Gartner offers five low-cost CRM strategies

The current economy is wreaking havoc with application budgets while forcing companies to wrest more value from their current CRM software implementations.
##CONTINUE##
Against that backdrop, Scott Nelson, managing vice president at Gartner, offered a series of five low-cost CRM strategies.

"Part of this was to dispel the notion that all you can do with CRM is buy software," Nelson said. "And just because you have no approval to purchase doesn't mean you have to grind to a halt."

In fact, surveys of clients by analysts with the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm have found that the lessons of the last economic downturn have stayed with many companies.

Approximately 40% of them say they will use the economic downturn to generate post-recovery growth via effective CRM strategies.

Those figures vary widely across industries, of course. Financial services, for example, are reining in costs, while government organizations are investing heavily. Software vendors like SAP, IBM and Oracle are promoting software to track federal stimulus money. Most organizations have little to spend on things like software, but there are some exceptions, according to Nelson.

"We're not seeing people buying a whole Oracle or SAP suite, but certainly there are investments in SaaS right now," he said. "Analytics, because those are discrete investments, data clean-up and quality, some sales automation -- anything that can cut costs -- campaign management, e-commerce so they can push cost forward."

Customer communities

While anything relating to Web 2.0 or social networking has been the subject of buzz and marketing hype, customer communities are an effective and low-cost (or no-cost) way to engage and serve customers. Gartner recommends setting up corporate accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter to begin experimenting.

Analytics

Analytics tools that help organizations determine customer buying patterns, attrition and channel usage can be purchased at a reasonable cost, Nelson noted.

Moreover, many companies already have the tools in-house.

"A lot of clients already have made the investment in that area, and it's sitting on the shelf because they bought a package with analytics embedded," Nelson said. "This may be a good time to go out and use them. Organizations have the luxury of having a little more time available right now."

Segmentation

Similarly, because of the recession, there are fewer new application projects, and personnel do not need to devote as much time to things like proving ROI, freeing them up for projects such as segmenting the customer base. Gartner advises companies to use the time to re-examine their segmentation strategies to determine whether they're truly effective.

Process redesign

CRM initiatives that focused on sales, customer service or marketing left many companies with siloed, disjointed processes. The recession is an opportunity to re-examine and streamline those processes.

"Many are still thinking of sales, service and marketing as a discrete, siloed approach that does not represent the process flow of the customer," Nelson said.

Telcos are a good example, he said, where the processes are built around things like billing, fraud and equipment, and companies are now thinking about how to organize around bringing aboard a new customer, for example.

Organizational redesign

Finally, if a company has been considering moving from a product-centric to customer-centric organization, now may be the time, Nelson advises.

Does that mean the recession has actually proved a boon for advancing CRM?

"In some ways," Nelson said. "It's certainly never good from the vendors' point of view, and the drying-up of funds isn't good. But there's always been this misconception that CRM is all about buying software. There's so much more to it than the software involved."

-----------------------------
BY Barney Beal, News Director
Source：SearchCRM.com

All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2000 - 2009, TechTarget.

Oracle-Google deal ties CRM to Google Apps

Oracle and Google lent each other a helping hand against their common competitor, Microsoft, announcing a collaboration that makes it easier to shuttle data between Oracle and Google's desktop applications.
##CONTINUE##
For its part, Oracle unwrapped a beta version of its Oracle Gadget Wizard for Google Apps and support for Google's Secure Data Connector (SDC), to go along with the debut of Siebel CRM support for Google Apps.

The partnership means Oracle now has an answer to competitive offerings from Salesforce.com and may be able to convince some corporate users to go with Siebel CRM instead. In December, Salesforce.com released a development tool for connecting the Google Apps Engine to Force.com data. It could also help the company in its battle against Microsoft; the two also compete in the CRM market.

"We would like to move some of our data to the cloud, but we haven't even decided yet on whether we want to deal with an internal or external [cloud]," said Bill Casey, an IT administrator with a large commercial bank in San Francisco. "I know Oracle has made some noises about hosting customer data internally. Something like this [Google] announcement could help us decide in Oracle's favor if it proves more cost effective."

The deal gives Google more credibility among enterprise accounts, where it faces an uphill battle convincing those shops to switch from Microsoft Office to Google Apps.

Under the partnership, users will be able to create and deploy Oracle gadgets in Google Sites, serving to better scale applications without causing concern about managing infrastructure, both Oracle and Google officials said.

Another benefit to users is that CRM applications can now work with a Google-based cloud more securely by using Google's SDC. This, according to Oracle officials, sets the stage for the delivery of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications that will not be a burden to an IT shop's existing resources, as well as providing multi-tenancy support, allowing secure access to corporate data from behind firewalls.

Mark Woollen, vice president of Social CRM for Oracle, said corporate developers can now take the code they built on middleware and port it directly to the Google Apps Engine. From there, they can "run it up into the cloud" and then use Google Apps to get at data existing behind the firewall.

This ability to connect data protected by firewalls to Web-based applications and gadgets living in the cloud could give some reluctant Oracle corporate and third-party developers more incentive to move their cloud strategies forward.

"With Google supplying an open environment, this makes it easier for developers to create new cloud-based applications that can tightly interact with Siebel CRM based in on-premise environments," Woollen said.

The partnership should help incent corporate and third-party developers to create mobile applications that exploit Siebel's CRM, thereby getting new features out to users faster, he added.

By supporting Google's SDC, Siebel users not only have access to an in-the-cloud environment, they can use their existing programming language. This can help increase the cost effectiveness of melding new on-demand services with users' on-premise investments, according to officials from both companies.

-----------------------------
BY Ed Scannell, Site Editor
Source：TechTarget

All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2003 - 2009, TechTarget.

Gartner CRM Summit: Vendors Vs Gartner

This week's Gartner CRM Summit gave the main sponsors the opportunity to challenge the organiser's take on the state of the industry. And it was soon clear that the vendors could only agree to disagree, with the thought leaders and each other...
##CONTINUE##
Vendor panels at industry conferences can often slip all too easily into shameless - and unfettered - product plugging by the main sponsors of the event. But this week's Gartner CRM Summit attempted to put a new spin on the format by inviting its platinum sponsors – Salesforce.com, Microsoft and Sword Ciboodle – to test their views of major industry topics and issues against the consensus opinion of Gartner analysts.

The results were a revealing disclosure how many differing opinions about the state of the market there are among the vendors – and how far removed they are on occasion from the analyst market-makers and thought leaders.

The vendors participants were: Brad Wilson, general manager at Microsoft Dynamics CRM (BW), Martin Woodson, vice president strategy, EMEA at Salesforce.com (MW), and Steven Thurlow, chief technology officer at Sword Ciboodle. Each was asked to address a particular question posed by Gartner and to score their results accordingly.

Gartner: Over the past 10 years what percentage of organisations have measured the ROI from CRM?

ST: 20%. People have tried to measure CRM but a lot of people have felt that they had to invest in it and, as such, targeted ROI has been hard to measure.

MW: 30%. One of the reasons the figure is so low is that people have spent so much time struggling with the basics of implementing CRM that we have had a hard time just getting to the point of measuring ROI. So why do people still invest in CRM? Recent research has seen increasing optimism about the chances of success for CRM. The history has been pretty bleak but there is now evidence from several decades of customers trying out there and people are getting more confident.

BW: 30%. A problem is that a lot of people who are measuring ROI don't actually have a base line. Even among my own customers, people try to measure results but don't know where they were to start with.

