June 2, 2009 - CRM Newsletter

CRM Sales to Outperform ERP in 2009

For years, CRM was the "little brother" to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which consisted of an integrated information system that's intended to serve all departments within an enterprise. Well, it looks as if CRM is pulling away and becoming more important, possibly as the result of the economic slowdown, according to a recent study by the market research firm IDC. IDC surveyed 515 IT decision makers in Western Europe in February 2009.
...read more.

Free Report: 9 Key Plays for CRM Success in 2009 and Beyond

Download this report to learn how you can:

Take control and make your sales reps more productive
Streamline your sales processes to minimize mistakes & maximize efficiency
Evaluate technologies that will help you achieve goals quickly & cost-effectively

Download now!

Consultant Says Social Networking Overrated as a Sales Tool

Social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are the new wave of sales technology, right? Well, maybe not, says a major consulting firm. The ES Research Group, an advisory firm on sales effectiveness, and The TAS Group, another sales-oriented consulting firm, jointly conducted a study of the social networking habits of nearly 400 U.S.-based sales professionals. The study strongly suggests that, based upon actual usage patterns, at least some of the tools may not be "ready for prime time....read more.

Webinar: Top 4 Ways to Accelerate Your Sales in 2009

Attend this webinar on June 9th and learn the top 4 ways Sales 2.0 solutions can help you to:

Increase the volume and quality of sales leads
Gain greater visibility into your sales pipeline to predict forecasts accurately
Reduce sales admin time and create more productive selling time
Energize your team with better sales performance management tools

Six Tips for Integrating CRM into the Corporate Environment

To extract true productivity from a CRM system, it can't just be a standalone application. Ideally, CRM must be integrated into the infrastructure and culture of the larger corporation. With that in mind, here are the six keys for integrating CRM: Integrate the people and processes... before the technology. When reps feel that the system only benefits "big brother," they resist using it, despite encouragement from their sales management team. Even if the sales personnel are ready to use CRM,...read more.

Important Industry Announcements, and What We Think of Them

FRONTRANGE announced the launch of a solution that features 'Universal Search', which enables users to conduct a single search for any information associated with a customer or prospect's record. The function covers every type of information associated with a record, including data fields, emails, notes, linked documents, knowledge-based articles, and more. Our take: A nice feature, but we're not sure that there isn't similar (if not identical) functionality inside other systems.
...read more.