For the 5 Minute CRM, we shall present an executive overview of Customer Relationship Management. Upon completion of this page we strongly recommend further reading in What is CRM? (a more in-depth overview of CRM) and Why use CRM?. Of course we would like to hear from you, and talk in person regarding CRM and your business. Please do not hesitate to Contact Us and see how CRM Systems can benefit you
Minutes One to Three:
What is CRM?
CRM, or Customer Relationship Management can be seen as follows:
CRM is an enterprise wide business strategy designed to learn about customer’s needs and behaviors to organize and manage Customer relationships to maximize profitability and minimize expenses. A well planned CRM can be viewed as a strategic process merging strategy and system to amalgamate information from across the company (sales, marketing, finance, accounting, etc.) to offer a complete view of the customer and develop stronger relationships with them. Information gained from all internal and in some cases, external, sources allows the company to complete a full 360 degree view of their customer in real time.
In effect, CRM allows your organization to develop a relationship with your clients and make your operations more efficient.
How does it do this?
CRM amalgamates information accross your departments into one central system. CRM is NOT just technology and software, it is a process and way of doing business that goes beyond the tools you use. CRM is a new way of doing business.
A CRM system begins with a thorough process review of how your company presently does business and how it would like to do business. Which service levels it would like to reach, which information it would like to collect on it's clients, and where the business wants to go.
In plain words, CRM allows you to get to know your customer extremely well and be able to capitalize upon this knowledge.
Through the collection of information during routine transactions, you will be able to get to know buying patterns and collect information on your customer that helps both sides of the relationship.
For example:
For many companies this is their present situation: Imagine a system in place where the lines of communication and information requests are somewhat scrambled.
Issues:
•Each area has their own system, tracking and keeping records on different software
•Management does not have real time performance information
•Customer Service does not have marketing information for cross sell opportunties.
•Sales does not have easy access to client records
•Customer calls, old system doesn't tie into account, so don't know past order
A CRM system has one central system where all the information is collected and stored in one location.
•Everyone is connected into one system
•People have the information they need to do their jobs
•Sales and Customer Service have a deeper knowledge of the customers.
•Data duplication is eliminated
•Data security is strongly enhanced
•Providing promotions, services and products that are exactly what your customers are looking for
•Offering better customer service
•Cross selling products more effectively and quickly
•Helping sales staff close deals faster
•Retaining existing customers and discovering new ones
•Building a relationship with your customer
history
Minute Four:
What are the benefits of CRM?
Using this CRM strategy, a business can increase revenues by:
•providing promotions, services and products that are exactly what your customers are looking for
•offering better customer service
•cross selling products more effectively and quickly
•helping sales staff close deals faster
•retaining existing customers and discovering new ones
•building a relationship with your customer
CRM involves three overall parts: people, process and technology and sews these parts together in an unobtrusive and harmonious manner. Technology can help automate sales and marketing flow, so that more menial tasks are done by the technology, freeing your people to better do their jobs. CRM helps your people by enabling them to do their jobs even more effectively.
CRM helps your company by automating many processes, which helps to retain knowledge in the company and enhance the customer experience. A customer who makes daily or weekly orders will be treated like a person, not a number. Any special promotions or marketing packages relating to their buying habits can be promoted to them in an unintrusive manner. The key to successful CRM is to woo your customer, not stalk them.
Minute Five:
What is the best way to implement CRM?
A successful CRM implementation begins with a business process review involving all levels of staff. If they don't feel like a part of the process, your system will not be easily pushed upon them. The implementation depends on the size of the project and the modifications involved.
Keys to success: let the employees know from the start and have them help build and test the system.
A successful implementation of CRM is not about new software, it's about following a refined business process. People tend to resist change unless they are a part of that change, and 21CRM system works with your company to guide projects from beginning to completion with staff buy-in.
The past decade has seen incredible enhancements to software that small to mid-market businesses can afford. You can implement CRM at a much faster pace than large companies which take a while to turn around.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Is Business Intelligence for Small Businesses too?
If you don’t know everything you’d like to know about what makes your business tick — what works, what doesn’t and how much it all costs — you need business intelligence or BI. Business intelligence solutions pull data from multiple operational systems (finance, sales, supply chain management, etc.), integrate it, analyze it and present it in easily digestible form as graphs, charts and dials on screen-based “dashboards.”
“Business intelligence is about empowering people with the data that will help them make better decisions,” said Dyke Hensen, senior vice president of product strategy at Pivotlink, a vendor of software-as-a-service (SaaS) business intelligence solutions.