Gartner consensus: 24%

Gartner: What has been the most challenging of Gartner's eight building blocks for CRM – vision, strategy, customer experience, organisational change, organisational processes, data, technology and metrics?

BW: Data. Most firms have disparate sources of information so trying to get a coherent view of the customer experience has been practically impossible. Unless you have a clear view of information, then that's difficult to achieve. You can't achieve your strategy or vision if you can't get your arms around what you have.

MW: Customer experience. All the other building blocks stack up to that. We are seeing a move now from technology enabled CRM where we spent 90% of our time getting it to work. Now, with cloud computing, you put 90% of the effort into revising the processes and the information to get a superior customer experience. We leave the technology piece to third party specialists.

ST: Processes. People have talked a good game about customer experience and have spent 'gazillions' on technology, but when the rubber hits the road, their processes just aren't very good. Organisations have invested at each end, but it's in the middle where it all becomes concrete.

Gartner consensus: Organisational change

Gartner: Given that the percentage of CRM SaaS deployments in 2008 was 15%, what do you think that figure will be by 2020?

BW: 45%. We believe that SaaS is an important option for customers. We are working to deliver all our technology through both on demand and on premise models. Customers choose strategy first and the technology option second. There are lots of companies who will engage with SaaS. I'm not sure that in 12 years concerns about the control of customer data will evaporate. We think that on demand and on premise are the same thing, but you have a longer cable with one of them.

MW: 86.2! Actually, 10 years from now the right answer might be zero as we might have dropped the whole word software. One of the drivers of cloud computing will be the sheer number of CRM projects going on. CRM has been the domain of large organisations who had millions to afford it but we're seeing a big democratisation now. It's not only smaller firms who are adopting cloud computing; The Obama campaign, Starbucks and Dell have all gone direct to their customer base - with 'ideas sites' for the priorities in the first 100 days of the Obama presidency, or Starbucks for product ideas, or Dell for technology development. These aren't traditional CRM projects, they're the sort of things that didn't exist 10 years ago.

ST: 60%. I think you'll see a lot of process heading to the cloud. Every time you touch an organisation, you touch a process and a process assumes content. The cloud will become more federated.

Gartner consensus: 45%

Gartner: Open source CRM in 2008 was less than 1%; what will it be by 2020?

ST: 10%. It won't be a huge number. Organisations will want to take advantage of the innovation that vendors can offer. Open source will be present at the small end of the market and in sales force automation. In infrastucture terms, open source gives power to your developers. Once you get into applications, you're talking about processes and those are non-standard. Processes will change over time and you need a level of ownership.

MW: Less than 4%. Platform as a service is a better model than open source. The downside is that organisations see that open source is not about the licensing costs but about the maintenance costs. Once you get involved in the open source model, you need a stable of developers who can continue to adapt to needs over time. When organisations look at cloud computing, they see more benefits over time and much more predictability of costs.

BW: 5%. The core flaw for open source for business applications is that you need a supportable product with vendors behind it. People want to know that there is a repeatable escalation process for problems - open source often lacks that.

Gartner consensus: 8%

Gartner: What percentage of customer processes will not involve an employee by 2020?

BW: 90%. Ten years ago we walked into a bank if we wanted to get cash. No one does that now. With any self service system you have risk of fraud, but the costs you engineer out of your system outnumbers the risk of fraud. A lot more of the touchpoints to an organisation will be automated.

MW: Zero or 20. Any process that is customer facing involves employees somewhere. What you really mean is customer interactions as an alternative to human interactions, such as call centres or face-to-face meetings. If it's that, then maybe 20%, but it will vary enormously according to industry.

ST: 80%. Commodity processes should certainly be self-service but 'value' projects will involve employees. There will be a generational aspect. My eldest child will be 21 in 2020 and the self-service expectations that she will come with will be huge. Customers will choose to do self-service; it's not something they can be driven to for cost reaons.

-----------------------------
BY Stuart Lauchlan, news and analysis editor
Source：MYCUSTOMER.com

Copyright © 2009 Sift Media. All rights reserved.

CRM: A Competitive Advantage in Financial Services

Financial services firms are constantly under pressure to produce results, and more than ever, are looking for new innovative strategies to remain competitive, create growth opportunities, and gather valuable insight into customer needs and preferences.
##CONTINUE##
The five month study, performed by AbleBridge in partnership with Microsoft Corporation was conducted from October 2008 through February 2009. Interviews were compiled from a targeted population of over 2,000 small, mid-sized and large financial services firms resulting in over 600 completed interviews from key Sales and Marketing executives in retail banking, wealth management and insurance brokerage services.

CRM STRATEGY- Not Everyone’s Doing It, But Most Acknowledge the Value

Results revealed that 5 out of 10 firms (51%) currently use CRM systems to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their sales staff. In addition, 8 out of 10 firms (82%) acknowledged that a properly implemented CRM system would have a direct impact on their ability to retain customers, earn more of their business, and deliver superior customer service.

In terms of market activity, nearly a third of the companies interviewed indicated they were either buying or investigating a new CRM system or upgrading an existing CRM system over the next six to twelve months.

The study showed a variety of software brands and technology platforms competing for the business with over 14 software vendors mentioned. 4 out of the 14 software packages were the most popular packaged software choice for the financial services sector. The same 4 brands fall into “industry leading” CRM packages as defined by independent technology and market research companies. The majority of firms acknowledged the software was configured to their specific business processes.

HOME GROWN vs. PACKAGED – The Tides are Changing

Results revealed a large majority of financial services firms utilize some form of home grown CRM system that was 3 – 5 years old on average. The top three challenges for this segment was 1) older technology 2) user adoption 3) difficult to make changes. The top three benefits were 1) internal IT support 2) integrated with internal systems 3) standardized for internal processes.
The study also showed that 14% have recently implemented or upgraded their current homegrown CRM system and 18% were in the process of investigating packaged software options to replace their current homegrown CRM systems.

According to one Insurance Executive, “Our CRM strategy is comprised of a blended approach of both packaged and homegrown CRM tools. In the past we built everything from the ground up because there weren’t a lot of other choices at the time. Now we’re wise to the fact that investing in a vendor supported packaged platform is a smarter decision. The tools we design, specifically around reporting and trending metrics are specific to our business but they sit on top of the packaged software platform.”

CRM ADOPTION – Rates Remain High

It’s no secret that gaining internal support and user adoption for a new CRM system can be challenging. Financial Services firms have historically been early adopters of CRM strategies; therefore, their overall adoption rates seemed to be higher than most other industries. The current study showed 3 out of 4 respondents, who currently use a CRM system, indicating usage rates in the 70-90% range.

This, according to Ryan Plourde, a Principal with AbleBridge, is attributable to the direct value each customer brings to the Financial Services industry. “The value placed on strengthening the trust relationship with each customer by understanding their preferences, needs, and objectives has laid the foundation for a solid CRM strategy. Where other industries tend to struggle in this area, the Financial Services industry can quickly realize the benefits of CRM technology.”

“IN THE CLOUD” vs. “ON-PREMISE” – The Trend Follows the Data

When asked about their opinion as to the future direction of how financial services firms would access their CRM systems, web based access was the clear winner with the majority of the respondents indicating this was very important.

