Technology is an Enabler

First of all, what is an enabler?  For good or ill, an enabler is something or someone that helps (enables) something to happen.   Technology by itself does nothing.  It sits there.  A very expensive piece of software or a cute looking smart phone that does absolutely NOTHING.

Until a human being picks up the tool -- from the invention of the wheel to the invention of the iPhone -- nothing happens.  A tool is only as good as the person using it.

The wheel is a prime example.  A wheel can be used to power a wheelbarrow, allowing heavy items to be transported with relative ease on one wheel being pushed by a human.  A wheel is the basis of many simple machines.  Take two wheels, a large wheel rigidly secured to a smaller wheel or shaft, (called an axle) and you have a modified lever.  It is the two wheels, the wheel and axle that allows a car to  travel many miles or kilometers an hour as the wheels turn and turn again, moving the car forward.

But without humans doing something the wheel is just a round do-nut that sits there looking pretty.

What is true of the wheel is true of every machine ever built, or which will ever be invented.  People have to use them, and use them wisely for them to do anything at all.

Somehow when it comes to technology people forget it is simply a tool.  Many people seem to expect technology to magically improve their lives.

Technology is not magic.   It is just another enabler which can help only if we first examine what we need, how we are fulfilling that need today -- and only then asking the question "can technology" make this job faster, more efficient, cost less to do -- or somehow make me more money by letting me do this job faster.

I am a huge fan of CRM (customer relationship management).  Yet 70% of all CRM implementations fail.  70% fail!  Can we blame all this failure on the tools?  Or are people expecting too much of the tool itself?

Everything starts and ends with people.  CRM can be a fantastic tool, but you have to think of what your business does, and how you make money today.  Then and only then can you even consider if technology can help you do the job better.

Smartphones and CRM

Have you ever noticed that the world just seems to be changing faster and faster all the time?

I'm a big fan of the British television show, "Doctor Who." The premise of the show is that a time lord travels throughout time and space -- from ancient times to tens of thousands of years into the future.  "The Doctor" is a mysterious time traveler whose life is often lived "backwards" as he appears in places where people may know him, but he hasn't met them in "his" life yet.  It must be very confusing.

Sometimes I can relate to the Doctor.

The way our world is moving so quickly it is hard to "keep up" with the technology and how it changes us.  Technology changes the way we work, how we interact with our own families and how we shop.

The idea behind CRM (customer relationship management) is that vendors, to be successful, must know who their customers are and why they buy what they buy.  In the "old days" a small town might have had one butcher, one baker and one candlestick maker.  A customer was known by name and the vendor (say the candlestick maker) knew what kind and color of candle Mr. Jones bought or Mrs. Smith acquired.  CRM was just a part of the small customer base and the small proprieter.

Today we live in a world of Wal-Mart and Best Buy, not to mention Amazon.com and Buy.com .   We customers are anonymous, and if we are anonymous we may only shop one time and never return.  To gain our loyalty these large retailers must understand "who we are" by our buying habits, our demographics and our past buying habits.

Have you ever noticed when you visit Amazon's website that (if you've shopped there before) the website recommends new purchases to you based on what you've bought before?   Smart marketing, and a good application of CRM.

The days of shopping online via our PC alone has already changed and CRM must change along with it.

Gartner Group, a research company specializing in high technology,  is predicting that mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common way to access the Internet by 2013.  This has both a huge impact on what vendors will require from CRM, as well as a huge opportunity to sell us more, while also making us happier by meeting our needs in "real time."  Customer loyalty and customer retention benefits from CRM tied to smart phones is an enormous potential -- and the holy grail of CRM.

Smart phones use both push and pull technology.  Pull technology is when a phone user goes online via the phone and searches for an address or driving directions.  They have proactively "searched" (or pulled) data from the internet.  Perhaps they are looking for a nearby drug store.  Perhaps they are searching for a certain product (perhaps a Wii game for their child).  As the person runs the search CRM is at work.

Now "push" technology comes into play.  An add for a Wii game sale is sent to the phone via GameStop or Wal-Mart.  The user checks local prices and sees how close each vendor is to them (pull technology.  GameStop is say 1/2 a mile away and Wal-Mart is 3 miles away).   A 15% off coupon is sent to the phone by GameStop (push technology).

And so it goes.   The future is the past, and soon the mega-stores may know you as well as the local candlemaker ever did.

The potential value of combining CRM, smartphones, GPS and unified communications to empower the customer while ensuring even higher customer loyalty is staggering.   The opportunity is there, if CRM is properly utilized.  The winners will do it.  The losers will be gone.

The World is Upside Down

This blog spends a lot of pixels on the topic of CRM (Customer Relationship Management).  How can companies manage their customers.  How can we keep current customers loyal and retain them?  How can we find new customers who will be profitable and love us and stay with us?

Simple answer?

You can't.

You don't really manage customers anymore -- if you ever did.  Perhaps the idea was always unreasonable.

Customers are people.  Newsflash.

People are unpredictable.  People are not, by nature, loyal.  If they were the divorce rate wouldn't be at 50%.

People only care about what they care about NOW.  Today.  If you are selling Christmas trees to Jews they won't care.  They don't use them (well, some do but not many).

Customers buy what they WANT to buy and the key today is not in trying to manage your customers but in understanding who they are, what they want (or need) and making it easy for them to be in the right place at the right time with the right story.    Story is key here -- because customers need to be able to find what they need when they need it.

And it needs to be simple.  Simple for customers to understand what your widget is.  Easy for them to understand why it matters to THEM (not you, they could care less about you) and then make it easy for them to get to the end result of what they want.   Intuitive (like a iPod, like a GUI (graphical user interface) versus a c: prompt).

The customer is now in charge of the world.  Realize it.  Embrace it.  So now more than ever is "know thy customer" and realize that while you need them, they don't need you.  Unless you give them a reason to need you.

CRM or BPM?

Last week I had the chance to travel to beautiful Cambridge, MA.  Years ago AT&T sent me to MIT for various business courses, but I hadn't been there in years.  Coming from Orlando with its 100 plus degree days it was a pleasure to walk by the Charles River along with many others.  The weather was perfect and I wasn't the only one enjoying the gorgeous day.

