JDE CRM Features

Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Document Gateway

2010-06-13T00:38:00.001-07:00

MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including Microsoft Office documents: Words, Excel, etc. The document workflow was perfectly automated about 10 years ago in Lotus Notes Domino. In this small article we describe the solution based on MS CRM integration with MS SharePoint.

Microsoft CRM is new player on CRM applications market and it is gaining its market share. Having different paradigm in its design (it stakes on Microsoft OS and technologies and completely disregards alternative platform, such as UNIX, Linux, Oracle, etc. based). Microsoft CRM market is very diversified: from small (5 users) to large (several hundred MS CRM User licenses) and it serves variety of industries: Transportation, Logistics, Lawyers, Pension Funds, High-Tech, and many others. Deploying technologies, like Windows Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange 2003/2000, SQL Server, Crystal Reports Enterprise, Biztalk, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Great Plains and Navision in close future - makes CRM a beloved system for Microsoft oriented IT departments.

Let's go right to the topic.

Major issue with storing documents in MS CRM in the form of attachments to Activity is inability to work on these attached files in cooperation with other colleagues, who do not have to use CRM. When several service people serve requests from the same client this is required. Currently you can use alternative way when you store office documents in the folders of your file system and when modifying document, you save it and reattach to CRM. This is inconvenient, because first it requires all your editing users to have CRM licenses, which delays CRM implementation.

We seem increasing popularity of document storage systems, like Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle Files, etc. Such systems, being implemented gives you time savings, related to documents revisions and versioning, approval cycles and workflows, web access through web-portals systems and the like.

The target of our product is Microsoft SharePoint integration with MS CRM for document storage. Let's take a look at the high level technical realization details:

oMain modification from the MS CRM side is standard system behavior change when you open attachment in Activity. Standard unmodified CRM suggests you to store documents in the file system. Modified version sores document in SharePoint Document Library (the required library is subject for setup by MS CRM system administrator) or keep it in MS CRM as is (for documents of minor importance). From the moment of saving the document in SharePoint Document Library it is not stored in MS CRM - CRM will now store only the link/reference to the document. Also you are given the ability to open and modify the document at the place of opening, which speeds up MS CRM user performance substantially.

oTable, storing the links to the documents sits in separate database and doesn't deal with MS CRM tables (you know that you are banned to do structure changes in MS CRM db)

oDocument saving into MS SharePoint process occurs in MS CRM and with its assistance - SharePoint bridge, which does addition and update for the existing document into destination Document Library with MS SharePoint Web Services calls

oUpon the addition into Document Library, MS CRM - SharePoint bridge registers the document in the special table for the future data extraction or notification mechanism registration

oThen, interested users can work with the documents just using MS Office 2003 or other programs/editing tools, assuming these tools have access to MS SharePoint

oFeedback is provided by MS SharePoint Event Handler component. This is special handler, inspecting document change status, transferred from MS CRM to document storage (SharePoint), and report Activity owner on the changes with home page notifications (User home page in MS CRM). User in turn can review the history of the document editing - who, when and where is the change

oOpening Activity, where document is "attached", and in fact placed into MS SharePoint Document Library, and pressing opening button, MS CRM user gets live version of the data

oThis approach allows you seamless work with MS CRM document in the whole informational space of your company

oAdditional enhancements to this product might be document library management directly from MS CRM (web interface - meaning remotely), administrative interface for MS Sharepoint documents revision, ability to create reports on the document storage status, rights/access management (Author, Reader, Contributor etc) from MS CRM, portal pages integration into MS CRM to name a few.

The History of CRM -- Moving Beyond the Customer Database

2010-06-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of those magnificent concepts
that swept the business world in the 1990's with the promise of forever changing
the way businesses small and large interacted with their customer bases. In the
short term, however, it proved to be an unwieldy process that was better in
theory than in practice for a variety of reasons. First among these was that it
was simply so difficult and expensive to track and keep the high volume of
records needed accurately and constantly update them.
In the last several years, however, newer software systems and advanced
tracking features have vastly improved CRM capabilities and the real promise of
CRM is becoming a reality. As the price of newer, more customizable Internet
solutions have hit the marketplace; competition has driven the prices down so
that even relatively small businesses are reaping the benefits of some custom
CRM programs.
In the beginning...
The 1980's saw the emergence of database marketing, which was simply a catch
phrase to define the practice of setting up customer service groups to speak
individually to all of a company's customers.
In the case of larger, key clients it was a valuable tool for keeping the
lines of communication open and tailoring service to the clients needs. In the
case of smaller clients, however, it tended to provide repetitive, survey-like
information that cluttered databases and didn't provide much insight. As
companies began tracking database information, they realized that the bare bones
were all that was needed in most cases: what they buy regularly, what they
spend, what they do.
Advances in the 1990's
In the 1990's companies began to improve on Customer Relationship Management
by making it more of a two-way street. Instead of simply gathering data for
their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of
the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and
other perks for customer loyalty.
This was the beginning of the now familiar frequent flyer programs, bonus
points on credit cards and a host of other resources that are based on CRM
tracking of customer activity and spending patterns. CRM was now being used as a
way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of
customer service.
True CRM comes of age
Real Customer Relationship Management as it's thought of today really began
in earnest in the early years of this century. As software companies began
releasing newer, more advanced solutions that were customizable across
industries, it became feasible to really use the information in a dynamic way.

Instead of feeding information into a static database for future reference,
CRM became a way to continuously update understanding of customer needs and
behavior. Branching of information, sub-folders, and custom tailored features
enabled companies to break down information into smaller subsets so that they
could evaluate not only concrete statistics, but information on the motivation
and reactions of customers.
The Internet provided a huge boon to the development of these huge databases
by enabling offsite information storage. Where before companies had difficulty
supporting the enormous amounts of information, the Internet provided new
possibilities and CRM took off as providers began moving toward Internet
solutions.
With the increased fluidity of these programs came a less rigid relationship
between sales, customer service and marketing. CRM enabled the development of
new strategies for more cooperative work between these different divisions
through shared information and understanding, leading to increased customer
satisfaction from order to end product.
Today, CRM is still utilized most frequently by companies that rely heavily
on two distinct features: customer service or technology. The three sectors of
business that rely most heavily on CRM -- and use it to great advantage -- are
financial services, a variety of high tech corporations and the
telecommunications industry.
The financial services industry in particular tracks the level of client
satisfaction and what customers are looking for in terms of changes and
personalized features. They also track changes in investment habits and spending
patterns as the economy shifts. Software specific to the industry can give
financial service providers truly impressive feedback in these areas.
Who's in the CRM game?
About 50% of the CRM market is currently divided between five major players
in the industry: PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, Siebel and relative newcomer
Telemation, based on Linux and developed by an old standard, Database Solutions,
Inc.
The other half of the market falls to a variety of other players, although
Microsoft's new emergence in the CRM market may cause a shift soon. Whether
Microsoft can capture a share of the market remains to be seen. However, their
brand-name familiarity may give them an edge with small businesses considering a
first-time CRM package.
PeopleSoft was founded in the mid-1980's by Ken Morris and Dave
Duffield as a client-server based human resources application. In 1998,
PeopleSoft had evolved into a purely Internet based system, PeopleSoft 8.
There's no client software to maintain and it supports over 150 applications.
PeopleSoft 8 is the brainchild of over 2,000 dedicated developers and $500
million in research and development.
PeopleSoft branched out from their original human resources platform in the
1990's and now supports everything from customer service to supply chain
management. Its user-friendly system required minimal training is relatively
inexpensive to deploy. .
One of PeopleSoft's major contributions to CRM was their detailed analytic
program that identifies and ranks the importance of customers based on numerous
criteria, including amount of purchase, cost of supplying them, and frequency of
service.
Oracle built a solid base of high-end customers in the late 1980's,
then burst into national attention around 1990 when, under Tom Siebel, the
company aggressively marketed a small-to-medium business CRM solution.
Unfortunately they couldn't follow up themselves on the incredible sales they
garnered and ran into a few years of real problems.
Oracle landed on its feet after a restructuring and their own refocusing on
customer needs and by the mid-1990's the company was once again a leader in CRM
technologies. They continue to be one of the leaders in the enterprise
marketplace with the Oracle Customer Data Management System.
Telemation's CRM solution is flexible and user-friendly, with a
toolkit that makes changing features and settings relatively easy. The system
also provides a quick learning environment that newcomers will appreciate. Its
uniqueness lies in that, although compatible with Windows, it was developed as a
Linux program. Will Linux be the wave of the future? We don't know, but if it
is, Telemation's ahead of the game.
The last few years...
In 2002, Oracle released their Global CRM in 90 Days package that promised
quick implementation of CRM throughout company offices. Offered with the package
was a set fee service for set-up and training for core business needs. .
Also in 2002 (a stellar year for CRM), SAP America's mySAP began using a
"middleware" hub that was capable of connecting SAP systems to externals and
front and back office systems for a unified operation that links partners,
employees, process and technologies in a closed-loop function.

