Every week, we’ll recount some of the best buzz around CRM and data integration. We’ll review our favorite articles and share the most pressing findings or key takeaways from each.
David Linthicum talks cloud integration and ‘big data’
By: Stephanie Mann, Assistant Site Editor of TechTarget
Stephanie recaps a discussion between David Linthicum, CEO of Blue Mountain Labs, and SearchSOA.com Site Editor Jack Vaughan. David provided some guidance on how to determine whether a system should reside on-premise or in the cloud, by evaluating their function and their required computational power. David also believes most security breach fears are a bit exaggerated – if the data gets out and won’t hurt you, perhaps you can choose a lower level of security.
CRM in a Customer-Empowered World
By: Christopher Bucholtz (@Bucholtz)
In this excellent article, Christopher suggests the nature of an expanding role of CRM. In today’s social world, customers want their problems addressed and questions answered, regardless if that person they ask holds a ‘customer-facing’ role.
To achieve this, Christopher believes that over time, CRM will expand from the traditional users to non-traditional users, like warehouse workers, the CEO, and everyone in between. He also predicts that mobile CRM will bring CRM everywhere, to enhance customer interaction any time, any place.
Salesforce.com, Enterprise Platforms, and the End of the End of Software
By: Josh Greenbaum (@josheac) Enterprise Applications Consulting
Josh tempers a bit of the Salesforce.com Dreamforce excitement, though he believes that the Salesforce framework sets customers on the right track.
He analyzes the announcements at the conference against his three criteria for platform success in the 21st century: a strong tool set and platform for staging apps, a critical mass of developers to build them, and an online commercial website where partners can sell the apps. From this perspective, he believes Salesforce is very nearly meeting his criteria, with a strong app market, active developers, and tools that are on the way.
But, he also astutely points out the ‘end of software’ can only be achieved with more software and declares an ‘End to the end of software’.
Ten Strategic CIO priorities for 2013
By: Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman), CEO of Asuret
Michael shares a great list of strategy areas for innovative CIOs compiled by Oracle. The first six are shared below.
- Simplify IT and Transform Your Spending: Kick the 80/20 Budget Habit
- Lead the Social Revolution: Drive the Social-Enabled Enterprise
- Unleash Your Company’s Intelligence: Create the Enterprise-Wide Opportunity Chain
- Embrace the Engagement Economy: Merge the Back Office and the Front Office into the Customer Office
- Future-Proof Your IT Architecture
- Upgrade “Cloud Strategy” to “Business Transformation Enabled by the Cloud”
Be sure to check out the full article for all ten.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Social CRM and the Social Enterprise
By: Louis Columbus (@LouisColumbus), Forbes contributor
Louis tackles the hits and misses from the recently released Gartner research on the Social CRM space. We won’t steal his thunder here when it comes to Louis’ analysis; we recommend you give it a read. To round out his piece, Louis suggests the leaders to follow in Social CRM and we couldn’t agree more. Be sure to follow Vala Afshar, Paul Greenberg, Esteban Kolsky, Mitch Lieberman, Brent Leary, Denis Pombriant, Brian Vellmure and Ray Wang.
There you have it, folks. What do you think? What was your reaction to the Gartner Social CRM Magic Quadrant? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter.
