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11/6/06 - Don't Spend Too Much Time on Vendor Viability - II
Did you see the last acquisition coming? Probably not. But even if you were lucky to guess the last one, how often can you rely on intuition?
Rich Bohn keeps track of CRM vendors and created a summary of CRM acquisitions on his web site. He concurred with our thinking that, "A customer should not spend too much time worrying about their vendor getting acquired. I do think it is a big problem . . . some customers of these acquired firms have not fared too well."
Rich's list is a good start. However, I did a quick search of our news database and found more than 160 CRM acquisitions in the last two and a half years. I'm sure we missed a few. And, I guarantee we are not done.
Gary Lemke, Publisher
(Share your thoughts)
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TODAY'S NEWS (more)
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MarketingExperiments.com announced that it is acquiring MarketingSherpa, a research firm that publishes marketing case studies and benchmark data. Financial details were not disclosed by either party.
Jacent Technologies announced the Jacent Ordering-on-Demand Platform. The platform offers the restaurant industry a cost-effective way to resolve critical business problems by increasing brand loyalty, increasing the amount of the average guest check and reducing lost calls.
Avidian Technologies will be launching Prophet 4.0, the newest version of its sales management software for Microsoft Outlook. Avidian will also be launching Prophet for Windows Mobile and Pocket PC, extending the functions and features of Prophet to Windows Mobile 5.0 and Pocket PC 2003 PDAs.
ClickSoftware Technologies announced the successful deployment of ClickSchedule at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, to optimize their Transmission and Distribution resources.
eGain announced that its blue-chip customers, partners and industry thought leaders will participate at the company's upcoming North America Customer Summit and Best Practices Conference being held at the Bahia Resort Hotel in San Diego, CA on November 6th and 7th, 2006.
Sage Software announced that ROI Rocket, a performance-based Internet affiliate marketing network, has integrated the ACT! by Sage contact and customer management solution with Swiftpage, an ACT! add-on solution that provides enhanced e-mail campaign features.
Unica announced the launch of its Marketing Resource Management (MRM) Alliance. Designed for service providers who offer augmented services and support for Unica's MRM solution, Affinium Plan, the MRM Alliance expands the professional services and other complementary offerings available for the company's Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) customers.
Amdocs announced that Telstra Corporation -- Australia's media- communications company -- has selected Amdocs as a key software and services provider for its IT Transformation Program.
Witness announced that it has been recognized by several organizations - including Baseline Magazine, Software Magazine, Deloitte and Catalyst Magazine - for its high performance over the last year and as a fast growing technology company.
LiveTime Software announced that LiveTime Help Desk has been successfully implemented by Genus to deliver best practice service and support to its customers.
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 FEATURE WEBCAST (more) |
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"Optimizing the Customer Experience for Web Self-Service "
Allen Bonde, Senior VP, Strategy & Marketing, eVergance
Customers want - and have come to expect - great service. But, when it comes to self-service, many sites are still offering only static search and simple FAQs... with poor customer satisfaction and high escalation rates as a result. Get expert advice from self-service guru Allen Bonde and KNOVA Software CTO Mark Angel as they explore new ways to create an online self-service experience that cuts costs and delights customers with personalization and efficient resolution. You'll learn how to align business and user needs, drive adoption and measure the impact of your solution via targeted self-service metrics.
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| CRMAdvocate Stock Index |
| CRMSI | 57.00 |  | 1.63% |
| Dow Jones | 12,056.16 | | 0.43% |
| Nasdaq | 2,358.83 | | 1.09% |
| S&P 500 | 1,374.56 | | 0.66% |
| Top Gainers |
| Witness | 16.54 | | 16.54 |
| SPSS | 28.13 | | 2.24 |
| salesforce.com | 40.75 | | 1.73 |
| Top Losers |
| Tekelec | 15.28 |  | -0.46 |
| Amdocs | 38.63 | | -0.30 |
| Rainmaker | 6.69 | | -0.27 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 11/02/06 | |
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 White Papers (more)
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The Myths and Realities of Marketing Resource Management Systems - CRM systems have traditionally focused on the tracking of leads generated from various marketing programs and tying those leads back to the sales that occur from the marketing efforts. While certainly valuable, this functionality does not address the needs resulting from the level of effort, coordination and communication required up front in order to plan, create and execute those programs.(MarketingCentral)
| | | Customizing Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Complex Field Service and Sales Organizations - Microsoft Dynamics CRM software is the fastest and easiest way to customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities to any organization that uses Microsoft Office programs or the Microsoft outlook messaging and collaboration client. Because it was designed to partner with Outlook, Microsoft CRM delivers lower training cost, broader user adoption, less application-switching, higher productivity and and incredibly rapid impact on investment.(Microsoft)
| | | Seven Actionable Tactics for Critical Contact Center Improvement - In this white paper, Tim Montgomery, founder of The Service Level Group and Certified Associate of the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), shares a career worth of valuable research to help your organization take its contact center to a more customer-centric level.(etalk)
| | | A Strategic Guide to Self-Service for the IT Help Desk - Self-service support can be a make-or-break proposition. A self-service strategy that is properly developed, tested, implemented, and managed over time can add remarkable business value through saved costs and improved employee productivity.(Pete McGarahan)
| | | Contact Center Manager KPI Survival Guide - Contact center managers are confronted with volumes of data and dozens of reports generated by automated and manual systems and processes. They may have a surfeit of metrics, but lack the fundamental information needed to manage their operating environment. Too often contact centers have no way of systematically measuring and communicating how well internal and corporate objectives are being met and identifying where change is required.(DMG Consulting)
| | | Defining CEM - When Joe Wheeler and Shaun Smith wrote "Managing the Customer Experience - turning customers into advocates" in 2001, they did not realize that it would help to stimulate a worldwide interest in CEM that is growing all the time. For example, a 2005 Forrester survey found that 83% of executives considered customer experience to be more important than in the previous year. This year the figure is even higher. The question is why has CEM become such an issue for organizations.(GCCRM)
| | | Marketing Automation: The New Automation Frontier - Marketing, it's show time. Finance was automated in the 1960s, HR in the 1970s, manufacturing in the 1980s, and sales and customer service in the 1990s. This is the decade for marketing automation.(MarketingCentral)
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"OUR TAKE"