Chart Your Course

MAY 6, 2013

Let’s say a candidate you’re considering has been using your CRM system for most of her career. How agile will she be in adapting to change if the company were to switch CRM systems, and does she posses the initiative in learning and implementing new technologies that comes from having the well developed skill of continuous learning?

Skills 133

Skills CRM Succession Human Resources 133

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 24, 2016

Whether you’re a corporation, a nonprofit or a government agency, chances are that your approach to customer relationships at a system-wide level begins and ends with CRM (customer relationship management) software — yet its implementation rarely does much to foster real relationships. It’s a result of misguided strategy.

CRM 8

CRM Execution CTO Metrics 8

N2Growth Blog

APRIL 2, 2010

With each major advancement in technology, communications, or business practice we find ourselves yet again at this all too familiar precipice. Successful businesses adapt to market innovations and thrive, while those that fail to make iterative leaps fall by the wayside. What’s needed is less smoke and mirrors and more common sense.

Media 339

Media Blog Tools Influence 339

Strategy Driven

JUNE 13, 2011

As a value-added reseller of platforms and applications from the industry’s top manufacturers, and a provider of our own line of technology products and services, we design, build, and maintain today’s complex voice and data networks. Black Box Corporation is a trusted provider of comprehensive communications and infrastructure solutions.

Strategy 93

Strategy Management CRM Telecommunications 93

Skip Prichard

JUNE 28, 2019

Leadership Tip: Don’t be afraid of how people will react. Don’t tell people that the answer lies in insourcing or outsourcing or technology or big data or acquisitions or divestitures… Let them conclude for themselves what the answers are, having explored your broad question, from the universe of possibilities you open to them.

Sull 71

Sull How To Insourcing Sharpe 71

Eric Jacobson

MARCH 18, 2013

WTF is incredibly relevant and timely because Solis explores the non-stop transformation happening in business today, driven by new social and mobile technologies. Solis : Most businesses are merely reacting to the rapid evolution of technology rather than trying to create engaged customer experiences throughout the life-cycle.

B2B 56

B2B B2C Technology CRM 56

Strategy Driven

MAY 28, 2014

It’s possible to develop assessments, questionnaires, intelligent contact sheets, CRM tools that provide the capability to lead buyers and followers through the steps they must take, send out just the appropriate data at the right point in the cycle, and facilitate the consensus and buy-in as they ready themselves for change.

Marketing 81

Marketing Consensus Content Follow-up 81

Harvard Business Review

JULY 3, 2015

Today, however, by exploiting new digital technologies, firms like Apple, Lending Club, and AirBnB have made customer co-creation of value central to their business models and in doing so now rank among the world’s most innovative and valuable firms. Example: Jim’s firm has used the same CRM software for ten years.

CRM 8

CRM Brand Business Model Intangible Assets 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 22, 2017

One major reason for the update is that analytical technology has changed dramatically over the last decade; the sections we wrote on those topics have become woefully out of date. Some technologies from a decade ago are still in broad use, and I’ll describe them here too. But we’re here to talk about technology.

Open-book 8

Open-book Software Supply Chain Technology 8

Steve Farber

DECEMBER 16, 2016

We’re the ones who have to clean up the messes he makes when he freaks out, intimidates, or even runs off someone on our team, and we’re the ones who have to make sure that our agents are bringing in the numbers in spite of Cam’s leadership, not because of it. Rich stared at Sergio with raised eyebrows. “I’m Right, sugar?”.

CRM 40

CRM Competitive Advantage Fashion Follow-up 40

Steve Farber

DECEMBER 16, 2016

We’re the ones who have to clean up the messes he makes when he freaks out, intimidates, or even runs off someone on our team, and we’re the ones who have to make sure that our agents are bringing in the numbers in spite of Cam’s leadership, not because of it. Rich stared at Sergio with raised eyebrows. “I’m Right, sugar?”.

CRM 40

CRM Competitive Advantage Fashion Follow-up 40

Steve Farber

DECEMBER 9, 2016

We’re the ones who have to clean up the messes he makes when he freaks out, intimidates, or even runs off someone on our team, and we’re the ones who have to make sure that our agents are bringing in the numbers in spite of Cam’s leadership, not because of it. Rich stared at Sergio with raised eyebrows. “I’m Right, sugar?”.

CRM 40

CRM Competitive Advantage Fashion Follow-up 40

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 20, 2018

In 2017, CIO magazine reported that around one-third of all customer relationship management (CRM) projects fail. Those failures can mean a lot of things — over-budget, data integrity issues, technology limitations, and so forth. I recently led a working session for a team of executives looking to select a CRM provider.

CRM 12

CRM Project Succession CIO 12

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 13, 2016

But just when we’ve sorted out preferred management routines, there is an entirely new landscape emerging with technology options central to the work and possibly your business model: work automation. How, when, and where should leaders be thinking about applying the various automation technologies to their businesses?

Disaggregation 8

Disaggregation Insurance Technology CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Second, they’re inconsistent with the history of technology. Yes, we live in what Ray Kurzweil calls an era of accelerating technological change, but no transformative application or device has ever achieved critical mass within three years. Big data is not comparable to ERP and CRM applications. Technology'

ROI 10

ROI Maturity How To CRM 10

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 29, 2014

Perhaps the biggest challenge for sales ops leaders is delivering a huge diversity of work, while operating in a constantly changing business and technology environment. •Manage sales force automation and CRM systems and processes. •Evaluate sales force strategies, plans, goals, and objectives.