BI Approaches of Enterprise Software Vendors

2010-06-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

The need for business intelligence (BI) is real for all enterprise software users. It is rare to find a user who feels they get the information they need from their enterprise software system and even those who do want more. The need is not just reporting; they need business monitoring, analysis, an understanding of why things are happening. They need diagnostic tools.

Enterprise software systems are designed as transaction processing tools and job one is to optimize for this need. For most enterprise software systems, reporting is a secondary objective and not usually a driving force when the system was originally designed. BI is designed with the objectives of reporting and analysis. BI has the power to significantly increase the value of enterprise software by turning the information captured in the system into knowledge and guidance about the business.

Today, the majority of enterprise software vendors sees this need and are proactively addressing it. However, their strategies different as do the impact of these strategies on their customers.

Enterprise Software Vendor Approaches

The enterprise software vendor community has delivered or is working on BI solutions. Their strategy options have included

1. Develop its own system
2. Partner with large "horizontal" BI vendor
3. Partner with small "boutique" BI vendor
4. Remain "BI agnostic" encouraging customers to choose their own

Enterprise Software Vendor Develops Its Own

Large enterprise software vendors have the resources and the business motivation to invest in their own solutions. This includes the underlying technology and the analytical applications. For example, Oracle and SAP have built and are marketing in-house developed solutions.

Large enterprises choose this strategy because they

* Have the internal resources to build and maintain their own solution

* Can leverage their product knowledge

* Feel they have a better understanding of their customers needs

* Have total control over the development direction (enhancements, fixes, etc.)

* Find it more profitable (they control pricing and don't have to share license, support, and services revenues)

* Have a mindset of products should "be invented here"

What is the impact on their customers? For most customers, this is probably a good choice for many of the reasons stated above. The possible exceptions to this include

* Price is too high (often, the vendor expects a premium over alternative options for the reasons stated above); and

* The need to integrate other data sources into the BI solution and the enterprise software vendor's solution is weak in this area.

Enterprise Software Vendor Partners With Large "Horizontal" BI Vendor

Both first and second tier vendors partner with large "horizontal" BI vendors. Examples of these vendors include SSA GT (Cognos) and I2 (Business Objects). The large horizontal vendors they partner with include Cognos, Business Objects, and Brio (now Hyperion).

They choose this strategy because they

* Realize they don't have the resources to develop and support

* They see a recognizable (BI) name as a marketing advantage

* Attach the BI vendor's large size to the image of stability

* See the BI vendor's reference customers as an assist in selling efforts

* See a very broad BI product line from the horizontal BI vendor

What is the impact on their customers? Many customers certainly see benefits in the relationship with a large horizontal BI vendor. Stability and a broad product line are important. These vendors also enable the connection of other data sources to the BI solution. What issues should customers investigate if their enterprise software vendor follows this strategy?

* These BI vendors tend to offer product suites that are broad but lack deep industry specific needs. Are your industry specific needs provided by the solution?

* The horizontal BI vendor may have a large customer base, but limited customers in your specific industry. Does this make a difference to you?

* As both the enterprise and BI products evolve, who is responsible for keeping the two in synch? Who is responsible for the integration?

* A solution based upon a BI product from a horizontal may be overkill in terms of function, support requirements, and cost.

* Can you support the hardware and software required for a solution based upon a horizontal BI vendor?

JD Edwards’ Alliances: Is It Too Much of a Good Thing?

2010-06-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Enterprise application vendor JD Edwards has forged a number of alliances since September 1999 as the company looks to expand the availability of its OneWorld product suite.

In a two-pronged attack, the company has secured an agreement with Andersen Consulting and extended its existing deal with IBM Global Services. It will concentrate on the consumer packaged goods market, and a co-development deal with Andersen will provide collaborative brand management and promotions applications.

The JD Edwards storefront for e-business will be powered using IBM's Websphere Commerce suite and will be available in the spring. Doug Massingill, chief executive of JD Edwards, said: "We have to give customers a solid, integrated platform that scales, and for us, that means reselling Websphere. We're going for the one-to-few rather than one-to-many sector with Andersen and IBM, providing customization services."

JD Edwards has also reviewed its reselling agreement with Siebel to include Siebel's entire suite of front office applications. Alongside these agreements, JD Edwards will focus on its demand planning, scheduling and product configuration products that include applications from last year's Numetrix acquisition and the partnership with Synquest. JDE has also decided to enter the arena of B2B electronic exchanges with Active Marketplace. The TRADEX Commerce Center platform is the basis for this and as with other exchanges, the idea is to link trading communities in an on-line marketplace. Yet another partnership is with Extensity, a vendor that delivers automated travel and expense reporting software.

Mike Schmitt, senior vice president of product strategy at JD Edwards, said: "Mid-market enterprises need to respond to competition from customer-driven digital exchanges. These applications add value to their businesses." Schmitt conceded that JD Edwards' own development needs to move forward so that customers get access through a full HTML client, which will be available in June. This will allow ASPs to host on a one-to-many basis, which is not possible under client/server architectures.

JD Edwards is repositioning itself as an enterprise vendor to convince medium sized manufacturing enterprises that it is worthwhile extending their activities into e-business. But managing a large application portfolio, much of which involves partnering or extensive integration and customization, is difficult. "We have to show offerings in all these markets, but today it's hard to know where the demand will concentrate itself. It will be tough for the foot soldiers out there selling," added Schmitt. Asked whether the company is comfortable with having many critical components outside its immediate control, Schmitt said: "We think the OneWorld architecture insulates us from incremental application change issues."

Market Impact

J.D. Edwards has entered 2000 with a bitter taste of a dismal 1999 and a great deal of painstaking integration efforts remaining, both with its recently acquired products and with products of its partners, such as Siebel, Ariba, Extensity, and Synquest. We condone J.D. Edwards' move to reposition itself as an enterprise vendor to convince medium sized manufacturing enterprises that it is worthwhile extending their activities into e-business. Consequently, it has launched ActivEra Solutions, with the idea to present it as an integrated set of front office and back office functions.

The first component of the solution is Active Supply Chain, which combines supply chain planning and execution. This includes advanced planning capability along with traditional functions like warehousing and transportation. It also allows full collaboration with business partners who are given a window into the system through a self-service Internet front end.

The next component is Active Customer Relationship Management, which is mere a repackaging of Siebel's CRM solution along with an electronic storefront solution from IBM.

There is then Active Enterprise (another inventive way to avoid using the infamous word ERP) and finally, Active Procurement (Ariba) to round off the core system components. The whole suite is complimented by Active Knowledge Management, which provides business intelligence and document management capability.

However, we believe that managing this large application portfolio (a kind of a software Frankenstein), much of which involves partnering or extensive integration and customization, will be cumbersome despite its highly marketed flexible product architecture. One should never neglect the inevitable intricacies of managing softer, people issues.

Complementary product alliances can often be a good thing. Nevertheless, it is puzzling why J.D. Edwards needs them more than most of its competitors. Ten alliances have been highlighted in announcements since September 1999. Of these, at least seven deal with functional areas that are included as standard, not only by larger rivals like SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Baan, but also by its smaller competitors like Great Plains, Epicor Software, Symix Systems, and IFS AB.

While the best-of-breed approach can have its merits, we believe it invariably leads to additional integration costs and complicates service & support arrangements. Interfaces between significant components like ERP and CRM usually need some tailoring. This can be a barrier to future changes as further modifying already modified code is notoriously time consuming, costly, and risky.

J.D. Edwards' heavy reliance on other vendor's software flies in the face of its aggressive positioning around flexibility, which customers may find very disconcerting. To further rub salt in the wound, the vast majority of its customers are still running both its mature World and new, less mature OneWorld products simultaneously on a single, shared database. This coexistence, bundled with additional future integrations could be a perfect definition of an IT manager's nightmare.

Furthermore, J.D. Edwards has to be careful how it manages its alliances with "big stars" like Siebel and Ariba. In most of its key relationships the partner seems to be more influential and currently has a stronger brand. J.D. Edwards could therefore find it a challenge keeping control of its own destiny.

Both Ariba and Siebel have partnerships with its fierce competitors too. Great Plains, for example, points out that its integration with Siebel is well ahead of J.D. Edwards'. It is in its second phase, meaning the integration on a database level has been completed; the blending of user interfaces is the focus now. Moreover, Great Plains cites that it will not have a conflict of interest with Siebel's sales force in its SME market segment (companies with less than $250 million in revenue). This is not necessarily so in case of J.D. Edwards, which tends to target much larger companies as well.

The strategy also gives J.D. Edwards less control of its own business. ERP has taken a back seat in the market and hot areas like CRM and e-Commerce are driving much more activity. Oracle and SAP are increasingly starting to report wins of new accounts. They also see a broader product portfolio as the means to further mine their large existing customer bases.

