The high level of mergers and acquisitions in the CRM market will
continue through 2008, research firm Gartner predicts, with one in three CRM software vendors involved
in such a transaction each year.

There has already been a series of very high profile M&As in the
space, of course, including Oracle’s acquisitions of PeopleSoft and Siebel. These transactions led [...]

Mobile CRM technology — long hailed as the solution to keeping
mobile sales and field service staff connected and armed with
up-to-date information, only to see disappointing returns — is now
grabbing the attention of Software as a Service (SaaS) vendors.

Last week, San Francisco-based Salesforce.com released new mobile functionality based on its acquisition of Sendia, a one-time partner [...]

With the CRM vendor landscape going through so
many changes today, it’s an excellent time to check up and see what
your vendor’s viability is, what their future prospects look like, and
especially for the best-of-breed vendors, what their exit strategy is,
if they have one.
I have compiled some quick tips for completing a viability
assessment and discerning the truth [...]

MARC Benioff has been up since the early hours feeding his Microsoft
obsession. The Salesforce.com boss has learned that Steve Ballmer is
boasting he’ll take him on at his own game with Live CRM, a web-based
application similar to Salesforce’s flagship offering.

Benioff has already fired off an early morning email to all staff
noting with some glee that Microsoft [...]

The long-fought, spirited
debate regarding the difference between partner relationship management
(PRM) and customer relationship management (CRM) is increasing as more
enterprises rely on indirect channels to meet corporate revenue goals.
Investment firm Morgan Stanley predicts that 75 percent of companies’
gross revenues will come through the channel by 2007. With this shift
enterprises that invested significant resources deploying CRM systems
are [...]

When business software giant SAP recently released its first Internet-based customer relationship management product, Marc Benioff, the brash founder and CEO of leading “hosted” CRM provider Salesforce.com, is sure to have scoffed.

I recently spoke at a global sales summit in Verona,
which gave me a unique opportunity to interact with sales executives
from all corners of the world. I heard their perspectives on sales
effectiveness challenges, sales process, and channel management, among
other topics.
During my keynote I shared the results of CSO
Insights’ 2006 Sales Performance Optimization study as they [...]

It’s widely known that many
CRM initiatives fail, but the major reason for that glitch might be a
bit of a bombshell. In the quest for CRM initiatives, which the
business world realizes have the means to spin client/prospect
management straw into gold, the breakdown generally starts at the
executive level–failure rolls downhill.

To drive growth, C-level
executives at Global 2000 companies are working to increase customer
satisfaction, improve market agility, and strengthen their brands
across global markets. In recent years these executives used CRM
systems to optimize sales transaction processes, but now their
challenges are greater. To reach their goals for growth, executives
today are finding they must go beyond CRM to create [...]