Business intelligence answers questions such as: Which are my best customers? Which are my most profitable products or services? Which are my most efficient locations? How much will it cost to open a new territory? Where am I wasting money?
According to Anthony Deighton, senior vice president of products at QlikTech Inc., a maker of QlikView susiness intelligence software, the benefits of business intelligence software are enormous.
“It’s about being able to make smarter business decisions and gain insights into what drives the business: where the costs are, where the costs are leaking, where the opportunities are — real tactical issues that make a bottom-line difference in how you run your business,” Deighton said.
A study commissioned last year by QlikTech from IT analyst firm IDC concluded that the average payback period for a QlikView implementation was an impressively short 198 days. The average return on investment (ROI) reported across all QlikView implementations was 186 percent, and the ROI benefits included an average 16 percent increase in revenue and 20 percent reduction in operating costs.
“I like the whole SaaS model for business intelligence,” said analyst and consultant Laurie McCabe, a partner with the SMB Group. “Business intelligence is something that would be tough for small businesses to implement on their own.”
Buying a SaaS solution will also save small businesses the cost of setting up and then managing servers and network connections. “It really is a change in the paradigm,” said Pivotlink’s Hensen. “When done correctly, a SaaS solution levels the playing field for the small-to-medium guys.”
But SaaS is not the only route to business intelligence for small businesses. Deighton claims his company’s product is easy enough for SMBs to implement quickly on their own or with the help of a consultant.
QlikView is available for anyone to download and use for free until they’re ready to roll it out to end users. “Small businesses tend to be risk averse,” Deighton said. “This helps take some of the risk out of the buying process for them.” (QlikView is also available as a hosted solution from QlikTech partners.)
“The place to start,” said McCabe, “is to ask yourself what you need to know about your business that you don’t know already. What questions do you have that you can’t get answers to today? Everything should be driven from that.”
There is a real danger, she said, of small businesses spending too much on business intelligenceand ending up with something that’s overkill and too hard to use for their requirements.
Pivotlink, for example, mostly targets organizations with revenues in excess of $50 million a year. Prices for its SaaS solution start at $1,500 a month for 50 users. (Most BI solutions, whether SaaS or on premise, are priced per user, with only selected managers and analysts getting direct access to the system’s dashboards.)
According to QlikTech’s Deighton, it costs somewhere between $20,000 to $200,000 to implement QlikView. It is used by some small businesses, however.
SaaS solutions from vendors such as myDIALS may be somewhat more affordable. myDIALS charges from $25 per user per month for Lite users (who can only view dials and change timelines), and $75 or $90 a month for Standard or Professional users who have more complete access to information and settings.
If you don’t know everything you’d like to know about what makes your business tick — what works, what doesn’t and how much it all costs — you need business intelligence or BI. Business intelligence solutions pull data from multiple operational systems (finance, sales, supply chain management, etc.), integrate it, analyze it and present it in easily digestible form as graphs, charts and dials on screen-based “dashboards.”
“Business intelligence is about empowering people with the data that will help them make better decisions,” said Dyke Hensen, senior vice president of product strategy at Pivotlink, a vendor of software-as-a-service (SaaS) BI solutions.
BI answers questions such as: Which are my best customers? Which are my most profitable products or services? Which are my most efficient locations? How much will it cost to open a new territory? Where am I wasting money?
“Business intelligence is about empowering people with the data that will help them make better decisions,” said Dyke Hensen, senior vice president of product strategy at Pivotlink, a vendor of software-as-a-service (SaaS) business intelligence solutions.
Business intelligence answers questions such as: Which are my best customers? Which are my most profitable products or services? Which are my most efficient locations? How much will it cost to open a new territory? Where am I wasting money?
Rapid ROI
The classic, often-repeated business case for business intelligence revolves around reducing inventory. If business intelligence lets you see up-to-the-minute sales and/or consumption trends and real-time inventory levels, you can delay re-ordering until you actually need items, saving the considerable costs associated with inventory management.According to Anthony Deighton, senior vice president of products at QlikTech Inc., a maker of QlikView susiness intelligence software, the benefits of business intelligence software are enormous.
“It’s about being able to make smarter business decisions and gain insights into what drives the business: where the costs are, where the costs are leaking, where the opportunities are — real tactical issues that make a bottom-line difference in how you run your business,” Deighton said.
A study commissioned last year by QlikTech from IT analyst firm IDC concluded that the average payback period for a QlikView implementation was an impressively short 198 days. The average return on investment (ROI) reported across all QlikView implementations was 186 percent, and the ROI benefits included an average 16 percent increase in revenue and 20 percent reduction in operating costs.
