CRM implementations are also affected by a number of underlying forces that impact the perceived success of a CRM initiative. A company should consider a number of CRM realities to help ground the organizational mindset, establish realistic expectations, and give a CRM implementation an even playing field on which to succeed. These often unspoken realities [...]

The market has declared CRM dead any number of times over the years. The most recent pronouncement came when iconic Siebel was purchased by Oracle. If the market maker couldn’t stay afloat, then what hope did other vendors have? To be sure, there is something to that doleful reasoning: Few expect the CRM market to [...]

It is always interesting to compare CRM in Greater China and CRM in the United States. The main differences are the quality of data—or lack thereof; the differences in uniform prosperity; and even the way CRM is viewed. Still, there are similarities. The same vendors seem to lead the market, and there is a blurring [...]

For the past several years, I’ve been writing annual predictions for the CRM industry. It’s all been good fun and forces me to sit down once a year and think about important developments. How did I do last year? Judge for yourself by reading my CRM Industry Predictions for 2005. It’s far easier to write [...]

Over the past year, there has been another dramatic shift in the CRM Marketplace. On-Demand CRM solutions have gained significant market share in the SMB and Enterprise space led by Salesforce.com. There are many factors involved in this significant shift from the traditional software purchase and implementation to the On-Demand offerings from companies like Salesforce.com, [...]

SAP’s new CRM on-demand platform has a simplified pricing model — $75 per user is the base price for using either marketing, sales force or service automation modules or $125 for all three suites — but integrating it with back-end systems and mapping data to the on-demand platform will result in additional costs to many [...]

Different positions within a sales force require different functions from an SFA system, and tailoring to fit those functions is a big part of successful SFA strategies. Corporate professionals can learn a lesson from George S. Patton, the flamboyant WWII general. "I don’t expect my men to understand anything more than what’s right in front [...]