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Welcome to 2015, the midpoint of a decade that has seen great change. In fact, summing up the changes and developments of the past year or two could fill a [...]

It's the end of the year once again. Often around this time, CRM magazine composes its collective thoughts and considers the events that brought us here. The hope is that [...]

Welcome to CRM magazine's annual debriefing, 2011-2012 edition. Every year, we examine occurrences and trends that we've seen to get a final assessment of where things stand in our industry [...]

if you work in B2B sales, you might research companies through Hoover's or find prospects on LinkedIn. You might keep up with friends (or just goof around) on Facebook or […]

IT HAPPENS TO EVERY SALESPERSON SOONER OR LATER: The prospect shows plenty of interest and hangs on all the way through the sales process--until something imperceptible changes and the deal […]

There's a timeworn argument between the marketing department and the sales department. Marketing complains that the sales team isn't following up the bushels of leads it gathers. Sales complains that […]

SALES FORCE AUTOMATION (SFA) is hardly a new concept, and just about every forward-thinking business in the developed world has some sort of technology at work to maximize the efficiency […]

AGE: 32 to 43 (born between 1965 and 1976) BIGGEST FINANCIAL CONCERN: Caring for parents and kids BIGGEST POLITICAL CONCERN: The end of Social Security PREFERRED COMMUNICATION CHANNEL: Web research; […]

Here's a testimonial you may wish to consider: 'Price optimization software is a confidence-builder--it sets the floor price and target price, and proves a deal's value from the start. It's […]

The notion of a 'rising star' can take many forms: the brazen upstart, the popular youngster, even a revitalized giant. The common thread is that these are companies that are […]

CRM has repeatedly proven its value, and yet the people at the vanguard of innovation continue to push its boundaries, expand its scope, and reenvision its potential. CRM magazine's Influential […]

CRM has never been a niche market. The 10 categories here cover a vast territory--software and services, sales and marketing, information and analytics--and represent the culmination of months of research […]

If you're a regular reader, you know how much we like to praise successful CRM implementations--but each year around this time, we like to draw attention to a select few. […]

When business productivity and information accuracy are desirable goals, few things are more cringe-inducing than a bad user interface. We've all seen them--whether it's a flat, boring DOS prompt or […]

Microsoft has always been a magnet for attention--even more so after entering the CRM arena in 2002. Since then, its suite of applications has seen considerable change, and a high […]

It probably started with the debut of Business 2.0 in 1998. With a nod to how software developers name product updates, that magazine's title referred to a newer way of […]

Salespeople as a breed are resistant to change, especially when the change affects how they do their jobs. They don't get very far in their field without knowing how to […]

Think of the two most different people in your organization, the ones whose personalities are like night and day. Chances are, one of these is a salesperson, and the other's […]

the title of this magazine is CRM, not PRM, but the two concepts--different as they are--deserve to be considered together. Both, obviously, are about managing relationships; both can lead to […]

We face the start of a new year more than halfway through a decade of significant change. We've seen companies come and go; we've seen the Web mature; we've seen […]

Workflow automation conjures images of assembly lines, factories, and robots, but we deal with the concept all the time even if our jobs don't involve manufacturing. Just as organizational charts […]

In the pages of CRM, we've shared with our readers--you--countless ways to boost sales, make better connections with customers, segment your marketing campaigns, and even motivate your employees. But we […]

The CRM space is no longer a struggling concept eager to prove its worth--but even a maturing market relies on a handful of thought leaders to champion its core values […]

The eight categories here reflect the very core of the modern CRM world--software and services, sales and marketing, information and analytics--and, after months of research and dozens of analyst interviews, […]

Every industry has its behemoths, the lumbering giants that are on the tip of every tongue and the top of every shortlist. But specialty vendors and up-and-coming niche players are […]

The logic and reason behind the idea of aligning technology with methodology are obvious: There's no point to installing technology that cripples an operation, and most businesses can't function without […]

SALES IS A BANQUET, to paraphrase Mame Dennis, and most poor suckers are starving to death. Marketing collects tons of information on leads, pats itself on the back, and throws […]

It's clear, as the impact of commoditization continues to sweep across various verticals, that devoting serious energy to customer care processes is a bona fide strategy for strengthening brand loyalty. […]

The customer care market in 2006 evolved at an enthralling rate, as providers of service-and-support technologies and services toiled to bolster their capabilities through strategic partnerships, head-turning mergers and acquisitions, […]

The specifics were always a surprise, but 2006 had the sorts of twists and turns we've come to expect. And because the business world is neither static nor tame, December's […]

Generation X is the undefined generation, the unknown and unpredictable quantity that remains outside the corporate ken (the name comes from a 1991 novel, Douglas Coupland's Generation X: Tales for […]

Failed CRM implementations aren't new; incompatibilities between people, processes, and technologies have always been a concern. But even after a decade of industry advice about helping employees to help themselves, […]

IT MAY BE MISLEADING to say that this article is about hot wireless technologies, since many sources think nothing is particularly new in the industry. Whether or not that's true, […]

Commerce is as old as human want--and e-commerce is growing up. At the very least, it's reached puberty; most people date it to 1994, when secure transactions became a reality. […]

Networking, Usually, the phrase that comes up when you discuss it is, it's not what you know, it's whom you know. That hackneyed characterization can be pejorative, but extending your […]

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has been part of the enterprise software market for about two decades, and has recently become a hot topic for developers and implementers--and thus for customers as […]

Benjamin Franklin famously observed, 'They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' That nugget of wisdom is just as apt […]

Reaching the end of the calendar year brings with it an urge to recall what happened in the previous 12 months, and to wonder what is to come. Businesses are […]

WHY IS WIRELESS IMPORTANT TO CRM? A simple question, but one that calls for a detailed answer. CRM is about getting a holistic view of the customer, and that view […]

The CRM industry over the course of the year grappled with well-publicized mergers and acquisitions, executive turnover, and product line restructuring. Still, the industry's impact--especially in the small and medium […]

direct mass marketing isn't the business it used to be, and the days of casting a wide net to catch a handful of customers are over. Several new laws and […]

WHAT ARE SILOS, ANYWAY? One of the key elements of any CRM plan is integration, the unification of all your company's data sources to create a single, holistic view of […]

CRM projects fail--and succeed--for many reasons. When they fail it's often because they lack guidance. It takes a customer-centric vision across all departments and employee levels to be successful. It's […]

DEAR READERS, I guess you've noticed you haven't gotten a new column from me in quite a while. At least, I hope you've noticed; maybe you just think I'm really [...]

[Editor's note: This column originally appeared in our March 2016 issue.] I HAD A SUDDEN INSIGHT recently in the way we think about customer experience, and I want to share [...]

[Editor's note: This column originally appeared in our March 2017 issue.] AS LONG AS I've had any idea of what I wanted to do with my life, I've wanted to [...]

[Editor's note: This column originally appeared in our February 2017 issue.] BY NOW you've no doubt heard all, or perhaps too much, about the Internet of Things, or the IoT [...]

AH, THE SALES PITCH. Few topics in business have been the subject of so much thought and effort. Sales-people will say theirs is so personal it could be used as [...]

FALL HAS ARRIVED, and with it the pro football season, America's favorite variety of sportsball. For the next 16 weeks, teams of extremely large men will brutalize one another in [...]

BUSINESSES WANT US to think they have our backs and are practically giving away their goods and services. We entertain this fiction (or sometimes actually believe it) and take advantage [...]