Business Intelligence in the Cloud
Business intelligence is not the type of software solution SMBs have typically been able to afford, but it has been moving down market in the last few years. SaaS offerings from companies such as myDIALS Inc., Birst, Pivotlink and others have helped make it more small-business friendly — and more affordable.“I like the whole SaaS model for business intelligence,” said analyst and consultant Laurie McCabe, a partner with the SMB Group. “Business intelligence is something that would be tough for small businesses to implement on their own.”
Buying a SaaS solution will also save small businesses the cost of setting up and then managing servers and network connections. “It really is a change in the paradigm,” said Pivotlink’s Hensen. “When done correctly, a SaaS solution levels the playing field for the small-to-medium guys.”
But SaaS is not the only route to business intelligence for small businesses. Deighton claims his company’s product is easy enough for SMBs to implement quickly on their own or with the help of a consultant.
QlikView is available for anyone to download and use for free until they’re ready to roll it out to end users. “Small businesses tend to be risk averse,” Deighton said. “This helps take some of the risk out of the buying process for them.” (QlikView is also available as a hosted solution from QlikTech partners.)
Do You Need Business Intelligence?
Is business intelligence really ready for small-business prime time? The answer depends on the size of your small business, how data-intense it is — and how much pain your current lack of insight is causing you.“The place to start,” said McCabe, “is to ask yourself what you need to know about your business that you don’t know already. What questions do you have that you can’t get answers to today? Everything should be driven from that.”
There is a real danger, she said, of small businesses spending too much on business intelligenceand ending up with something that’s overkill and too hard to use for their requirements.
The Price of Business Intelligence
Business intelligence solutions — even the ones geared to smaller organizations and that take advantage of the economies of scale of cloud computing — are still expensive by the standards of many, possibly most small businesses.Pivotlink, for example, mostly targets organizations with revenues in excess of $50 million a year. Prices for its SaaS solution start at $1,500 a month for 50 users. (Most BI solutions, whether SaaS or on premise, are priced per user, with only selected managers and analysts getting direct access to the system’s dashboards.)
According to QlikTech’s Deighton, it costs somewhere between $20,000 to $200,000 to implement QlikView. It is used by some small businesses, however.
SaaS solutions from vendors such as myDIALS may be somewhat more affordable. myDIALS charges from $25 per user per month for Lite users (who can only view dials and change timelines), and $75 or $90 a month for Standard or Professional users who have more complete access to information and settings.
If you don’t know everything you’d like to know about what makes your business tick — what works, what doesn’t and how much it all costs — you need business intelligence or BI. Business intelligence solutions pull data from multiple operational systems (finance, sales, supply chain management, etc.), integrate it, analyze it and present it in easily digestible form as graphs, charts and dials on screen-based “dashboards.”
“Business intelligence is about empowering people with the data that will help them make better decisions,” said Dyke Hensen, senior vice president of product strategy at Pivotlink, a vendor of software-as-a-service (SaaS) BI solutions.
BI answers questions such as: Which are my best customers? Which are my most profitable products or services? Which are my most efficient locations? How much will it cost to open a new territory? Where am I wasting money?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
What are the advantages of CRM?
CRM solutions help companies boost their business efficiency, thereby increasing profit and revenue generation capabilities. Let us take a quick look at some of the measurable benefits that your organization can gain by implementing a CRM solution.
- Increase Customer Lifecycle Value
In most businesses, the cost of acquisition of customers is high. To make profits, it is important to keep the customer longer and sell him more products (cross sell, up sell, etc) to him, during his lifecycle. Customer stay, if they are provided with value, quality service and continuity. CRM solutions enable you to do that.
- Execution Control
Once the business strategy is put into motion, the management needs feedback and reports to judge how the business is performing. CRM solutions provide management with control and a scientific way to identify and resolve issues. The benefits include a clearer visibility of the sales pipeline, accurate forecasts and more.
- Customer Lifecycle Management
To keep the customers happy, you need to know them better. At the minimum, you need a centralize customer database, that captures most of the information from your entire customer facing departments and partners. Integrated CRM solutions, like CRMnext enable you to manage customer information, throughout all stages of their life cycle, from contact to contract to customer service.
- Strategic Consistency
Because CRM offers business and technological alignment, it enables companies to achieve strategic company goals more effectively, like enhanced sales realization, higher customer satisfaction, better brand management and more. Additionally, the alignment results in a more consistent customer communication creating a feeling of continuity.
- Business Intelligence
Due to the valuable business insights that CRM provides, it becomes easier to identify the bottlenecks, their causes and the remedial measures that need to be taken. For example, CRMnext provides real-time business focus dashboards with extensive drill down capabilities that provide the decision makers with the depth of information required to identify the causes and spot trends.
