[2003-08-28] What's Hot in CRM
There is a need for more marketing accountability and precision; companies should look at ROI across the enterprise, for example, CRM and supply chain together; and total customer value should include each customer's current value, their future value, and associated value.

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[2003-08-27] Setting the Record Straight - Five reasons the future is bright for CRM
As I enter my 19th year in the CRM industry, I can safely say that I've gotten some perspective on what is real and what is fluff. This perspective has confirmed for me that for five key reasons, the CRM industry is indeed headed in a very healthy direction.

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[2003-08-22] The People Factor: Collaborative Decision-Making
Times are, um, interesting: companies are either stripping down to the bare necessities or recreating their business models so they can be ready for the future in new ways. In your company, you may be creating new strategic initiatives or hiring/firing/reorganizing staff. You might be adopting CRM technology or extending your current technology into other departments. You're rebranding. You're repositioning products.

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[2003-08-22] Calculating ROI on your Investment in Requirements Management Tools
There's no question that a commercial Requirements Management tool is very useful; but, can it pay for itself at your company? In this article we'll look at a model to help you calculate ROI on Requirements Management tools.

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[2003-08-20] Outsourcing Supply Chain Management - 8 Issues
Outsourcing is done for various reasons. The driver can be generating cost reductions and downsizing; this has been a traditional reason for outsourcing. But there are others, such as gaining capabilities that are not available internally, implementing lean programs, streamlining operations, strategically positioning the company, or improving or adding capabilities to gain competitive advantage. Regardless of the reason, outsourcing succeeds when it is well thought out and done properly.

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[2003-08-19] ROI For CRM Systems - Can You Measure It?
This is a hot topic in the industry today. There is a great amount of debate and discussion about Return on Investment for Customer Relationship Management systems. There are extremists at both ends of the spectrum. Some people say financial ROI for a CRM system is simply impossible to measure because the direct benefits are either intangible (like customer goodwill) or are intermingled with all kinds of other factors (did our sales increase because of our CRM system or because of that new product launch, or both?). There are others who say you can absolutely equate CRM ROI to dollars, and that you shouldn't implement until you incorporate that into your plan.

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[2003-08-13] Best Types of Projects for Offshoring
In general terms, certain types of projects are more suitable for offshoring than others. For example, if the project would require someone from the offshoring company to be present on your site for an extended period of time - this is not a good use of the offshoring resource. Instead, what you may be better to look for is a body shop who can provide resources locally.

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[2003-08-12] Ethics Foundations for Business
With all the recent headlines about company misconduct and ethics violations has come a significant, and long overdue, increase in the consideration of ethics among businesses. As a result of the recent bad press about lawsuits against companies' "behaving badly", there has been a rapid, almost frantic scramble among many large corporations to set themselves apart from the "wrong-doers" in the business world. Companies have quickly penned ethics codes, instituted ethics compliance monitoring programs, or have had high-level corporate officers visibly touting their company's "new and improved" ethics focus in the hope of regaining consumer confidence in a devastated economy. And with good reason: consumers are increasingly wary of all business interactions, to the detriment of all, even the most upright of enterprises.

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[2003-08-06] Sales and Distribution Management and Training
Are you interested in distributing products using the web? With the customer-centric distribution chain today, the role that a distributor plays includes enabling direct ordering and tracking of orders over the Internet. Does it mean that you switch your current operations to the Internet? Or does it mean making use of the Internet in such a manner that optimizes your role in the value chain.

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[2003-08-06] Quality Web Publishing Is About Saying No
Are the people who have least to say in your organization publishing most on your intranet or public website? Are the people who have most to say publishing least? You're not alone. Organizations are slowly realizing that managing a website is as much about what you don't publish as what you do.

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[2003-08-04] Global Factors Impacting the Software Development Industry
One of the great ‘equalizers' in the global economy is the Internet and other forms of modern telecommunications. Today, unlike just a few short years ago, programmers in one part of the world can work seamlessly on projects across the globe. Likewise, work may be distributed to programmers in many locations - unrestricted by time or distance - to be reassembled as working units back home.

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