J.D. Edwards is not well positioned to compete and develop its business in this way. Its income seems to be much constrained. As a result it will find it increasingly difficult to close the functionality gaps. The market is demanding more and more from vendors and broadening a product offering through R&D or acquisition is very expensive. We wonder whether J.D. Edwards having spent a hefty amount of its R&D expenses on resolving quality inconsistencies, missed functionality, poor performance, and Web-enablement of its OneWorld flagship product; is therefore reticent to undertake any internal development or acquisition of CRM and e-commerce functionality. While this may be a more prudent approach than the risk of following the steps Baan took, the 64,000 dollar question is whether J.D. Edwards' core competency is now going to be system integration.

AS/400 Users’ “Phantom Limb” Pains

2010-06-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

As you may know, TEC performs all types of system selection projects with clients in which analysts are usually involved to a lesser or greater degree. In collaboration with a client, analysts usually prepare the “to be”—the future system business and technical requirements document, or request for information (RFI)—and make corrections or additions to the template based on the client’s current needs. Often analysts are astonished about the kind of future requirements that users demand—especially the users of early Application System 400 (AS/400). I clearly understand that with that statement, I am at risk of inciting anger in AS/400 system proponents; nevertheless, I cannot keep silent and as such need to share what I have discovered during these projects.

It is quite a difficult task to understand the nature of a user’s future system requirements. Their requirements often look unusual—until you know what type of system they’re currently using.

Here are some examples of user worries.

• Concern about the availability of multiple internal interfaces . In my understanding, the interfaces for GL and accounts receivable (A/R), GL and fixed assets, and GL and invoicing (for example) are the core of any enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and must be there by default. Moreover, submodules of the same functional module cannot be interfaced to each other, simply because they are inherent parts of a whole. There are no such problems in any modern ERP software packages.

• Odd report formatting concerns bring you to the era of early mainframe environments—in which black spreadsheets are needed to set up the initial spreadsheet layout (field length, number of fields, etc.). How can this be compared with such highly powerful and flexible analytical tools as business intelligence (BI) applications? Is there a need to specifically require cell font formatting or rows sorting capabilities? I don’t think so. It is there by default.

• Having a user’s query as the only way to obtain current information instead of seeing it on the screen, is a big weakness of AS400 software. Still many of the AS/400 programs show users very little except menu screens, lists of running jobs, and a few information fields. Thus users are still concerning about running queries instead of using visual and user-friendly reporting and data mining tools.

• Green and black screens are the most visible attributes of AS/400. It is quite obvious that there is nothing to discuss here; however, it is fair to say that too many different bright colors, too much animation, and a wide variety of fonts and styles available in some modern software applications quickly become a substantive irritating factor.

• There are multiple user concerns about programming and coding, as AS/400 systems require the user to remember and type program codes and be a “light” programmer. I don’t think it is abnormal when an accountant wants to have, say, pseudo-coding capabilities in a new financial system.

• Another worry seems to be obsolete; running multiple “engines” is no longer required. Lots of errors and other problems were related to the simple fact that one or another software engine is not running for some reason.

• The ability to see a document or the results of a report on the screen before printing is still considered a problem in the AS/400 world. This type of functionality is now available to every PC user, and raising this question in terms of new enterprise software requirements is quite strange.

The SCM Perspective: 2009 in Review—and What You Can Do to Weather the Storms of 2010

2010-06-01T06:14:00.000-07:00

Oracle E-Business Suite vs. Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne for Mixed-mode ERP

2010-06-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words—but in my opinion, graphs are sometimes worth even more. Therefore, I decided to let the graphs do most of the talking about the main differences between Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne (JDE) and E-Business Suite (EBS).

In order to do that, I have selected our Mixed-mode Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Evaluation Center because it has functionality from ERP for discrete, ERP for process, and ERP for engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing. For those of you who are not familiar with our Evaluation Centers, I should mention that you can use them to compare different software vendors, understand the differences between them, and even use the Evaluation Center data to build beautiful and easy-to-read graphs, like the ones below.

The overall ratings show two very similar products, with almost no difference between each corresponding module.

figure-1.PNG [click to enlarge]

Figure 1. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for the main sections of Mixed-mode ERP.

The first thing worth mentioning is that for the Financials module, the scores are almost exactly the same, even when we drill down into the subsections and to the lowest level. Some of the subsections, like Fixed Assets, Cash Management, Budgeting, and Project Accounting, are supported 100 percent by both products.

The first important difference between the two products can be found in the Human Resources (HR) module. In the Personnel Management section, EBS outperforms JDE by almost 20 percent, which is mainly due to Management of Rewards (almost not supported by JDE, which offers 1.79 percent support) and Recruitment Management (where the difference between the two products is almost 30 percent).

Figure 2. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Personnel Management.

The Health and Safety section of the HR module is not very well supported by either product; each of them seems to cover what the other one doesn’t.

Figure 3. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Health and Safety.

There are no surprises for the Manufacturing Management module, except in the Field Service and Repairs section, for which JDE does not support Service Training Management.

Figure 4. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Field Service and Repairs.

For Process Manufacturing, the main difference is in Costing, as shown below.

Figure 5. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Process Manufacturing Costing.

For the Sales Management module, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) section shows that EBS offers more support. The case is similar for the section on Reporting and Interfacing Requirements, except that the difference between the two products is smaller.

Figure 6. Strengths and weaknesses of the two products for Sales Management.

The SCM Perspective: 2009 in Review—and What You Can Do to Weather the Storms of 2010

2010-06-01T04:58:00.000-07:00

In spite of the 2009 recession, some SCM vendors were able to create traction in the supply chain space this year. From an industry landscape perspective, three events from 2009 will have a more far-reaching impact than any other in this space, primarily because they’re priming the conditions for still more vendor competition and industry volatility in the year to come.

News item: Oracle announced its launch of Fusion Applications, its mishmash of E-Business Suite/PeopleSoft/JDE/Siebel applications)
So what? As though Oracle’s strengths were not already apparent, Oracle has created an application that can potentially combine the best features and functions from its current product offerings.

News item: JDA and i2 Technologies decided to get back together after a year of shilly-shallying.
So what? With the combination of two leading supply chain products, many vertical industries will benefit from one source of supply chain expertise (with the exception of warehouse management, which is a key piece of the puzzle that JDA seems to be missing).

News item: SAP reevaluated its go-to market strategy for the SAP Business ByDesign SaaS business model.
So what? SAP is taking this market very seriously—which not only means that the giant will continue to chase after it aggressively, but also spells the beginning of the end for software as a commodity, as the market is increasingly treating it as a true service.

Even though many analysts have predicted that economy will recover next year, I am not holding my breath. Current market conditions are still so volatile that organizations are facing crisis conditions in every aspect (technology changes, regulations, price/demand fluctuations, etc), meaning that they need to adapt to change quickly and effectively.

What You Can Do to Weather the 2010 Storms

Not everyone has the resources of SAP, Oracle, or JDA to handle change. Here’s what you need to do if you’re not one of the giants:

1. Focus on creating a flexible supply chain that can handle uncertainty and volatility with respect to demand/price changes.
2. Develop operational strategies focused on product branding and customers to provide customer centric models.
3. Create a model of collaboration with partners that will provide end-to-end visibility into the extended supply chain.

Fine, but how? You will need to reevaluate how you are using your technologies. Many organizations can adapt to change by

* using tools such as sales and operations planning (S&OP), linked to advance planning and scheduling (APS) to create a complete view of demand and to determine how pricing needs to be adjusted
* integrating manufacturing, product development, and supply chain applications
* using e-commerce or SaaS models to create an extended supply chain network that allows partners to communicate and collaborate effectively

As Charles Darwin says: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

The Lexicon of CRM : From J to Q

2010-05-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

J

J2ME - Java 2 Micro Edition. A highly optimized Java runtime environment targeting a wide range of consumer products, including pagers, cellular phones, digital set-top boxes, and car navigation systems.

JDBC - Java Database Connectivity. JDBC technology is an API that lets you access virtually any tabular data source from the Java programming language. It provides cross-DBMS connectivity to a wide range of SQL databases. There is also a new JDBC API, which provides access to other tabular data sources, such as spreadsheets or flat files.

K

Kbps - Kilobits per second. Note that Kbps is NOT the same as KB (Kilobytes). There are 8 bits per kilobyte. Hence, for example, if you have a 56 Kbps modem, it actually transmits 56/8 = 7 KB per second, maximum. This is often a source of confusion when users are downloading software from the Internet, and they see download rates of less than 7KB. 4KB, which is equal to 32 Kbps, is a typical, actual download speed.

Knowledgebase - A database that is stocked with information that has been reviewed by technical staff, with notes added, to make the information within it true "knowledge." Knowledgebases are often accessible by customers via the web, and may contain such items as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), known bugs, answers to previously asked questions, white papers, and the like. Used intelligently, a knowledgebase can be a time saver for both users and Customer Support Representatives alike.

