Affiliate Programs and Affiliate Reviews
Sage’s introduction of SalesLogix for cloud computing has caused me to do a lot of thinking. The operative terms we use in the industry for software functionality delivered across the Internet is “SaaS” or now “cloud computing,” and numerous vendors find themselves twisting themselves and the definition into barely recognizable forms. Enough of this, I say; let’s do a re-think.
One of the frustrations of new technology is that quite often even the vendor lacks a coherent understanding of an innovation’s business context. Too often we receive a new product category and the best we can say about it is that it is “cool.” This should not be surprising because that’s what early adopters are for.
I had the pleasure of attending two events last week: Microsoft Convergence 2010 in Atlanta and the Salesforce-VMware VMforce.com announcement in San Francisco. Each event was useful and informative in its own way, and I am pleased to have witnessed each first-hand. I want to spend this piece drilling into one aspect.
If you think long enough about acquiring a CRM system, you will come to vendor lock-in, the idea that you won’t be able to easily change vendors down the road for whatever reason. It’s almost an existential problem, like rent and alimony put together. Every approach to CRM has its benefits and deficits, and ultimately it comes down to what you are comfortable with.
While we’re on the subject of the customer relationship, it’s important, even vital, that we do a better job of teasing apart customer types. It seems to me that the vast conversation about social CRM and the social customer has focused on the end consumer — the business-to-consumer relationship — not the business-to-business one.
OK, some people thought my last post was somehow bearish on social CRM, but I don’t agree. I am trying to be accurate about what we ought to reasonably expect, nothing more. A bandwagon effect in early markets often has predictable results. Often people become adopters of new technologies not because they’ve done the necessary homework to know a product type is appropriate for them, but because “everyone is doing it.”
One of Salesforce.com’s challenges in driving Chatter’s acceptance comes from positioning it for the buying public. That’s a tall order since the company is simultaneously trying to establish a new product and its category. The product and the category are classified as social networking and leverage the wisdom of crowds — James Surowiecki’s idea.
You could be forgiven if you thought Salesforce.com was done with announcements if you attended the soiree in New York last week, but if you thought that you’d also be wrong. Kendal Collins, CMO of Salesforce, told me that there will be another announcement on April 27 in San Francisco, and according to Collins, “This will be big.”
There’s a huge discussion raging on the Internet started by a provocative question from Bob Thompson: Can you do social CRM without social media/networks? I find it curious that I am not in agreement with much of the discussion or, more to the point, I might agree with the conclusion but not the underpinnings.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have maintained radio silence, hardly blogging as I tried to prepare a manuscript for publication. This piece is not the usual analyst fare with charts and graphs and interpretations. It’s a simple book of my writings from the last year and a half.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jun | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |