Integrate Support Software for an Intelligent Supply Chain
“With today’s great emphasis on analysis of corporate data, and current enterprise planning to leverage existing CRM technology (over the next five years, organizations will be looking to capitalize on the investments they’ve already made in CRM),
executives are now calling for greater integration and customization. One of the more complex areas to do this is in the supply chain of the
enterprise, especially as a result of the great percentage of the
process nowadays given to outsourcing.”
Your Customer Is Not Your Diagnostic Tool
“Transaction
problems still plague sites, in every aspect of e-business. These
otherwise sophisticated businesses amazingly still rely on customer
calls or after-the-fact surveys to alert them to transaction problems.
“It’s
time for online businesses to do more. With customer experience
management solutions, it’s now possible, and necessary, to quickly
figure out what’s happening to lost sales transactions without
enlisting your customers as virtual troubleshooters. More importantly,
you can find out why individuals or legions of customers have abandoned
your site, and respond quickly to any issues.”
Why Don’t We Talk Anymore?
“The CRM
revolution made it clear that companies must continually strive to
improve their communication and relationship
with their customers. But
without equal attention being paid to interdepartmental communication,
it will ultimately be impossible for companies to present a united
front to their customers.”
Saying things the company already knows
“Senior
management knew all this already, and we were the 5th management
consultant to come through in the last 2 years that basically said the
same thing. Yet management didn’t want to change how the company
operated, or how they worked the contracts. Each previous consultancy
that had come through had not only said the same thing, but had offered
similar ways to fix the problem. Yet senior management was not
supportive of the issue. So no changes had taken place”
Oracle Focuses on Biz Intelligence
”’Moving
forward, BI tools usage will be more pervasive where they will no
longer be used by just the top executives, but by all decision makers
at the lower levels, and these include people such as managers, team
leaders, call center agents, etc,’ he said.
”’Traditionally,
BI is limited to tactical reporting and typically deployed in silos.
However, globalization, volatile markets, deregulation and intensified
competition is increasing the demand for timely and relevant data for
effective decision-making across all levels of the organization.’”
Business intelligence ROI: Five keys to justifying BI investments
“It’s hard, if not impossible, to calculate the ROI
of better decision making, Brooks said. Unlike some IT systems that
replace more expensive systems, manual processes or headcount, BI’s
benefits are often ‘soft’ or intangible.”
Gartner names the top marketing software vendors
“Marketing
Resource Management (MRM) isn’t just for global enterprises anymore. As
the technology matures, small and midsized companies are deploying it,
according to recent research from Gartner Inc. [...] MRM
is a set of processes and capabilities that help companies optimize and
orchestrate their marketing resources, according to Gartner. [...]
Large enterprise application and CRM suite vendors like Oracle and SAP
offer the benefit of integration between marketing and other
applications, as opposed to the depth of functionality and
understanding of marketing departments that the pure-play MRM vendors provide, according to the report.”
Governance Tools—Buyers Beware
“While
several vendors have a fairly common definition of a Governance, it’s
entirely too inadequate to really suffice for a complete, robust, or
end-all-be-all solution. In fact most Governance solutions right now in
SOA are little more than bundling WSI tools and scanning XML with Xpath queries at run time for automation, and document repositories for non-automated Governance.
“This
is barely the beginning of what will create real governance. The
outcome of a robust governance strategy is increased visibility, trust,
and an infrastructure that has longevity compared to the many times
we’ve attempted greater reuse and better IT alignment with the
business.”
