Technology News: Workforce Management

Workforce Management: Beyond Time and Attendance
November 02, 2009

In both the best and worst of economic times, worker productivity is a major management goal. Making sure that employees efficiently carry out their tasks is critical to the success of both government and business enterprises. First, of course, the workers have to show up.

Management From Afar: Coaching a Team of Remote Workers
October 05, 2009

In our global economy, where outsourcing is common and the Internet makes it possible to work from almost any location under the sun, it's not unusual for a company to find itself in the position of having a large portion of its staff in various locations outside the main offices. Particularly in the technology industry, software and application development jobs are often filled by freelance workers.

Should a Small Business Watch the Clock?
October 02, 2009

Many small businesses fail to fully utilize automated time-reporting tools or shy away from them altogether. However, once a business starts to reach about 30 staff members, time reporting helps them understand costs, improve efficiency, and focus on the right areas, said Journyx CEO Curt Finch.

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.

Mobile Software Firm Strikes While the Market Is Hot
July 16, 2009

On June 10, Antenna Software completed the acquisition of Dexterra for an undisclosed amount, solidifying its position as a key player in the mobile middleware/platform space, with a sharpened focus on field force enablement. This market grab comes on the heels of Antenna's acquisition of Vettro's strategic assets in November 2008.

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.

It's All About Execution: Q&A With Journyx CEO Curt Finch
March 09, 2009

Journyx, a company that provides Web-based time-tracking and project management applications, also offers its customers a back door into customer service. That is, its application lets users track what a customer cost. That is a number that is often surprisingly miscalculated or not calculated at all, said CEO Curt Finch.

Speech Analytics: Can You Hear Me Now?
February 12, 2009

Society's expectations for more personalized products and services have risen. As a result, vendors need to better understand their customers and prospects in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. One of the best ways for a company to do this is to spend time examining the interactions between its employees and customers. Speech analytics delivers the insights organizations require to do just that.

Could SPM Be a Contender?
January 28, 2009

What a week. Xactly bought Centive, Salesforce.com introduced the Service Cloud, and the gridlock in Washington looks the same as ever but with new players. If you parse the Xactly-Centive deal, you might be tempted to say, "So what?" After all, the deal was a stock swap, and the strike prices of the respective companies' stocks were not disclosed.

How to Shave Costs With Precision
January 02, 2009

The global financial marketplace has recently become quite volatile, as fears of an American recession affect economies all over the world. Such fears can be especially dangerous for businesses. In times like these, many top managers panic and make unwise decisions such as firing quality employees and slashing important programs.

Force.com Is One to Be Reckoned With
November 20, 2008

At its annual Dreamforce event, Salesforce.com and several of its partners -- Facebook, Google and Amazon -- made announcements intended to encourage more businesses to pursue Web-as-a-platform using their Force.com business process platform. Taking away significant amounts of hype, there were three themes for the conference.

Enterprise Mobility and Collaboration: A Better Work/Life Balance
November 12, 2008

A study conducted by the Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks company, determined that Best-in-Class organizations were able to leverage their investments in mobility to drive significant improvements in customer satisfaction, workforce productivity, and employee retention. The employee retention benefits discovered point to mobility's role in recruiting new talent and encouraging existing employees to stay longer.

Project Execution: Silencing the Big Guns
October 16, 2008

Why do your best laid plans often go unfulfilled? You have put the right people in the right jobs, empowered them to achieve, drafted an excellent plan, and got the necessary buy-in and funding. Yet somehow things went into the ditch -- and now the project is late and over budget, delivering a poor return on investment. The fact is, knowing the path and walking the path are not the same thing.

The Social Media Puzzle
September 24, 2008

The other day I had a conversation with some nice people from the market research company Coleman Parkes Research. They wanted to tell me about a study they have recently concluded about social networking. What was interesting to me is the evidence they turn up about adoption and how the adoption of social media to date by companies follows an early adopter pattern.

Unified Communications: Lifeblood of the Contact Center
August 07, 2008

What is unified communications and why do you need it? UC is not unified messaging, and it isn't a unified desktop. But both of these technology solutions help to support a unified communications architecture. In fact, according to Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company, UC is the convergence of such technologies as instant messaging, e-mail, voice over Internet protocol, presence and e-commerce in or near real-time.

BT's Ribbit Buy: Voice Applications Get Hopping
July 30, 2008

Ribbit announced that it had been purchased by British Telecom on Tuesday for $105 million in cash. As deals go, that might not seem like a lot, but given the fact that it's all cash and given the relatively slow market for "liquidity events" these days, it's worth pondering. Peeling the onion and trying to get beyond the cash, this is an important milestone.