
A Business Lifeboat Strategy
In 1790, at about the inception of the US Constitution, the American lumber industry was centered in Maine, then part of Massachusetts. Overharvesting timber to meet the demands of a growing domestic market as well as a robust international market for ship masts, planking and other naval stores eventually started the industry’s westward migration, first to the […]

Let’s make an antiserum for corona virus
If the corona virus pandemic has you in a funk, it’s time to think outside of the box for possible solutions. We’ve had the bejesus (a…Continue reading on Medium »

Customer service takes a turn
There’s an interesting article in the January/February issue of Harvard Business Review by Matthew Dixon and some associates from CEB, a consulting group, about customer service agents that I think is worth a look. Most of us understand the phenomenon that new customer service channels such as social, email, knowledge bases and the like have […]

Qualitative data—the other stuff
We’ve become obsessed with big data and analyzing it though sometimes I think we get in our own way. The issue is that we preferentially collect quantitative data as if it were the only thing worth the time. But in fact, quantitative data is but one kind of data and the information it provides gives […]

Looking forward
Traditionally in this piece I try to peer into my cloudy crystal ball and forecast the year ahead in CRM. Sometimes I’m close, other times not but my predictions are quickly forgotten either way. This year, I’ve decided to just say what I want rather than what might realistically happen and since my vote has […]

2016 In Review
CRM In CRM at least, I think last year will go down as an important turning point. For the last decade and a half we’ve been simultaneously building and destroying CRM first by linking all of the disparate databases to get that 360 degree view and then by adding important accessories like social and analytics […]

CRM and Government
Over the summer multiple events have pushed me to the conclusion that CRM and government are natural complements and that it’s just a matter of time before they meet. It would represent a huge opportunity for the industry and my full thoughts are available in this white paper. The common denominator is people. Whether we’re […]

Relax, You’re Surrounded
I don’t know how many old movies there are in which the good guys say, “You’re surrounded, come out with your hands up!” Somehow being surrounded is a bad thing, or at least it was until it became a hot trend in the back office. Let me explain. Surrounding legacy systems like conventional ERP is […]

CPQ’s Time to Shine
Configure, price, quote (CPQ) software was once a barely thought about branch of CRM falling under the heading of sales enablement. But lately, it’s been getting a lot of attention from a familiar source, Salesforce.com. The question is why? You can easily argue that many forms of business don’t require CPQ so that’s a possible […]

Solving for the Customer
You might remember Garry Kasparov, the last chess grand master to beat a computer. That was about 20 years ago when he went up against Deep Blue, the IBM megaframe that is the direct ancestor of Jeopardy!-winning Watson. A re-match between Deep Blue and Kasparov a year later did not go so well for the […]