I was in Cambridge to visit with Pegasystems, the leading BPM (business process management) software leader.  Pega (as they are known) boasts major customers including Bank of America, three or four of the "Blues" (Blue Crosses) and many others.

BPM automates common work practices -- and since many companies are like silos -- marketing is independent of sales is independent of engineering is independent of shipping, most processes that cross departments (and don't they all?) get there via email, voice mail, forms, excel spreadsheets. . .  Even when the systems are the same the receiving department has to proactively pull the work into their world.

BPM not only automates processes across organizations, but using quality improvement methods and workflow automation work gets done faster and more efficiently -- thus saving time and money.  In the world of government regulation (such as Sarbanes-Oxley aka SOX) where companies had to keep a tighter track of financial information for auditing purpose) being able to not only automate processes, but to track them becomes a necessity.

Pega is #1 in the BPM software world with their  SmartBPM® product.  Their president, Alan Trefler was named “Computer Software Executive  of the Year” at the 2009 American Business Awards.  So in the world of BPM they are not only the market leader, but the thought leader.  Pega is the leader in the Gartner Group "Magic Quadrant" for BPM.

Recently Pega has dipped its toe into the CRM (customer relationship management) world with their solution CPM (Customer Process Manager).  They have build a contact center customer service support module on top of this BPM engine.   While certainly not a "threat" to the more complete CRM vendors who go beyond the customer service space, the Pega solution is the next logical step for CRM.

Today's CRM solutions are, for the most part, records based.  Whether we're talking of Siebel (Oracle), Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics CRM they all start by creating a record.

Remember those corporate silos I mentioned a few paragraphs ago?  All that great customer information winds up "usable" beyond the CRM application only if it is in a field in said record.  Otherwise that valuable customer "gold" becomes embedded in notes that a CSR or sales rep makes of the contact, and are only available to those who sit and read those notes.

What Pega's CRM does well is to integrate end-to-end customer-facing processes across not only departments but existing applications.  If you already have Siebel and an (enterprise resource planning) ERP solution and a (supply chain management) SCM solution you can bring in Pega underneath them to streamline the hand off of a sale or problem resolution across organizations.  Over time you can begin to implement some of their desktop apps that can be very easily modified on the fly.  The power of Pega's ability to pull this off is shown in their 50% plus growth in the last year.

The most amazing thing about Pega is that they are aimed at the big companies --  1,000 plus users.  Many CRM applications simply can't scale to large implementations, but Pega can -- and it does so based on an open architecture (java).

Pega does have competitors in this new CRM hybrid space.  Chordiant and Sword Ciboodle (a really excellent offer from a Scottish company who is making inroads into the States) to consider along with Pega if the process oriented CRM approach makes sense in your company.

The traditional CRM vendors have noted the interested a hybrid BPM / CRM approach and all have some iteration of it on their product roadmaps.    If you're interested in the CRM world, take a look at Pega, Chordiant ans Sword Ciboodle to get a feel for your future.

CRM the Contact Center and Unified Communications Get Real

A few blogs ago I wrote about the natural link between the contact center and unified communications.

Unified Communications (UC) can empower the contact center by directing nontraditional call center calls to the center.  Most people think of UC as a way of combining multiple contact points for one person to a single point of contact (thus John Smith’s office phone, cell phone, email, IM, etc. can all be directed to “ring” on his cell phone).   In the lives of busy executives (or even busy sales people) there are people whose calls don't merit being directly to you "live."

Traditionally UC would route such a call to a secondary point such as voice mail or email.  If you put a contact center into the mix the call can be routed to a live person who can try to resolve the need (whether a sale or customer service) thus improving customer service at a lower price point (executives and sales types tending to be expensive).

SearchCRM has an article about Eastman Chemical doing exactly what I suggested.  Eastman Chemical uses the SAP CRM contact center solution and claims to be deploying unified communications in the contact center.  The article doesn't give details as to HOW they are using UC or even whose UC they might be using.      The SAP Duet product has some presence capability "built in" partnering with Microsoft OCS, so this could be what is in use, but the article doesn't say. Possibly it is SAP NetWeaver.  Unfortunately the article is short on details and a search of SAP didn't turn up anything either.

Maybe someone from SAP can enlighten us?

Datamonitor’s “Market Share Insight: The Contact Center Universe,” writes that Aspect (a UC vendor) has 29% of the  outbound contact center marketshare.  If you go to Aspect's home page you'll see them heralding UC.    Aspect leverages Microsoft's UC including Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 (Microsoft's UC platform), Microsoft® Active Directory™ for single sign-on and authentication and  Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 for unified messaging (UM).

What is the difference between UC and UM?  UC = unified communications, the ability to unify live and passive forms of communications (office phone, cell phone, email, voice mail, etc.) to direct important people to the live person wherever he or she may be.  For example, an executive needs to speak to a key employee, but that employ is away from his (her) desk.  In earlier times the executive would either leave a voice mail or try to "zero out" to an admin who could search various cell phones, home phones, etc. trying to find the employee.

Unified communications allows its users to direct their various points of contact (office phone, email, etc.) to where they currently are (home, cell phone, client office. . .).  The end user can selectively allow only key people to access them "live" re-directing others to a secondary resource such as voice mail or a contact center.

Unified messaging (UM)  is an older technology that may be a subset of UC.   UM brings together  different electronic messaging technologies such as email, SMS, voice mail, video messaging and even faxes.  Using UM a "road warrior" can dial into voice mail and have email read to them electronically.  Likewise, voice mail can be left as an MP3 file on email or in some cases converted to text.    It is not as "live" and immediate as UC and is more advantagious to the receiver of the message than the sender.

UC brings sender and receiver together without "phone tag" or enless messages -- giving it the power of much faster response to sales opportunities and problem resolution.

At any rate, it is interesting that the value of combining the contact center with UC is getting more and more attention.  Thought you might want to know.

Unified Communications: Part 2

And the shake out in Unified Communications (UC) continues!

In the early days of UC Siemens worked closely with Microsoft. This was in the days of LCS (live communications server), not the current Microsoft OCS.   As time went by Microsoft cozied up to Nortel (for those who don't know, Nortel used to be Northern Telecom which was the Canadian AT&T in ancient times).  In the days before Cisco began to eat traditional telephony vendors' lunch (Avaya, Nortel, Siemens aka Rolm) Nortel was one of the big two competitors to the AT&T equipment spin-off, Avaya.

So when the honeymoon between Siemens and Microsoft ended with the release of Microsoft OCS which was targeted as a competitor to Siemens' highly acclaimed UC product, OpenScape, Microsoft tapped Nortel as its technology and channel partner in UC.

Musical chairs!  Fun to watch from the outside, but not only confusing to outsiders but job threatening to IT folks who hitched their career star to the wrong vendor!  There is a reason IBM has ruled in the IT space for about fifty years and it is FUD.

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

FUD means no one got fired for buying IBM even if they didn't have the best solution out there.  Sometimes if one is on the IT hot spot it makes more sense to buy the safe choice rather than the best and right choice for your company.

Well, the Nortel / Microsoft alliance didn't turn out to be a life saver for Nortel.  Read the news lately?  Nortel is on the block -- the sales block!  Just as Avaya went private and Siemens was (mostly) bought out now it is Nortel's turn.  Nortel went into bankruptcy in January, 2009 and now Nortel Networks Limited is looking for a buyer.   Nortel's Enterprise Solutions is its second largest revenue source  -- and has a whopping 59% of the American market share (per Dell'Oro Group).

With Nortel on the block many of its partners are moving to Avaya.  Carol Giles Neslund, Avaya's North American channels VP, claims that 19 of  Nortel partners (including 10 of their biggest partners)  have signed up to Avaya (17 in the U.S and 2 in Canada).

Also on the chopping block is Nortel's wireless assets for $650 million to Nokia Siemens.

To add to Nortel's woes (as if they needed more headaches) Microsoft just inked a four-year agreement with Hewlett-Packard (HP) worth $180 million in enhancements to their joint unified communications solutions. What does that mean for that much ballyhooed Nortel/Microsoft UC partnership?  You might ask Siemens who was Microsoft's ballyhooed UC partner prior to Nortel.

Nortel isn't going down without a fight.  No sooner did Nortel sell its wireless group to Siemens it turns around and announces Release 3.0 of its SCS unified communications solution!   Right on the heels of this Nortel announced that Telecom Liechtenstein (obviously in Liechtenstein!) had invested in Nortel's UC offer - in its partnership with Microsoft -- integrating Microsoft's OCS with Nortel's voice communication ifrastructure.

So what is my advice to potential unified communications buyers?   First, look at the ROI and value to your company.  Even if you choose a UC product whose vendor goes bankrupt or is acquired if the product meets your needs and has a fast enough "payback" I'd still consider it.  Technology is always changing and the good news is that these days most if not all are standards based.

Unlike the good folk in Liechtenstein I don't know if I'd short list Nortel until it gets acquired or things get clearer, but Microsoft is in UC for the long haul.  OpenScape by Siemens has a user face interface which integrates with third-party unified messaging as well as instant messaging applications, such as Jabber.  OpenScape works with Microsoft's OCS and IBM Lotus Sametime. Openscape partnered with IBM when Microsoft chose to embed part of Nortel's UC offering into OCS.  Siemens OpenScape is embedded as part of IBM’s Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony UC solution.

If you have a Genesys(of Alcatel-Lucent) contact center, the good news is that Genesys has UCConnect connects their contact center software with UC offerings from their parent (Alcatel-Lucent) company's MyInstant Communicator, IBM Lotus Sametime, Microsoft OCS and Siemens OpenScape.   So even if you choose a UC that goes away due to a merger or bankruptcy if you have a UC connect ability you can disconnect from one UC offer to another without disaster to the contact center.

Odds are that Nortel and its UC offer won't disappear any time soon.  Most likely this part of Nortel will be bought by someone -- maybe Avaya.  The latest rumor is that MatlinPatterson Global Advisors may buy them out compleely.

For now, if I were looking at UC offers, I would look at Nortel, but I'd do so with knowledge aforethought.

The Lazy Hazy CRM Days of Summer and the Holy Grail of Unified Communications

This is the first entry in awhile.  After my last blog the folks at IT Toolbox asked me to begin a blog for them on the topic of CRM.  "Making Cents and Sense of CRM" is focused on how CRM has gone from being the next great invention to improve corporate ROI since the invention of ERP (enterprise resource planning) into a mess of all kinds of applications that have nothing to do with one another (from sales force automation (SFA), to customer service, to business intelligence, to contact center. . .).  You name a solution and no doubt someone has called it "CRM."

This mis-use of the term has caused the market to falter.   Why would people buy something when they either don't know what it is supposed to do, or when it over promises and under delivers?

I think this is where the expression "duh" aptly fits.

So as I sit in Central Florida in 100 plus degree heat (farenheit) pondering how soon I can get back to the beach or at least the pool I've been focusing on the question of whether we need to "re-label" real CRM or whether we can save it with a hail Mary pass?

That "hail Mary" may be tying CRM with Unified Communications.  We've discussed this a little bit before -- how the ability to provide accessibility to people where ever they are from a  "virtual" office phone or email address makes the ability to improve customer service. . .but let's take a look at some "real world" examples.

Toshiba just announced their  Unified Communications Suite, Strata® CIX™.   ShorTel (a VoiP vendor) recently linked their UC to their call center quality assurance processes.   Why are vendors big and small suddenly jumping on the "CRM / UC" bandwagon?

Well, a survey by Computerworld Hong Kong showed that users are worn out from accessing multiple communications points (email, voicemail, cell phone, office phone, etc.) only to be bombarded by people that keep them from getting their work done, while getting to important things and people "too late."   The survey found that 55% were using IM (instant messaging), 42% were using video conferencing, and 29% were using person to person tools that were created original for home use (like Yahoo! and Microsoft Messenger).

While hte survey shows that people need UC (and may even WANT UC) they still don't understand what it is!

