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 […]
A P2P Implementation Guide: Avoid the “Dumb Ways to Die”
Given YouTube’s rising influence – or at least the time we’re all wasting watching silly clips – we decided to honor the namesake viral video with a Spend Matters research paper titled: A P2P Implementation Guide: Avoid the “Dumb Ways to Die.” Our thesis is that far too many companies get themselves into trouble with […]
Dreamforce 12: Social business capabilities evolve in the cloud
Like we needed more confirmation that the cloud is where so much of our businesses are shifting. The evolution of Salesforce is just another proof point that social business will largely exist there too.
The Skills Gap; Building a Social Business
In the recent IDC annual social business survey (June, 2012, N=700) we found that 67% of North American companies were using / implementing social solutions. That’s a huge number and up 25% in only a year. With this rapid increase…
Research: Spotlight on social media risk management
A new report by Altimeter Group sheds light on the importance of risk management as applied to social media.
How Tough Will Analytics Be in Ossified Firms? (Part 2 of 3)
Part 2 of 3 – How tough will it be to get value out of analytics? For some firms, it will be grim. Great insights are only going to be helpful to firms that can change.
Customer Service, the New Marketing in the Era of the Social Customer
Okay, I’m not the first person to write about this idea, but it has been on my mind lately, so I wanted to share my perspective on what I think is a very important change that is starting to occur for businesses and customers. The social customer is a term that is used quite a […]
