'Enterprise Facebook' enjoys major adoption
If large companies are looking for evidence that a social networking strategy can work, Booz Allen Hamilton may have given them some. Read more...

Salesforce offers no-charge access to Force.com

NetSuite financial planning module to integrate partner apps

Consultant: Oracle holding firm on license discounts

Sun shareholders to vote on Oracle deal July 16

Forrester: Sluggish economy prompts software pricing changes

Interop: SAP customers creating 'cloud economies,' CTO says

SugarCRM chief steps down

Microsoft springs public Windows 7 RC early

Oracle temporarily trims support fees for older software

More CRM Stories

Bending the back office: Open source CRM and ERP

Salesforce.com: 6 Areas To Watch After Rollout
By now, most organizations have used some sort of a SaaS application, so there's familiarity with the basics of hosted software. But CRM applications are by their nature much more likely to be integrated with other business-critical applications, either behind your firewall or in hosted data centers, so they present some new challenges. Furthermore, applications with really rich web-services APIs (such as Salesforce CRM) can surface operational, policy, and process issues in your IT organization.

Salesforce.com: What Your CFO Needs to Know
Finance departments must be involved in major procurement decisions, to make sure the business case is done properly. They need to set aside CAPEX allocations and understand the ongoing consequences for OPEX budgets. They need to know what the new system can do for them (if anything), and how the new system will integrate with existing systems of record in the company.

Salesforce Rollout: What Customer Support Must Know
Customer support VPs may have to manage a range of customer-facing functions such as order-taking, shipment expediting, installation and field service appointments, as well as technical or warranty support. Each of these functions should have direct access to the CRM system, but the specific information needed (and transactions performed) are quite different across these CS roles.

Salesforce.com Punch-List for Marketers After Rollout
Your company's CRM system is turned on. Leads are flowing out to the sales team. Now what? Where do marketers need to spend time in the system? What decisions will the marketing team have to make? How should you measure success?

5 'Zero Cost' CRM Strategies
It's not shocking that many companies are scaling back, delaying or canceling IT projects. Recent Gartner survey data of 475 IT decision makers in global enterprises with 1,000 or more employees found that more companies are actually postponing or scaling back computing projects rather than canceling them outright.

Salesforce.com: Punch List for Sales VPs After Rollout
You were one of the business-side executives who championed a new CRM system for the company. Now you've won the battle. Your company's new CRM system is turned on. What should your initial priorities be as a sales team?

CRM on the Cheap: Five Strategies That Really Work
Your company has acknowledged that the business needs a new CRM system. But the CFO is nervous about the costs, and starts to suggest strategies that could lower costs-or doom your project to fail . Now's the time to keep your eye on the business goals as you make choices. For instance, how important are your company's procurement issues versus project management? What are the policies and business process improvements that will fundamentally change the economics of your CRM system?

CRM On The Cheap: 5 Strategies That Backfire
Your company knows that it wants a serious CRM system. But the CFO, nervous about the costs, starts to suggest strategies that could keep things under control.

How to Win CFO Friends and Influence Business People
Conventional wisdom and decades' worth of IT project failures and less-than-desirable outcomes tell us that every tech-related investment-from a massive SAP ERP rollout to a small Salesforce.com SaaS CRM deployment-comes with some amount of risk.

Editors' Picks

Don't trash your tired old desktop PC -- pump it up with a few inexpensive upgrades. Microsoft's Windows 7 pricing plans may derail efforts to make users move away from XP and forget Vista. Also see Preston Gralla: Don't believe the $120 Windows 7 pricetag. Trademark owners say cybersquatting on the Web has gone too far -- and they're pushing back. The goal is to have all the original Lunar Orbiter image files processed by February, producing a moon atlas with a resolution higher than anything previously seen.

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Idea Management: How companies Can Leverage their Communities to Drive Innovation Spigit's Innovation Management solution combines idea management and prediction markets. Idea management provides an idea evaluation process, harnessing the wisdom of the crowds, including a formal reward system tying virtual currency to real rewards, promoting employee participation. Reputation ranking, idea graduation, and content rating enable finding the best ideas and most productive employees. Download this white paper now!

In Depth: Apple's Leopard leaps to new heights A refined look, revamped apps and new options build on an already solid OS foundation. Read more...

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