Web access in conjunction with an “On-Premise” deployment to ensure the security of sensitive customer data would be the most ideal model. Only 12% picked “In the Cloud”, where their data would be hosted by a 3rd party company, with the remaining 7% undecided.
The leading reasons cited for choosing On-Premise included “Data Security”, “IT Control and Ease of Management” and “Superior Integration Capability”.

A high number of respondents expressed concern that highly sensitive data would be transmitted over a network other than their own with an “In the Cloud” deployment model. However, many also acknowledged the fact that data security breaches could also happen with an On-Premise deployment. The overall perception clearly showed the majority of respondents more comfortable with an On-Premise CRM deployment solely based on data security concerns.

About the Study

Time frame: October 2008 – February 2009
Objective: 15 Question Survey focused on CRM use in Financial Service Firms
Target Sample: 2,078 Financial Services Firms
Sample Size: 603 Completed Surveys **

**Answered >10 Survey Questions

Distribution by Sub Segment:

o Banking Services 15%
o Insurance Services 55%
o Investment Services 30%

Sampling Error: +/- 5%

To request copy of the completed survey results please email: info@ablebridge.com

About AbleBridge

AbleBridge (www.ablebridge.com) specializes in helping companies streamline their business operations and improve business results by leveraging the features and capabilities of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. AbleBridge’s consultants have more than 30 years combined experience in the CRM industry. This expertise, in conjunction with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, helps them affordably tailor a solution resulting in increased sales, improved customer connections, enhanced productivity and greater business agility.

AbleBridge's Core Competencies include: Needs Analysis, Business Process Management, Installation and Configuration, Data Migration, Customization, .NET Development and Training Services.

About Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM gives every customer-facing employee the information they need to truly impress customers. With Microsoft CRM, you can create a centralized repository of customer data that sits neatly alongside Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Outlook—the applications your employees probably use every day. From Outlook, employees access Microsoft CRM sales, marketing, and customer service modules to make sales decisions, market products, solve problems, and get strategic views of the business. It’s CRM that works - because it works the way your users already do, works the way your business already does, and works the way technology should.

Contact:

Jared Brown
AbleBridge
877-600-2253
info@ablebridge.com
http://www.ablebridge.com

-----------------------------
BY Jared Brown
Source：customer THINK

Gartner Says Companies Need to Pursue Four Steps to Harness Social Computing in CRM

Future of CRM to Be Discussed at Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit 2009, 3-4 March, in London

Egham, UK, Social computing is becoming a significant customer relationship management (CRM) market trend and represents a disruptive force in this market, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that, by 2010, more than 60 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies will have some form of online community that can be used for customer relationship purposes.
##CONTINUE##
“Social applications* offer a great opportunity for CRM practitioners to improve customer experience and influence the customer, particularly in an economic downturn when companies are trying to keep customers and increase wallet share,” said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. “Investments should focus primarily on the customer online buying process where it can offer a direct return on investment (ROI) in terms of sales, awareness and customer loyalty.”

However, Gartner predicts that, by 2010, more than half of companies that have established an online community will fail to manage it as an agent of change, ultimately eroding customer value.

“Rushing into social-computing initiatives without clearly defined benefits for both the company and customer will be the biggest cause of failure,” said Mr Sarner. Gartner recommends companies follow four steps when undertaking any social-software initiative:

1. Define the initiative and its purpose

Many organisations have not taken the time to assess the business case for investment, tempted by the fact that many social applications are nominally free. Before an organisation begins a project, it needs to define a mutual, balanced purpose. The stated purpose must include a measurable business benefit for establishing the application, and a customer motivation for participating.

2. Cede some control to encourage participation

For an application to be truly social, the community must have some element of ownership in return for the value it brings with it. Organisations need to determine the level of control ceded to the community, and understand how that affects the engagement between customer and company.

Harnessing an application’s community can be difficult, because it cannot be forced to contribute. In order to encourage participation and establish the right amount of ownership to cede, Gartner recommends that organisations follow five best practices that require them to accept the risk of criticism and use the valuable data provided to make real changes; apply ground rules to install self-moderation; solicit feedback to make users feel appreciated; enable company advocates to gain powerful allies, and lastly assign a community advocate to liaise with the community and to represent it to the company.

3. Understand and reward different kinds of participation

Companies need to recognise and provide social applications for all levels of participants that can be categorised as: the creators (“I want to own this”), the contributors (“I want to be part of this”), the opportunists (“Since I’m here…”) and the lurkers (“I’ll reap the rewards”).

In addition, businesses must incorporate reputation mechanisms into their social-network initiatives to manage and get the most value from the four different groups. Social-reputation technologies allow users to rank the quality of input provided by contributors, filtering content and differentiating the best information — whether actively (by voting) or passively (by page views). “This is extremely important in high-traffic social networks, as well as for those where indicators of trustworthiness — such as names and job titles — are hidden behind online personas,” said Mr Sarner. “In addition to helping customers during their information-gathering phase, reputation systems also serve to recognise and reward your advocate groups.”

4. Acquire skills to build relationships online

Companies must acquire new skills that focus on influencing social interactions to encourage participation effectively. These skills will need to cover social sciences, such as psychology, to learn how customers interact, and how their changing needs can be met; anthropology, to learn how cultures grow, develop and interact; and game design, to create engaging virtual environments to manipulate "player" behaviour through rules, rewards and outcomes.

Since many of these skills will be difficult to find internally, companies must allocate substantial budget to recruit these skills or outsource them to specialist providers. In a global recession, companies should prioritise the acquisition of these skills because of the direct benefits they can produce in customer loyalty and increased sales.

Mr Sarner concluded: “Social networking has changed the way a critical mass of individuals behaves, including how they act as customers and prospects. Customers, not just digital natives, can no longer be adequately described by demographic information — the usual target for corporate CRM efforts.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “The Business Impact of Social Computing on CRM.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=874421&subref=simplesearch

Gartner analysts will look into the future of collaboration with customers during the Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit 2009, 3-4 March, at the Royal Lancaster hotel in London. More information is available on Gartner’s website at www.europe.gartner.com/crm.

Notes to editors:
* Gartner definition of social application: social applications encourage, capture and share data among users, ceding levels of control to a community by user-controlled organisation mechanisms. These applications share characteristics, such as open application programming interfaces, service-oriented design, and the ability to upload data and media. These applications may be centred on a company’s website, or they may be hosted elsewhere. Social applications may be accessed using a web browser or used on cell phones, games consoles and GPS devices. Participation and access to others in the community are the defining features of a social application. For instance, e-mail is not a social application. However, if a community used tools to share, rank, comment on or filter e-mail messages (such as a shared ranking of the value of an e-marketing campaign), it would be a social application.

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,000 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 80 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.

-----------------------------
BY N/A
Source：PR-USA.NET

© 2009 PR-USA.net

Salesforce forecasts a 'cloudy' Spring

Salesforce.com has rolled out the latest version of its hosted CRM platform.

The company said that while the Spring 09 update to the service will sport more than 50 updates, much of the attention went to the customer service and sales elements of the CRM offering.
##CONTINUE##
Known as the "service cloud" and "sales cloud," the new services will beef up a CRM offering that the company considers to be of increasing importance.

Al Falcione, director of product marketing for Salesforce.com, told vnunet.com that his company thinks managing and maintaining relationships with customers could be a deciding factor in whether companies can come out of the economic crisis.

"It is a big release for us," said Falcione.

"CRM has become more important than ever in the market."

In the 'service cloud', the company is hoping to increase the use of multiple web sources, such as search engines and social networking services to provide customer service and support by way of built-in applications for the sites on the Salesforce CRM service.

