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.
Five tips for picking SaaS CRM ecosystems
By: Denis Pombriant (@DenisPombriant)
Selecting a SaaS CRM solution often locks businesses into the ecosystem offered by their vendor of choice, making the decision an important one. Things to keep in mind include the size of the ecosystem, how many ecosystem solutions are made to “plug and play” with the primary solution, ease of purchasing CRM ecosystem software, the variety of offerings, and the API. And of course, for businesses planning to mix-and-match SaaS solutions, consider a data integration provider to facilitate connecting those systems.
Gartner: CRM software top priority for IT spending in 2013-14
By: Chris Kanaracus (@chriskanaracus)
Gartner recently reported on top priorities for IT spending in the coming year, and CRM took the number one spot over ERP and office suites. Gartner explains this shift in spending priorities by stating that companies are “”focused on customer retention/satisfaction and attracting new customers.” Their prediction is in line with the growing importance of catering services to the mobile and socially-empowered customer in our increasingly consumer-centric world. Now more than ever, understanding customers lies at the heart of any successful company’s strategy, and CRM lies at the heart of that understanding.
The Next Evolution of Integration Tools
By: Loraine Lawson (@LoraineLawson)
Loraine Lawson delves into the difference between data integration and application integration – two areas that have steadily converged. The bottom line is that data integration would theoretically send 1,000 records as one message, while application integration requires a more complicated implementation, and would send those messages as 1,000 individual records.
CRM Watchlist 2013 Winners: Social is as Social Does the Mainstream, Part 1
By: Paul Greenberg (@pgreenbe)
Paul covers the Social CRM winners for 2013, which include Attensity for listening and analytics, Gigya for adding a social layer to web infrastructure, and Jive for their solid product ecosystem and insight into consumer desires. An important takeaway from this article includes the fact that all CRM is now “Social CRM”, meaning all CRM solutions incorporate social channels. Additionally, even these top CRM players can benefit from improvements in analyst/media relations and defining a clear company vision.
SaaS: Pros, cons and leading vendors
By: Charles McLellan (@charlesmclellan)
For businesses considering SaaS as a solution for CRM, ERP, and other IT systems, they should consider all of the benefits and issues. Charles’ piece covers the positives to compare when selecting a vendor and switching to SaaS, including cost savings and accessibility, and the negatives such as data mobility and integration challenges.
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.
