The forgotten 'R' in CRM

The forgotten 'R' in CRM

For many years, the idea of a customer relationship management rollout was interchangeable with the word "failure." As CRM moves into the cloud, mobile and social, are we any more primed for success?

Microsoft to deliver CRM apps for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone in Q2 | ZDNet

http:/www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-to-deliver-crm-apps-for-ipad-iphone-android-windows-phone-in-q2/11822

—  Summary: Microsoft will deliver mobile versions of its Dynamics CRM app and service for iPad, iPhone, Android phone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 in the second quarter of 2012.

CRM’s Next 5 in 5

CRM's Next 5 in 5

Each year, IBM publishes "The Next 5 in 5," in which they predict the five technologies that will change the way we work, play and live in the next five years. Some of their predictions this year seem plausible: systems will use your unique biological identity to protect your information, eliminating the need for passwords. Others border on sci-fi: scientists will create technology that links your brain waves to your devices, allowing you to control them with your mind.

I wanted to follow IBM's lead and ask, "Where will CRM be five years from now?" To answer that, I reached out to some of the foremost thought leaders in the field:

• Ray Wang, Principal Analyst & CEO at Constellation Research


• Brent Leary, Owner at CRM Essentials


• Esteban Kolsky, Principal & Founder at ThinkJar LLC


• Denis Pombriant, CEO at Beagle Research Group, LLC


• Paul Greenberg, Owner at The 56 Group, LLC


• Brian Solis, Principal at Altimeter Group

Without further ado, I present the five technologies that will change CRM in the next five years.

Context Services Will Provide a Clearer Picture of Customers

A key benefit of CRM is that it aggregates information about current and prospective customers, collectively painting a picture of the person or organization a company is dealing with. Context services, with data originating from social media, location-based services and mobile devices, contribute additional context (location, relationships, behavior, etc.) to that information. The result is a far richer customer profile. These services provide the foundation for intuitive offers, which are promotions or up-sell opportunities based on customer interactions and behaviors.

Ray Wang suggests that in the next five years, we will see tremendous growth in context services and the data they provide. A key source of this context data will be from mobile devices. Gartner predicts that by 2015, 1.8 billion people will have smartphones. Of those, they estimate 40 percent will opt-in to context services that track their activities. By 2017, these numbers will increase and, based on current growth, likely double. This could fuel an entirely new mobile CRM industry.

Real-time Customer Intelligence Will Become a Reality

The variety and sources of customer data is exploding,...