This, said Falcione, is aimed at easing reliance on call-centers both for customers and businesses.

In the 'sales cloud,' the company has taken a new approach to the way that it allows users to organize and share data.

The new service will introduce the ability for salespeople to search and tag both presentations and multimedia files regarding a specific client or product and then share the packaged materials on a single website, thus removing the need to send large bundles of files to recipients and allowing multiple forms of content to be presented within single URL.

Additionally, the Spring 09 release will offer the 'opportunity genius,' a feature which categorizes past and current business deals, allowing sales staff to compare notes and share ideas.

Salesforce hopes that the update will allow it to thrive in what chief executive Marc Benioff predicts to be a banner year for hosted services.

"This is the year of cloud computing for the CRM industry and salesforce.com is the undisputed leader," he declared.

"Salesforce.com is helping companies grow their business without growing costs by delivering a cloud computing solution for customer service and sales."

-----------------------------
BY Shaun Nichols, San Francisco
Source：vnunet.com

© Incisive Media Ltd. 2009 Incisive Media Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, is a company registered in the United Kingdom with company registration number 04038503.

Do CRM Analysts Provide Value for Money?

I have used the big name CRM analysts on and off for over 20 years. But looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I think they offered more of a 'comfort blanket' to hide behind, an insurance policy when talking to clients, rather than something of tangible value. Value that I would be willing to pay for out of my own money. Let me explain.
##CONTINUE##
When I was a junior CRM consultant at several big six consultancies, I would avidly collect and occasionally read CRM analysts' reports. They were usually well written documents based on a bit of research and a modicum of insight. There was not usually anything original about the reports, but clients liked to see them referenced. I suspect they hadn't read them either. I would marvel at how the analysts could charge so much for the common sense, limited market research and vendor PR occasionally contained within them. And some of the reports were just plain wrong, particularly where the analysts stepped outside their area of expertise and failed to understand the bigger business picture. That gave me a bad dose of cognitive dissonance.

As I gained experience as a CRM consultant I continued to collect the reports. But I started to read only the reports from analysts who really knew their stuff. They comprised maybe 10% of all the analysts whose reports I had read previously.These analysts generally had real experience gained actually working in their field of expertise and thus a context within which to write about. But I compared and contrasted their writing with other sources of materials including academic papers for theory, CRM consultant colleagues for their experience and industry articles for practical case studies. Even the best analysts were sometimes found wanting. The biggest issue was, and I think still is, the hyping of CRM technology and the down-playing of all the other complementary factors that enable the technology to deliver value.

Today, as a partner in a start-up innovation consultancy, I no longer have access to analysts’ reports. I find the odd one on the Internet and out of habit still collect them. But I rarely read them unless they are about something new that I know nothing about. Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff's excellent reports on e.g. Social Computing, that led up to them publishing their 'Groundswell' book are a perfect example of this. They really know their subject. And I benefitted greatly from it. But even here, there is so much good stuff available for free on the Internet, or through my network of consultancy contacts that analysts have almost become obsolete. I have become knowledge self-sufficient. And that isn't because I don't need much knowledge; I read dozens of books, hundreds of academic papers and thousands of blog posts every year. I can get what I need from the Groundswell itself.

I understand why many businesses use analysts. It is not just to gain access to basic knowledge. Or the fear of maybe missing out on something insightful. Or even one-on-one access to the best analysts themselves. There is also the influencing analysts and their recommendations side too. What CRM consultancy doesn't want to be in the magic top-right quadrant or ahead of the CRM wave. But many normal businesses have stopped using analysts. I was talking to some CRM strategy folks from Vodafone a while back who said that they no longer used the big-name CRM analysts. They simply didn't know enough about their fast-moving industry to be worth the money. They still used niche analysts though. The ones who really know their subject. But not the big-name analysts.

My advice to any business thinking about using CRM analysts is to ask yourself these simple questions:

1. Do they have individuals who really know your industry better than you do? If they don't, you shouldn't be using them
2. Can they provide you with guidance in how to actually implement their insights? If they can't, you shouldn't be using them
3. Can you get the same information from other, cheaper, less restrictive sources? If you can, you shouldn't be using them
4. Can you get access to their unwritten knowledge in the heads of their best analysts, as well as their written reports when you need it, on a per-use basis? If you can't at a reasonable price, then you shouldn't be using them either.

I stopped using big-name CRM analysts some time ago. I havent missed anything. And my bank account is so much healthier. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't use them. But you should ask yourself those four questions first.

-----------------------------
BY Graham Hill - Customer-driven Innovator, Customers & More
Source：customer THINK

Graham Hill is the founder of customer management consultancy Customers & More. He has more than 20 years of experience in customer-driven change programs with companies of all shapes and sizes. He can be contacted at graham(dot)hill(at)web(dot)de. [Blog: Customer Insider]

Oracle Extends On-Demand CRM Push

Oracle (NSDQ:ORCL) has debuted a new release of its on-demand CRM software, adding partner relationship management capabilities, advanced customization features and a single-tenant option.
##CONTINUE##
Oracle CRM On Demand Release 16, based on the CRM applications Oracle acquired when it bought Siebel Systems in 2006, is Oracle's entry in the hotly contested Software-as-a-Service CRM arena where the vendor competes with Microsoft, Salesforce.com and others.

While Oracle provides the service direct to customers, a number of Oracle solution providers, including Apex IT, CD Group and eVerge, work with the applications as part of their consulting service offerings.

The software's new custom objects feature helps businesses customize the on-demand CRM applications at the user interface, business process and data layer levels, according to Oracle. The product already includes prebuilt objects, such as realtime reporting and external data integration software, and users can define relationships between custom and prebuilt objects without coding.

Oracle is also offering Oracle CRM On Demand Single Tenant Standard Edition, a version of the CRM product for customers that want their own instance of the application that's hosted on a dedicated hardware and software stack. Salesforce and many other SaaS vendors provide their applications on a multitenant basis where multiple customers access the same instance of an application as a way of keeping costs low. But some customers with concerns about security and system performance have hesitated to adopt multitenant SaaS.

The new partner relationship management features in Release 16 expand on the "partner license option" functions in earlier releases to provide a broader range of indirect channel-management capabilities. The application, for example, now offers tools for partner program management, special pricing, deal registration and lead management.

Release 16 also has added features for specific vertical industries, according to Oracle, particularly in life sciences and the insurance industry.

The multitenant enterprise edition of Oracle CRM On Demand is priced at $70 per user, per month. The standard edition of the single-tenant application is priced at $90 per user, per month, while the enterprise edition of the single-tenant release costs $125 per user, per month.

-----------------------------
BY Rick Whiting
Source：ChannelWeb

Copyright © 2009 United Business Media LLC.

Cloud CRM on the horizon for 2009: analyst

Big changes are coming to the CRM (customer relationship management) application market this year, with significant financial, strategic and technical implications for customers, say analysts who track the space.
##CONTINUE##
Large vendors such as SAP and Oracle are "pushing hard" for customers to upgrade their CRM applications this year, says Forrester Research analyst William Band. "This is forcing a lot of organisations to make a decision," he says.

Customers who wish to proceed with an upgrade will have a tougher time getting approval than in the past, given the chill the economy has placed on all IT spending, he says.

Therefore, such customers must prepare a more stringent business case for CRM — something that didn't necessarily happen much in the market's earlier days, according to Band.

