Archive for August, 2006

CRM Is Back With a Vengeance: Is Your Organization Ready for the Next Generation of CRM?

Thursday, August 24th, 2006
Judging by Gartner CRM inquiries, interest in our fall CRM Summit and readership of this blog, CRM is definitely back on many firms' agendas. However, there is a difference in the focus of CRM today. Not only are more firms recognizing that CRM is a business strategy rather than just another IT project, but many are realizing that there is also a "C" in CRM, or "customer" in customer relationship management. That's why we've chosen the theme of "CRM 2.0: The Next Generation of CRM" for our September CRM Summit in Chicago. It emphasizes the ability of companies to look from the outside in (that is, from the customer's perspective), rather than looking from the inside out (that is, the company's perspective). Balancing both perspectives is critical in this next generation of CRM. The upcoming Summit will look at customer experience management, innovation, customer loyalty, reengineering customer processes and customer analytics as major themes.

We have lots of great content, with keynotes from Fred Reichheld on driving growth through customer loyalty, Don Peppers on customer-driven innovation and Paul Greenberg on business models for the era of the social customer. Jeff Schumacher and Marc Singer from McKinsey have a session on change management and collaboration; Peppers and Rogers will moderate a session on customer loyalty; and Bob Thompson of CRMGuru.com will facilitate a panel on contact center metrics. More than 20 Gartner analysts will have more than 40 sessions across five major tracks: CRM strategy and implementation, sales and marketing, customer service and support, CRM analytics, and CRM technology and architecture.

This year's CRM Summit is the one CRM event you don't want to miss. It has answers to all your questions about the next generation of CRM, whether you are a business or IT leader or CRM project manager. As conference chair for this year's CRM event, I look forward to seeing all of you there.

For more information, go here.



CRM Is Back With a Vengeance: Is Your Organization Ready for the Next Generation of CRM?

Thursday, August 24th, 2006
Judging by Gartner CRM inquiries, interest in our fall CRM Summit and readership of this blog, CRM is definitely back on many firms' agendas. However, there is a difference in the focus of CRM today. Not only are more firms recognizing that CRM is a business strategy rather than just another IT project, but many are realizing that there is also a "C" in CRM, or "customer" in customer relationship management. That's why we've chosen the theme of "CRM 2.0: The Next Generation of CRM" for our September CRM Summit in Chicago. It emphasizes the ability of companies to look from the outside in (that is, from the customer's perspective), rather than looking from the inside out (that is, the company's perspective). Balancing both perspectives is critical in this next generation of CRM. The upcoming Summit will look at customer experience management, innovation, customer loyalty, reengineering customer processes and customer analytics as major themes.

We have lots of great content, with keynotes from Fred Reichheld on driving growth through customer loyalty, Don Peppers on customer-driven innovation and Paul Greenberg on business models for the era of the social customer. Jeff Schumacher and Marc Singer from McKinsey have a session on change management and collaboration; Peppers and Rogers will moderate a session on customer loyalty; and Bob Thompson of CRMGuru.com will facilitate a panel on contact center metrics. More than 20 Gartner analysts will have more than 40 sessions across five major tracks: CRM strategy and implementation, sales and marketing, customer service and support, CRM analytics, and CRM technology and architecture.

This year's CRM Summit is the one CRM event you don't want to miss. It has answers to all your questions about the next generation of CRM, whether you are a business or IT leader or CRM project manager. As conference chair for this year's CRM event, I look forward to seeing all of you there.

For more information, go here.



Ergonomic Office Equipment

Friday, August 11th, 2006

In order to prevent, or at least reduce, repetitive motion injuries, call center managers will try almost any ergonomic office equipment.  In call centers you will find all types of contraptions that may look very unusual, but that quite effective at controlling injuries.  This cartoon may not be too far from the future of ergonomic equipment sales.

Call-Center-Comic-26.JPG