Forrester Research also conducted a survey and their's showed that most small and large companies still are uncertain about the benefits of UC!  Forrester surveyed 2,187 North American companies and 55% (55%!) were confused about what it was, let alone its value to them!

Wow, here we are contemplating how to get CRM out of the mess of "what is it and why do I care?" when it has enormous potential to improve the bottom line, when unified communications perhaps has a faster ROI (probably less overall over time, but a huge, quick payback for UC) but no one knows exactly why!

Amazing!

Granted the economy is confused right now and some companies are in panic mode -- but this makes both UC and CRM even more compelling given the ROI -- especially with a shrinking workforce.  Yet 55% are confused about the VALUE of Unified Communications?

Wow, we are sure lousy communicators!

Ellen Daley, (the Forrester Research analyst who authored the report) said: "There's been a 21% increase in UC pilots since 2007 but no increase in firms buying UC. A lot of people are talking about UC, a lot more are tipping their toe in; but at the same time they're all saying they're not sure about the value."

Folks, we can't throw technology at a problem and hope that fixes things!  UC and CRM both hold enormous potential for companies but ONLY if correctly applied to a specific business NEED.  Pilots alone are worthless if the pilot isn't part of a business problem and specific success criteria applied to the pilot.

Far too many IT vendors sell to the TCM (telecommunications manager), or the CIO (Chief Information Officer) or some other technical manager.  Definitely we need to be talking to these folks, but the REAL buyers of UC and CRM are in Marketing and Sales.  These areas are outside of the comfort zone of man typical IT sales person.

UC and CRM vendors need to move up the totem pole and start cross selling into sales and marketing (and perhaps even the CFO and CEO).  If you don't know how to get there and have a compelling story when you do -- prepare to fail.  Sit by the beach or pool in these lazy, hazy days of summer and prepare to sit there during the blizzards of February (or in my case, Disney's Blizzard Beach).

If you lack the ability to get outside of IT you'd better partner with someone who can.

Or we'll attend the funeral of your awesome CRM or UC product -- along (perhaps) with the whole field. See you at the beach!

CRM and Unified Communications

My last blog focused on how Unified Communications (UC) can empower the contact center by directing nontraditional call center calls to the center.  Most people think of UC as a way of combining multiple contact points for one person to a single point of contact (thus John Smith's office phone, cell phone, email, IM, etc. can all be directed to "ring" on his cell phone).  This is the common way UC is explained, and it can be very valuable -- but it can also result in TMI (too much information).

Everyone may be created equal, but we can't give all of our customers, peers, bosses, and the world at large equal access to us or we'd never get any work done.  We need to prioritize who can contact us and how.  Thus with UC we can identify specific people (our boss, our spouse, our key customer) to reach us at our #1 end point (maybe that cell phone) while other important people get directed to voice mail -- or as I pointed out in my last blog -- this is a perfect opportunity to now direct those folks to a contact center where an inside sales rep or pool admin can hopefully handle their needs in one call (OCR = one call resolution).

So there is a natural marriage between UC and CC (contact center).

Where does CRM come into play?

CRM (customer relationship management) has become such a muddied term.  It has become far too generic.  To some it does mean contact center software (and it can be that), to some it means the software or software as a service (SaaS) that outside sales reps use to keep track of their accounts, where they are in the sales cycle, etc. -- and that is a good definition. . .but CRM is much bigger than that.

CRM is really broken into two broad categories:  "front office CRM" and "Back office CRM."

Front office CRM are the applications that actually touch the customer directly -- the voice on the phone in the contact center, an internet interface where they can place an order, customer service (again online or over the phone) or the live customer service rep (CSR).  Any part where the customer is directly interfacing with your company is a form of "front office CRM."

And a logical touchpoint for UC and CRM to link.

The holy grail of the contact center for years has been OCR - one call resolution.    Any problem that isn't resolved in one call, or any sale that can't be closed in one call ("we have an internet special where for the same price you are paying today you can add XYZ. . .") costs lots of money.  Any customer service call that takes too long or requires "follow up" also begins to alienate your customers making them more inclined to leave you for another firm.

UC can dramatically improve the goal of OCR -- whether that "one call" is a phone call, an internet access or even your face to face outside sales rep.

It all has to do with the "hand off."  Inside a contact center this can be done with intelligent routing (which is really what UC is in a larger scheme of things).  We route the call to the most logical, not the first available, agent.   With UC we are now moving beyond the barrier of the contact center and able to route the call to best person no matter what department they work in, or even WHERE THEY ARE physically.

Setting up skills routing takes time, but the rewards are immense both in customer satisfaction and in cost reduction.

All of this so far focuses on the connectivity between front office CRM and UC, but back office CRM can increase this cost reduction by quantum factors.  Using a data warehouse (or perhaps data mart) to identify your most profitable customers you may choose to always route them to a specific department or person -- not blindly treating all customers the same but giving platinum treatment to platinum customers.

By contrast your lower value customers (in margins) can always be routed through an IVR (interactive voice response) unit and routed to newer agents. . .  The dirty little reality in sales is that there are some customers that are not worth having because the amount of work they require (and work = expense to your company) may mean you actually lose money by having them as a customer.  Back end CRM identifies who is profitable and thus worth retaining.

One to one marketing is a myth.  We do not market to all of our prospects and customers in the same way and we shouldn't.   Back end CRM's information on customer profitability can help determine who we route to whom in our dynamic, unified communications world.

This blog is speaking in generalities -- as if we had all the money and time in the world to link all of these disparate systems together.    The good news is that many of these systems are already begining to be linked -- Cisco with Salesforce.com, Aspect with Microsoft,  Avaya and SAP, Nortel offers integration to Microsoft Dynamics CRM and implemented Dynamics internally.   The idea is to take advantage of the technologies you may already have in place such as a legacy  Siebel implementation maybe using AT&T's Siebel Solutions offer) to improve relations with your customers and business partners through a streamlined "one call resolution" that goes far beyond the silos of "outside sales," "engineering," "customer service" across your business.

Unified Communications and the Contact Center

First we went from Call Centers which were either inbound or outbound (e.g. you were calling someone or they were calling you). Then we moved to "contact" centers where the thought was that customers could communicate with your company over the phone (call center) or email -- or maybe even via "live chat" over the internet.