- Increase Customer Lifecycle Value
In most businesses, the cost of acquisition of customers is high. To make profits, it is important to keep the customer longer and sell him more products (cross sell, up sell, etc) to him, during his lifecycle. Customer stay, if they are provided with value, quality service and continuity. CRM solutions enable you to do that.
- Execution Control
Once the business strategy is put into motion, the management needs feedback and reports to judge how the business is performing. CRM solutions provide management with control and a scientific way to identify and resolve issues. The benefits include a clearer visibility of the sales pipeline, accurate forecasts and more.
- Customer Lifecycle Management
To keep the customers happy, you need to know them better. At the minimum, you need a centralize customer database, that captures most of the information from your entire customer facing departments and partners. Integrated CRM solutions, like CRMnext enable you to manage customer information, throughout all stages of their life cycle, from contact to contract to customer service.
- Strategic Consistency
Because CRM offers business and technological alignment, it enables companies to achieve strategic company goals more effectively, like enhanced sales realization, higher customer satisfaction, better brand management and more. Additionally, the alignment results in a more consistent customer communication creating a feeling of continuity.
- Business Intelligence
Due to the valuable business insights that CRM provides, it becomes easier to identify the bottlenecks, their causes and the remedial measures that need to be taken. For example, CRMnext provides real-time business focus dashboards with extensive drill down capabilities that provide the decision makers with the depth of information required to identify the causes and spot trends.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Zoho CRM for Google Apps
CRM Solutions > Add-ons & Integrations > Zoho CRM for Google Apps
Zoho CRM for Google Apps makes it easier for your business to collaborate, communicate and share information, all in a single, centralized place. If your business is using Google apps, you can now synchronize Google Mail and access other information from within Zoho CRM.
Whether you're in Zoho CRM or in Gmail, you always have a grip on your communications with your contacts. Additionally, you can contextually create business opportunities within Gmail, attach documents from Google Docs, export events to Google Calendar, capture leads from Google Sites using web forms, and add contacts from Google Contacts, all directly from inside Zoho CRM. Your Business is sure to gain an edge with better collaboration and customer information.
What you get with Zoho CRM for Google Apps?
Manage all your Email interactions with customers in a single place.
Better perspective on your customers' views and needs as you can track the Email interactions handled in Google Mail inside Zoho CRM and vice versa.
Add leads or contacts and related potentials, tasks and notes using Zoho CRM Contextual Gadget for Gmail. New
Free yourself from the hassles of email attachments and mismatches in versions as you can directly attach files from Google Docs within Zoho CRM.
Be up-to-date with the CRM appointments that matter by exporting them to your shared Google Calendar and collaborate with your colleagues.
Instantly create Google Sites page from within your Zoho CRM account and directly publish the web forms to capture leads New
Easily import and get access to your Gmail contacts from within Zoho CRM.
Quickly access and view your CRM data by embedding CRM gadgets on iGoogle, Google Mail and Google Sites.
Log in to Zoho CRM from Google's universal navigation with your Google Apps credentials.
Zoho CRM for Google Apps makes it easier for your business to collaborate, communicate and share information, all in a single, centralized place. If your business is using Google apps, you can now synchronize Google Mail and access other information from within Zoho CRM.
Whether you're in Zoho CRM or in Gmail, you always have a grip on your communications with your contacts. Additionally, you can contextually create business opportunities within Gmail, attach documents from Google Docs, export events to Google Calendar, capture leads from Google Sites using web forms, and add contacts from Google Contacts, all directly from inside Zoho CRM. Your Business is sure to gain an edge with better collaboration and customer information.
What you get with Zoho CRM for Google Apps?
Manage all your Email interactions with customers in a single place.
Better perspective on your customers' views and needs as you can track the Email interactions handled in Google Mail inside Zoho CRM and vice versa.
Add leads or contacts and related potentials, tasks and notes using Zoho CRM Contextual Gadget for Gmail. New
Free yourself from the hassles of email attachments and mismatches in versions as you can directly attach files from Google Docs within Zoho CRM.
Be up-to-date with the CRM appointments that matter by exporting them to your shared Google Calendar and collaborate with your colleagues.
Instantly create Google Sites page from within your Zoho CRM account and directly publish the web forms to capture leads New
Easily import and get access to your Gmail contacts from within Zoho CRM.
Quickly access and view your CRM data by embedding CRM gadgets on iGoogle, Google Mail and Google Sites.
