Know your customer… Max Effgen, July 29, 2009 Maybe it is the record setting heat in Seattle today, but my mind is wandering over various experiences of my career. “Know your customer” is the mantra. When you know the customer, good things happen. – Example, Client A increased user adoption to 70% of total call volume. ROI increase… Continue Reading
IBM buys SPSS Max Effgen, July 28, 2009 The big news today was IBM’s purchase of SPSS. The implications are big in the predictive analytics space and for business intelligence in general. But there is another reason for this post. Back in 1994, I had interviewed at SPSS. My father suggested I send Jack Noonan a resume directly…. Continue Reading
Commercial Apps on Force.com Max Effgen, July 24, 2009 A lot of recent conversations on CRM have revolved around using cloud based platforms for xRM and other CRM extensions. It is a smart way to go. Check Architecting a Commercial Application on Force.com for a solid read on the topic. Continue Reading
Do you know Knouen? Max Effgen, July 15, 2009 So I know that one of my two readers uses Siebel for CRM. I had a very interesting and refreshing conversation today with Meetul Shah, CEO of Knouen (pronounced know-n’). You shold check Knouen OfficeSync for Siebel, an interesting sales productivity application for Siebel shops. If this is you (ahem),… Continue Reading
Bantam vs Gist Max Effgen, July 10, 2009 Came across Bantam Live: The Ultimate Social, Real-Time CRM @ TechCrunch this morning and have been thinking on it all day. My take is that it offers watered down features of Gist with the workflow features of most CRM tools. Is Social CRM important to the enterprise? Depends. If the… Continue Reading
Cloud Office on Monday? Max Effgen, July 9, 2009 via TechCrunch: Why Chrome OS Now? Because Microsoft Office In The Cloud Comes Monday. I have played around with the limited functionality of Office Live. It is good, not great, and about what I would expect from a beta. I had some formatting issues with some documents. Nothing major. Hopefully… Continue Reading
Highlights from Cloudforce Seattle Max Effgen, June 22, 2009 Finally getting back to Cloudforce Seattle and the tons of info learned last week. The message was clearly that Salesforce.com is not just applications. Cloudforce Seattle was all about the platform moving to the cloud. I have a notion that there will be several “clouds” in the future. Clearly, Salesforce.com… Continue Reading
Cloudforce Seattle Max Effgen, June 18, 2009 Attended Cloudforce Seattle today. Tons of great information and still processing it all. Usual Microsoft jabs by Marc Benioff, but nothing you likely have not muttered yourself. Lots of love for Starbucks and Amazon AWS from the Salesforce CEO. Some highlights: Visual Force, Model–view–controller (MVC) framework for custom user interfaces… Continue Reading
Google Apps in the enterprise Max Effgen, June 10, 2009 Interesting move in the cloud application space yesterday with Google’s announcement of Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook. An often touted problem of the cloud is “lock in”. The enterprise is looking to move beyond proprietary solutions and blend the best for their own competitive advantage. This announcement is the… Continue Reading
“Monetizing the Cloud 101” Max Effgen, June 10, 2009 Good read @ E-Commerce Times by Ed Sullivan Monetizing the Cloud 101: The Proof Is in the Profit. The article rightly points out that the advantage in the cloud is opening up your offering. Third-party developers can then create market-specific products. Apple is specifically mentioned; however, Salesforce.com and even Twitter… Continue Reading