Contact, whether by keyboard or voice!

The problem is that most contact centers didn't spring up instantly (like the goddess Athena who was born full grown out of the head of her dad, Zeus). Most start small and grow -- or we wind up with multiple call centers in various places (including India or China) that use different technologies. Some happened through mergers, some just over time. We have silos of information. Islands floating off by themselves.

All of these islands of contact points (distributed call centers, email, live chat, etc.) were put in place to reduce costs and yet still give decent customer service. To further complicate our global customer base we also have employees who telecommute or live in various cities.

How can all this complexity be unified? How can we simplify?

For one we make all these multiple points of communications (voice, email, fax, live chat) available from one point. When a customer (or employee) reaches out they make one connection and find the end point they need. No more phone tag. No more voice mails left on office phones and cell phones and punching "0" in the hopes of finding a live person who can help.

No more "let me transfer" you and getting disconnected.

Unified Communications brings the promise of true customer service at both reduced costs and high satisfaction.

Let me give a live example from my own life. A major credit card company (who shall remain nameless) has the world's worst call center. When calling in one is first faced with IVR hades. Push "1" for this "2" for that, and oh please enter for 17 digit credit card number and expiration date. . .and what was your mother's maiden name again???

By the time one reaches a human being (IF one reaches a live human being) the frustration level is high. The first agent invariably does NOT have your credit card number or mom's name so you have to repeat the exercise. Invariably again this agent cannot help you but must transfer you to another department.

Many times in this "transfer" I have been disconnected and have to start the entire misery again. Oh, yes, one can try to do this over the internet but the interface is clumsy and results in much the same result.

Assuming one does get transferred one must again repeat the information. It is the lucky person indeed who does not face a third transfer! This credit card company is so poorly IT challenged that they were unable to give me a record of a charge and suggested I call the retailer for it! This after being transferred numerous times only to be told they didn't have the very basic tools of their own business!

Now envision this contact center if it had unified communications. If you are a VIP you might have a direct connection in to a specific workgroup, but if not one can bypass the IVR rapidly and get to a live agent who has in front of them your information (on one of many CRM applications). That one person should have access to any and all information, but just in case they do need to transfer you they can see visually who is available and they can stay on the line with you as they hand off the call with the new agent.

COMMUNICATIONS. Not frustration! In this example my credit card record would have been emailed, faxed or snail mailed to be automatically. None of this is future and none of it is unrealistic. It is all available today and I dare say the credit card company in question would have saved considerable money considering the number of agents who handled (or mishandled) my call.

Internet Marketing -- at home at work and on your cell phone

July 2007 McKinsey published a report on how companies are marketing online.

The results are intriguing.

Although most savvy companies are using some form of online marketing (about 2/3rd per the report) online and offline marketing are often separate and non-communicative. Doesn't that seem odd in light of the whole "clicks and mortar" concept of combining the power of the internet with good old fashioned outlets?

A major reason for the disconnect is the old "silos of information" problem we're so familiar with. The systems that run traditional businesses don't have the necessary capabilities for Wiki, Blogs, viral marketing, etc. Even with today's sophisticated CRM software solutions that allow a prospective customer entry via the Internet, "click to chat", call center, email, fax, etc. most companies haven't implemented that technology -- let alone the next step that ties the Internet itself to their back end ERP or industry specific applications (such as HIS in health-care, BSS in Telecom, etc.).

So many companies have sophisticated "front end" marketing for their Internet presence -- SMS coupons to the cell phone for example -- but the back end is a little chaotic and highly manual.

Today when most people think of Internet marketing (if they think of it at all) they picture email SPAM and banner adds that may be linked to previous sites they've visited.

Thought leaders have long been blogging (hey, you're one of them -- you are reading this!) and using SEO (search engine optimization) to try and get their websites higher up on the coveted search engines like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search, etc.

We've moved from purely informational websites and B2C or B2B (business to consumer and business to business) to massively multi-player game sites (like World of Warcraft or Disney's ToonTown) and social networks (like FaceBook and MySpace).

Virtual worlds are the next phase past social networks. The are multi-dimensional sites where users can interact with each other in a cross between IM (instant messaging) and social networking.

Podcasts and ad hoc Webinars are another new marketing venue where the information is multimedia and folks can watch them online or download them. These can take the form of demos and infomercials and can be a very effective form of online advertising.

We've barely scratched the surface -- how about Wikis (like Wikipedia where anyone can contribute content) or Widgets (if you have Vista you probably have widgets showing the time or the stock market) and web services that do the work of making it all seem like magic. . .

Everyone seems to agree that online marketing is important and here to stay. 83% (per the McKinsey report) are using it for service management and 44% for pricing. The real trick here is to decide which form of online marketing makes the most sense for your company. To do that you must decide what your goal is (driving sales, improved customer satisfaction, leads, etc.) and then examining not only the various forms we've discussed here but which best suits your business model.

Everything old is new again -- VoiceCon

VoiceCon is the big telephony convention. It is underway in Orlando -- just next door to DisneyWorld. The location seems somehow ironic. Just as Disney is expert and re-inventing itself one sees "old" players insisting that they are new and improved.

But everything new is old again -- and the reverse is also true.

Along with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and going "green" we have the even more secure networking vendors -- and the biggest buzz of all? Why, Unified Communications of course!

UC (as it is known to its friends) is focused on making people "reachable" where ever they are -- on one device. These days the average person has an office phone, a cell phone, a home phone, corporate email, personal email, an instant messenger (or two) and probably more I've forgotten to mention. I seem to recall a statistic that said the average American has seven (yes, 7) ways to be reached.

So we are forever checking multiple places and playing "phone tag" ad naseum. The promise of UC is that we can identify "where" we are and UC will let those we want to find us find us. (Those we try to avoid may still wind up in voice mail heaven). In UC verbage this is called "presence awareness."

In other words big brother (UC) knows where you are. This is your "presence."

At VoiceCon Avaya introduced their Intelligent Presence Server which they say takes UC another step forward -- not just presence awareness, but presence information across multiple sources.

