CRM

Most ERP cloud projects to fail

2010s, CRM, Tech

I’m not a blind believer in what Garner publishes but many industry-leaders do give attention to their publications. I wonder what the effect on the market will be about this article?

Anybody who thinks cloud ERP is the answer to their monolithic, on-premises vendor pain is wrong – according to Gartner, anyway.

Gartner has projected a near 100 per cent fail rate for cloud ERP projects by 2018.

Ninety per cent of those rolling out what the mega-analyst has defined as “post-modern ERP” will succumb to the traditional ERP headaches of higher costs, greater complexity and failed integration by 2018.

Their Achilles Heel will be lack of an application integration strategy and related skills.

Arsenal and CRM returning £150 million from sponsorship deal

CRM, Football, Sport, Tech, Thought Provoking

It seems that Arsenal are already making back what they invested in their CRM system and Marketing Week reports that it was a key factor in the decision by Emirates to sponsor Arsenal.

he Premier League club announced plans to put a new CRM system at the heart of its marketing activity this year. Emirates, which will receive a number of additional marketing rights from Arsenal as part of its new deal, says the system will lead to more “effective” marketing campaigns through the club’s customer shop, Facebook page and stadium on match-days

It shows the increasing use of CRM by major football clubs in England and this will grow for the increasing amount of revenue that could be generated by fans who don’t attend games.

“If we stop associating members with ticket access that will change the game; it’s about fan experiences. We are investing in a CRM system to register interests and passions so we can then send those people on appropriate journeys of affinity and provide access at an appropriate level.”

The club is looking to pull together customer data from its customer shop, its 10.5 million Facebook fans and official Twitter account’s 1.5 million followers and target them with different offers and membership options as it changes its definition of club “membership”. It will also introduce social sign-ins across its digital platforms to help drive additional value through Facebook.

It would be interesting to know which CRM application they used. Probably not Siebel with all of the links to social networking that the system needs to work.

CRM doing well in the downturn

CRM, Tech

CRM market doing well in the downturn according to All Things D. No mention of Siebel/Oracle though…..

He notes that Microsoft’s customer relationship management product, Dynamics, is showing up in the small-business end of the marketplace, though it’s seen as “short on user interface and features.”

And even though there was little sign of any large deals closing, Keirstead writes that the chance of Salesforce ending the quarter with billings up by about 30 percent is “promising.”

Another good indicator: The results of German software giant SAP, a key Salesforce rival, which on Tuesday reported solid numbers that defied the economic conventional wisdom.

How Flickr was murdered

CRM, Photography, Tech, Thought Provoking, Web

Gizmodo has a fascinating article about what went wrong at Flickr and Yahoo’s failure in general to enhance all of those cool startups they bought in the late 2000’s.

This is the story of Flickr. And how Yahoo bought it and murdered it and screwed itself out of relevance along the way.

The lesson is clear – if you want your acquisition to continue to grow, concentrate on continued innovation first and corporate integration second. I see parallels with Oracle and all of the industry-leading companies (Siebel, Peoplesoft, etc) they bought. For corporate integration in Yahoo’s case read Fusion in Oracle’s.

The site that once had the best social tools, the most vibrant userbase, and toppest-notch storage is rapidly passing into the irrelevance of abandonment. Its once bustling community now feels like an exurban neighborhood rocked by a housing crisis. Yards gone to seed. Rusting bikes in the front yard. Tattered flags. At address, after address, after address, no one is home.

It is a case study of what can go wrong when a nimble, innovative startup gets gobbled up by a behemoth that doesn’t share its values. What happened to Flickr? The same thing that happened to so many other nimble, innovative startups who sold out for dollars and bandwidth: Yahoo.

Here’s how it all went bad.

I used to be quite active but I haven’t posted in months and visited in weeks. Interestingly, the last image I posted was an Instagram shot.
Iced bike
Read the full article here

Oracle Vs SAP

CRM, Tech, Thought Provoking

The Financial Times covers the Oracle Vs SAP courtcase which starts on Monday. What was particularly interesting if you work in this area and thought about developing some utilities what could bolt-on to any of that software is the last paragraph.

The theatre has obscured a more serious side to the TomorrowNow trial.

Through its lawsuit – and another case against a similar company called Rimini Street – Oracle has left a chill over the independent maintenance business, according to some analysts.

“Oracle is using that tactic to intimidate entrants into the market,” says Paul Hamerman, an analyst at Forrester Research.

With more than 70 per cent of his software revenues coming from maintenance and support, the tactic is understandable.

Shops track customers via mobile phone

CRM, Tech, Thought Provoking

The Times reports signals given off by phones allow shopping centres to monitor how long people stay and which stores they visit

The technology can tell when people enter a shopping centre, what stores they visit, how long they remain there, and what route they take as they walked around.

The device cannot access personal details about a person’s identity or contacts, but privacy campaigners expressed concern about potential intrusion should the data fall into the wrong hands.

Now this is what I call responding to your market.

In the case of Gunwharf Quays, managers were surprised to discover that an unusually high percentage of visitors were German – the receivers can tell in which country each phone is registered – which led to the management translating the instructions in the car park.