Log in to Zoho CRM from Google's universal navigation with your Google Apps credentials.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Dynamics CRM Cited as a Leader by Independent Research Firm
Dynamics CRM has earned recognition from Forrester Research Inc., a leading independent research firm, as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Midsized, Q2 2010 (June 2010) and The Forrester Wave™: CRM Suites for Large Organizations, Q2 2010 (June 2010) reports. According to Forrester, vendors in the Leader category have both a strong product and strategy.
“Although many CRM technology projects were deferred or cancelled in 2009, our latest research spotlights that organizations of all sizes are now investing again to improve the customer management capabilities they’ve neglected during the past 18 months. If you are a business process leader in a large [or midsized] organization, you’re challenged to pick the best CRM solution to enable your company to capitalize on the upturn,” wrote William Band, vice president and principal analyst, Forrester Research, in the reports. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM shines by offering flexibility for large and midsized organizations. As a result, Microsoft is pursuing its strategy for penetrating the CRM market through offering buyers the ‘Power of Choice’ so that companies may choose how to deploy, how to pay, and how to use the application.”
The Forrester Wave reports evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of 19 customer relationship management (CRM) suite solutions against 516 criteria reflecting the requirements of midsized organizations and 18 CRM solutions for large organizations against 516 criteria reflecting the requirements of large organizations. These criteria included, among other factors, offering a multifunctional CRM application suite, a solution targeted to multiple industries, and a product now in general release and in wide use by customers.
Forrester research found that large and midsized organizations have many technology options to sift through. In Forrester’s evaluation of multiple CRM solutions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was one of the solutions to which the research firm gave high marks for ease of use and relatively fast deployment times. The report further states, “Microsoft owns a SaaS solution — Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online — and buyers value the solution’s native integration with Outlook and being able to work within the familiar Microsoft technology stack. Buyers also like Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s usability, lower price and its quick time to value compared with traditional CRM applications.”
“It is an honor to be recognized as a Leader in the CRM industry that is helping customers seize new opportunities and grow their businesses,” said Brad Wilson, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We deliver innovation and value to companies around the world through our focus on end-user productivity, business process flexibility and agility, and the ability of our customers to leverage public and private cloud deployment models.”
“Although many CRM technology projects were deferred or cancelled in 2009, our latest research spotlights that organizations of all sizes are now investing again to improve the customer management capabilities they’ve neglected during the past 18 months. If you are a business process leader in a large [or midsized] organization, you’re challenged to pick the best CRM solution to enable your company to capitalize on the upturn,” wrote William Band, vice president and principal analyst, Forrester Research, in the reports. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM shines by offering flexibility for large and midsized organizations. As a result, Microsoft is pursuing its strategy for penetrating the CRM market through offering buyers the ‘Power of Choice’ so that companies may choose how to deploy, how to pay, and how to use the application.”
The Forrester Wave reports evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of 19 customer relationship management (CRM) suite solutions against 516 criteria reflecting the requirements of midsized organizations and 18 CRM solutions for large organizations against 516 criteria reflecting the requirements of large organizations. These criteria included, among other factors, offering a multifunctional CRM application suite, a solution targeted to multiple industries, and a product now in general release and in wide use by customers.
Forrester research found that large and midsized organizations have many technology options to sift through. In Forrester’s evaluation of multiple CRM solutions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM was one of the solutions to which the research firm gave high marks for ease of use and relatively fast deployment times. The report further states, “Microsoft owns a SaaS solution — Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online — and buyers value the solution’s native integration with Outlook and being able to work within the familiar Microsoft technology stack. Buyers also like Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s usability, lower price and its quick time to value compared with traditional CRM applications.”
“It is an honor to be recognized as a Leader in the CRM industry that is helping customers seize new opportunities and grow their businesses,” said Brad Wilson, general manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “We deliver innovation and value to companies around the world through our focus on end-user productivity, business process flexibility and agility, and the ability of our customers to leverage public and private cloud deployment models.”
Saturday, November 6, 2010
A Simple and Effective Way to Introduce and Adopt Best Practices such as ITIL
Reducing costs and delivering outstanding IT support services to customers and employees is easy with LANDesk® IT Service Management solutions.
The powerful process driven nature of LANDesk Service Desk gives you the control and consistency you need to constantly and continually deliver quality IT services. Its strong integration capabilities mean you can seamlessly integrate IT systems management or business systems with service management processes. LANDesk is certified on all 14 ITIL V3 processes for IT Service Management including incident, problem, change, and release.
