A Business Lifeboat Strategy
In 1790, at about the inception of the US Constitution, the American lumber industry was centered in Maine, then part of Massachusetts. Overharvesting timber to meet the demands of a growing domestic market as well as a robust international market for ship masts, planking and other naval stores eventually started the industry’s westward migration, first to the […]
Some Non-Predictions for 2015
It’s that time of new year when you get deluged with analysts / bloggers predictions and prognostications. I join in most years, and of course there’s the IDC predictions process to contend with as well. This year I swore that I was skipping it. I’ve already done the new IDC “Futurescape” document and webcast with my […]
Why is Good Customer Service So Difficult?
This could easily be a rant based on some recent customer service experiences but I’m going to avoid that and instead look at what companies are facing today in trying to meet customer expectations. I read recently that Comcast has finally appointed a VP to try and address their extremely poor customer service (I’d say […]
Infor, A Company in Transition
I just returned from New Orleans last evening after attending Infor’s user conference Inforum (disclosure: Infor paid my travel expenses to the event, and is an IDC client). On the flight back I was thinking about what I saw, and what I’ve learned about Infor from my last several interactions with them, and wanted to […]
Disrupting Today’s Workplace – Part One
I laugh every time I write the title “future of work”, I mean, how presumptuous can one document / post / presentation be to outline the entire future of work. I’m going with “disruption of work” for this one. Oh well, titles aside, it’s a topic that I’m extremely interested in, and have been looking […]
Making Better Business Decisions Part 1
Most companies have a number of enterprise systems, whether that’s financial, human resources, payroll, warehouse management, customer service or any number of other transaction based software products. The point of those systems is to provide a way to automate and create repeatable process around the business workflows and execute transactions. For Industrial Age businesses creating […]
Are we there yet?
I am talking about the recession and recovery from it. Are we recovering yet? How much? Judging by the stubbornly high unemployment rates you might say no, not yet, or certainly not all the way. But those statistics are lagging indicators to a degree and what’s not showing up, because it’s anecdotal, is the number […]
Category “Killers”
I was part of a group of analysts Gartner started hiring in the mid 90s to expand their business applications coverage. It launched the Administrative Application Services (AAS), Customer Relational Management (CRM), Integrated Logistics Services (ILS), and several vertical ones starting in 1995. Its coverage of these areas started to get richer and soon there […]
Enterprise startups: Richard Branson’s expansive and practical advice
I talk with many enterprise startups who want advice or a write-up here. Virtually all these entrepreneurs radiate passion and enthusiasm for their product, company, and prospects for success. Unfortunately, too many of these companies do not possess a vision that is simultaneously expansive and intensely practical. With this in mind, I read with great interest […]
Technology and the Effective Marketer (Part 3)
In part three of this series I’ll focus on customer intelligence driven marketing and the proper use of data. In the “information economy,” data is created at an unbelievable pace, but to make some reasonable business use of that data is challenging. The concept of being a data driven business isn’t new, but there are […]