L

LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. LDAP is a client-server protocol for accessing a directory service. It is most often used to identify corporate network users, and maintain their passwords, on a central server repository. Some CRM and other enterprise-application vendors are building access to LDAP services into their programs, so that two lists of users and passwords do not need to be maintained (one on an LDAP server, one in the application itself).

Lead Aging - A statistic used by marketing and sales professionals to give them an idea of how long leads may be outstanding. It can give the company an idea of how well certain marketing campaigns are working, which types of users to target more successfully in the future, and the like.

Lead Qualification - Automation that pre-qualifies leads according to pre-established business rules before they are entered into a system and passed from Marketing to Sales for pursuit of sale.

Live Chat - A Customer Support service where a Customer Support Representative conducts a live, online text chat session with a user. Usually initiated by a website user who wants immediate access to help, but doesn't want to disconnect from the Internet to call the company by phone.

M

Mbps - Megabits per second. Similar in concept to Kbps. There are 8 bits per byte. Hence, the rate of 8 Mbps actually represents 1 MB per second.

mCRM - Mobile Customer Relationship Management. A new term that covers the area of field force automation and remote access to corporate information in real time. Such access is becoming more and more critical as economies move towards the service sector, and there are more people in the field working at client company sites who need access to corporate data.

Metadata - Metadata is "data about data." It's often used when talking about XML (eXtensible Markup Language). In XML, two pieces of information are sent for one piece of data: one is the data itself, and the other is information about the type of data that is being sent (the metadata). For example, we may send Contact Name information via XML to another company. We would not only send the actual name (for example, "Joe Smith"), but we would also send information to tell the other company that "Joe Smith" represents a Contact Name.

Middleware - Software that sits in between two disparate applications and helps those applications "talk" to each other. Examples of middleware include IBM's MQSeries and Microsoft's MQMS. Middleware can operate on one of four different levels: the data level; the application interface level; the method (or messaging) level, and; the user interface level.

Multi-Channel Support - Provides customers the ability to access the company via multiple "channels," or methods of communications. Typical communication channels include web chat, web forms submission, email, phone, fax, Voice over IP (VoIP), and live chat.

N

Natural Language Search - This is a type of search against a knowledgebase or database that allows the user to ask questions in a natural way; i.e., as if they were asking a real-live person the question, as opposed to restricting their input to some less intuitive method such as keyword searches with Boolean (and/or) options. An example of a natural language question might be: "Why is it that when I am using my computer, at various times the keyboard input freezes, and I am no longer able to type anything into any application? I must use my mouse to shut applications down and reboot to regain keyboard input."

O

ODBC - Open DataBase Connectivity. This is a standard protocol that is used to run queries against databases that are not "natively" supported (supported directly, with their own language) by an application. Most databases support ODBC connections to front-end tools, in addition to supporting specific applications natively.

ODS - Operational Data Store. Part of the data warehouse; fed with scores, behaviors, and clusters in near real-time, to be able to react live to customer actions on the web site. The idea is to better serve the customer by reacting to his actions in real time.

OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer. The term is typically used to identify the company that actually creates the hardware or writes the software that customers ultimately buy. They may use channel partners or Value-Added Resellers (VARs) for everything from Sales, to Marketing, to Implementation, but the original source of the saleable item is the OEM.

OLAP - OnLine Analytic Processing. In the business-intelligence world, OLAP represents a "live" report in which users can employ such devices as pivot tables, drill downs, and real-time calculations to derive much more information from one report than is typical with a static report. As an example, a report that shows sales per state, through OLAP technology, may allow the user to drill down on a specific state to see sales per city within that state, in real time.

OLTP - OnLine Transaction Processing. That portion of the software that enables daily business operations such as order entry.

Operational CRM - This is the heart of what we have traditionally just called CRM. It represents those pieces of CRM that automate functions internal to the company, such as Sales, Marketing, or Customer Support functions. It's that part of CRM packages that interact with ERP packages to get product moving, facilitate the flow of internal information between individuals and teams, and automate or facilitate daily tasks. For more on Operational CRM, see the Article CRM is Busting Out of Its Britches: Operational, Analytical, and Collaborative CRM are Born.

Opt-In Marketing - This is a type of marketing where users give a company their permission, either directly or indirectly, to market to them. You often see requests for Opt-in marketing when filling out User Profiles on web sites. They often ask at the end if it would be OK for them to send your information to related and relevant parties who might have offers that would be interesting to you. By saying 'Yes,' you have "Opted-in" to marketing from those associated companies.

P

PBX - Private Branch Exchange, which is a private telephone network used within an enterprise. Users of PBXs share a certain number of outside lines for making telephone calls external to the PBX. In conjunction with PBX's, Automated Call Distribution (ACD) software is often employed in call centers to enhance the function of PBX's, by providing such capabilities as rules-based routing of calls, call queuing, and the like.

PDA - Personal Digital Assistant. The short-hand term for the handheld devices currently on the market, such as Palm-OS-based units, Pocket PC-based units, and units based on the Symbian OS from Psion (Symbian is due to make a bigger splash in the U.S. as the OS of choice on so-called "smart" phones - cell phones with PDA features - in the near future).

POI - Point Of Interaction. An internal shorthand to indicate at what "touchpoint" a customer began his interaction with the company. Relevant to companies that want to know what channels of communication customers prefer and are most useful for the company to develop.

Portal - A web site that combines elements of targeted information relevant to a given audience. For example, a company might set up a supplier portal, including information only relevant to their suppliers (such as inventory levels, corporate contact information, instructions for shipping and invoicing the company for parts shipped, etc.).

Portlets - These are sub-areas, or windows, within a Portal, that contain different pieces of information. For example, in an Employee Portal, you might have Portlets that separately contain: HR information, Corporate Announcements, Industry information and news relevant to their position, and maybe a Portlet to their favorite web site.

PRM - Partner Relationship Management. Third-party sales channel automation capabilities, allowing companies to distribute Leads, perform web-based sales, conduct promotions and establish discounts, etc. It also provides a mechanism for the initial partner to analyze the performance of its partners via analytics.

PSA -Professional Services Automation. These are services, now associated with CRM packages, that help automate the tasks of, say, a consulting company that offers Professional Services to clients. A PSA package might contain Quoting tools, Project Management Tools, personal time and expense reporting, as well as personnel optimization schemes, matching the customer need to the employee who is both capable and available to fill that need.

Q

QBE - Query By Example. There are a lot of ways to search databases. You can submit keyword searches, conduct natural language searches, and you can perform a QBE. With a QBE, you use an existing screen to enter information into the various editable fields. The values you enter represent the criteria you want to use in your search. For example, if two fields contain a First Name and Last Name for a contact, and you wanted to find all the Joneses in the database, you would type 'Jones' in the Last Name field, and run the query. The query would return information on all the Joneses in the database.

QoE - Quality of Experience. It's no longer acceptable to simply produce a great product. Next year, the competition will have caught up, and maybe even surpassed you, on your features and functionality set. Instead, companies are now focusing on the more broad term Quality of Experience, which represents not only the strength of the product, but also the ease with which the customer can do business with the company, rounding out the customer's entire Experience with the company, from Sales, through Purchase, through Support. See the article CRM and Technological Solutions: Be the Customer for more in-depth information about customers' total experiences with companies.

QoS - Quality of Service. Not quite what you might think. It means, what level of network services are provided to each client on the network. Companies, having to deal with network and storage performance and capacity bottlenecks, are turning to this concept of QoS, where the level of service that is offered a user on the network may be prioritized, based on a certain set of criteria. For example, the CEO might demand the highest QoS at all times, and would be given preferential treatment at printer queues, storage devices, and network bandwidth.

The Lexicon of CRM : From A to I

2010-05-08T05:32:00.000-07:00

0 - A

360 degree view of the customer - A term used to describe the ability for virtually anyone in the company to know anything about the customer (products bought, support calls made, web site visits conducted, etc.). A "complete, 306 degree view" of customer information.

3G - Supposedly the ultimate wireless protocol technology that is already being used in areas outside of North America where countries have more readily converged on wireless protocol standards. Believed to be coming to the U.S. in 2002 or 2003. Supports data transmission rates between 384Kbps and 2Mbps.

ACD - Automated Call Distribution. An add-on feature to Customer Interaction Center PBX's (phone switches), ACD's intelligently handle and route incoming calls based on defined criteria (such as, next available employee, skillset, workload, group, etc.).

Ad Hoc - "In real time," or "On the spot." We often talk about Ad Hoc Queries, which are database queries that are created by the user in real-time.

Analytical CRM - A subset of Corporate Business Intelligence, which enables the generation of reports and graphs from information stored in databases to help users analyze various aspects of their business. For more details, see the Article CRM is Busting Out of It's Britches: Operational, Analytical, and Collaborative CRM Are Born.

API - Application Programming Interface. Typically, a "set of API's" will be released by the vendor of software, to enable programmers to write new code on top of the application more quickly by making use of pre-packaged code within an API set. Often used to either augment functionality, or to link one application to another.

ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It represents the set of common characters that are typically recognized in America, including letters, numbers, and symbols. Each ASCII character is represented by a 7-bit number, from 0 to 127. For example, the ASCII code for uppercase 'M' is 77. Most computers use the ASCII text set, which makes it possible to transfer data from one computer to another.

ASP - Application Service Provider. In its simplest form, an ASP is a third-party service firm which deploys, manages, and remotely hosts a pre-packaged application or suite of applications in a "rental" or "lease" agreement. No software or hardware typically reside at the customer's site.

ATP - Available To Promise. This represents what product is currently in inventory and not claimed by another order; hence, available to promise to the current customer who is inquiring about availability.

Automated Request Routing - The ability of CRM software to route incoming requests based on defined criteria such as: person's name, skillset, group, availability, knowledge, or geographical location.

B

B2B - Business to Business. Represents business that is conducted primarily between two businesses.

B2C - Business to Customer. Represents business that is conducted between a business and end users or customers.

Bluetooth - A wireless protocol that allows two objects to communicate with each other, transferring data and transmitting information without having to "point" at each other as today's devices equipped with IrDA technology do.

BPR - "Business Process Reengineering." Includes business process analysis, design, and/or re-design, in advance of technology purchase decisions. For an in-depth discussion, reference two TEC Articles: CPR on BPR: Long Live Business Process Reengineering. Part I: A Primer and CPR on BPR: Practical Guidelines for Successful Business Process Analysis.

Business Intelligence (a.k.a. Analytics) - A global term used to represent the ability of software to generate information (via reports, graphs, and charts) about the performance of various aspects of the company and its customer relationships to foster intelligent decision-making.

C

Call Me Now - A web-based electronic Service (or "eService") feature which enables the customer to immediately request that a support representative call them over a POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) line for discussion.

Channel - Short-hand for Sales Channel; represents other companies that aid a company in the sale, and often implementation, of its products.

CIC - Customer Interaction Center. The term has supplanted the age-old term Customer Support Center. Meant to represent a more global view of the services this department conducts, including not only Service, but potentially Sales (via Telesales) as well as Marketing (via distribution of Marketing literature, running Outbound campaigns and the like). It's meant to represent a centralized Sales, Marketing, and Service organization that is co-located and cross-trained.

Clickstream Analysis - The analysis of the path that a user took through your website (as they clicked hyperlinks to access various areas). The data is used to understand such things as what areas of the site are popular, and, in turn, what products or services are being most inquired about, etc.

Client-Server - The 1980's model of corporate computing, where application processing was split (often haphazardly) between servers and client, or desktop, machines. For example, if a user were to run a query on a database, the database server might simply run the query and push all the data to the client; then, it's up to the client to do all the manipulation on the data (organization, summarization, formatting, etc.).

Collaborative CRM - Those pieces of CRM software that interact directly with the customer. Typically refers to web components, like web conferencing, web forms handling, automated email handling, and unified message handling and intelligent message routing; web assistance tools such as Live Chat facilities, and Voice over IP (VoIP), and collaborative web browsing. For more details, see the Article CRM is Busting Out of It's Britches: Operational, Analytical, and Collaborative CRM Are Born.

Collaborative Web Browsing - The ability for a Service Representative to "push" web pages to a customer's screen, or to lead the customer's browser with his or her own browser. Often used in the shopping process, when users are confused about next steps.

Context-sensitive Help - Help information that is specific to the location of your cursor on the screen. For example, if you had a question about a particular field on the screen, you could place your cursor in the field, and then request Help, and the Help system would be intelligent enough to provide information about that particular field (how to fill it out, in what format, etc.)

CRM -Customer Relationship Management software is defined as: software that promotes the direct interaction between customers and the company through support of the people and processes involved in the entire customer lifecycle. CRM software fosters a comprehensive, integrated approach to the customer, putting the customer at the center and integrating such corporate functions as Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, and Field Sales and Service, all in an effort to increase Customer Satisfaction, improve internal morale, increase sales, and differentiate the company from its competitors. (It can also mean "Corporate Records Management," but not in the context of TEC research.)

CSR - Customer Support Representative. The term for the employees who staff the Customer Interaction Center.

CTI - "Computer-Telephony Integration." Links incoming phone call information with information that already exists in the database related to that phone number, auto-populating Service Requests with basic information such as Contact Name, Address, Company Name, etc.

D

Dashboard - A member of the Business Intelligence family that represents near-real-time data feedback about particular performance measures. Called a "Dashboard" because the visual implementation of the functionality often looks like the dashboard of a car, with dials and gauges representing the "pulse" of the organization.

Data Mart - A Data Warehouse on a departmental level (for more information, see Data Warehousing).

Data Mining - A general term that represents exploring data sets and finding the valuable nuggets of information which help companies make better-informed decisions.

Data Warehousing- The collection of information from multiple, disparate databases into one database, against which Data Mining tools can be run to gather corporate-wide business intelligence.

DBA - DataBase Administrator. The engineer in the IT organization that keeps the corporate databases running at peak efficiency, maintains data backups, and ensures the accuracy and "cleanliness" of the data stored in the databases.

DSS - Decision Support System. An automated system that enables an employee, typically a manager, to make better decisions based on the analysis of collected data. The TESS (Technology Evaluation Support System) database system offered by TEC is an example of a DSS.

E

EAI - Enterprise Application Integration. Represents the efforts that often need to be made to link data between disparate applications running on different databases. CRM packages are trying to avoid external EAI requirements by building in and automating the links between their application components and data.

E-Business - An umbrella term for a total presence on the Web including the E-Commerce component.

E-Commerce - Sales and Service via the Internet.

E-CRM - Another vague term, but understood here at TEC to mean, any Sales, Marketing, or Service functionality that is automated electronically, typically via the web.

EDI - Electronic Data Interchange. The precursor to XML (eXtensible Markup Language). EDI represents, if you will, a common language that two databases can use to speak to one another directly, without human intervention. For example, if one company wanted to send a Purchase Order to another company via EDI, it could do so if both it and the receiving company follow EDI conventions and pre-establish EDI links between the two companies.

EMA - Enterprise Marketing Automation. A key component of most CRM packages, EMA enables the automation of typical marketing tasks, such as the compilation of campaign lists, and the qualification of leads.

ETL - Extraction, Transformation, and Loading. A term used with Data Warehouses. Part of the Data Warehouse functionality set, where data is pulled (Extracted) from disparate databases, Transformed into more easily understandable, and better linked form, and then Loaded into the Data Warehouse for Data Mining.

Extranet - That part of a company's own Intranet that is shared with a subset of external users. Typically protected by password or some other means.

F - G

Fail over Capability - The ability for a server, when it fails, to "fail over" to a machine that is running in parallel and provide seamless, non-stop processing for users.

FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions. A list of questions that are repetitively asked of Customer Support Representatives. If a user views the FAQ list, they will find answers to the most commonly asked questions, saving the Support organization time and effort in handling repeat questions or problems.

FFA - Field Force Automation. Automating tasks and delivering content to employees, typically both Sales and Service Staff, who are in the field visiting customers.

Field-level Validation - The ability of a software package to validate what a user has entered into a particular field on a screen either in real time (usually when the user tabs out of the field), or in batch (typically when the user attempts to leave the screen). Types of validation include: checking for the existence of data, and checking for data that is entered in a particular format.

GPS - Global Positioning System. Starting to be incorporated in CRM Field Force Automation systems, so that the home office knows the location of its field resources (either people or vehicles or the like), and can use that data for more intelligent routing of field personnel.

GUI - Graphical User Interface. The standard style computer interface since it was introduced by Apple Computer in the late 1970's. Represented by icons, windows, and multiple fonts.

H - I

Horizontal Applications - Applications that include functionality across corporate disciplines, such as Sales, Marketing, or Service.

IM - Instant Messaging. The ability for two or more users who are online to communicate via text in real time on their computers.

Inference Engine - A problem resolution engine that prompts the user to answer questions about the problem that they have, and based on the answers, will ask additional questions or make recommendations about actions that should be taken to resolve the problem. Acts almost like a stand-in for the back-and-forth that is typical between customer and Service Representative when problem solving.

Intranet - A network internal to a company that is based on the protocols of the Internet (namely, TCP/IP).

IrDA - Infrared Data Association. A communications protocol developed by a consortium of technology manufacturers for transmitting data via infrared light waves. The two units communicating must maintain a line-of-sight, and cannot be more than three feet apart. IrDA ports support transmission rates of approximately 115 Kbps (similar to traditional parallel ports)

IVR - "Interactive Voice Response." IVR is a software application that accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, callback, email and perhaps other media. IVR is usually part of a larger application that includes database access.

'Collaborative Commerce': ERP, CRM, e-Proc, and SCM Unite

2010-05-08T05:31:00.000-07:00

SAP: The History

SAP has long been the kingpin in the ERP world. With probably the most broad set of features, a large marketing machine, and a subsequent reputation as "the big solution for the big players," SAP has dominated in the ERP space for large corporations. Rightfully so based on technology. Their downside has always been their approachability, cost, long implementation and training times, and less-than-simple product upgrades.

