Blue Ocean Strategy vs The Art of War Max Effgen, April 26, 2010 One thing I know about myself is that I am better when I have a full plate. To stay busy, I enrolled in the Evening MBA program at University of Washington’s Foster School of Business last fall. I have been impressed with the curriculum and faculty. The Blue Ocean Strategy… Continue Reading
Simple Truths: KYC Max Effgen, April 7, 2010 When you know your customer (KYC), good things happen. – Example, Client A increased user adoption to 70% of total call volume. ROI increase 25% in one quarter. When you know your customer, you can spot trouble a mile away. – Example, Client B re-organized and has a new executive… Continue Reading
Life isn’t… Max Effgen, March 13, 2010 Weekend thought… “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~George Bernard Shaw Continue Reading
“Joel on Software” blog is coming to an end Max Effgen, March 4, 2010 Big news that Joel Spolsky is ending his Joel on Software blog as announced in Inc. The money quote: To really work, Sierra observed, an entrepreneur’s blog has to be about something bigger than his or her company and his or her product. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. It… Continue Reading
iPad, the Kindle Killer? Max Effgen, January 29, 2010 Lots of chatter about iPad as the Kindle killer. The chatter is bunk. Kindle has a specific target audience, a niche. That niche loves the Kindle. Niche is the new critical mass. Look at some of the advantages Kindle has: Battery Life. Kindle can last up to 7 days without… Continue Reading
Keep it simple Max Effgen, January 6, 2010 One of my rules is to always consider the front office and the back office needs and desires of any CRM project. I recently came across a service process that generate a large volume of automated tickets. The process was over-engineered. Nearly all of these automated tickets were not true… Continue Reading
Cloud SLA Max Effgen, January 4, 2010 Taking a look back on Cloud Service Level Agreements (SLA) from approximately a year ago and seeing what has changed for the enterprise. The SLA is nothing new and have existed in information technology for many, many years. I can tell you firsthand that SLA remains critical to the selling… Continue Reading
Spot Instances Max Effgen, January 1, 2010 Amazon AWS announced Spot Instances of EC2 a few weeks back. I have been very interested in this concept. Auction pricing should be natural for the cloud computing utility model. They will be selling spare capacity from moment to moment. The cloud is attractive since servers often site idle. Sharing… Continue Reading
5 Questions Max Effgen, November 24, 2009 All consultants like to ask questions. Sometimes too many questions. Here are 5 that I keep on hand for initial client engagements. What do your expectations of a service provider? How do you see out team helping you address challenges and opportunities? Why are you changing providers? How do we… Continue Reading
CRM implementation priorities Max Effgen, November 9, 2009 The first priority of a CRM deployment should be to learn about existing customer data within the enterprise. It is obvious, but often overlooked. I often make it the top priority when scoping CRM services. Is all that customer data in all of the right hands? 99% of the time… Continue Reading