Never mind CRM – what about partner relationship management?

The idea of customer relationship management, or CRM, has been around for years and companies such as Salesforce have built billion-dollar businesses around managing the direct sales relationship. But a recent Impartner survey shows that nine out of ten hiring managers are finding it difficult to recruit direct sales professionals and as a result, companies are increasingly turning to indirect sales to deliver business growth.

However, when it comes to managing the channel, CRM...

30 April 2018 | CRM

Does brain hacking have a place in your CRM program?

It is no longer a secret: Reward systems that trigger chemicals in our brains and drive user engagement are built into many modern technologies.

In fact, a piece published by The New York Times titled “How Evil is Tech?” questioned the manner in which social media applications leverage random reward loops. These psychological techniques are designed like slot machines to randomly release dopamine into users’ brains, which is an effective way to reel people back in...

20 April 2018 | Advertising Technology

Avoiding Frankenclouds – why you need built, not bought

Here’s an interesting question – would you choose a solution that has been purpose built to handle all aspects of a marketer’s needs? Or would you prefer to use a solution that has been created through a variety of sources, in a vain attempt to offer some semblance of an all-encompassing offering, which would you go for?

For some organisations they have no choice but to work with what they have. Those investing in new solutions would likely use the former –...

19 March 2018 | CRM

Dropbox and Salesforce team up to drive enterprise collaboration and brand engagement

Leading collaboration Dropbox has announced that it is joining forces with the world’s most widely used CRM provider Salesforce. The news is certainly likely to give Dropbox a major boost as it prepares for its IPO later this year.   

The pair aim to deliver two new integrations they hope will allow for better inter-organisational collaboration and providing a better drive for brand engagement.

“Customer success is core to everything we do at Salesforce...

12 March 2018 | CRM

How to spend a limited digital marketing budget in 2018/19

It’s an important objective imposed on marketers every single year – how best to squeeze every drop out of the annual budget.

Even industry professionals who, on paper, have more cash to splash, are still pressed to make their spend go further. And then there are those less fortunate of course, who have their budgets cut whilst the targets remain as competitive as ever.

So, whichever scenario you find yourself in, if you’re faced with a ‘limited...

22 February 2018 | CRM

How to be a maverick

Competition is increasing, the pace of change within business is getting faster and digital technology is disrupting traditional work practices.

The pressure to keep pace with digital transformation is a concern for many firms, according to the SalesTech report by CITE research and SugarCRM – 63% of companies are worried about the cost and effort needed to keep systems up to date and 34% view their organisations resisting change as a major hurdle to deploying new...

15 November 2017 | Best Practice

CRM software roll out: Agile or waterfall?

 

Waterfall methodologies for the implementation of CRM solutions have been the standard for over twenty years. However, this method poses significant risks, as regardless of if the project results in success or failure, the largest portion of either is realized when the project is completed. As a result, you have severely limited ability to implement fixes if outcomes don’t align with your business objectives.

Agile methodologies are now the primary...

28 September 2017 | CRM

Buying without blindfolds: Why businesses should demand a personalised free trial

Within the B2B environment, the promotion of cloud-based solutions is dominated by free trials that offer interested parties no more than a glimpse of the software in action.

The majority provide a ‘one-size fits all’ default demo, which can leave the customer guessing as to how the system works and wondering whether it will adapt to their own unique business proposition.

Many Freemiums provide little to no additional guidance, dialogue or customisation, the absence...

20 September 2017 | CRM

LinkedIn beefs up Sales Navigator for enterprise

LinkedIn has released an enterprise edition of its Sales Navigator tool.

The company hope that the new features, which it says is aimed at ‘high-functioning sales organisations’, will help businesses make use of Linkedin user data to create better leads.

As well as the new edition, LinkedIn has bolstered the already available professional and team editions.

There are three new features aimed at enterprises.

TeamLink Extend 

Previously, a company...

22 March 2017 | CRM

Can AI and IoT influence CRM? Only one in three firms have ‘ambitious’ plans

(c)iStock.com/warchi

Getting customer relationship management (CRM) right has always been pivotal, yet only a third of companies polled by marketing tech provider Wiraya say they have dedicated and ‘ambitious’ plans in place for their systems.

The study, which polled more than 500 respondents responsible for CRM systems within the UK, found a relatively even split; 34% say they work in a ‘traditional’ setting, using it continuously and commonly employing...

21 February 2017 | Advertising Technology