Lead Software Community

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Nov 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Microsoft Corp. today opened Convergence 2008 Copenhagen, the premier Microsoft Dynamics customer event, with "The Dynamic Business," a visionary keynote address from Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions at Microsoft. As part of the keynote address, Tatarinov announced the general availability on Dec. 1 of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 and articulated the company's deep-seated commitment t... [read more]

SAN MATEO, Calif., Nov 20, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Businesses using Oracle(R) CRM On Demand now have automated access to a powerful business-to-business resource with the launch of Jigsaw for Oracle CRM On Demand. With a single-click, users can automatically export contact and company records into their customer relationship management (CRM) environment to enhance lead generation and prospecting capabilities. Jigsaw is a leading provider of business information and data services that uniquely le... [read more]

There is a new parlor game in Silicon Valley: guessing who will replace Jerry Yang at the helm of the troubled Internet giant Yahoo. Yang, a Yahoo co-founder, said Monday that he would relinquish the chief executive role once a successor is named and revert to being "chief Yahoo," the strategy position he held before his 18 turbulent months of running the company. But even before a new boss is selected, Yahoo has an even more fundamental decision to make, analysts and other Internet watchers s... [read more]

As deserted malls and department stores struggle to court cash-short consumers with steep discounts this holiday season, a similar and even more ferocious price war is being waged online. Internet retailers, trying to navigate what is shaping up to be the first truly dreary holiday shopping season on the Web, are engaging in price-cutting and discounting so aggressive it threatens their profit margins and, in some cases, their survival. For example, Sony introduced its HDR-SR11 high-definitio... [read more]

Contact centers are almost always under cost scrutiny, especially during slow economic periods, as the responsibilities they are charged with are still seen by many organizations as peripheral to their core functions. Yet unlike in the past, most senior executives now have a growing understanding of the value of contact centers provide, namely helping them to retain customers and their revenues and support. The challenge then becomes what are the best ways to reduce contact center costs and to k... [read more]

Interactive Intelligence Launches Interaction SIP Proxy 4.0 SIP can make communications environments in contacts centers more reliable, secure and easy to manage, areas that are being addressed with Interactive Intelligence's new Interaction SIP Proxy 4.0. The SIP proxy product handles routing interactions between servers in a SIP-based IP telephony environment. It's especially geared toward distributed enterprises and contact centers. It includes a new feature, source-based routing, that make... [read more]

David van Toor, senior vice president and general manager, Sage CRM Solutions North America, recently sat down to share some advice for creating online communities. DS: You've been in your role as Sage CRM Solutions senior vice president and general manager for just over a year now. What have you been focusing on? DVT: Ensuring our customers have a consistent experience whenever they contact us has been my primary focus. To start with, I've been working on relationships with our customers, bu... [read more]

No matter what your product or service, your company's image and brand is shaped by what your customers hear on the other end of the line. The impression they take away from that interaction will have an impact on your brand -- either good or bad. On the one hand, your contact center can be a priceless resource that sustains and cultivates loyal customers who have immeasurable lifetime value for your company. On the other hand, bad experiences lead to unhappy customers and can undo all the years... [read more]

When you encounter a phrase like "workforce optimization," it's understandable if your first impulse is to dismiss the term. The idea of optimizing something as abstract as a workforce seems to come from a mindset that perceives call center agents only as units of labor. But in practice, we don't aim to optimize agents. Instead, we aim to optimize how agents use their time. For a call center, the ability of agents to manage their time has greater implications than whether agents follow their sc... [read more]

Most people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West think of China and India largely as sources for inexpensive products and services. Few know that China, India, and other developing countries are taking center stage in the global war for innovation and talent. Consider some important benchmarks: Scientists and engineers in China, India, and Russia are now producing an estimated 150,000 scientific and technical papers annually, more than many Western European nations. According to a Thomson Reut... [read more]

Coming soon to a couch near you: laziness. TiVo and Domino's announced Monday that they're launching a service that allows you to order a pizza from your TV set-top box. Those who already have a Domino's account don't have to enter their address or name -- they just push a few buttons and wait for the pizza to arrive (they will have to get up off the couch to pay the delivery person, though). It's the latest in an onslaught of services that allow people to buy things from their TVs. In the next... [read more]

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed charges from Mac clone maker Psystar accusing Apple of running a monopoly. Psystar sued Apple in U.S. District Court claiming violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. The Doral, Fla.-based Psystar accused Apple of forcing a tie between the Mac OS X operating system and Apple's hardware in the end-user licensing agreement. Psystar argued that Apple's EULA unlawfully restrained trade by barring users from installing its operating ... [read more]