"In the late 90s and early 2000s, the CRM space was very buoyant. A lot of people bought into the Tom Siebel vision," Band says, referring to the former CEO and chairman of Siebel Systems, which has since been acquired by Oracle. "They invested in more of a promise than some really good due diligence."

Companies may also need to work on other technical fronts this year to gain the most benefit from their CRM implementation, Band wrote in a recent report.

"Due to multiple instances of software, disparate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and poor data integration," CRM applications can end up providing "a fragmented view of the customer", he wrote. Forrester expects that this year, "CRM professionals will continue to focus intently on how enterprises collect, distribute, and use data".

In terms of CRM product functionality, 451 Group analyst China Martens says last year's trend towards "social CRM" — marked by collaboration tools such as wikis and blogs within the CRM experience — will morph into "cloud CRM", wherein CRM applications connect to external social-networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, as well as other web sources.

CRM vendors will also try to boost customer retention by adding new features, Martens says. This need is pressing in the CRM space, where products' core capabilities don't vary much. As an example, Salesforce.com has already made this type of move, introducing a product for content management.

CRM applications will also become more modular, according to Martens.

"Oracle has started down this path already and many of its peers are looking to emulate its example," she says, referring to last year's release of three Oracle SaaS CRM products — Sales Prospector, Sales Campaigns and Sales Library — as well as its CRM Gadgets.

Martens predicts that customers will demand more clarity on pricing from vendors, especially ones with SaaS (software as a service) products. Vendors will also experiment with unique pricing models, such as connecting the application's cost with a customer's profitability, and more companies may go with open-source products such as SugarCRM in an effort to reduce costs, she forecasts.

Price cuts could also be on order from the likes of NetSuite and Salesforce, but expect a number of skirmishes among rivals, rather than "an all-out pricing war", Martens says.

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BY Chris Kanaracus, Boston
Source：COMPUTERWORLD

Copyright © Fairfax Business Group
Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited, 2009

Complete Solutions launches local SaaS CRM offering

Locally owned CRM integrator Complete Solutions is partnering with Revera to launch an entry-level software-as-a-service CRM service, CRMNOW, it hopes will place it firmly on the ground floor of a burgeoning IT market.
##CONTINUE##
The service deploys on-demand Microsoft Dynamics for $80 per user, per month, a price CRMNOW director John Biggs says is competitive with traditional CRM deployments and with similar services run out of the US.

He says the real advantage with the SaaS model is flexibility. "It's extremely fast to market and cost effective to reconfigure as staff numbers change.

"This is almost a self-service offering for clients; if they have a little IT knowledge they can provision it themselves."

He says the company is also offering full support to deploy the system for around $2000.

The company is one of the first to partner Microsoft's New Zealand-based hosted CRM partner, Revera. "We have a hosting partner that does what it does best, and we provide what we do best - CRM."

Revera marketing director Robin Cockayne says Revera will maintain its position as a pure-play infrastructure provider, rather than as a software reseller. The company has overlaid third-party management software Ensim Unify to manage provisioning and accelerate the integration of new applications.

According to Biggs, "For too long software-as-a-service hype has triumphed over reality. You can't just load up software to the web, shout from the rooftop and sync with PayPal. SaaS has redefined expectations of speed, ease of use and customer service. We've been careful to tick all the boxes, drawing on our legacy of CRM integration and support work and meshing that with a smart delivery platform and infrastructure partner."

He says users can be up and running in less than a day and the tools used in Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be familiar to most organisations using Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer. The system allows staff to plan activities, schedule meetings and organise diaries, as well as work collaboratively on projects.

Biggs says the decision to adopt an SaaS offering was spurred by overseas trends and growing demand here in New Zealand. "Overseas, cloud-based CRM is being picked up by larger and larger organisations attracted by the flexibility of SaaS and its pay-as-you-go approach. We also want to get in on the ground floor of what we see as fast growing market here in New Zealand."

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BY Ken Lewis
Source：IT BRIEF

© Copyright Action Media Ltd .

SaaS Integration Woes and Other Things to Look Forward To in 2009

What does the CRM landscape look like in 2009? What's old is new again, suggest voices in the CRM blogosphere. Integration, which was once the bane of in-house software implementations, is now challenging SaaS. Some bright spots: Businesses will be interested in spending money on BI, ERP, CRM, servers and storage, application modernization, collaboration tech and more.
##CONTINUE##
Finding business value in Software as a Service implementations is a perennial topic of discussion, no matter how established the SaaS business model becomes. In part, that's because it's more a business than a tech issue, and companies tend to focus more on features and functionality during the procurement process, Rick Kotermanski, chief technology officer for Summa, told CRM Buyer.

"Vendors don't like to talk about the messy, difficult part of technology -- they just want to close the sale," he said. In other words, there is still some evangelizing to be done on the importance of establishing the business value in SaaS integration.

Planning for the integration must begin even during the procurement process, said Kotermanski.

"SaaS applications can become dangerous islands of process and data if you are not careful in planning from the start," he explains in his blog post on the subject. "SaaS applications are increasing in their rate of adoption due to both their inherent value and acceleration caused by the economic situation and capital investment posture that most companies are in."

SaaS sales reps will often dismiss a discussion about integration during the acquisition planning with a glib "we support standards ...," Kotermanski noted. That statement may usually be true, but it nevertheless derails the customer from considering important factors during the sales process.

Following are some important questions that he suggests companies should ask themselves:

• How will I tie this new SaaS application into my existing business processes, operations, data and people? The toleration for 10 different login IDs and UIs is fading. The cost of training and retaining staff to deal with the diversity of systems is high.
• How do I minimize the amount of effort and cost of errors due to retyping of data across internal and external systems?
• How do I ensure application data quality and consistency with my other systems (e.g., catalog of parts to order in CRM, department codes in HCM)?
• How do I architect my environment to deal with the inevitable upgrade or replacement of this SaaS solution?

Bloggers' Best Guesses for 2009

If you are in the real estate, financial services or automotive industry, 2008 was a horror. Technology suffered too, of course, but not as much as other parts of the economy. So the industry does not have that far to climb back to prosperity, right?

Not quite. Unfortunately, 2009 is not holding out much promise other than flat growth -- which is better than some alternative scenarios (again, see real estate, financial services and automotive).

Bloggers are making their best guesses as to where the growth may be this year.

In the spirit of being constructive, Heather Clancy latched onto two positive industry trends identified by Gartner: IT spending will be flat in 2009, but outsourcing will grow.

Although IT spending will not grow this year -- or, just barely -- "at least budgets haven't been slashed into oblivion (yet), and there ARE 10 technology areas where Gartner's (NYSE: IT) worldwide survey of 1,527 enterprise CIOs provides a brighter outlook, because they are seen as helping businesses overcome current economic conditions," says Clancy.

Top business priorities:

• Business intelligence
• Enterprise applications (ERP, CRM)
• Servers and storage technologies
• Legacy application modernization
• Collaboration technologies
• Networking, voice and data communications
• Technical infrastructure
• Security technologies
• Service-oriented applications and architecture
• Document management

According to Gartner, the practice of outsourcing technology needs will increase in 2009, Clancy notes. "The Gartner research also underscores rising adoption of managed services and Software as a Service, as well as the research and experimentation going on with infrastructure utility services and cloud computing."

Financial performance management, human resources management and several other business processes key to enterprises are among the top trends Sharyn Leaver, vice president and research director at Forrester, will be watching for this year.

