Executives Looking For Better Access To Mobile Device And Social Networking Data

A large number of companies have adopted a data analytics strategy to better leverage in-house information, but management teams don't seem to have the right access to marketplace data needed to make strategic decisions, says a new survey from KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm.

More than 60 percent of respondents to a KPMG survey taken during Oracle OpenWorld, said their organization has a defined data and analytics strategy. However, only 39 percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that senior management had access to the rising volume of data gathered from the marketplace necessary to predict the needs of their customers. This "unstructured" data is typically generated by customers, vendors and analysts over websites, by mobile device users, and via social networking.

As a result, senior management remains increasingly challenged to analyze current data and to act meaningfully on the results, according to 45 percent of more than 370 executives surveyed during the IT conference. In addition, more than one-quarter of respondents said their major challenge has been dealing with data raining in from other sources.

The old conventions for measuring, managing and monitoring a business—as well as assuring the quality of its data—will be stressed to new extremes as speed, the need for trustworthy information and machine learning continue to influence the marketplace. 

 Further, 29 percent of respondents said advances in data and analytics would fundamentally change their business or industry in the next five years. Forty-two percent of respondents said data and analytics would have an important impact in several areas of their industry or business, though more than one-third (36 percent) of those questioned said it will be at least one to three years before their company can implement a data and analytics strategy that allows predictive insights into the market.

 Other findings included:

-- Forty-five percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that data analysis was on their board of directors' agenda.

-- Forty-five percent of those surveyed said their company tends of focus more on data security than on using data to improve core business operations.

More information on Mobile Device And Social Networking Data can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Consumers of the Future Value Self-service and Personalization

The consumer of the future will be more mobile, social and self-sufficient, willing to share details on themselves and their preferences in exchange for highly personalized relationships with their favorite stores, according to a new IBM consumer survey.  The study also found that consumers’ willingness to advocate for a particular retailer is becoming multi-faceted, with consumers looking for a flawless experience, whether it’s when they’re researching, purchasing, or receiving delivery.

The findings of the survey of 1,200 U.S. men and women ages 13 to 60 provide insights into the demands of the next generation buying audience and highlight the areas where retailers could influence brand advocacy.

Today's teenagers say they spend their time shopping on their mobile devices whether they are at home, on the move or in-store.  They also prefer to use more self-service features than today's consumers and participate in communities and forums via social networks with consumers with similar interests.  Teens expect their retailers to know them and all their transactions and deliver ads and promotions to them through social networking sites.

The study compared consumers aged 13 – 19, or “digital natives,” with today’s current shoppers, respondents in the 40-49 year old group.  The survey found the digital natives to be:

·         Almost four times as likely to consider it important for a retailer to provide a mobile app to use on their smartphone or tablet (52 versus 14 percent)

·         Twice as likely to consider it important for a retailer to establish a forum for like-minded consumers to share ideas with each other (54 versus 26 percent)

·         Twice as likely to be comfortable receiving ads and promotions from a retailer through a social networking site (64 versus 37 percent)

·         Nearly 1.5 times as likely to consider it important for a retailer to keep track of all that they've purchased from the retailer (regardless of whether it was in the store, online, via the call center, etc.) (67 versus 48 percent)

·         Nearly 1.5 times as likely to consider it important to provide self-service tools they can use in the store (80 versus 63 percent)

The study found that consumers are looking for a consistent brand experience, from start to finish, across all brand touchpoints.  Cost and quality prevailed, where the two most important considerations for recommending a retailer were:  “sells quality merchandise” (94 percent) and “offers fair/competitive prices” (93 percent).   However, three of the next most important criteria were:  the items they want to buy are in stock (91 percent); the retailer delivers a positive overall experience whether it’s in the store, over the Web, or via any combination of channels (90 percent); and that the retailer provides a convenient returns process (85 percent).

