Two things to monitor in social media: CRM perspective
How CRM can absorb messages from social media A quick follow up on my last post; not least because I want to bring the focus back on CRM and also touch upon what is the current rage; what is sometimes very loosely defined as linking social media with CRM. At a very philosophical level; I do not [...]

Who is saying what?
Does it really matter? What can you do? They are talking about you. Even as you present the last month’s sales numbers, they are whispering about how the next month or quarter is not likely to be as good. Even as you immerse yourself in planning distribution logistics for an imminent product launch, you fail to notice [...]

Hunting, Farming and CRM
We all know the mindset difference between hunters and farmers. “Hunters” have a strictly “one-time engagement” model with their prey as to salesmen or companies who have modelled their business on hunting. “Farmers”, on the other hand, cultivate their customers, their accounts and take a long term view of every relationship. Both are useful. And, at [...]

Developing an automatic “lead recognition” algorithm
Why automate lead-logging in a CRM system? We have made the following points repeatedly in this blog: 1. Marketing and sales need to feel that they have joint ownership of the entire business process, from creating awareness in the prospect to generating and capturing prospects’ interest (lead and opportunity) to taking it to close. 2. The primary job [...]

Functionality for a Marketing and Sales Management system
The SME segment of the B2B market will need a system that not only logs each stage of the sales cycle and its "participants" (the "contacts" working in various capacities for customer "accounts") but, also makes possible the delivery of many of the communication activities and reporting and analytics from the same integrated platform. Simplicity of use (minus the large workflows that are designed into many available systems today), affordability (certainly much less than Salesforce.com), comprehensive feature set and ease of configuration are what SMEs are looking to get.