Software as a Service (SaaS)

CRM News: E-Commerce: The Key to Shopping 2.0 Success: Empowering Customers

Even the titans of online retailing struggle with how to tackle the challenge of delivering personalization. Most techniques for generating personalized product recommendations involve identifying which items tend to be purchased together. While this approach effectively groups products by interest, it doesn’t get to the heart of treating each consumer as an individual.

Technorati Tags: 2.0, empowering customers, ecommerce

Microsoft to Craft Titan as On-Demand Platform

Microsoft once again tries to state something as “new” that’s already been done. Netsuite and other software as a service applications already run on hosted business applications remotely, yet Balmer states the obvious as something Microsoft thought of. It’s going to be along road for them to catch up with an already accelerated market space if their grand business ideas are to simply do what the competition has already done. -Neil

With Microsoft’s long-awaited CRM 4.0 release, better known as Titan, expected in December, Salesforce.com may finally end its designation as a party of one in the on-demand development platform category.

The question is, How long will it take Microsoft, a slow-moving technology behemoth if previous releases are any indication, to catch up with Salesforce.com in a market Salesforce created? While Microsoft has based its Titan marketing campaign on the software’s multitenant capabilities, CEO Steve Ballmer said in July at the company’s Worldwide Partner conference that Titan will also be used as a platform for on-demand application development.

“[We] will add CRM [customer relationship management], and we will add an application development platform for departments and small businesses called Titan. … In the case of Titan, there’s an opportunity for you to build applications that would literally run on our servers,” Ballmer said.

Technorati Tags: microsoft crm, titan

CRM Daily | The Costs Of Understaffing Call Centers

If your call center is being asked to tighten its belt these days, you’re not alone. Many businesses are feeling the effect of a slowed economy and all departments, including the call center, are being asked to make the most of resources. Since about 75 percent of a call center’s operating costs are related to staffing, that is generally the first place the call center manager looks to reduce costs. It is all too common to think of layoffs and reduction in staff as a way to respond to the call from senior management to save money. But before you write up the pink slips, make sure you understand the implications of staff reductions.

Technorati Tags: call centers, customer care, contact centers, staff reductions, slowed economy, understaffing

NetSuite edges closer to IPO

Technorati Tags: netsuite, software as a service, Partnership, NetSuite Inc., Business Structures, IPO, Financial Planning, Sales Strategy, Investment, Finance, Financial Services, Sales

It appears that the startup Moo Cards is having a difficult time this morning. I was attempting to upload new photos for some business cards and I ran across this annoying situation. I like the error message. Very cute.

You can read more about this start  up on the Techcrunch.com  article written about them back in September.