Nortel's big pitch at VoiceCon is based on "mobile" UC. Siemens has had this for awhile-- your office phone number is the one number given out and it can be routed to any device -- including your PC or your cell phone. Nortel is tying the idea of UC with FMC (fixed mobile convergence) so that when you are at your office you don't pay the cell phone company for minutes -- your call is switched to a WiFi connection.

The problem here isn't the technology but the cell phone companies who (for the most part) won't allow phones that can be FMC capable on their networks. They aren't dumb and they don't want to lose the 30-50% of network revenue that goes away with FMC.

Still, that is Nortel's pitch.

Cisco announced enhancements to its CCVP® professional-level certification. Why no big announcements like Nortel or Avaya? Hey, they don't have to. Cisco is the leader in Unified Communications by far - with 50,000 Cisco Unified Communications customers worldwide and more than 70 percent of all Fortune 500 companies using their UC offer.

Product Management Goes "Hi Tech" with PLM

For many years I was a product manager at Bell Labs. We used three ring binders, ISO 9000 (and then 9001) standards to ensure quality and a lot of Microsoft Excel(TM) and Microsoft Project(TM) worksheets.

The hardest part of the job was keeping the status up to date and making sure that all of the members of the team -- both direct and matrixed (e.g. our counterparts in sales, marketing, support, etc.) knew what they needed to know so we could get to market on time and on budget.

Boy have times changed.

Major software players now offer something called PLM (short for Product Lifecycle Management). Lifecycle is the key word here. The software helps any type of product manufacturer (from shoes to NASA's next generation space ship) from idea through design and manufacture, update cycles, service and support needs and even end of life decisions.

Back "in the day" at Bell Labs we worked on a six month cycle -- which included everything from "patch releases" (bug fixes) to major next generation and even the generation beyond it planning that went out at least three years. That isn't easy to do with three ring binders!

PLM promises to do for product development what ERP did for the factory floor and supply chain.

The article "What is PLM?" outlines the advantages companies can expect by using PLM software:

1. Shorter Time to Market


2. Better product quality


3. Reduction in prototyping costs


4. Savings through the re-use of the original data


5. A framework for product optimization


6. Savings in reduction in wastage.


7. Savings through the complete integration of engineering workflows

As an ex-product manager the biggest bang for the buck potential based on my experience is

• faster time to market


• fewer missed dates


• fewer "mis-matches" in PM / stakeholder expectations and engineering


• better quality control

In January of 2008 the Gartner Group released a report entitled "Magic Quadrant for Manufacturing Product Life Cycle Management, 4Q07." where they list Siemens PLM, Dassault Systems, PTC, Autodesk, Oracle and SAP as providers of PLM software.

Siemens (formerly UGS) is rated the highest. Oracle acquired Agile (if you've heard of Agile). Gartner dropped Infor because their revenue was too low this past year -- but if you are just learning about the various options you might want to consider looking at them.

In these economic times where the stock market is fluctuating and we may be heading for a recession any tool that can help you cut costs while getting to market faster PLM should definitely been on your radar to consider.

Leaders in CRM Analytics

I'm a former NCR Teradata employee having run development of a number of their industry specific CRM "starter kits." Teradata is used by some of the biggest, most successful companies around to track their profitability and keep an eye on the bottom line. Wal-Mart was one of the first to recognize the value of figuring out what sold well in different locations and how quickly things sold. Wal-Mart took the concept of JIT (just in time inventory) from manufacturing to retail -- and Teradata was the tool that let them do it.

These days the world works in multi-channels -- retail, wholesale, brick & mortar and click & mortar. So targeting what you want to sell now needs a clear understanding of your own market value proposition. To do this you need to know the market segment that fits your value prop and the customers who populate that segment. Again this is where analytic tools like Teradata can crunch data and turn it into information that not only tells who who buys what -- but what other market segments and propsect profiles fit that target as well.

All this is a preamble to a new study by the Gartner Group on multichannel campaign management. They've determined that the leaders in this market (no surprise here) are Teradata, SAS and Unica. The one surprise is that Siebel (always a wannabe in analytics with a weak offer) is now a contender.

This information is from Gartner's " Magic Quadrant for Multi-Channel Campaign Management, 1Q 07." Gartner uses a box split into four blocks (2 up and 2 down) to graphically give their POV on who is a leader, a contender, slipping behind, etc. Gartner Group is one of the leading high tech analyst companies around these days having bought Datapro, Dataquest and a few others along the way. From Gartner's report:

“Leaders consistently out-perform in overall campaign management performance for basic and advanced campaign management , as well as for integration with e-marketin. . .Leaders have high market visibility, high market penetration, strong market momentum and a strategic vision for growing the campaign management business.”

Some up and comers named in the report include Aprimo, Alterian and Eloqua.

If you are looking at marketing automation (and if you are doing any marketing at all it is crazy not to -- you are just gambling and guessing without analyzing the success of your campaigns) then consider looking at the companies mentioned by Gartner. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has also announced a BI component so if you are on the small side you can still get analytical information without spending a fortune.

Unified Communications and CRM

The whole point of CRM (customer relationship management) is to give each customer the best possible service at the margin that best suits the customer.

 In other words a low margin customer is directed to an internet website portal or IVR (touch "one" for this "two" for that).  A more valuable customer may be proactively contacted before s/he can call in with a problem.

 The biggest problem with CRM solutions have been integrating them with the back office systems that contain all the information on the customers and products and connecting the various departments with the information to the customer who needs help.

This is the beauty of unified communications (UC).  The idea is simple -- but the technology behind it is complex.  Microsoft plans to take over the world with its UC concept (OCS) and IBM is fighting back with a product called SameTime.  Cisco is in there, so is Avaya, Siemens, and a few others.

 Why does everyone care?

Why should you care?

 Well, I'll answer it by asking you a question or two.  Do you have an office phone number?  Are you always at your desk?

Do you have a cell phone?  A pager?  An email account?  An IM address? 

Just how many ways can someone reach you (or more aptly, NOT reach you)?

 Now put that in reverse.  Say you have a problem and you desparately need to reach a customer or spouse.  How many numbers do you have to try?  How many voice mails do you leave?