SAP Crosses the Chasm

Trying to determine just when, and even why, the major power players at SAP decided to almost turn the company on its head by opening itself up to alliances, absorbing other companies' technologies through acquisitions, and even opening up its software to work friendlier with other, non-SAP software components, is difficult to pin down. But that is just what it has done. SAP's new tagline is "mySAP.com: Solutions for the New, New Economy - The Integrated E-Business Platform for Any Industry." This is the SAP, for all its warts and thorns, that we have grown to know and love? No. They have crossed a strategic chasm, embracing the Internet while embracing partners and competitors alike, and there seems to be no turning back. Witness just some of their actions:

April 2000 - SAP AG and Microsoft announce the intention to bring mySAP.com functionality to Microsoft's Pocket PC platform. "SAP is furthering mySAP.com to empower people working on customer relationships with key information they need on mobile devices, including the Pocket PC," said Peter Zencke, member of the executive board, SAP AG.

May 2000 - SAP announces a strategic alliance with Nortel Networks to develop and integrate industry-specific customer interaction solutions that will extend the scope of collaborative customer relationship management (CRM). With the agreement, SAP would embed Clarify's eFrontOffice CRM functionality into its mySAP.com offering. In a statement coinciding with the agreement, Peter Zencke, comments: "Enabling collaborative virtual communities of companies to present one face to their joint customers, SAP and Nortel Networks will deliver a new quality in customer relationship management." The agreement would enable mySAP.com to present customers with multi-channel (Web, phone, fax) access to a company's Customer Interaction Center (CIC). The agreement would also bolster a company's ability to share information amongst and between it's employees, customers, suppliers, and partners with tie-ins to SAP's Supply Chain Management (SCM) functionality to create "a holistic circle of commerce."

May 2000 - SAP and Nokia jointly announce development agreements to WAP (Wireless Access Protocol)-enable mySAP.com components, so that information can be viewed on any WAP-enabled device, such as certain high-end cell phones from Nokia and other cell phone manufacturers.

May 2000 - At the company's yearly international conference, SAPPHIRE, the company announced that they were going to establish an integration center in the United States , to be opened in late 2000, to build "preintegrated, preassembled, SAP-certified, SAP-supported, multi-vendor functionality that fuses mySAP.com and leading third-party applications into an overall solution that best meets customer needs."

June 2000 - The announcement of mySAP.com Dynamic Procurement, a pro-active system that automates the procurement process for direct materials and includes strategic sourcing and contract management. SAP claimed the system is able to dynamically match supply to demand via real-time processing across the Internet.

June 2000 - SAP enters the online marketplace arena with mySAP Marketplaces, an Internet-based solution designed to integrate front- and back-office systems of all participants in marketplaces, maintaining data integrity with so-called end-to-end integration with participating companies' internal systems. Interpreted, this solution is the equivalent of providing to companies not only an XML platform, but also the definition of the words in the language, for two databases to communicate, and it also intends to build the integration between the two pieces, something other marketplaces, or inter-company communication technologies, do not do. And they plan to do this on a grand scale.

June 2000 - Introduction of the Internet-Business Framework to support open integration strategies. Under the plan, mySAP.com's Workplace enterprise portal would be the common, web-browser-based interface between disparate systems. Beneath the covers, the systems would be linked at the application layer through XML, SAP's own Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPI's), XML Common Business Library (xCBL), as well as support for Biztalk and RosettaNet XML standard language dictionaries.

Customer Relationship Management

2010-05-08T05:30:00.002-07:00

Customer Relationship Management Software promotes the direct interaction between customers and the company through support of the people and processes involved in the entire customer lifecycle. CRM Software fosters a comprehensive, integrated approach to the customer, putting the customer at the center and integrating such corporate functions as Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, and Field Sales and Service, all in an effort to increase Customer Satisfaction, improve internal morale, increase sales, and differentiate the company from its competitors.

Figure 1.

Click here to view larger image

Operational CRM

Operational CRM is at the heart of what we've previously just called CRM. It includes the components of CRM software that interact with the Back Office applications (such as ERP, SCM, and e-Procurement) in order to get product moving; it includes all of the business intelligence to automate or help facilitate the daily tasks of the Service, Marketing, and Sales teams, and to move information between them, and out to the Logistics and Financial folk; it also facilitates the flow of information to and from the forces in the Field, both Sales and Service. In a simple way, you can think of Operational CRM as Internal CRM, though that would give the image that it's a misnomer considering our global definition of CRM, above. It's not. The Operational aspects certainly promote timely and successful interactions with the customers, but behind the scenes.

Analytical CRM

Analytical CRM is a subset of the larger game of Corporate Business Intelligence, which itself grandly intends to reach across the boundaries of CRM to pull together all the data resources in the company, extract and transform the data in a sensible way, load it into one place, and be able to analyze corporate performance in a unified manner. Analytical CRM focuses specifically on the customer interaction and satisfaction piece of Corporate Business Intelligence.

Through measurement of customer reactions and interactions, it can help a company analyze and understand such things as: the success rate of marketing campaigns; sales rates and the performance of the sales team members; other sales related issues such as Customer profitability (considering both Sales and Service costs), Pipeline Revenue analysis, and product line success and trending. It can also help companies understand customer satisfaction rates and trends, and the performance of their service personnel; it can help cmpanies perform so-called web clickstream analysis to understand what their customers are looking at on their site; hence, what they like about or on the web site, and what doesn't work or attract so well; etc. And it can do this with new, real-time technology using data stores and user-interface dashboards, or OLAP (OnLine Analytic Processing), or the more mundane hard reports, and pushing it all to web information portals that are either customer-facing, or internal-facing, or both.

Remember, "you can't change what you don't measure." Analytical CRM, and Corporate Business Intelligence, are hard core and here to stay, and will only become more important as the fight to keep customers loyal and happy rages ever fiercer.

Collaborative CRM

Now, we get to the wizzy, obvious, up-front stuff that has given CRM the e-CRM makeover, and made everyone so excited about reducing costs and improving web-based service. This is the part about the new, cooperative efforts in CRM, like web conferencing, web forms handling, automated email handling, and unified message handling and intelligent message routing; web assistance tools such as Live Chat facilities, and Voice over IP (VoIP), and collaborative web browsing; and guided selling, and the soon-to-be omnipresent Call Me button.

Problem is, the more ways that you give people to interact with you, and the easier you make it, the more often those people will interact with you, and that may not save you Service overhead costs. You need to carefully understand the people-power ramifications behind e-CRM before making the leap. Just because customers may be happy with the new, often less-personal methods of interacting with their consumer companies, doesn't make this a wise decision for your company. Your support costs may actually rise. That may be OK, if your happy with the offsetting customer-satisfaction numbers. But be aware.

CRM is Busting Out Of Its Britches

2010-05-08T05:30:00.001-07:00

In the early 90's, paralleling the publication of Hammer and Champy's Reengineering the Corporation, there were three Northern California companies that each had similar visions of incorporating BPR (Business Process Reengineering) concepts into Front Office applications. They were set to break down departmental barriers, focus on the customer, and enable corporate workers to serve their customers in new, streamlined, and friendly ways. Those three companies were Clarify, Vantive, and Scopus.

Clarify and Scopus started work in the customer support arena, planning to branch out once they gained a customer base and some momentum, while Vantive, with a much broader initial vision that, in retrospect, may have been ten years ahead of its time, focused on a customer-centric database at the core, ringed by all divisions of the company, each having their own "views" into the data they needed. Data was entered one time, existed in one place, and was viewable by all. Very BPR.

My, but we have come a long way. First off, none of those three original companies stand alone any more. The first to go was Scopus, purchased by Siebel in the mid to late 90's to shore up its customer support offering. As an aside, inside information has it that what Siebel bought didn't quite live up to expectations, and they ended up re-building many of the customer support pieces to create the Siebel product you see today.

In 1999, Clarify was purchased by Nortel Networks (see Tech Note Nortel and Clarify: Was There Ever Enough Synergy to Support this Marriage?). Enough said here.

And finally, Vantive was bought by Peoplesoft, the HRMS (Human Resource Management System) plus SCM (Supply Chain Management) software company. At first blush it struck many as an odd pairing of two companies desperate for some good corporate vision. But Peoplesoft (with Vantive) seems to have renewed vigor. If execution and focus are a part of the culture now at Peoplesoft, it all may pay off in the end (see PeopleSoft 8 Launched - Anything to Write Home About?).

All the while, in the late 90's dot-com craze, when "money was free" and intellectual capital and software functionality were key, you had smaller niche players developing ideas about how to do everything from improving customers' online experiences, to establishing vertical and horizontal portals, to analyzing employee performance, to using data to target qualified leads. And other, larger companies, were quietly adding the three letters C.R.M. to their websites, and eating smaller vendors for lunch, for fear of being lost in the Back Office-cum-ERP/SCM, Front Office-cum-CRM world. And wave after wave of multi-million if not multi-billion dollar buy outs and consolidations (for one example, see the Kana reference in the Tech Note sited above) lapped the corporate shores.

