Every week, we 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.
CRM Watchlist 2013: Sweetest Suites Part 2 of 3
By: Paul Greenberg (@pgreenbe)
Paul Greenberg shares his thoughts on two Sweetest Suites winners, Oracle and SAP. Paul writes about SAP’s downward spiral, and then how they redirected themselves into relevance and competition with their November 2012 announcement of SAP Customer 360 Powered by Hana, and their game plan for social and collaboration in the cloud. Oracle, on the other hand, still needs to rectify the problem posed by Anthony Lye, their former President of Digital Platforms and Channels, leaving the company. Luckily, Paul also provided simple steps to solve the hole left by Anthony’s departure.
Companies Handling Cloud Integration Internally, Despite Skill Gap
By: Loraine Lawson (@LoraineLawson)
With companies rapidly jumping on the cloud bandwagon, one often neglected component of implementation is data integration. A survey by KPMG found that integration is the most prominent complaint for IT executives implementing cloud solutions, in large part due to a lack of in-house skill for integrating the cloud with existing architecture. Moreover, these brands are relying on their in-house skill for their integration needs. For companies such as these, the obvious answer is a solution like Scribe Software that provides easily managed data integration services across on-premise, hybrid, and cloud environments.
3 Big Data Opportunities For CRM Strategy
By: Jeff Bertolucci (@jbertolucci)
The rise in popularity of big data has led to many useful applications, including in the world of CRM practices. Jeff Bertolucci describes three major benefits of incorporating big data into CRM strategy, which include real-time analytics, interaction cultivation, and partnering with CRM staff. Overall, the investment in data scientists to draw meaning from big data will benefit companies who engage in these practices by leading to better analytics, better social media engagements, and improved CRM strategy.
Breaking Down Silos with — Who? SAP? Seriously?
By: Esteban Kolsky (@ekolsky)
SAP’s new Customer 360 solution allows for impressively easy segmentation of records. SAP is also an early adopter of marketing automation via rules processing, which leads to much less manual work on the user side and brings separate systems together into one.
B2B matchmaker: 8 love connections we’d like to see
By: Matt Heinz (@HeinzMarketing)
EXERPT: It’s been well-documented how much technology the chief marketing officer is already buying, and is expected to increasingly buy in the coming years. But the chief technology officer will continue to manage the overall corporate IT strategy, so these two leaders need to have a coordinated strategy to succeed. At minimum, they need to understand each other’s priorities and find common ground so each can get what they need without wasting time in turf battles.
Ponder this: traditional data center may rise again, thanks to cloud
By: Joe McKendrick (@joemckendrick)
Joe follows up on analyst Judith Hurwitz’s observation that today’s data centers have lost their previous use-case in today’s world with his own prediction that the rise of cloud computing may bring those centers back to relevance. Joe points out that data centers can be used for the management and protection of “systems of record” like ERP, CRM, etc. while cloud computing handles the “systems of engagement”, creating a hybrid environment to take advantage of both existing data centers and the cloud. An interesting and spot-on prediction!
We hope you had a great week! We’ll see you again soon with a roundup of all the movers and shakers in CRM and data integration news.