In the study, IBM asked a series of questions about the three phases of the brand experience: pre-purchase, purchase (checkout/payment), and post-purchase.  The real surprise in the findings was the importance of the post-purchase process in molding the brand relationship and influencing brand advocacy.  This phase includes product shipment, delivery, installation, customer support, problem resolution and returns. For example, the survey found:

·         Nearly three-quarters of the respondents cited a retailer’s ability to deliver a positive post-purchase experience as important to very important for them to recommend a retailer to others.

·         Nearly double the respondents chose the post-purchase experience as more important than the pre-purchase experience in forming a lasting opinion of a retailer (64 versus 36 percent).  

·         The post-purchase phase has the greatest potential to damage the brand relationship (46 percent) compared to the purchase and pre-purchase phases (38 and 16 percent, respectively).

·         The post-purchase phase even has the ability to help a retailer recover from a poor pre-purchase experience, with 52 percent of respondents indicating that a positive post-purchase experience is likely to very likely to overcome a poor pre-purchase experience. [For those 13-19, 67 percent consider it likely to very likely to save the day.]

More information on CRM and self-service can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

 

Survey Shows 71 Percent of Respondents Using SaaS for Less Than Three Years

Adoption of software as a service (SaaS) has grown dramatically among users of enterprise software solutions, but it varies widely within markets, according to Gartner, Inc. A recent Gartner survey showed 71 percent of organizations have been using SaaS for less than three years.

In June and July of 2012, Gartner conducted a survey of 556 organizations across 10 countries and within four regions (North and South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific) to understand the trend in the movement to SaaS from traditional software license models and to gain insight into how and where software budgets were being spent.

The results indicate that interest in the SaaS deployment model remains strong and continues to expand with late adopters. Brazil had the largest number of new users, with 27 percent of respondents using SaaS for less than one year.
Implementing net new solutions or replacing existing solutions is now the primary driver for using SaaS, according to the survey. Worldwide, there is a shift in SaaS adoption from primarily extensions to existing applications to net new deployments or replacements of existing on-premises applications.

According to the survey, investments in SaaS are expected to increase across all regions. Seventy-seven percent of respondents expected to increase spending on SaaS, while 17 percent plan to keep spending the same. More than 80 percent of respondents in Brazil and Asia/Pacific indicated more spending on SaaS applications over the next two years. The U.S. and European countries were not far behind with 73 percent of U.S. respondents and 71 percent of European respondents intending to increase spending on SaaS.

Respondents picked customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise content management (ECM) as the applications most often being newly deployed. Supply chain management (SCM), Web conferencing, teaming platforms and social were the applications picked most as replacements for on-premises solutions.

More information on SaaS can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Brands Respond to Mobile Customer Service Demand

Savvy businesses are stepping up their mobile activities, not only in terms of content and marketing, but also in terms of customer service and support. According to a study by SAP and Social Media Today, 38% of companies surveyed worldwide in 2012 offered customer service through the mobile channel.

That number is up 10 percentage points from 2011 when only 28% of surveyed companies provided mobile support. Moreover, 8% of surveyed businesses said they planned to enable that capability in the next six months and 9% said they too would enable it, but it would take more than six months.

The mobile channel will be particularly important for this upcoming holiday season. US online buyers told surveyor MarketLive in September that accessible information and customer service was very important when buying gifts online. Although a less-cited response, 24% also said that the option to chat via a mobile phone is an important customer service feature for online gift purchasing.

Industries in North America such as airlines, telecom and auto may have more at stake when it comes to adapting to mobile customer care, since their customers are often on the go when using or thinking about their services.

source: eMarketer

More information on mobile customer service can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Gartner Says 821 Million Smart Devices Will Be Purchased Worldwide in 2012; Sales to Rise to 1.2 Billion in 2013

The consumerization trend has hit IT as an unstoppable force, as 821 million smart devices (smartphones and tablets) will be purchased worldwide in 2012 and pass the billion mark in 2013, according to Gartner, Inc. Smart devices will account for 70 percent of total devices sold in 2012.