This is what Leaver says about CRM:

"Our recent surveys and interviews with customer-oriented business and IT executives suggest that the business needs driving sustained investment in CRM in the recent past will be even more compelling. Six trends dominate the agenda of CRM professionals: 1) the necessity to adapt to the rapidly changing 'social' consumer; 2) the need for more robust CRM strategies; 3) the requirement to build bulletproof cases to gain project funding; 4) the need to reduce CRM project risks; 5) the imperative to unlock the value of customer data; and 6) the battle to redress vendor pricing and licensing arrangements."

In Brief

Ryan S. Adams wonders if LinkedIn is moving into CRM territory: "The LinkedIn Wizard blessed us with some feature changes."

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has released Update Rollup 2 -- its recent updates for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Rollup 1 was released about a month ago, notes Robert John MacLean writes. The number of fixes in Rollup 2: "113 known (rather publicly known issues) and 18 private (i.e. MS did not publicly post articles on those)."

-----------------------------
BY Erika Morphy
CRM Buyer
Part of the ECT News Network
Source：ECOMMERCE TIMES

Copyright 1998-2009 ECT News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

How Microsoft plans to make its mark in CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has become a key product for the company, according to CRM division general manager Brad Wilson--and it's an area the software maker plans to invest in further.
##CONTINUE##
According to Wilson, when Microsoft earlier this year committed itself to investing US$1 billion annually in the construction of new data centers to support the Microsoft Live portfolio of on-demand software, some of that sum--he declined to specify how much--was earmarked for CRM (customer relationship management).

ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet UK spoke to Wilson in November 2008 to find out how he intends to make that CRM investment and whether he thinks it will be sufficient to beat on-demand CRM leader Salesforce.com on its own turf. Wilson made it plain that, despite the small and midsize business bias that Microsoft CRM may have acquired, it is equally aimed at the enterprise.

Q: Microsoft has been in CRM for some time, but just how long?
Wilson: We've been in the CRM market for five-and-a-half years, and have more than 16,000 CRM customers and more than 750,000 users.

Microsoft is investing more annually on data centers than the complete revenue of all the on-demand players--US$1 billion annually. As a company, we are investing heavily.

How is that customer base made up?
More than half of the business is international--outside the U.S.--and, although we started out as an organization focused mainly on the small and medium-sized businesses, more than half of our revenue now comes from large enterprises.

Salesforce.com is very popular, so how do you compete with it?
We do and we have people who switch from Salesforce.com fairly routinely. But there are a number of companies that compete in this space and everyone wins some and everyone loses some.

What I like about our strategy is that Salesforce.com has a single operating model, which is that you rent it from them forever. Our software comes with a choice of either having an on-demand subscription offering or buying the software. If you talk to analysts today, they will tell you that, of all the CRM in use throughout the world, probably about 90 percent is deployed on the premises.

We want to give our customers the choice. Whether you want to go on-premises or to a cloud-based offering, the choice is yours.

Does this mean you don't find the cloud particularly valid?
It is not so much that--and this is a somewhat controversial view--but I don't really care. I have an agnostic model: if you want to buy the CRM software, great; if you want to go ahead with on-demand, that's also great.

For us, it is a single codebase. It's literally the same software running.

There is no difference between on-premise or on the network. The only difference is how long your network cable is. I think sometimes people get too caught up in it. The world is not really binary.

What new products are coming up?
About 11 months ago, we shipped our CRM 4.0, which is a fully multi-tenanted system that you can deploy from outside the cloud.

What we announced [earlier this month] is a new set of accelerators for CRM 4.0 [on sale Dec. 1]. These are extensions to the core system so that, when you add them to CRM 4.0, they offer capabilities such as e-service for handling Web cases. This lets customers submit cases online and check things such as status very easily.

What do you mean exactly by 'cases'?
Well, if you have a broken fridge and you want to contact the retailer or manufacturer, then you can go to the Web site and that will submit information that will flow into the CRM system and then trigger a workflow.

So e-service is really that Web interface to customer services, as opposed to the call center. What we provide is the data and the workflow to support e-service scenarios.

Another one is extended sales forecasting, which is a way to lock and manage forecasts that goes deeper than the usual sales-automation facilities.

There are new analytics in business intelligence; sales methodologies. And then there is enterprise search integration through SharePoint.

But are these new?
We talked about them at our partner conference back in July in Houston but we haven't had a customer launch before [this month].

So presumably these are intended to deal with the view that Microsoft has not been in the CRM market very long and that, to understand and execute sophisticated CRM, you need a specialist supplier?
The wildly less popular ones? The ones that have had staggering adoption problems over the past 10 years? I think there is really a philosophical difference [between Microsoft and those suppliers]. We are not going to give you a gigantic list of features. You know how you want to run your business.

So, for us, user adoption is key. If they [the users] are not going to use the system, you are pretty much guaranteed a failed deployment.

We give you enough flexibility so that you can run the system how you want to. So I find we will beat a classic offering from your CRM vendors on end-user adoption and platform flexibility. Those factors will far outweigh the fact that other people have more pre-built stuff.

We went into a sales opportunity against a classic CRM vendor and measured its software. Out of the box, [only 7 percent of the software could be run without modification].

When you think about it, it is very difficult to sit in Palo Alto or Redwood and design something that is going to fit any business--a system that will work with every business in the world, whether it is in Turkey or South Africa. So the key now is flexibility. How easy is it to add the stuff we need?

I think the old model of 10 years ago, where you built a system that had a big slab of stuff that you had to adopt, has gone.

At the same time, we will still bring out our accelerators with pre-packaged software, and more and more of them. But we release them as open source. The idea is that we just put this stuff out there and let people use it. And, if our partners use it, all the better.

So are these products free?
Yes.

But you are charging people for the software.
You have to buy the core license but, once you have bought it, we are not going to try and nickel and dime people for bits of process and functionality. We don't believe in that.

We are taking the approach of wanting to make CRM much more affordable. Affordable in terms of TCO (total cost of ownership).

Part of that is in the core. We think we've done a pretty good job there and we keep adding pieces of incremental value through the accelerators. Even in the on-demand space, we want to go in and make it more affordable. CRM in on-demand tends to be relatively overpriced. So we want to make that price come down.

How do you charge? It is on a license basis?
We have a server price and a user price--what we call a server license and a client-access license. The server price is nominal, relatively low and doesn't tend to go up. The primary driver of price is how many people use it.

-----------------------------
BY Colin Barker
Source：ZDNet UK

CRM outsourcing attractive in recession

The sub-prime mortgage fiasco and subsequent global financial meltdown have left many organizations scrambling amidst budget cuts, layoffs and corporate reorganizations. When it comes to IT, the recession is suddenly making outsourcing CRM and other functions more attractive options, according to analysts.
##CONTINUE##
"If anything [the recession is] increasing the focus on spend," said Phil Fersht, research director, global business services and outsourcing with Boston-based AMR Research Inc. "Companies aren't going to be spending more money on IT and services. They're trying to get more with less, and that means exploring avenues that take advantage of lower-cost delivery. There will be more demand for outsourcing services that have immediate cost impacts on the business and not a heavy initial investment."

Before the economic meltdown, outsourcing was already on a strong growth path. Gartner Inc. is still predicting 60% growth in offshore IT outsourcing in the U.S. in 2009 and 40% growth in Europe. In addition, The Hackett Group, a Miami-based consulting firm, is predicting that a quarter of IT jobs at Global 1000 companies may be moved offshore by 2010.