As the technology development and consolidation continues unphased, if not stoked, by the economic downturn today, analysts, busy re-defining CRM as "a software space" and "an ecosystem," - very fuzzy - have given rise to the notion of sub areas of CRM; namely, Operational CRM, Analytical CRM and Collaborative CRM. We've got wireless customer service, customer self-service, marketing analytics, collaborative e-commerce, employee portals, operational data stores, data warehouses, data marts, data about data (metadata), business intelligence, OLTP and OLAP, and enterprise value management we can't call all that, simply, CRM, now could we?

Analysts like to compartmentalize in an effort to simplify and understand, and forecast winners and losers, and prognosticate on the future. Sometimes we over-compartmentalize, and over-define, to the point of confusion. And sometimes, we almost make sense of it all, and help buyers of technology know both what's available, and what's right for them. So, let's try if we may.

The Lexicon of CRM: T to Z

2010-05-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

TCO - Total Cost of Ownership. When evaluating software for possible implementation in your company, you can't just consider the costs of the software licenses, on-going maintenance fees, and support costs. You also need to consider how much time, and in turn, how much money, it will cost to own the software over the long term. Is the software very buggy and in need of constant bug updates and enhancements? Is the software difficult to use and therefore requires higher training costs and ramp-up times? TCO considers ALL the costs that might be associated with a piece of software over its lifespan in the company.

TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is the method by which data on the Internet is divided into packets of bytes. Information is divided into packets of information, with each packet delimited with header information that includes the destination address to where the packet is to be routed when it is transmitted over the Internet, and how it is to be re-assembled with the other packets containing the coherent data on the other end. Packets may take very different routes across the Internet, arrive at a destination, be re-assembled in the same order in which they were disassembled, and presented to the user on the other end.

Technically, IP is responsible for moving packets of data from node to node. IP forwards each packet based on a four-byte destination address (the IP number). TCP is responsible for verifying the correct delivery of data from client to server. Data can be lost in the intermediate network. TCP adds support to detect errors or lost data and to trigger retransmission until the data is correctly and completely received.

Thin Client - Another term for web browser. When an application vendor says that they have support for thin client, they mean that the majority of processing happens on back-end servers, and the display mechanism is the web browser, which conducts minimal (though, with Java or ActiveX plug-ins, possibly more substantial) processing of data.

TSBs - Technical Service Bulletins. Information distributed to the customer base of a product to inform them of some technical news bit that would be relevant to their implementation, such as the discovery of a new bug, the availability of a patch, or the availability of a new version of software.

Unicode - A standard for representing characters, such as numbers, letters, and symbols, as integers. Unlike ASCII, which uses 7 bits for each character, Unicode uses 16 bits, which means it can represent more than 65,000 unique characters. This covers the requirements for not only languages such as English and the Western-European languages, but also for other languages, such as Greek, Latin, and Japanese. As the software industry becomes increasingly global, there is a push on for software vendors to enable their software to use the Unicode coding format.

Unified Message Queuing - This represents the ability to take inbound requests from multiple channels (see Multi-Channel Support in Part 2 of this series), funnel them into one logical processing point, and then to be able to send out the requests to user queues for work. It represents the blending of such items as email, phone calls, and faxes, into the same queues.

Up-sell, Cross-sell - The sales practice of analyzing a user purchase, and recommending additional items that the user might be interested in purchasing based on the initial purchase. Up-selling is the process of adding on pieces to the original purchase; Cross-selling is selling similar or similarly appealing items to the customer.

V - Z

VAR - Value-Added Reseller. This is a company, independent of an OEM, that takes an OEM product, adds some sort of customer-perceived value to it, repackages it, and sells it to customers on its own. The ways in which value might be added include the addition of new product functionality, or the wrapping of implementation services around the original product.

V-Commerce - Voice Commerce, or Voice-enabled Commerce. The ability to use simple voice commands over phone lines to transact business directly between customer and application. V-Commerce is still years away from true value-add for companies, though several companies are playing around with voice commands today.

Vertical Applications - Applications that are tailored to specific industries. For example, Siebel Systems might take their core application and tailor the screens, fields, and database structures to support the automotive industry (both sales and service). Their Siebel Automotive application would be an example of a vertical application.

VoIP - Voice over IP. The ability to carry on a conversation over the Internet, while still browsing the Internet. Typically requires broadband (e.g., DSL, cable, or LAN-based connections), which right now have fairly limited penetration into consumer households. Hence, VoIP is not yet broadly implemented by web sites creators.

WAP/WML - Wireless Application Protocol and Wireless Markup Language. These are syntax used to program content for wireless phones using languages that allow the text portions of Web pages to be presented.

White Paper - A lengthy, often technical, article on a topic that provides background information on corporate products, industries, or industry trends.

WIP bins - Work In Process bins. Can also be thought of as personal To-Do lists. They represent personal queues, to which only one user has access. When an item is in an individuals WIP bin, they "own" that Service Request and are responsible for solving the problem or answering the question, unless they pass the SR to another employee's WIP bin.

XML - eXtensible Markup Language. A superset of the ubiquitous HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that is the common language of the web. HTML is really good at defining how elements should be laid out on a page, but terrible at transmitting data. XML solves the problem, by defining both elements for data, and elements for data about data, or metadata, to explain what kind of data is being passed (see the example provided in Part 2, under the definition for Metadata). It is being heralded as the "EDI of the Internet," and the future of inter-database, inter-application, and inter-company communications.

ZLE - Zero Latency Enterprise. The latest, new-fangled term to come from the consulting world. It represents the Enterprise that is so technologically enabled that information is instantly accessible to anyone who needs it (or has need of it) at any time. Zero latency, or zero slowness, of information flow across an enterprise

The Lexicon of CRM: R to S

2010-05-08T05:27:00.002-07:00

RDBMS - Relational DataBase Management System. The typical, standard database, with both data models, data definitions, and data storage capabilities. Examples include Oracle's 9i database, Microsoft's SQLServer 2000, and IBM's DB2 and Informix.

RFI - Request For Information. A formal document sent by a customer to a vendor asking for specific information about their product or line of products. It's usually the first salvo in several rounds of information gathering by customers in the vendor selection process.

RFQ - Request For Quote. A formal document sent by a customer to a vendor asking them to put together a product and service package, with prices, for the customer to consider accepting and ultimately buying.

RMA - Returned Materials Authorization. Most companies require that customers contact them before returning previously-purchased product, to receive authorization to return the product. The customer is usually given an RMA number, for tracking purposes.

ROI - A calculation of how much money will be saved or earned as the result of an investment. When evaluating CRM packages, be sure to factor in investments of both time and capital in your ROI analysis.

Rollback Capability - The ability of an RDBMS, in the case of a catastrophic failure, to be able to return to, or roll back to, a set point in time when the database was known to be stable. This is less preferred than the ability for an RDBMS to "fail-over" to a hot spare server, losing no data and suffering no down time in the process.

S

Sales Pipeline - This is the list of potential customers that the sales department is currently trying to convert into paying customers. Typically, customer deals in the pipeline are assigned dollar values and "percentages likely to convert", and from that, sales forecasts can be approximated.

SFA - Sales Force Automation. One of the lynchpins of CRM. This enables the Sales team to capture and maintain lead and other contact information in one data store, conduct team selling, view pipeline reports, and other tasks. This is still the first objective of most companies implementing CRM solutions.

SLA - Service Level Agreement. This is the agreed-upon level of service that will be provided by the vendor to the customer upon purchase of product. Variables include: channels supported, hours of the day, days of the week, response times, and on-site support.

SMBs - Small to Medium Businesses. A segment of the market in general that tends to be the target of enterprise application and database vendors these days who have "already gone after the big fish," namely, large, Fortune 500 companies, and are trolling the waters for smaller catch. Sometimes called SMEs, or Small to Medium Enterprises, though that could be confused with Subject Matter Expert.

SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol. SOAP is a lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment. It is an XML-based protocol that consists of three parts: an envelope that defines a framework for describing what is in a message and how to process it; a set of encoding rules for expressing data types, and; a convention for representing remote procedure calls and responses.

SR - Service Request. The latest term for support case, problem ticket, work order, or other terms previously used. A Service Request is established in CRM software to track a customer contact through to its conclusion. It contains contact information, details about the issue or problem at hand, and usually concludes with a summary of how the problem was solved.

Stinger - Microsoft's code name for its OS that will run on a family of smart phones, which are a class of wireless phones with oversized displays and color screens--designed for wireless Web access and conventional phone calls. The first hardware product is reported to have been in the works for two to three years and will be marketed by Samsung in the United States and Europe.

