as definitive as you can in the agreement. Use your company’s well-defined business needs and screen designs as exhibits or attachments within the agreement.
4. List and define your deliverables/acceptance criteria within the agreement.
5. Spread your payments over the life of the agreement, which should be divided into phased deliverables/acceptance criteria. Here is one possible payment model: 20 percent of payment upon signing the agreement, 20 percent on the successful accomplishment of an initial set of deliverables/acceptance criteria, an additional 20 percent on the successful accomplishment of the next set of deliverables/acceptance criteria, and the final 40 percent upon the successful accomplishment of a final set of deliverable/acceptance criteria.
6. Consider requesting a site license for your company on a national and/or international basis.
7. Wait between 60 and 90 days before your final acceptance of the system.
8. The maintenance charges certainly can and should be negotiated.
9. Buy a block (of the company’s program and project managers’ time) or of the CRM vendor implementation consultants’ time to secure a discount rate.
10. Structure the agreement so your company initially purchases little more than a developer server license and about 15 pilot-user licenses.

On the top of pricing, here is an article concerning the current status of CRM pricing in today’s marketplace:   http://tinyurl.com/2bqzwsg

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.

A Key Trend: Increased Growth in Business Analytics

Business Intelligence Analytical tools, or predictive modeling, now can predict the monetary value and profitability of a particular customer: from profiling customers based on their behavior to segmenting markets, from predicting customer purchases based on past purchase information and psychographic/demographic data and from determining cross-selling opportunities.  Marketers are finding out that analytics programs are beneficial for tailoring marketing messages without violating privacy and other government regulations.  Business Intelligence Analytics will remain an important part of the corporate agenda as companies find that they face a 10-fold increase in the amount of data generated by their IT systems until 2011.  The expansion of social networking will lead to a tremendous increase in unstructured data, leading to an increased demand for business analytics software that combines text analytics, sentiment extraction and related technologies to find patterns and trends among social networking users.  In addition with the current economic downturn, businesses will use their business intelligence analytical tools to carefully scrutinize the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and sales endeavors in adding value to their firm.

The Gartner Group projects that the worldwide market for Business Intelligence (BI) platforms will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1% through 2012, to reach $7.7 billion in 2012.  The BI platform revenue will be less affected by the current economic downturn than other technologies because of the high priority that BI platforms hold with CIOs.

As an example of the growth and increased interest among organizations for business analytics:  IBM has just acquired Netezza for $1.7 Billion.  For more details on this business analytics acquisition by IBM, please click on this Weblink:  http://tinyurl.com/294hy6z

To all my Blog readers, please feel free to post any comments on any of my posts on my Blog.  I welcome and encourage discussion/debate on my Blog postings.