Using LANDesk IT asset management solutions, you’ll receive an accurate picture of data and assets so you can better control and manage your IT estate. It can assist you in developing and implementing a world-class Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM) practice. Whether you’re looking for service desk software, or asset lifecycle, process, and software asset management LANDesk has a solution for you.
The powerful process driven nature of LANDesk Service Desk gives you the control and consistency you need to constantly and continually deliver quality IT services. Its strong integration capabilities mean you can seamlessly integrate IT systems management or business systems with service management processes. LANDesk is certified on all 14 ITIL V3 processes for IT Service Management including incident, problem, change, and release.
Using LANDesk IT asset management solutions, you’ll receive an accurate picture of data and assets so you can better control and manage your IT estate. It can assist you in developing and implementing a world-class Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM) practice. Whether you’re looking for service desk software, or asset lifecycle, process, and software asset management LANDesk has a solution for you.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Why Business Intelligence Software Is Essential to Business Performance Management
There are many software segments that are considered necessary for proper business management, ranging from customer-facing solutions like CRM and help desk software, to back-office solutions like ERP, accounting, and supply-chain management. Some forms of both front- and back-office management are necessary for most companies, and one particular application that is becoming essential is business intelligence software. Enabling more efficient business performance management, business intelligence solutions provide some the analytics that are fundamental to sustaining profitability and growth.
In this article, you'll the learn the following about business intelligence software:
What It Is
Key Benefits
What To Look For
Why It Is Important
What It Is
Interpreted at its most basic level, business intelligence software is the appropriate storage and organization of data—the creation of a “corporate memory.” Business performance management applications support data warehousing, and are a means of storing information in such a way that it can be easily accessed for queries and analysis. Leveraging data from various systems, applications, and databases, business intelligence software users can make the best-informed decisions more efficiently.
Business intelligence software (and business performance management software in general) offers not only a wonderful basis for storing company data, but also provides some invaluable analysis. It facilitates business management through reports and in-depth analysis of detailed information across an entire organization. Displayed in a variety of formats—from a simple spreadsheet to an advanced visualization—business intelligence analysis and reports will provide managers with the information needed to form the strategies necessary to reaching business goals.
Key Benefits of Business Intelligence
Companies of all sizes can benefit from business intelligence software, and it is important to consider the fact that companies acting without it are in a sense running on gut feelings. Every company needs to think on its feet, and leverage its enterprise data for the greatest advantage. After all, this data is essential for conducting and understanding mission-critical activities, operational patterns, and industry trends. Every company has varying needs, and there are a wide variety of requirements within each company; as a result, reporting and analysis is often performed by scraping information from a wide variety of sources. Fortunately, one of the biggest conveniences offered by business management software is its integrative ability to streamline all of that disparate data, so that companies aren’t operating over a series of productivity applications (and as a result, wearing themselves thin) every time they want to run a report.
Before running these reports, however, a company using business intelligence software needs to be sure of the benefits they would like to receive from the platform; the specific goals they want to reach. The best way to understand and discern specific goals is through setting key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are a set of values used to quantify an enterprise’s performance, and can range from production time scales to levels of debt to revenue per customer. To wit: KPIs are the most effective tools for creating a set of measurable objectives for an enterprise to track and gauge its progress.
Aside from integrating data from incongruent sources, and tracking KPIs, one of the benefits to be derived from business intelligence software is generally improved collaboration with customers and colleagues. Merging various info sources facilitates collaboration, which in turn enhances strategic planning and provides for rapid information sharing. And the creation of singular platform for performing all these tasks not only makes the reporting process simpler, it makes it shorter—while in-depth reporting could take days, or even weeks, a decade ago, business intelligence software can run reports at the drop of a hat.
What to Look for in a Business Intelligence Software Solution
When considering intelligence solutions for your business management needs, there are a few important features to look for. It is best to find a web-based program, and one that offers unlimited data access. Products involving legacy hardware purchases are fine, and large enterprises may prefer them, but an on-demand solution will provide accessibility for more users, and will support scalability should the company need to add more users and run more reports in the future. Not all business intelligence software is fully scalable, so choose one that addresses specific capacity needs.
It is also important that a business intelligence system support several output formats—spreadsheets, word processing documents, etc.—for producing reports, as well as tout the ability to run reports. Corporate data can be highly complex, and reporting tools should support that. In the same vein, the platform should offer predictive analysis, unlimited data access, and complex visualizations. The visualization abilities should range from simple charts and graphs, to maps, matrices, and histograms (depending on the mathematical or scientific reporting necessary).