Offshoring 10

Offshoring Outsourcing Analysis Incentives 10

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

They have an even harder time admitting that the answer might be new leadership. As a venture begins achieving a solid foothold in the marketplace, it needs different leadership capabilities to create maximum shareholder value. Resistance to change must be overcome. Minimize the handover period.

CEO 8

CEO Tacit Knowledge Chief Technology Officer How To 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 29, 2013

At one global technology services firm, salespeople grew furious with a CRM system whose new analytics effectively held them accountable for pricing and promotion practices they thought undermined their key account relationships. The emerging cultural challenge for leadership is whether analytics-driven accountability cuts both ways.

Resistance 8

Resistance Organization Supply Chain CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 12, 2017

Sales professionals and organizations are responding with new strategies and technologies that allow them to deliver personalized experiences at scale. And once contact is made, the best sellers use technology to gauge whether the information they’re sharing with a buyer hits the mark. Gain executive buy-in.

B2B 8

B2B CRM Franchising Media 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 26, 2017

Companies fail to get the most out of the $12 billion a year they spend on sales enablement tools and the billions more on CRM technology. And hiring the right candidates also becomes a problem, especially as new buying processes, driven by online technologies, reshape selling tasks.

Execution 8

Execution Cost CRM Telecommunications 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 15, 2013

Innovative digital marketing approaches in social media, CRM, and other areas dominate the discussion. But I would suggest that there is something more fundamental happening behind the numbers; something lurking in the very nature of digital marketing and what it asks of leadership and what it means for accountability.

CIO 8

CIO Marketing CRM Information Technology 8

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Marketing technology, automation, and advanced analytics techniques have now reached the level where effective personalization at scale is possible. In addition, traditional CRM systems, built on more rigid, relational databases, often don’t have the flexibility or scalability to manage vast piles of structured and unstructured data.

Marketing 8

Marketing Content Supply Chain CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

People were asked about GM products, upholstery textures, colors, vehicle designs, and technology, and their feedback was incorporated into GM vehicles. How technology is changing the way we work. Weaver’s staff sent three million mailings a year to GM and non-GM customers, achieving a remarkable 25% response rate.

Media 8

Media Automotive Globalization Active Listening 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 21, 2011

Inability to adapt : As the product line at a technology company broadened to meet the needs of customers seeking comprehensive business solutions, sales leaders planned to expand the company's sales force by adding specialists who could bring technical product expertise to customers. All are sources of customer value.

Company 14

Company Market Penetration Long-term Short-term 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2017

This meant that the company was leaving out huge innovation potential — thousands of startups with billions of funding — that could help BMW innovate anything from core vehicle technology (batteries, sensors, artificial intelligence software) to manufacturing innovations (internet of things, cybersecurity, robotics).

Venture Capitalist 8

Venture Capitalist Meyer Innovation Fixed Costs 8

HR Digest

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

Management Skills: Motivating, leadership, problem-solving, etc. You can find some of the most significant hard skills here: Technological savviness. Customer Relationship Management (CRM). People Skills: Persuasion, teamwork, communication, negotiation, etc. Six Sigma techniques. Porter’s Five Forces. Data analysis.

Skills 111

Skills Six Sigma Software CRM 111

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2016

Make sure that CRM data on prospects isn’t populated with companies that are outside of your target market. 500 technology distribution company I’m working with has expanded its offerings to include services like installation and hardware management. When strategy shifts, make sure that sales shifts with it.

Strategy 8

Strategy Execution How To CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 18, 2015

For example, 52% of high- performing salespeople indicated they were power users who take full advantage of their company’s CRM technology and internal systems compared to only 31% of underperforming salespeople. As a result, they are well-equipped to function in competitive environments where self-discipline is a necessity.

Comparison 8

Comparison Morale CRM Influence 8

Harvard Business Review

DECEMBER 13, 2017

If the company is building a SaaS CRM, there may be more requirements around experience with go-to-market and customer lifecycles than how the product itself is built. Pro: Breakthrough technology can offer customers things they didn’t even know they needed. VMotion at VMware was a great example of this.

Productivity 8

Productivity Products Core Competence Management 8

Ask Atma

JANUARY 2, 2011

Managing for Value – Governance, change management, organizational culture, communication, leadership. Customer relationship management (CRM) – a widely-implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. CRM has three principal objectives: Acquire new customers.

Management 40

Management CRM Objective Human Resources 40

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 30, 2018

Getting there requires leadership to invest time and resources into acquiring the right data, systems, and people to build these new capabilities. This data must come from a widely-adopted CRM system and should be analyzed by a robust, modern analytics platform. Globally, how is your CRM system being used?

CRM 8

CRM Content Power Price 8

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 5, 2015

It’s an inside-out process and CRM systems are there to provide data about progression (or not) through that company’s funnel steps — the famous “pipeline” metrics that dominate so much talk about sales. In each step, sales people are expected to perform a series of tasks, usually sequentially, in order to close.

B2B 8

B2B AIDA AIDAS Disintermediation 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 1, 2011

Interoperating with supply chain software and CRM technologies used by big customers in Europe and America is already underway. Their managements increasingly observe — and understand — that they can't be world-class unless their technologies are. Does this require them to embrace Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail?

Innovation 15

Innovation Supply Chain Politics CRM 15