 In 2016, two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40 percent of the workforce will be mobile. Tablets will be the key accelerator to mobility. Gartner estimates that in 2012 purchases of tablets by businesses will reach 13 million units and will more than triple by 2016, to reach 53 million units. 

Smartphones have become truly pervasive in every aspect of an employee’s life. Gartner estimates that 56 percent of smartphones purchased by businesses in North America and Europe will be Android devices in 2016, up from 34 percent in 2012 and virtually no penetration in 2010. 

The increasing penetration of Android in the enterprise will continue to pose challenges for the IT department and the CIO to ensure that security and manageability remain a priority. However, Android and iOS-based devices will continue to increase their presence in the enterprise side-by-side and in most cases instead of RIM.

In the business market, Windows 8 will take the No. 3 position in the tablet market behind Apple and Android by 2016, with interest coming more from businesses than consumers. Tablets and convertibles will be the way into businesses for Windows 8. Gartner estimates that the share of Windows 8 tablets and ultramobiles in businesses will reach 39 percent in 2016. 

Over the past year, we have seen consumer preferences shaping not only the vendors’ landscape but also the way IT departments need to think about devices in the enterprise with BYOD becoming a part of the devices policy. In just 12 months businesses have moved from resisting Apple to accepting its devices in the organization. CIOs who balance workers' passion for Apple with the needs of IT will reap surprising benefits and prepare the business for entry of other consumer-market vendor technologies.

More information on mobile devices and CRM can be found at www.CRMIndustry.com

How to Maximize Social Media to Become Truly Customer-Centric

Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and more, customers have a voice as never before. They are speaking up, saying what they think about products, services, and brands, and sharing stories of their experiences, both positive and negative, with others far and wide. As a result, every business with customers needs to think of communications on social media platforms as a critical part of the overall customer service experience.

GOINGSOCIAL: Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand with the Powerof Social Media (AMACOM 2012) shows how anyone in business can tap into the power of social media to become truly customer-centric. Here’s how:

• Welcome customer complaints. Public griping has plenty of advantages. When customers voice their complaints socially in real time, companies can resolve those complaints faster than via phone or email -- and reap a quick return in positive word of mouth. Plus, companies can gain from the gripes of prospective customers.

• Be responsive and transparent. When publicly confronted with a customer service problem on a social platform, publicly make your intentions of fixing the problem crystal clear.

• Get good at active listening. Giantnerd, the outdoor equipment company, continually uses its site’s social features to improve its products. Customer feedback on the smallest of details, such as the location of the toecap on the pedal, has led to changes in a bike’s manufacturing, which have led to increased sales.

• Be helpful without being intrusive. Let customers talk among themselves, and join the conversation only when it can add value. Since customers tend to trust peer recommendations more than any form of marketing, empower members of your social circles with the knowledge and tools to lead on the brand’s behalf. The goal is to create a community of “super users”—fans who become brand advocates and platform moderators..

• Be consistent. Whether they interact with a brand through Twitter, on a Facebook page, or by calling the company’s headquarters, customers expect to have a seamless conversation and to be treated consistently. Meeting this expectation starts with a well-documented internal customer service policy. That way, everyone--from frontline customer service reps and community managers to the accounting department--is on the same page and operating in a customer-centric fashion.

• Be collaborative. Shortly after launching its first pocket camera, the Zi6, Kodak slowly began engaging on Twitter, taking note of what members of its new social audience didn’t like about its new product. Eventually, with the help of its Twitter followers, Kodak launched a major success—the PlaySport—and modernized its image, while rebounding from bankruptcy.

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Adapted from GOING SOCIAL: Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand with the Power of Social Media by Jeremy Goldman (AMACOM 2012).