The financial crisis has proven a boon for at least one outsourcer. Cincinnati-based Convergys Corp. recently signed a new five-year agreement to provide customer support to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The contract stemmed in part to a significant increase in calls to (877) ASK-FDIC by consumers concerned with developments in the banking industry, according to Convergys.

CRM outsourcing in particular is not expected to see a huge increase in interest, however, partly because organizations have been using business process outsourcing with contact centers for years, and there's less room for growth. Also, with application outsourcing, CIOs and CTOs are not necessarily shopping for CRM service providers specifically but instead are looking for broad support of business applications of which CRM is a part, according to Dana Stiffler, research director with AMR.

"Companies are looking at outsourcing a bigger chunk of their operation, like the infrastructure operation," Stiffler said. "You could probably be pretty opportunistic about CRM, especially with offshore service providers that would be happy to take you up on something as narrow as sales reporting or analytics."

In fact, that is just what the Serene Corporation is doing. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based systems integrator and consulting firm recently opened an offshore development center in Pune, India.

CV Therapeutics, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based biopharmaceutical company, has been using Serene to run its Siebel sales and marketing reports for a little more than a year.

"Our strategy for information management is outsourcing the day-to-day, repetitive operational tasks so we can free up internal resources to do project management and business analytics," said Dave Kuo, CV's senior director of information management.

Kuo has fewer than 30 people on his IT staff, so human resources are precious. Serene runs reports for Kuo on CV's Siebel 7.7 system so its sales department has better insight into how doctors are prescribing the company's drugs on a weekly basis. Serene also takes out the data that Sales enters into Siebel -- such as which doctors were contacted, and how many -- and pushes them into CV's data mart.

The weak economy hasn't affected CV's outsourcing plans, though. Rather, the company identified strategic outsourcing as an option early on and has no plans to change.

AMR, which serves mainly retail and manufacturing clients, has seen a lot of interest in outsourcing as a result of the recession, according to Stiffler.

"With global delivery, they're even more resolved to get good at this and get better at working with different services partners," she said. "There's still so much uncertainty out there, I don't know if it's speeding up [contract] signings, but it certainly hasn't had a detrimental effect on outsourcing."

CRM outsourcing has dovetailed with broader outsourcing deals recently, according to AMR's Fersht. For example, EDS (which was acquired this year by HP) has a partnership with Microsoft to deliver contact centers using the Dynamics CRM product. Similarly, SAP and Siebel customers are looking for outsourcers that can take on call center processes offshore but also take on some of the application management.

Regardless of the state of the economy, CRM outsourcing can save organizations money, and firms shouldn't be too worried about making quick decisions in down times, analysts agreed.

"We still think there's room and capability available on the sell side that makes it a safe bet for customers exploring application outsourcing," Stiffler said. "We don't believe there's a risk associated with thinking about that and pursuing that sort of strategy."

For those that do make the shift, Kuo offers some advice. Make sure there's a specific, named point person at the outsourcer to be a primary contact. CV Therapeutics has a weekly operational call with theirs.

"The one key piece that we are mostly happy about and very keen on making sure of is that the outsourcers have a single point of contact -- a person who is dealing with us," Kuo said. "The offshore outsourcer has to be very accountable and task oriented, so he or she can manage that piece rather than have us dig into details and say what's going on. Interview that person and make sure who the vendor provides is the person we want with the skill set we're looking for. Accountability really is key."

-----------------------------
BY Barney Beal, News Director
Source：SearchCRM.com

Microsoft announces Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online

Microsoft Corp. has announced the availability of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, an on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) service hosted and managed by Microsoft. The new Internet service delivers a full suite of marketing, sales and service capabilities through a web browser or directly into Microsoft Office and Outlook. It provides "instant-on" access to businesses that want a full-featured CRM solution with no IT infrastructure investment or setup required.
##CONTINUE##
"[Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online] is really taking the power of choice to that next level and making sure that whatever the customer wants to do, we give them an offering that allows them to do it," said Bryan Nielson, director of worldwide product marketing with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Nielson said that Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will have three delivery models that all use the same code base. The first is the Microsoft on-premise Dynamics CRM model, the second is the Microsoft-hosted or Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online model and the third is the partner-hosted solution model, where Microsoft partners around the world such as EDS host the application and deliver a unique solution out to the market under their branding.

The single code base is what delivers the power of choice to customers, explained Nielson. He added that this is because all of Microsoft's application definitions are stored in an application Meta data that can easily be exported from an online environment to on-premise one. The single code base delivers the same features and functionalities for both online as well as on-premise CRM.

"From a customer perspective, it gives them flexibility to choose the solution that fits their business &so they can use the online version as a proof of concept to make sure [CRM] works for them and if they want to down the road, they can move to an on-premise environment very easily," said Nielson.

There are two versions available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

The first is Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional that delivers a full suite of CRM capabilities with Office and Outlook integration as well as extensive configurability and extensibility options and access to web services and APIs. Businesses get 5 GB of data storage, 100 configurable workflows and 100 custom entities. The Professional edition is priced at $44 US per user per month, with an introductory offer of $39 per user, per month.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Professional Plus delivers all the capabilities of the Professional version plus offline data synchronization with expanded data storage, workflow and customization options that give businesses 20 GB of data storage, 200 configurable workflows and 200 custom entities. The Professional Plus edition is priced at $59 per user per month. Nielson believed that the target audience for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online will be small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that don't have the IT resources to bring CRM on-premise. More than 500 customers and 200 partners have used Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online over the past six months via the Microsoft Early Access Program. As well, there are 150 ISVs who are building add-on solutions to Dynamics CRM Online for online applications.

"We have a significant number of partners who have taken our CRM code base and use it to build out solutions and host those for their customers," said Nielson.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is available in English in the United States and Canada. International rollout beyond the United States and Canada has not been announced, but Microsoft partners today offer hosted versions of Microsoft Dynamics CRM in many countries around the world.

-----------------------------
BY Vanessa Ho
Source：eChannelLine

Social Networks Among Trends in CRM for 2009

Customer relationship management (CRM) projects in 2009 will be all about business value, and that includes adding social networks to the mix, according to a report from analyst firm Forrester Research.
##CONTINUE##
An increased emphasis on business value will see enterprises focusing on customer retention and creating dynamic solutions to support customer facing processes.

"During this economic downturn, customers tell us they need bulletproof financial arguments to get funding for their projects," William Band, Forrester vice president and principal analyst, said in the report.

It is not enough to ensure business value in new projects; enterprises will begin focusing on customer retention instead of customer acquisition to stay afloat, Forrester predicts. "During an economic recession, sustaining revenue growth - or forestalling revenue erosion - becomes even more critical," the company wrote.

But customers are getting harder to win and keep, Forrester said, and the solution is improved customer experience. "Good customer experience is highly correlated to customer loyalty," Forrester said.

To improve the customer experience, enterprises will integrate CRM functionalities better with their back end enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM) systems, Forrester said. They will focus more on agile and usable solutions tapping these back end systems to support customer-facing applications.

Smaller vendors will take the lead with targeted offerings, while larger vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM (NYSE: IBM) will focus on cross-functional applications with more flexible process definitions, Forrester predicts.

Another way to improve customer experience will be to incorporate social networking capabilities in CRM applications, and Forrester predicts that enterprises will begin doing this in 2009.