All that goes away with unified communications.  

 In the best of UC you make one call and UC reaches out and finds the person whereever they are.  You call the office phone and they are at the beach -- UC calls the cell phone even though you dialed the office.   

So you're at the beach and you told UC that only urgent calls (say from your boss) comes to you, all other calls go to the guy covering for you.   You can enjoy your day off.  But as you lay there basking in the sun you realize you expect an important email today.  You pick up your cell phone and call your UC message box which reads you your emails.

Cool, huh?

Now let's tie it back to CRM.  Some of the best UCs out there (like Siemens OpenScape) have pre-built connectors to leading CRM software like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SAP, Salesforce.com -- and those that aren't pre-built can be done quickly with an easy to use SDK (software development kit).

A customer comes in through live chat.  Maybe you need to walk them through something.  Using IBM SameTime or Microsoft Live Meeting built inside your UC you can graphically show them how to do things -- or share documents with them.  You solve their problem! 

Maybe you need to call in a resource.  Perhaps you're a lawyer and you need to get another lawyer on the phone.  UC shows you who is available and you can set up a conference call (not just a 3 way call) easily and on the fly -- knowing that the person is there.  You can even IM them during the call.

UC brings so many of CRM's promises to fruition.   Now for the commercial.

Gartner Group says of Siemens UC product (OpenScape) June 2006: HiPath OpenScape. . .is the most mature and open UC (unified communications) product in the market today.  (It) offers desktop and speech communications interfaces with presence and conferencing and works in multiple PBX environments.  . .Of particular interest is the approach that Siemens is taking with vertical industry applications.

Mid Market is the fastest growing CRM Segment

Forrester Research (echoed by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners Inc.) issued reports showing that nearly 40% of CRM sales are happening in the mid-market.  This is an amazing shift since historically it is the big boys who implemented very complex CRM solutions (e.g. Siebel aka Oracle, Peoplesoft, and SAP).  That all changed with Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM 3.0 (which rocks).

 One way that Salesforce.com "happened" was by turning CRM into a service rather than software.  These days users can choose to buy and implement their own CRM (ala the big boys and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0) or they can pay as you go with SaaS (software as a service).  Gartner Group (another one of those thinktanks) says that software as a service which is today a $6.3 billion business (WOW) will grow to $19.3 billion by 2011 (super wow).  CRM is a big part of this move to SaaS.

If you are a mid market or even small player the guys to be considering are RightNow Technologies, Oracle Corp.'s Siebel CRM Professional edition, Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand.

 Microsoft has annoucned a version of their Dynamics CRM to run on the Office Live! platform which will give them a SaaS offering here, too.  Check out the details here.

 My current favorites in this space are Salesforce.com and Microsoft -- and I actually give the nod to Microsoft here.  They've done a great job of integrating the CRM offer with Outlook (their email product) and Office.  Since Microsoft Office is everywhere this gives them a big "look and feel" advantage.  The learning curve for sales people (always busy with little interest in learning a new system) an easy way to start using it.

Have fun, guys.  If you have any questions about the mid market CRM, partnering or any other topics of this blog drop me a cmoment.

CRM for Google?

The times they are a changing.    For years the only name in CRM that mattered was Siebel.  It was complex, often difficult to integrate (Siebel grew by acquisition so many of its apps didn't play well together) but thanks to strong integration partners like Accenture it took over the CRM world.

Don't count Siebel out since it is now part of Oracle, but Salesforce.com (an online CRM solution) has taken the world by storm growing at a much faster rate than its competition.  About a year ago Microsoft beefed up its CRM offer considerably and became a contender in the marketplace.

 Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 provided the robust sales and marketing tools and tightly coupled the application to Microsoft Office including Outlook (the Microsoft email and contact management solution).  Microsoft CRM users get tight integration to Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet software and Microsoft Office Word word processing software.  The product has taken off like wild fire with large companies adopting it as well as smaller firms.

 But the CRM world is about to change yet again -- or perhaps I should say it HAS changed.  Enter Google.   Google Apps is the company's first foray to try and topple Microsoft's dominance in the office.  There is a free version which includes a spreadsheet, word processor, calendar (sound familiar, Microsoft?) and for a mere $50 a year one can purchase the Premier edition which includes more online storage and support.

Third party vendors are offering very interesting add-ons to Google Apps and one is aimed squarely at Salesforce.com,  Microsoft Dynamics CRM and yes even Siebel. 

CRMforGoogle is offered by by a small company named Etelos so this is not a Google offering, but it is still an initial and low cost foray into the market using a Google "look and feel."

Just when everyone thought the CRM market was maturing and only a few major players would survive it looks like a whole new ballgame.   Let the moral of the story be that any CRM vendor wishing to survive and thrive needs to offer a wide variety of products that are easy to use, easy to find and ready when they are.  Stay tuned.

 

Analyzing your customers is key to profits

It seems as if business is always undergoing  transformation.  We've gone from TQM (Total Quality Management) and BPR (Business Process Re-engineering) to Six Sigma and ISO.

We're always trying to improve because quality = profits.  (This is a little like that old chestnut that time is money.  Time IS money and so is the channel and sales method you use in the time that you have).

In these times of a tight economy  -- caused partly by our global economy where things are made more cheaply in China, India and other countries,  this increased globalization means your competition is also global and can produce products more cheaply than you can.  They are targeting our top customers.  Think of Toyota compared to General Motors and now translate that to ALL industries.  It is happening and to stay competitive you need to become more efficient.

Add to globalization the leveling of the playing field thanks to the internet.  Now small companies can compete with large and reach the same customers.  Mom and pops are as much your competition as the global firms.  Add to the internet and globalization the ideas of cost management / reduction, restructurings, mergers, etc.  Change, nothing but change!   This dynamic world has changed the competitive landscape by:

• More competition for profitable customers,


• More demanding customers less likely to remain loyal,


• Customer sophistication requiring quick access to service via multiple channels.

