Attract, Retain and Delight More Customers
Close more deals in less time, track your sales activities and access customer data from your mobile device. Grow your business with Zoho CRM.
Sign up now for a free 15-day trial.

Does Your IaaS Environment Have Sleeper Cells? March 21, 2012 As many active users of IaaS can tell you, IaaS, whether implemented by an external service provider or provided by an internal service provider team, arguably grants you much more control of the underlying technology "substrate" than other cloud deployment models. In some cases, this is a good thing.

Shepherding Content to a New E-Commerce Platform March 17, 2012 Following a stellar 2011 holiday season, and with U.S. retail sales having exceeded expectations in February, etailers have many reasons for optimism in 2012 and beyond. By any measure, e-commerce will continue to grow -- Goldman Sachs most recently predicted that global retail Web sales will reach nearly $1 trillion by 2013.

Unforgiven: Customers Need to Show Some Common Sense Too March 15, 2012 In the UK, supermarket chain Tesco is being pounded right now in social media channels because it's refusing to honor an erroneous online advertisement offering new iPads for about $65. The offer went viral, and now the backlash is viral, too. How Tesco responds will tell the tale. I'd recommend a sincere apology, a few well-phrased jokes poking fun at itself -- and an offer to make it up to those who still want to buy an iPad from them.

2011's Lessons for Holiday Retail 2012 March 10, 2012 OK, it's time to officially close the book on the 2011 holiday retail season and to shift our attention forward to 2012. For me personally, what makes it difficult to stop looking back are the new trends that emerged that will forever change holiday shopping: The empowered customer turned to multiple mobile devices to conduct mobile shopping; and social media sites such as Facebook proved they have an influence on consumer buying.

Feature Ignorance: Fast Track to a Wasted CRM Investment March 08, 2012 A friend of mine bought a car that is, to be honest, a lot more than he really needs. It has all the bells and whistles, wrapped in a lovely paint job and a plush leather interior. Yet every time I ride in it, I discover something that he's overlooked. Yes, Randy -- this would be where you plug in your iPod. Did you know you had a second glove compartment? This button's how you lock all the doors at once.

Shifting Sands in the Smartphone Market: What's an Etailer to Do? March 06, 2012 Online retailers that have committed to supporting consumers on their mobile phones are bracing themselves for a challenging year. Just as they thought it was a two-horse race for smartphone dominance between Apple and Google -- which enabled them to establish a neat mobile Web and app strategy -- a rejuvenated smartphone market is set to spoil their plans.

Online Retailers, Listen Up: Tips for Delighting Shoppers March 02, 2012 The Internet has become the world's largest shopping mall, and the market is continuing to grow. Q4 2011 U.S. retail ecommerce sales were up 14 percent compared with 2010, reaching nearly $50 billion for the quarter, ComScore recently reported. Total U.S. e-commerce sales are projected to reach $279 billion by 2014, according to a Forrester forecast. Moreover, the tablet has emerged as a lucrative shopping device.

How App Marketplaces Are Changing Software and the World February 25, 2012 Leave it to a comic strip, published 18 months ago, to allude to what has become a radical change in how technology is being adopted in the consumer world. Still, very few have recognized how this aspect would fundamentally transform enterprise software. When an ecosystem includes a marketplace or "app store," developers get direct access to customers.

The Curious Case of Big Data February 25, 2012 Daily, we create with every keystroke 2.5 quintillion bytes of data from sensors, mobile devices, online transactions, and social networks. Monthly, we express ourselves through 1 billion tweets and 30 billion pieces of content on Facebook. Geeks call this "big data," but astute businesspeople realize that this is a unique market opportunity. This curious case of big data has created new technologies, jobs and challenges.

5 Aspects of Your Business That Can Make or Break CRM February 23, 2012 I have a lot of fun writing about CRM -- the ideas, the tools and how they're brought together as a coherent strategy. CRM is a foundation on which to build relationships, layer on additional sales and support tools, and create a customer-centric business. But this foundation needs a foundation. After all, businesses thrived even before CRM technology was invented.

When in the Cloud, Trust - but Verify February 22, 2012 Quite a lot has been written about the importance of due-diligence in a cloud environment. Sometimes the importance of security and compliance-related vetting in the cloud is easy to justify, like when you're evaluating an off-premises public cloud hosted at a new service provider. Other times, executives might take some convincing.

Banks in the Crosshairs: 8 Ways Cybercriminals Outfox Strong Security Controls February 18, 2012 These days, cybercriminals are successfully circumventing advanced security controls with the precision of a sniper. In the crosshairs are banks, financial institutions, governments and enterprises. In a recent Gartner survey, 76 U.S. banks indicated that malware-based attacks were a growing problem and that fraudsters were able to defeat defenses such as advanced profiling systems.

Growing Into Social CRM February 16, 2012 The volume of oversized clothing I received as a kid from aunts, grandparents and family friends was astounding. Over time, I did actually grow into those clothes. Social CRM, for a lot of businesses, is like those gifts: It may not be a perfect fit immediately, but given time and the evolution of your business, you're likely to grow into it.

Enterprise Storage: IT's Next Revolution February 15, 2012 Enterprise storage is currently in the midst of a great transformation the likes of which has not been seen in well over two decades. There's been an unprecedented amount of activity in the storage space this year, with a host of promising new companies launching and major storage vendors beginning to drastically retool their architectures.

Riding the 5th Wave to Escape the Dead Hand of IT February 15, 2012 Dealing with naturally risk-averse and conservative IT policies becomes increasingly less desirable to consumers when compared to the types of enablement available to the adventurous as technology rapidly evolves. IT is left to languish unappreciated, a resource of last resort, with an insurmountable burden of legacy-induced maintenance, and no chance of being seen as anything other than an impediment.

Customer Focus Is an All-Hands Exercise February 10, 2012 Last week, after dropping off my Prius at the dealership for routine service -- as I've done regularly since I bought the car in 2007 -- I ambled over to the shuttle stop for a ride home. "Where you headed?" barked the driver, never raising his head from his newspaper. When I let him know where I was going, he immediately recognized me and his demeanor changed entirely.

BPM + HR = A Lean, Mean On-Boarding Machine February 09, 2012 Let's face it, even though it's 2012 and the recession technically ended in 2009, we're not out of the woods yet. If anything, this recession has made businesses of all sizes think critically about their processes and optimize their current resources to maximize efficiency. HR processes are no exception.

Enterprise Web Apps: The Next Generation February 08, 2012 When the bright folks at Zeebox, a killer social TV site, decided to build their website, they naturally turned to cloud services because they are a startup and had to use their money wisely. They also turned to the Scala language and open source community because they had very specific scalability and performance needs.

Meeting the Productivity Challenge in a Consumerized IT World January 31, 2012 Employees are growing more comfortable working from their own devices, particularly with the increasing adoption of portable technologies like the tablet computer. They are also accustomed to self-service delivery of applications in their personal lives, with almost instant access to apps and new services. IT managers need to learn how to get a handle on these devices rather than fight a losing battle with regulation.

No Rest for the E-tailer January 28, 2012 Your online store did record sales this past holiday and you are a happy person at the start of the year. After a few days of rejoicing, it is time to get back to the grind and look at how you can move forward and take your online store to even greater heights. There are a few fallouts of the holiday season that you will need to manage, and then there are some initiatives that you should plan.