Why Business Intelligence Software Is More Important Than Ever
Aside from the fact that adopting a business intelligence software solution is smart for companies of all sizes and in all industries because of its analytical possibilities, it is quite likely that pretty soon, companies without one will have a difficult time surviving. Businesses are currently collecting more data than has been amassed before, and as a result IT organizations are spending billions of dollars investing in data warehouses and business intelligence tools.
Very recently, IBM’s release of the unprecedentedly large Smart Analytics Cloud sent the enterprise software market into a
frenzy. Smart Analytics Cloud is the public version of IBM’s internal Blue Insight cloud, which boasts an impressive scope of information: it’s 100 times as large as the content of the Library of Congress. In an effort to shift their business model from hardware to software and middleware, IBM has been acquiring various business analytics and security companies, and when a company of their size—and with their reputation—puts that amount of time and money into a specific technology center, it is bound to flourish.
In addition, with the surge or Web 2.0 technology within enterprise software, business intelligence systems are beginning to provide real-time information. Minimizing latency between an event’s occurrence the subsequent business decision is the crux of business management, and while business intelligence solutions have been able to predict outcomes before, the availability of real-time data will further decrease any latency periods.
As you can see, business intelligence software is more than just a reporting tool, as through recent technological advancements it now offers highly evolved predictive abilities. So when looking for business intelligence software, outline your goals and choose the scalable solution that best fits your informational needs—the more complicated your data, the more complex the visualizations should be; likewise, don’t select a convoluted system for simple data. And the one thing your selection should include, no matter what your data needs, is real-time reporting and analysis.
In this article, you'll the learn the following about business intelligence software:
What It Is
Key Benefits
What To Look For
Why It Is Important
What It Is
Interpreted at its most basic level, business intelligence software is the appropriate storage and organization of data—the creation of a “corporate memory.” Business performance management applications support data warehousing, and are a means of storing information in such a way that it can be easily accessed for queries and analysis. Leveraging data from various systems, applications, and databases, business intelligence software users can make the best-informed decisions more efficiently.
Business intelligence software (and business performance management software in general) offers not only a wonderful basis for storing company data, but also provides some invaluable analysis. It facilitates business management through reports and in-depth analysis of detailed information across an entire organization. Displayed in a variety of formats—from a simple spreadsheet to an advanced visualization—business intelligence analysis and reports will provide managers with the information needed to form the strategies necessary to reaching business goals.
Key Benefits of Business Intelligence
Companies of all sizes can benefit from business intelligence software, and it is important to consider the fact that companies acting without it are in a sense running on gut feelings. Every company needs to think on its feet, and leverage its enterprise data for the greatest advantage. After all, this data is essential for conducting and understanding mission-critical activities, operational patterns, and industry trends. Every company has varying needs, and there are a wide variety of requirements within each company; as a result, reporting and analysis is often performed by scraping information from a wide variety of sources. Fortunately, one of the biggest conveniences offered by business management software is its integrative ability to streamline all of that disparate data, so that companies aren’t operating over a series of productivity applications (and as a result, wearing themselves thin) every time they want to run a report.
Before running these reports, however, a company using business intelligence software needs to be sure of the benefits they would like to receive from the platform; the specific goals they want to reach. The best way to understand and discern specific goals is through setting key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are a set of values used to quantify an enterprise’s performance, and can range from production time scales to levels of debt to revenue per customer. To wit: KPIs are the most effective tools for creating a set of measurable objectives for an enterprise to track and gauge its progress.
Aside from integrating data from incongruent sources, and tracking KPIs, one of the benefits to be derived from business intelligence software is generally improved collaboration with customers and colleagues. Merging various info sources facilitates collaboration, which in turn enhances strategic planning and provides for rapid information sharing. And the creation of singular platform for performing all these tasks not only makes the reporting process simpler, it makes it shorter—while in-depth reporting could take days, or even weeks, a decade ago, business intelligence software can run reports at the drop of a hat.
What to Look for in a Business Intelligence Software Solution
When considering intelligence solutions for your business management needs, there are a few important features to look for. It is best to find a web-based program, and one that offers unlimited data access. Products involving legacy hardware purchases are fine, and large enterprises may prefer them, but an on-demand solution will provide accessibility for more users, and will support scalability should the company need to add more users and run more reports in the future. Not all business intelligence software is fully scalable, so choose one that addresses specific capacity needs.
It is also important that a business intelligence system support several output formats—spreadsheets, word processing documents, etc.—for producing reports, as well as tout the ability to run reports. Corporate data can be highly complex, and reporting tools should support that. In the same vein, the platform should offer predictive analysis, unlimited data access, and complex visualizations. The visualization abilities should range from simple charts and graphs, to maps, matrices, and histograms (depending on the mathematical or scientific reporting necessary).