All of the above makes it critical that companies understand their current and prospective customers from both an economic and behavioral perspective. Many medium and large companies think they have embraced customer relationship management (CRM) as an important element of their corporate strategy.  But have they?  CRM is not just a call center automation application or giving your sales reps a laptop with funnel tracking software.  If a company doesn't know which products are selling and which aren't they are losing money.  If a company is spending millions on automating the sales reps but don't know what the cost is to keep that rep in the field compared to the margins and revenue that rep is generating it is about as useful as throwing money out of a window.

To take advantage of CRM programs (Siebel, SAP, Microsoft CRM, ePiphany, Salesforce.com, Oracle (now owner of Siebel), etc.), companies have to do more than invest in customer-facing solutions such as sales force automation, customer service centers, marketing automation, business to consumer (B2C) Web sites and others.

While these applications help facilitate better service and more efficient interaction with customers through each respective channel they don't add much to the bottom line if they have been implemented as independent, non integrated solutions. As a result, they have yet to make several important CRM objectives, including:

• One view of the customer in a vacuüm (if that),


• No consistent and thus accurate customer information across the enterprise,


• Duplication of service and sales efforts (costly and possibly irritating to the customer),


• Islands and silos of information that is untapped.

If companies don't have integrated customer information that they analyze to interpret which customers are profitable and then leverage that information they cannot apply the customer analytics (e.g., propensity to buy, channel preference, churn analyses, segmentation, target marketing, etc.) required to deliver real value from CRM.

Duplicate Customer information or one view of the customer?

Whereas CRM was the great hope of the late 1990s now the bloom is off the rose.  There have been many articles published about the high failure rate of CRM projects.   Many companies bought front office CRM applications (like sales force automation) but it is like buying a horse without a saddle -- or a car and then neglecting to fill the tank with gasoline -- they didn't have an end to end CRM plan in place.

Far too many companies have implemented new CRM technologies without changing the basic processes for serving and interacting with their customers.   If you throw technology at a problem without doing basic TQM / BPR (or Six Sigma) to determine what is working and what is not you are doomed to failure.

If you throw technology at sales and customer service but your customer still can't get one answer about his or her account you are losing the battle for their loyalty.

If you don't know who is profitable and who is not you are losing money.

The companies who have failed with CRM have not truly understood what CRM is and can be.  They were sold point solutions rather than a continuous loop solution that manages the front end of sales and service and the back-end of analyzing how well it was done, how profitably and what can be replicated for others.

As a result nothing changes.

Well, something might change.  Your company may be less profitable.

Using business analysis to track your sales results  will tell you what your sales force is doing right and wrong) turns into revenue- and cost-drivers of the business, thus a user will quickly see if the sales force is spending too much effort on low-value deals, or if the revenue stream has high exposure by being composed of just a few very high-value deals. In other examples, a user could see what percentage of target his district has reached compared with the same time last year, or determine the impact lapsed customers will have on this quarter's revenues.

By the same token analyzing what your customers are buying (and aren't buying) enables companies to understand and optimize the value of their customers throughout the customer life-cycle. Using business intelligence companies can track and analyze key customer segments and loyalty metrics and use this analysis to create an optimal customer acquisition, development, and retention process. Once you know who your customers are, who is profitable and who is not business managers can  see critical changes within the customer base and quickly take action to improve the status of those customers. For example, a user might identify high-value customers who are spending less over several months, and feed that group of customers into a campaign management system to run a retention program.

CRM business analytics measure customer value at both the individual and segment level, at the current customer and potential customer based on demographics, too.  In the end it enables users to understand the changing behavior of groups of customers over time. Users can even drill down to the profile of individual customers to discover their signature, that is, the pattern of their individual behavior, segment membership, and value.

Analyzing your customers is the key to CRM and it is the key to profits.

Alliances and their role in managing your relationships

Today's world moves at a fast and ever changing pace.   Developing the right offer in time to meet a shrinking window of opportunity brings companies together as partners -- creating "joint go to market" products and services that bring value to both.

 At least that is the theory.

 In reality most partnerships fail. 

They fail for a variety of reasons, but the primary one is a lack of vision and planning.  Two big companies want to be linked -- but don't set quantifiable goals.  Or perhaps the goals are set, but the money and people are not put into place to make the vision a reality.

In the world of managing customer expectations and exceeding customer's wants this can be a serious blow to both the joint offer and each individual company.

 So step one is to determine WHY you want to partner.  This step needs to come prior to even consider WHO a potential partner might be.  In other words:  why do you need a partner?

 Do you need products or services that your company cannot provide (or cannot provide in a timely manner?).

 Do you need an additional sales channel in a market niche (ERP, healthcare, etc.)?

 Do you need a marquee name to give your company credibility in a particular market segment?

 Is this a tactical parter (I need a widget and the partner sells widgets) or a strategic partner (to make that quantum leap Microsoft needed IBM to endorse MS-DOS)? 

 Once you understand the "why" you want or need a partner the next step is to determine a short list of who can best fulfill the "who" in the equation.  Who can best supply the need?

In a very real sense a good partner is as much a customer as your end users.  You must nurture your partnerships and manage them (monitoring to revenue goals for example).   You must also determine when the partnership is over -- and have an exit plan in place so that both of you can move on without damaging either's reputation.

CRM doesn't mean all customers are created equal!

In recent years many jobs in the United States have been outsourced and off-shored with the thought that reducing costs results in higher profits.  You’d think that would make sense.  But it doesn’t.  Not all customers are created equal and the highest profits come from a handful of customers.  In the “old days” this was known as the 80/20 rule.  80% of sales come from 20% of customers is the old chestnut — and it had more than a kernel of truth in it. Businesses today can’t take a “one size fits all” approach to their customers had hope to be profitable.   Funneling everyone through a touchtone interface (press “1″ for sales, “2″ for service) and a contact center agent who doesn’t speak English very well is illogical and will result in a loss of sales.  With all the data at hand today we have the ability like never before to analyze who are profitable customers are and to target them.   CRM and “1 to 1 Marketing” are often mistaken as Communism — treating all people alike.    The opposite is true — you should spend more money on your profitable customers — and less on those who don’t add to the bottom line.  The secret is in using the data that you have and turning it into powerful, actionable revenue producing information.