tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00:59 +0000On-demand discussion about marketing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and a dash of management thoughts...http://thesaasguy.com/noreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)Blogger6712543.4079.24http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/TheSaasGuyhttp://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-969273852664893606Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:21:00 +00002010-03-10T10:00:59.170-05:00TorontoMarketingemail-marketingI have heard good e-marketers lament about email black holes! (spam filters) . So here is a post with some context stats and info. on how I have managed to beat spam filters.I started regularly designing and sending emails to QLogitek's subscriber community over the last 12 months. Since then I have reduced the our average bounce rate from 11% to 2.2 %. The reported industry average bounce rate http://thesaasguy.com/2010/03/spam-filters-and-email-marketing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-5515036137210757971Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:13:00 +00002010-03-08T16:35:22.557-05:00RIGHTNowSaaS.evolutionSaaScloud computingrnowcsaRIGHT NOW is holding an event in San Francisco where they are challenging the SaaS industry to change how cloud vendors engage with clients. Like me, if you asked who is RIGHT Now, click here.Checkout this very provocative video:They say their belief in this model is so strong, that they are making their RightNow Cloud Services Agreement and Order Form publicly available for all to use.See the http://thesaasguy.com/2010/03/rightnow-challange.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-1220301817707176368Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:43:00 +00002010-03-04T22:36:35.224-05:00SAP ERPHosted EDIERPSAPSaaS EDICrossgate (co-owened by SAP), the global expert in business-to-business integration (B2B), announced that SAP will resell Crossgate’s B2B engine and associated partner profiles under the name SAP Information Interchange application. This announcement indicates SAP's desire to ride in and battle with the large B2B-EDI players.Theoretically, this new offering will allow existing SAP clients to http://thesaasguy.com/2010/03/sap-crossgate-b2b-edi-players-be.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-1496238640647313184Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:19:00 +00002010-02-05T10:00:19.900-05:00"retail trends"Retail IT Technology Continuum: Citi's Deborah Weinswig is one of the top retail analysts in the business her technology continuum is much sought after. Read more.US Import Trends: Panjiva is a really cool organization that is mining lots of data to develop supplier score-cards. Check them out hereEight big retail losers: Eight retailers including Borders, A&P and Christopher & Banks are on the http://thesaasguy.com/2010/02/3-short-retail-links.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-4885044752958411810Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:42:00 +00002010-01-11T17:08:45.708-05:00"retail trends"A Data Explosion Remakes Retailing: We all know retailers are tracking all kinds of consumer data, but now they are gorging on on-line consumer and behavior data. Read more from NYT Microsoft Dynamics ERP Retail Solution. Read More about MS's vison of connected retail starting with this blog post from ShiSh List. Card Games - Visa, Mastercard, & you. Learn how Visa and Mastercard are unfairly http://thesaasguy.com/2010/01/3-short-retail-links.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-1681302977033666265Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:43:00 +00002009-12-21T14:56:17.826-05:00Supply chain managementretail supply chainUnhealthy supply chains. Experts say millions can be saved if the health care supply chain adopts standards and becomes more efficient. Currently entities are spending 31 to 67 percent of their annual budgets to operate their supply chains. Read moreGeneral Mills to use supply chain productivity initiatives in order to protect its margins from the pressure of rising commodity costs. Read moreThehttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/12/3-short-retail-supply-chain-links_21.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-6607128625332029718Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:52:00 +00002010-02-06T13:34:30.797-05:00NetSuiteSaaSERPSAPImage via WikipediaImage via WikipediaI found this fascinating blog posting via @dahowlett today. It has a neat video recording of panelist discussing the shootout between NetSuite and SAP ByD.Netsuite vs. SAP ByD winner is Netsuite according to prominent thought leaders. http://thesaasguy.com/2009/12/reblog-from-enterpriseadvocatescom-sap.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-8012694859480204533Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:04:00 +00002009-12-21T14:57:04.839-05:00Supply chainSAP ERPSupply chain managementretail supply chainFinancial view of Pharma supply chain. Generic drugs carry both better margins and higher profit dollars per prescription than brand-name drugs for all of the supply-chain middlemen. Read MoreIs on-premise ERP dead? ZDNet blogger, Brian Sommer, explains why he thinks on-premise ERP is going the way of the dodo. Watch the 4.5 min video.SAP Influencer event. Follow the Twitter hash tag (#sapsummit)http://thesaasguy.com/2009/12/3-short-retail-supply-chain-links.