The recipe for CRM success is easy to follow

2010-05-08T05:27:00.001-07:00

As you might expect, the recipe for CRM success is the flip side of the four-step recipe for failure. Successful CRM implementations typically:

* Develop customer-centric strategies (a five-dollar expression for figuring out how to add value to customers).

* Make organizational changes when required (redesigning workflow and information flow in order to implement new strategies usually requires stretching some functional boundaries and contracting others).

* Provide line-level training and support to those experiencing changed workflow and information flow (not just technology training, but providing a context and rationale for justifying change, often change in career-long work patterns).

* Set measurable goals (other than labor cost savings).

Simple. But much easier said than done. While knowing that these four factors alone exert a powerful influence on success rates is very reassuring to CRM implementers prepared to roll up their sleeves and take CRM seriously. However, this finding stands squarely in the way of several sizable CRM constituencies:

* Implementers wanting rapid deployment, quick ROI, "slam bam and we're done CRM." Unfortunately, it's the "messy" implementations that muck around with business strategies, people and organizational change that generate the returns.

* Software sellers wanting to sell their applications before customers discover what functionality they really need. Very un-CRM-like, but most software vendors treat CRM system sales as a one-time event.

* CRM consultants specializing in reengineering individual-level work processes and "selecting" (often selling) CRM software. Unfortunately, clients need much more support in the strategic areas—building strategies that add value to customers; redesigning department level workflow to carry out new strategies; re-architecting the technology infrastructure to accommodate new information needs; and dealing with the organizational and people consequences of the first three.

Overall, the "Blueprint" findings reflect a split between CRM implementer versus CRM vendor interests

Other principal findings continue this pattern of pleasing implementers more than vendors. To cite several examples:

* "Blueprint" data indicate that 25% of CRM implementers are bypassing commercial CRM software systems. Although we have no benchmark data for comparison, that percentage is almost certainly growing, shrinking CRM software sales potential.

* The decreasing reliance on CRM technology makes software sales an inaccurate barometer of industry growth. While using alternative tools such as information portals, data warehouses, and internally developed software offers new options and opportunities for some implementers, it takes away the only industry-growth measuring stick conveniently within analysts' reach.

* The data show no correlation between brand of CRM software and success rates. Successful implementers know their requirements before selecting and buy what's right for them—and advertising claims aside, no CRM software system is right for more than a slice of the user base.

* No other technology-related activity ranked as a driver of CRM success. While the majority of CRM implementations depend for success on effective and appropriate technology support, technology isn't the hard part. The business issues—strategy, organizational design, training, and measurement—are what make or break CRM implementations. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the CRM industry is focused on process and technology and not in alignment with implementer needs.

* CRM produces ROI primarily from two sources: reducing customer attrition and increasing customer penetration. New customer acquisition and front-office labor-savings are secondary contributors only. Unfortunately, database marketing consultants migrating in droves over to CRM focus almost exclusively on customer acquisition, and more than a few CRM software players cost-justify their wares with projected ROI from future staff-cuts.

Good news about ROI

2010-05-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

"Blueprint" data undercuts the 70% failure rate story, along with the 60% version and even the 50% version. Despite applying a relatively rigorous standard of success, these data indicate that 45% of implementations are or will be clear ROI producers (within two years, based on typical outlays); 35% are clearly failing and may never return their investment; and 20% are in a gray area where they'll likely show positive returns over time, but not as quickly as most implementers would like to see them. On balance, the majority of the 20% "gray area" implementations will wind up successfully paying off their capital investments in a time frame generally acceptable to financial management, especially in better economic times.

Obviously, these are "good news" numbers from an implementer perspective. So what's not to like about them from a vendor perspective? For openers, analysts still proclaiming 70% or 60% failure rates now have well-earned egg on their faces—in some cases enough to beg questions about whether they just might have "research" clients that want technology spending steered towards non-CRM investments—in ERP or SCM or data warehouses, etc. But that's not the only potential disappointment in better-than-commonly-expected CRM success rates.

CRM: The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth

2010-05-08T05:17:00.000-07:00

Finding out the true facts about what makes CRM tick and how fast it circles the ROI clock—if it indeed reaches ROI—has long frustrated potential CRM implementers looking for answers. And getting good answers really matters, because their only alternative to being forewarned may be leaping into enterprise-wide, mega-bucks, change management-laden CRM implementations—and testing the depth of the water with both feet.

For the first time, there are statistically-based, substantive answers to many questions about CRM.

Actually, answers have been very easy to come by. Too easy. The problem has been getting the same answers from any two sources. That's ranged from difficult to impossible, depending on the question. At least it has been until now. But after the recent release of the findings from a comprehensive study of 448 completed CRM implementations, confusion no longer reigns. Or more realistically, now that accurate data is available confusion should no longer reign.

This new study, The Blueprint for CRM Success1, evaluates real-life implementation approaches relative to real-life ROI performance, and does so across a sufficiently high number of implementations to leave but minimal margin of statistical error. Moreover, the research sponsors, Caribou Lake Customer-1 and CRMGuru.com partnered with an "outcome-neutral" statistical research firm, Mangen Research Associates, to assure that the data collection methods and statistical analysis would conform to rigorous professional standards.

In fact, the impetus for this research project arose from a desire by some CRM professionals to cut through the ubiquitous claims and counterclaims surrounding CRM, many germinating from "studies" conducted by parties picking up the telephone and dialing twenty CIOs or Marketing VPs with known opinions and biases.

1 - The Blueprint for CRM Success; Dick Lee (author of this article), David Mangen, Ph.D, Bob Thompson; HYM Press 2003.

Inaccuracies abound in information about CRM from supply-side sources

Not surprisingly, these claims come mostly from organizations or individuals with something to sell—whether market information, CRM application software, consulting services, conferences, books, magazines, webzine subscriptions or anything else pulled along by CRM. And played back together, they sound so cacophonous that they conjure up audible images of CRM running full speed across the business stage pulling a long string of tin cans behind it.

For example, how can one software vendor enjoy a 99% implementation success rate and own dominant market share both, while only 30% of all implementations are successful? Pick any two, but not all three. Or how about two industry analyst firms releasing "expert" opinions on CRM success rates within one week of each other—one saying 80% of implementations succeed, the other saying 70% fail? Gee, wonder what that's about? And how about when "house" research says a vendor enjoys customer satisfaction ratings over 90 but independent research sings a different tune, reporting satisfaction ratings 30 points lower? Clearly something is up (and it's probably not customer satisfaction).

Unfortunately, most misstatements like the ones above are what we might term "motivated misstatements," as opposed to simple misunderstandings or mistakes from unknowingly basing opinions on statistically insignificant data. The very fact that so many claims about CRM from so many sources don't square with each other—after years of empirical if not statistical evidence gathering—indicates that many CRM claims-makers are hearing what they want to hear—and no body of data, no matter how substantial, will deter some from saying what they're motivated to say in order to sell their wares. Especially when these data say things some absolutely don't want to hear—and don't want their potential customers to hear. "Blueprint's" individual data points, while adding up to good news for CRM implementers, contain more downside than upside for those CRM vendors accustomed to creating a false picture of CRM tailored to suit their own purposes. That's even true of the study's positive findings on ROI.

Agilera: Making E-Business Agile

2010-05-04T22:36:00.000-07:00

Agilera's heritage of hosting enterprise solutions goes back to the late 1990's when Ciber Enterprise Outsourcing, a wholly owned Ciber subsidiary, began to manage customer operations, maintenance and support of their ERP systems. Agilera was formed in March 2000 through a joint venture with Ciber, Verio and Centennial Funds. Agilera offers a combination of IT expertise, infrastructure, strategic counsel and e-business fulfillment services to emerging and middle-market companies.

Agilera utilizes Verio's Internet infrastructure, including their data and network control centers and business processing centers, featuring technology from HP, IBM, Compaq, Dell, Cisco, 3Com and Citrix. CIBER offers the resources of 6,000 professionals with successful implementation and integration experience of more than 3,500 enterprise solution projects.

In this joint venture, Verio has invested $30 million and owns 39 percent of the company. Centennial Ventures, a venture capital firm, has invested $15 million and owns 19 percent. CIBER contributed its ASP subsidiary, CIBER Enterprise Outsourcing, representing a 42 percent interest. Agilera is headquartered in Englewood, Colo., which is also home to both CIBER and Verio's worldwide operations.

Agilera has hosting partnerships with vendors of ERP, CRM and e-commerce software, including PeopleSoft/Vantive, Lawson Software, J.D.Edwards, BroadVision, Rightworks, Symix, Frontstep, Commerce One and Ariba. Agilera's knowledge base allows them to provide service solutions and proactive IT counsel. They offer services, such as a "personalized enterprise view" that aggregates in-house and Agilera's hosted applications. Agilera's solutions are delivered via the Internet or virtual private network (VPN). Additional value added services include e-business fulfillment services ranging from distribution and print services, to human resources administration and payroll processing.

The SCM Perspective: 2009 in Review

2010-05-04T22:35:00.000-07:00