Greeting from London! It’s been a great surprise to enjoy the sunny and warm weather (by UK standards) as I readjust my body clock. Thankfully, I’ve had a chance to catch up with a few new and old clients, several analysts, media moguls, and in real life meetups w/ close relationships (i.e. @grahamhill and @buchanla) built over Twitter. Nothing beats in-person conversations and I’m thankful we could connect on the state of disruptive technologies such as Social CRM, CRM, Cloud optimization, gamification, and mobile enterprise. A few trends from some great discussions and debates:
- Social CRM (SCRM) adoption picking up in the UK for marketing and support/service. Conversations with Laurence Buchanan, CapGemini’s chief dude on CRM and Social CRM, indicated that clients are interested in SCRM for both an offensive and defensive strategy. Offensive strategies focus on social media monitoring and marketing. Defensive strategies mitigate risk in public relations disasters from support and service incidents. Talking to a few utility and public sector prospects and clients, it became quite apparent that Laurence’s experiences proved out true. A regulated industries CIO confided in me and said, “We’re doing this b/c we don’t want to end up as the top BBC story.” Talks with a retail prospect focused on shifting marketing budgets to digital marketing.
- Design thinking a key differentiator in successful SCRM adoption. Over some great Earl Grey and Matcha GreenTea latte’s, rockstar strategist and CRM guru, Graham Hill, discussed some of the key elements of successful implementations. The introduction of services design thinking presents a key factor in success. Success requires balancing the left brain and right brain points of view. Moreover, his experiences from working at Toyota and other quality focused enterprises prove out why it’s better to get the design right the first time. Good design embodies input in organizational culture, business processes, and of course technology. One of the memorable quotes from the day stuck with me – “Consume as little technology as you need”.
- The cloud will play a key role in social media monitoring. As media monitoring evolves from a highly paid, skilled craft to a high volume mathematical data crunching exercise, BPO offerings will emerge to address big data crunching. Companies such as Wipro and Capgemini are already building such service lines. Also, these Cloud BPO services such as CapGemini’s Immediate gain traction with clients who want a set of unified CRM and Social CRM services delivered in the cloud. It’s also healthy to note that the EMEA clients have gained confidence in privacy controls and cloud security provisions by EMEA providers.
- Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM gaining traction in UK. In 29 conversations over the past 2 quarters, CRM discussions lead with Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Salesforce.com dominates the CRM replacement buy-side decisions among large enterprise CIO’s. Meanwhile Microsoft Dynamics CRM leads discussions among net new buyers in small and medium sized businesses, public sector, and divisions of large enterprises with Microsoft centric IT shops.
Your POV.
Are you in EMEA and deploying Social CRM? What’s working? What lessons have you learned? Share your thoughts here or send a private email to rwang0 at gmail dot com or r at softwaresinsider dot org and we’ll keep your anonymity.
Please let us know if you need help with your Social CRM/ Social Business efforts. Here’s how we can assist:
- Assessing social business/social CRM readiness
- Developing your social business/ social CRM strategy
- Vendor selection
- Implementation partner selection
- Connecting with other pioneers
- Sharing best practices
- Designing a next gen apps strategy
- Providing contract negotiations and software licensing support
- Demystifying software licensing
Resources And Related Research:
- Best Practices: Applying Social Business Challenges To Social Business Maturity Models
- Best Practices: Five Simple Rules For Social Business
- Research Report: How The Five Pillars Of Consumer Tech Influence Enterprise Innovation
- Research Report: Next Gen B2B and B2C E-Commerce Priorities Reflect Macro Level Trends
- News Analysis: Jive Fills Warchest, Ready to Battle Enterprise Software Giants And IPO?
- Tuesday’s Tip: Applying The Five Stages Of Adoption Towards SCRM Projects
- News Analysis: Lithium’s Acquisition of Scout Labs Ups The Ante in Social CRM
- News Analysis: Biz360 Acquisition Signals Attensity Group’s Move Into Social CRM
- Monday’s Musings: Avoiding Failure In Social CRM Projects Requires Ecosystem Coordination
- Research Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM – The New Rules of Relationship Management
- News Analysis: Siperian Acquisition Vaults Informatica Into An MDM Leadership Position
- News Analysis: Jive and Radian6 Partner – Great For Business, But Could Fragment IT Systems
- Event Report: Salesforce.com Pushes Social CRM Technology — But Don’t Expect Companies To Be Successful With Tools Alone
- Monday’s Musings: Why Every Social CRM Initiative Needs An MDM Backbone
- Personal Log: Altimeter Group – Helping Organizations Bridge The Technology Obsolescence Gap
- Monday’s Musings: 10 Essential Elements For Social Enterprise Apps
- Best Practices: Debunking Eight CRM Myths
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Copyright © 2011 R Wang and Insider Associates, LLC. All rights reserved.