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-8963283120692210728Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:31:00 +00002009-12-09T10:11:23.705-05:003-short-linksretail supply chainWal-Mart reducing suppliers order-to-cash cycle from 90 days to 15 days. Wal-Mart partners with Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup to provide supply chain financing to their suppliers. Via on Kevin. Read more here WSJ.Effect of geographic location on retail stock prices. J. Crew (JCG), the much loved retailer based in New York City, and the Buckle (BKE), a teen retailer most Mutual Fund managers havehttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/12/3-short-retail-links.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-8891637872656807889Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:13:00 +00002009-11-19T14:59:08.501-05:00SaaSretail supply chainRecently I have been reading (a bit more than I want) about technologies around Demand Driven Supply Chains (DDSC). Just today, I came across an interesting article- Is your retail supply chain working at full efficiency? - on the same via a Tweet from ChainStoreAge. As you may have guessed, according to the author Kevin Stadler the solution is to invest in a demand forecasting and automated http://thesaasguy.com/2009/11/clean-supply-side-data-improves-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-6286240442465528542Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:45:00 +00002009-11-11T20:01:15.550-05:00online.marketingsocial.mediaUsually I tweet about retail supply chain and of course other stuff. But I use Seesmic desktop and not Twitter on the web. But today I was on Twitter.com and was greeted with a message that my a/c like few others is included in a beta group.Retweets will now appear as an icon shown in the illustration here.I am not sure if changing RT with this new icon is a good idea. But a test would be the http://thesaasguy.com/2009/11/re-freshing-retweet-from-rt-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-1998231981052137493Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:12:00 +00002009-11-11T11:26:05.374-05:00online.marketingSEMI was talking to someone new in online marketing and we were discussing segmenting visitor data.Take the case of source of visitors to QLogitek's website for a month. The top illustration indicates that over close to 82% of visitors are people who know us and only 12% find us! Cursory conclusion may be - we have to do more on SEM and SEO.Now, take the bottom illustration. This shows the source ofhttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/11/insights-from-using-advance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-7011685560644602074Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:36:00 +00002009-11-10T09:50:22.801-05:00MarketingI am reading an interesting HBR article titled Why Read Peter Drucker? in the recent HBR issue dedicated to him. I have been an admirer of Drucker's works since reading his The Effective Executive in college. Drucker passed away on Nov 11, 2005 at a grand age of 95. He influenced numerous manager as Intel's co-founder Andrew S. Grove added: "Like many philosophers, he spoke in plain language thathttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/11/why-marketes-should-read-peter-drucker.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-5748101156616571242Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:03:00 +00002009-10-07T08:34:31.154-04:00persuasion marketing managementPersuading others, especially senior executives, is a challenge one often confronts in corporate life. After some reading on the matter this is how I see the art of persuasion.Most folks fall into one of the five types of decision makers according to the work of Miller, Williams, and Hayashi charismatic, thinker, skeptic, follower, and controller.Here are some interesting elements of this 5 pathshttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/09/persuading-executives-with-charismatic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-6025983228574538307Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:25:00 +00002009-09-29T22:23:19.042-04:00MarketingpresentationThis morning, via GuyKawasaki's tweet, I came across a cool review of Carmine Gallo's recent book. Gallo provides 5 tips to on how to present like Steve Jobs. I had fun tweeting these 5 tips.Here are the 5 steps to start being Steve Jobs:1- Introduce the antagonistJob's always introduces a villain before Apple rides in to save the day. In the early days of Apple it was IBM and http://thesaasguy.com/2009/09/presenting-like-steve-jobs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-7732113514381278173Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:31:00 +00002009-09-26T19:42:51.465-04:00blogkruptcyI took at look at the various blogs I have been following and reading, they are over 60. I am not sure why I am subscribing to these blogs and what I am gaining. Therefore, I decided it is time to declare blogkruptcy.Blogkruptcy - I Googled the term to see if anyone else has coined and defined it, but to my surprise no one has. So here I am sipping some Dragon Jasmine green tea and brooding over http://thesaasguy.com/2009/09/i-decided-to-be-blogkrupt.