Technology News: SFA

Salesforce.com Pumps Up Volume of Workplace Chatter
November 19, 2009

Salesforce.com is marrying its cloud computing bona fides with its growing expertise in collaboration in Salesforce Chatter, a new application and development platform. The company introduced the product at its Dreamforce tradeshow and conference under way in San Francisco.

Black Swans and Blue Birds
November 04, 2009

I just finished reading The Black Swan, a book that has been on my list since it came out in 2007, and I highly recommend it, though it is not easy reading. There is a great deal of set up before you get to the whole point of the book in the last 50 pages. The Black Swan is about uncertainty in the real world, and the subtitle explains it all: "The Impact of the Highly Improbable."

SFA May Be Mature, but It's About to Have a Growth Spurt
October 26, 2009

Sales force automation -- nimble, lightweight and usually mobile -- seems to have little in common with its staid parent, enterprise resource planning. Until you consider this: After years of widespread adoption, SFA has also become mature -- but in its own way. Yet the space is not remaining static.

Sales Forecasting and Say's Law
October 21, 2009

I have been studying sales forecasting and forecasting tools a lot recently, and I have come to the conclusion that we need better tools as well as better ways of using them. There is a lot that can be said about forecasting, its current state and how to improve it, and I don't want to leave anything out but I will try to be brief. First off, how we forecast says a lot about our views on economics.

Coaching a Killer Sales Force
September 10, 2009

With a variety of options available for training their revenue-seeking professionals, today's sales leaders need to carefully select the methodology that will most directly impact their bottom line. Ongoing Aberdeen research of over 500 companies surveyed in July and August of 2009 provides significant insight into how Best-in-Class organizations select and deploy sales training modalities.

Funny, Beautiful Symmetry
September 09, 2009

There is a lot of unspoken information in last week's announcements by Sage and Salesforce.com about their respective contact managers. Each is creating a disruptive innovation that affects the other, and the symmetry of these dual and dueling announcements is frankly beautiful in a funny way.

Building a Leak-Proof Sales Pipeline
August 20, 2009

In November 2008, Aberdeen published a study titled, "Lead Nurturing: The Secret to Successful Lead Generation." The survey captured the challenges and strategies from 213 organizations and found that on average, 16 percent of the total leads that are deemed "sales-ready opportunities" actually close. That's a fairly alarming number.

Revenue Without Borders: How to Fix the Sales and Marketing Cycle
July 30, 2009

Today's revenue cycle is broken. Sales reps spend half their time cold-calling leads instead of interacting with interested prospects, while marketing invests its shrinking budget on costly programs and prospect lists that yield low conversion rates. The two departments seemingly operate in separate silos, interacting only when a lead is handed off from marketing to sales.

Learning to Use the Force
July 23, 2009

For the upcoming study, "The 2009 SFA Report: Best-in-Class Strategies for Increasing Returns on SFA Investments," Aberdeen surveyed over 195 companies that are automating sales activity. In the research, Salesforce.com featured prominently as a solution provider of choice.

40 Years After
July 22, 2009

What a summer for remembrances. Forty years ago, a couple of people landed on the moon, and a half-million of them landed on Max Yasgur's farm in upstate New York for the Woodstock festival. That might sound like ancient history, but of course without the space program, who knows where the technology industry would be today.

The Carrot, the Stick and Other Sales Effectiveness Strategies
July 09, 2009

Companies seeking to organize and centralize customer, account and opportunity information are leveraging sales force automation and customer relationship management tools to provide sales managers with better visibility into internal operations and improve overall sales productivity.

8 Steps to Getting Sales and Marketing to Play Nice
July 02, 2009

There are dozens of webinars, seminars, research reports, whitepapers, and blog postings on the topic of sales and marketing alignment. Despite the endless flow of resources and suggestions, sales and marketing alignment continues to elude many organizations. Misalignment is often a byproduct of a lack of process and a natural result of traditional marketing and sales roles.

To 'Free' or Not to 'Free': What's Cheap vs. What Works
May 28, 2009

The proliferation of customer relationship solutions presents an interesting challenge for small-business owners. How does a small organization looking to control spending decide between common productivity tools, such as Microsoft Outlook or Excel, or a more robust solution? This decision is made more difficult by the emergence of free customer relationship management and contact management solutions.

Cheap and Proud of It: Q&A With Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu
March 16, 2009

Some vendors stand out from their peers because they were the first to commercialize a particular application; some because they were the most successful in evangelizing or educating a potential user base of the application's merits. Some -- like Zoho -- stand out because they are dirt cheap.

Visions of IPO Dance in His Head: Q&A With Xactly CEO Christopher Cabrera
February 23, 2009

When Christopher Cabrera, president and CEO of Xactly, says his Software as a Service sales performance management company began 2009 with a big bang, he didn't -- as one might assume in this economy -- mean it in a bad way. In January, the company acquired Centive, its primary competitor. In February, it lured a new CFO on board -- Steve Cakebread, former CFO of Salesforce.com.

Selling to the Other 97 Percent: Q&A With Demandbase CEO Chris Golec
February 16, 2009

Sales are down. You don't even need to add a qualifier to that sentence -- such as industry or name of company. Across the board, corporate and consumer sales are down. Enter firms like Demandbase, which promises the latest in lead generation functionality. The company debuted last year with Demandbase Central, a Software as a Service platform.