Why Business Intelligence Software Is More Important Than Ever
Aside from the fact that adopting a business intelligence software solution is smart for companies of all sizes and in all industries because of its analytical possibilities, it is quite likely that pretty soon, companies without one will have a difficult time surviving. Businesses are currently collecting more data than has been amassed before, and as a result IT organizations are spending billions of dollars investing in data warehouses and business intelligence tools.
Very recently, IBM’s release of the unprecedentedly large Smart Analytics Cloud sent the enterprise software market into a
frenzy. Smart Analytics Cloud is the public version of IBM’s internal Blue Insight cloud, which boasts an impressive scope of information: it’s 100 times as large as the content of the Library of Congress. In an effort to shift their business model from hardware to software and middleware, IBM has been acquiring various business analytics and security companies, and when a company of their size—and with their reputation—puts that amount of time and money into a specific technology center, it is bound to flourish.
In addition, with the surge or Web 2.0 technology within enterprise software, business intelligence systems are beginning to provide real-time information. Minimizing latency between an event’s occurrence the subsequent business decision is the crux of business management, and while business intelligence solutions have been able to predict outcomes before, the availability of real-time data will further decrease any latency periods.
As you can see, business intelligence software is more than just a reporting tool, as through recent technological advancements it now offers highly evolved predictive abilities. So when looking for business intelligence software, outline your goals and choose the scalable solution that best fits your informational needs—the more complicated your data, the more complex the visualizations should be; likewise, don’t select a convoluted system for simple data. And the one thing your selection should include, no matter what your data needs, is real-time reporting and analysis.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
CRM - Customer Relationship Management
CRM is the abbreviation for customer relationship management. CRM entails all aspects of interaction that a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service-related. CRM is often thought of as a business strategy that enables businesses to:
Understand the customer
Retain customers through better customer experience
Attract new customer
Win new clients and contractsIncrease profitably
Decrease customer management costs
While the phrase customer relationship management is most commonly used to describe a business-customer relationship, however CRM systems are used in the same way to manage business contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads.
CRM solutions provide you with the customer business data to help you provide services or products that your customers want, provide better customer service, cross-sell and up sell more effectively, close deals, retain current customers and understand who the customer is.
Technology and the Web has changed the way companies approach CRM strategies because advances in technology have also changed consumer buying behavior and offers new ways for companies to communicate with customers and collect data about them. With each new advance in technology -- especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the Web and smartphones -- customer relationships is being managed electronically.
Many aspects of CRM relies heavily on technology; however the strategies and processes of a good CRM system will collect, manage and link information about the customer with the goal of letting you market and sell services effectively.
Organizations frequently looking for ways to personalize online experiences (a process also referred to as mass customization) through tools such as help-desk software, e-mail organizers and different types of enterprise applications.
Understand the customer
Retain customers through better customer experience
Attract new customer
Win new clients and contractsIncrease profitably
Decrease customer management costs
While the phrase customer relationship management is most commonly used to describe a business-customer relationship, however CRM systems are used in the same way to manage business contacts, clients, contract wins and sales leads.
CRM solutions provide you with the customer business data to help you provide services or products that your customers want, provide better customer service, cross-sell and up sell more effectively, close deals, retain current customers and understand who the customer is.
Technology and the Web has changed the way companies approach CRM strategies because advances in technology have also changed consumer buying behavior and offers new ways for companies to communicate with customers and collect data about them. With each new advance in technology -- especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the Web and smartphones -- customer relationships is being managed electronically.
Many aspects of CRM relies heavily on technology; however the strategies and processes of a good CRM system will collect, manage and link information about the customer with the goal of letting you market and sell services effectively.
Organizations frequently looking for ways to personalize online experiences (a process also referred to as mass customization) through tools such as help-desk software, e-mail organizers and different types of enterprise applications.
Monday, November 1, 2010
SOA Management
Gain Deep Visibility, Minimize Disruptions, and Ensure Compliance with your SOA using webMethods Insight – the market’s leading SOA Management solution.
A critical challenge confronting any SOA implementation is the need to manage services within a distributed environment for optimal performance and reliability. Lacking real-time visibility and control over the run-time environment, enterprises often struggle to anticipate operational changes, minimize subsequent disruptions, and ensure full compliance with SOA processes, policies and contracts.
With enterprise adoption of SOA moving increasingly to business-critical implementations, architects and application owners require far greater transparency and accountability over their distributed and heterogeneous. SOA environments. webMethods Insight addresses these requirements as a means for helping enterprises consistently meet their service consumers’ expectations for reliability, performance and availability.
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