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-8422967396068452123Sat, 26 Sep 2009 22:26:00 +00002009-09-26T18:27:20.258-04:00search.enginesearch.marketingYahooQLogitekYahoo! search blog announced, on the Oct. 22, major improvements to their search engine. I tested and found changes to results for keywords important to QLogitek such as retail supply chain software, SaaS retail supply chain solutions, SaaS EDI, and hosted edi.According to Yahoo! the major changes are improved search page load time,improved perceived load time, and inline data URI images.http://thesaasguy.com/2009/09/improvements-in-yahoo-search.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-5970578990718269648Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:19:00 +00002009-09-02T21:32:01.565-04:00happyI came across this interesting post about programming and happiness. According to the Dolores Lab blog perl programmers are likely to be most happy.http://thesaasguy.com/2009/09/perl-programmers-are-happiest.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-949162040674978652Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:11:00 +00002009-08-06T10:33:26.649-04:00opensourcecrowdsourceI had skimmed this article, on crowd-sourcing, by Michael Andersen few weeks ago and has been looking forward to reading and blogging about it. Andersen interviewed the key developer from Guardian of London to understand how they got 20,000 plus Brit's to help uncover the biggest political scandal to hit British shores in decades.Andersen interviewed the developer, Simon Willison, for tips abouthttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/08/four-crowdsourcing-lessons-from.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-103459860882249965Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:13:00 +00002009-07-20T09:29:12.101-04:00self-managementAsking the right questions can help subordinates gain confidence and be better contributors says Michael J. Marquardt, the author of Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).Judith Ross notes on HBR Blog that leaders need to ask questions that inspire folks to think in new ways, expand range of vision, and enable greater http://thesaasguy.com/2009/07/questions-managers-should-use-to.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-953828353194694747Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:14:00 +00002009-07-17T09:51:34.195-04:00self-managementI am mid-way in the book How we decide? when I started thinking, how I can improve my performance and learning abilities leveraging leading edge neuroscience? This is what I decided based on the evidence provided Jonah's book.After a project is delivered do a formal lessons-learned session (with or without your team)- the objective: to find at least 3 things you can improve on the project.Here http://thesaasguy.com/2009/07/how-to-improve-my-learning-ability-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-2844355757705517299Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:57:00 +00002009-07-14T07:04:06.946-04:00CPSIA complianceCPSIAI came across this good article in Arizona Republic (via overlawyered.com ) on the difficulties besetting small domestic manufacturers due to CPSIA compliance. Bumkin, a Scottsdale diaper maker, reports that it spends about 1000 USD for testing each batch of garment it buys and testing costs now contribute 25% of the product cost! Boon Inc, A Chandler toy maker that has spent $400,000 on http://thesaasguy.com/2009/07/testing-your-way-into-obliteration.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-564629109991280599Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:04:00 +00002009-07-08T07:13:54.211-04:00GoogleGoogle announced the launch of Chrome OS. It will run on both x86 and ARM chipson netbooks. It will be available in the second half of 2010.They say most operating systems we use today were designed in an era where there was no web. Therefore, they are going to design an OS that embraces the web - a natural platform for browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox.Google suggests that although the newhttp://thesaasguy.com/2009/07/google-launches-salvo-at-microsoft.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-5829103747141586278Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:41:00 +00002009-07-06T22:06:50.439-04:00Web2.0I have not blogged in a while, 29 days to be exact. I think it is fair to say I have been busy over the last few months. I (@TheSaaSGuy) have not been tweeting either !I was busy in the design, development, and launch of QLogitek's new English and French websites. The site was launched on May 29 thanks to the efforts of QL's development team and ops team. The design was done by a team from India,http://thesaasguy.com/2009/07/qlogitekcom-relaunched.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840705166373377486.post-1614372418260197656Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:30:00 +00002009-06-04T01:35:27.260-04:00salesI have been very busy over the last few weeks working on managing the design, development, and migration of QLogitek's new corporate website. Check it out.I hope to blog more frequently. In the mean while, check this video out....I think sales folks will especially resonate with this.http://thesaasguy.com/2009/06/must-watch-video-for-enterprise-clients.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jijesh)