The world's largest consumer products company and the online search leader are working together to learn more about each other and about targeting customers. Procter & Gamble Co. said Wednesday it has done job swaps with Google Inc., and Google employees have been at P&G's Cincinnati headquarters helping with training. P&G spokeswoman Allison Yang said the company wants to reach more consumers who are increasingly online. "This is all about learning," she said. "It's about putting consumers i... [read more]

The admission by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg -- that the social network's optimum revenue model remains a mystery four years after its launch -- has raised some eyebrows. Despite claiming that it will double its revenue to between $300m and $350m this year, the question remains as to when, if ever, Facebook will turn a profit. Zuckerberg claims that growth of the network is the primary goal, and revenue secondary. He argues that social networks cannot be turned into money-makers in... [read more]

One of the biggest and glitziest shopping malls in Europe opened last week in London, in a test of British consumers' ability to keep spending during a steep economic downturn. The shopping center, Westfield London, is also shaping up as a vast experiment in making over the humble billboard. CBS Outdoor, a division of the CBS media conglomerate, has installed more than 100 digital advertising screens at Westfield, including a giant one covering 60 square meters, or 646 square feet. While elect... [read more]

Let's face it, customer publishing is not the most fashionable communications medium. Prejudices and myths abound -- many of them anchored in the past, others misguided, and a few that are just plain wrong. Let's discuss them. 1. Everyone's Not Creating, Everyone's Not an Editor With all the talk about Web 2.0, you might assume that the only content that matters is the user-generated stuff. Technology has enabled a new wave of content creators, but more content is not necessarily better. Bec... [read more]

Customer relationship management software programs can empower salespeople by streamlining their efforts and putting useful customer information at their fingertips to help them close a deal. But in order for CRM to be most effective, companies and their salespeople have to commit to learning the systems and doing their part to make them work. What CRM Can Do Vormittag Associates Inc. in Ronkonkoma [New York] markets and supports a CRM system as part of its full set of enterprise products. "... [read more]

During past downturns, layoffs were mostly a private affair. Big companies tended to issue vague news releases filled with jargon about "downsizing," and startups often gave people the pink slip without telling the world anything at all. Not anymore. In the age of transparency, the layoff will be blogged. Elon Musk, chief executive of the electric-car company Tesla Motors in San Carlos, California, said he had no choice other than to blog about the Oct. 15 layoffs at the company, even though ... [read more]

We all know it is much more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. In fact, studies indicate that it is somewhere between six and ten times more expensive. Companies that are fortunate enough to have a strong base of profitable customers should focus on a proactive approach to retention first with strong acquisition efforts as a second tier strategy. This approach to total lifecycle management brings out the best of both worlds -- a healthy growth rate combined with ... [read more]

A common theme throughout commercial enterprises is the emphasis placed on quality customer service and maintaining customer loyalty. At present, communication and financial services companies are doing a better job at using customer service as a strategic differentiator than other companies. This success is due in large part to the fact that they are more sophisticated and proactive in terms of the type and depth of contact center technologies that are implemented. Genesys Communications Labor... [read more]

Disaster planning and response, also known as business continuity, is one of those key functions that no one likes to think about, and which costs money to set up right and execute. Yet when these events happen, and they will, those contact centers that put in well-thought-out plans will either continue to operate or be back in business sooner, and with less downtime and total costs than those who had treated this matter as an afterthought. There are a great many tools available to help contac... [read more]

SAN FRANCISCO (Moscone Center), Nov 04, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ExactTarget, a leading provider of on-demand email and one-to-one marketing solutions, today launches a series of new integrated capabilities designed to simplify marketing automation for Salesforce CRM customers. The new capabilities give marketers the ability to automate their lead nurturing process with drag and drop interface to create dynamic web pages and lead capture forms. Marketers can also effortlessly aggregate data from ... [read more]

NEW YORK, Nov 07, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- LodgeNet Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: LNET) and Control4, the leader in IP-based control systems, today announced the ultimate personalized guest experience in the hotel room. Through a single advanced remote control, guests will have the ability to access and control the television, video on demand, music, smart lighting, window treatments, temperature, concierge, security and more. "Hoteliers are increasingly focused on managing ... [read more]

The 2008 contest for the White House may go down in history as the first social media election. How else to explain the unprecedented role the Web played in this year's Presidential contest, an influence scarcely imaginable just four years ago? In 2004 many social networking sites were just getting off the blocks. YouTube, for example, was introduced early the following year. And microblogging sites like Twitter wouldn't emerge until the 2008 Presidential campaign was getting under way. It's no... [read more]

Microsoft Corp. expects its Beijing research center to start producing breakthroughs that could lead to global products in health care and other areas, the software giant's chief research officer said Wednesday as the center marked its 10th anniversary. Microsoft is part of a wave of companies that are expanding research and development in China to serve its fast-growing market and take advantage of a huge Chinese talent pool of scientists and engineers. Microsoft says its Beijing center, one ... [read more]