This will be the expansion of a trend kicked off by Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) when it implemented social networking features, in Force.com for Facebook recently.
Working hard for the money

CRM professionals must build a sound business case for projects, Forrester said. They must answer questions about the project's business benefits, its impact on IT or project costs, whether it increases or decreases future flexibility, and how risks will be mitigated.

Getting business value includes reducing the risk of implementing CRM projects, and Forrester predicts that risk proofing will be near the top of the list of priorities for CRM professionals in 2009. Following a recent survey of technology, business and IT leaders at 133 organizations, Forrester identified 27 risk areas that could impact CRM projects.

That focus on business value will trickle down to hit vendors. Enterprises will demand that their CRM vendors provide clear and specific data about the business value their solutions deliver, Forrester predicts.

In 2009, CRM professionals will continue to focus on how enterprises collect, distribute and use data to create value, Forrester predicts. "CRM professionals tell us that poor customer data management is one of the biggest barriers to getting value from their CRM programs," the report said.

Enterprises will look at trends like service-oriented architecture (SOA) and software as a service (SaaS) to bolster negotiations with vendors on pricing and licensing in 2009, while key vendors such as SAP (NYSE: SAP), Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will be pressuring them to upgrade, Forrester predicts.

Issues with software licensing and pricing are not limited to CRM vendors; they affect enterprises using all types of applications, and they have given rise to companies like Acresso that offer license management products.

The increasing use of SaaS is going to pose a threat to CRM vendors offering traditional on-premise solutions, as it does to vendors offering other applications. SaaS solutions reduce up-front costs for hardware and software and trim maintenance costs, providing CRM projects more business value.

Several CRM vendors offer SaaS options, Forrester said, and this will add to the pressure on vendors offering on-premise solutions. Salesforce.com, the leader in SaaS CRM, has racked up record results, and its feisty CEO, Marc Benioff, has often pointed to the recession as a driver for strong growth among SaaS vendors.

-----------------------------
BY Richard Adhikari
Source：internetnews.com

CRM experts predict 2009

The New Year is upon us, which means its time for us to once again poll SearchCRM.com's experts for their predictions on what's in store for CRM in 2009. Naturally the economy is a central issue, but it's not the only thing CRM practitioners need to concern themselves with. We spoke with Forrester's Bill Band on what to expect from the CRM suites, Strategic Contact's Lori Bocklund on what contact centers need to look for and AMR's Rob Bois about what's in store for SFA, SaaS and Web self-service.
##CONTINUE##
Bill Band, vice president and principal analyst, business process and applications, Forrester Research:

Six trends will shape CRM decision making in 2009

Trend 1: The emergence of the Social Consumer: Social technology adoption has increased tremendously during the past 12 months. Three in four U.S. online adults now use social tools to connect with each, other compared with 56% in 2007. This new trend, which goes by a number of names -- CRM 2.0, Social CRM, and Collaborative CRM -- is forcing CRM professionals to look for innovative ways to engage with these new "social consumers." In 2009, they will be looking to enrich the customer experience through community-based interactions, and architecting solutions that are flexible and foster strong intra-organization and customer collaboration.

Trend 2: The imperative that CRM strategies deliver business value: During tough economic times, CRM professionals will be retooling their strategies with a focus on spotlighting the biggest opportunities for quick wins.

Trend 3: The requirement to fully cost-justify CRM investments: CRM professionals tell me that during this economic downturn they need bullet-proof financial arguments to get funding for their projects. In 2009, every business case must answer four critical questions: What are the business benefits? What is the impact on IT or project costs? Is future flexibility increased or decreased? How will risks be mitigated? CRM vendors will be more challenged than ever to provide clear and specific data about the business value their solutions can deliver.

Trend 4: The necessity to reduce the risk of CRM initiatives: CRM professionals cannot afford failed CRM projects, particularly in down markets when business survival may be at stake. In a recent survey of CRM professionals, over 200 individual problems were reported. Thirty-three percent of the problems related to technology, 27% to business processes, 22% to people, and 18% to CRM strategy. In 2009, "risk-proofing" CRM projects will near the top of the priority list for CRM professionals.

Trend 5: The need to get more value from customer information: CRM professionals tell me that poor customer data management is one of the biggest barriers to getting value from their CRM programs. But, the right approach to customer data management is elusive. In 2009, I expect CRM professionals will continue focus intently on how enterprises collect, distribute, and use data to create value.

Trend 6: The battle to redress vendor pricing and licensing arrangements: Forrester interviewed 25 clients of leading enterprise applications providers and surveyed 215 business process and applications professionals about their software licensing and pricing experiences. According to these users, software licensing and pricing continues to be marred by complexity, soaring maintenance costs, and a lack of flexibility and alignment with business goals. With resources increasingly scarce, but key vendors pushing hard for up-grades for their products, CRM professionals will have to sharpen their negotiating skills to get more value from their vendor relationships in the coming year.

Lori Bocklund, president of Strategic Contact Inc.:

Unfortunately, anyone prognosticating on 2009 has to consider the economy. The easy answer seems to be that contact centers will find ways to "do more with less." But what does that really translate into in the real trenches of contact center technology and operations?

Contact centers in 2009 will either focus on controlling costs (the unfortunate) or driving revenues (the fortunate). The centers in devastated or threatened industries or companies will hang on for dear life. They'll make do with what they have, likely have reduced staffs, and some will have increased volumes. Doesn't sound fun, but it can be effectively managed. Those in relatively good economic health can look forward, and work on driving revenue -- both through capturing new customers and growing relationships. They can seize the moment and get ahead of the competition.

For those that can muster some resources, I see the following opportunities:

1. Do the things that have a compelling business case. You can't stand still. For example, if you're multi-site and haven't virtualized with Voice over IP yet, do it. If you have a lousy IVR application or more automatable applications if you revamp or move to speech, do it. You can build a case for these changes and get relatively fast returns on your investment.

2. Try different things. The companies that come out of this economic turmoil in the best shape will be those that have more agility and flexibility to adapt to their market and their customers' expectations. Pilot a home agent program. Try text chat and web collaboration -- by talking your CTI or multimedia routing engine vendor into a low-cost pilot, or hooking up with a hosted vendor. There are low-cost ways to try things that just may position you to be "best-in-class' -- something everyone seems to aspire to be.

3. Plan for the next big thing. Even if you can't put knowledge management, speech analytics, or scorecards with business intelligence in place in 2009, you can get ready. Build your business case and plan. Define your requirements and evaluate vendors. And develop your implementation plan so when the funds are released, you are ready. Don't wait.

Rob Bois, research director, AMR Research Inc.:

SFA will once again face serious scrutiny by would-be buyers that must show clear demonstrable ROI in a relatively short period of time. The "soft-dollar" savings that typically accompanies SFA just won't have the juice to get deals done.

SaaS will once again weather an economic storm in much better shape than traditional on-premises software. Companies running SaaS CRM that had planned to migrate to on premises this year will shelve those plans indefinitely.

Web self-service will regain the spotlight as companies look to reduce service costs, while keeping customer satisfaction metrics high -- a point many missed in 2001 to 2003.

Lastly, the concept of performance management will leave its traditional roost within the CFO's office, and begin to get serious attention in sales and marketing. Front-office management will get more serious about analytics, dashboards, and accountability as they face increased pressure from the CFO about better forecasts, return on sales and marketing, and overall business transparency.

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BY Barney Beal, News Director
Source：SearchCRM.com