More information on CRM and social media can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013

Gartner, Inc. highlightedthe top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2013. Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

 A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

 The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2013 include:

Mobile Device Battles
Gartner predicts that by 2013 mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide and that by 2015 over 80 percent of the handsets sold in mature markets will be smartphones. However, only 20 percent of those handsets are likely to be Windows phones. By 2015 media tablet shipments will reach around 50 percent of laptop shipments and Windows 8 will likely be in third place behind Google’s Android and Apple iOS operating systems. Windows 8 is Microsoft’s big bet and Windows 8 platform styles should be evaluated to get a better idea of how they might perform in real-world environments as well as how users will respond. Consumerization will mean enterprises won't be able to force users to give up their iPads or prevent the use of Windows 8 to the extent consumers adopt consumer targeted Windows 8 devices. Enterprises will need to support a greater variety of form factors reducing the ability to standardize PC and tablet hardware. The implications for IT is that the era of PC dominance with Windows as the single platform will be replaced with a post-PC era where Windows is just one of a variety of environments IT will need to support.

Mobile Applications and HTML5
The market for tools to create consumer and enterprise facing apps is complex with well over 100 potential tools vendors. Currently, Gartner separates mobile development tools into several categories.  For the next few years, no single tool will be optimal for all types of mobile application so expect to employ several. Six mobile architectures – native, special, hybrid, HTML 5, Message and No Client will remain popular. However, there will be a long term shift away from native apps to Web apps as HTML5 becomes more capable. Nevertheless, native apps won't disappear, and will always offer the best user experiences and most sophisticated features. Developers will also need to develop new design skills to deliver touch-optimized mobile applications that operate across a range of devices in a coordinated fashion.

Personal Cloud
The personal cloud will gradually replace the PC as the location where individuals keep their personal content, access their services and personal preferences and center their digital lives. It will be the glue that connects the web of devices they choose to use during different aspects of their daily lives. The personal cloud will entail the unique collection of services, Web destinations and connectivity that will become the home of their computing and communication activities. Users will see it as a portable, always-available place where they go for all their digital needs. In this world no one platform, form factor, technology or vendor will dominate and managed diversity and mobile device management will be an imperative. The personal cloud shifts the focus from the client device to cloud-based services delivered across devices.

Enterprise App Stores
Enterprises face a complex app store future as some vendors will limit their stores to specific devices and types of apps forcing the enterprise to deal with multiple stores, multiple payment processes and multiple sets of licensing terms. By 2014, Gartner believes that many organizations will deliver mobile applications to workers through private application stores. With enterprise app stores the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support apptrepreneurs.

The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as physical items such as consumer devices and physical assets are connected to the Internet. Key elements of the IoT which are being embedded in a variety of mobile devices include embedded sensors, image recognition technologies and NFC payment. As a result, mobile no longer refers only to use of cellular handsets or tablets. Cellular technology is being embedded in many new types of devices including pharmaceutical containers and automobiles. Smartphones and other intelligent devices don't just use the cellular network, they communicate via NFC, Bluetooth, LE and Wi-Fi to a wide range of devices and peripherals, such as wristwatch displays, healthcare sensors, smart posters, and home entertainment systems. The IoT will enable a wide range of new applications and services while raising many new challenges.

Hybrid IT and Cloud Computing
As staffs have been asked to do more with less, IT departments must play multiple roles in coordinating IT-related activities, and cloud computing is now pushing that change to another level. A recently conducted Gartner IT services survey revealed that the internal cloud services brokerage (CSB) role is emerging as IT organizations realize that they have a responsibility to help improve the provisioning and consumption of inherently distributed, heterogeneous and often complex cloud services for their internal users and external business partners. The internal CSB role represents a means for the IT organization to retain and build influence inside its organization and to become a value center in the face of challenging new requirements relative to increasing adoption of cloud as an approach to IT consumption.

Strategic Big Data
Big Data is moving from a focus on individual projects to an influence on enterprises’ strategic information architecture. Dealing with data volume, variety, velocity and complexity is forcing changes to many traditional approaches. This realization is leading organizations to abandon the concept of a single enterprise data warehouse containing all information needed for decisions. Instead they are moving towards multiple systems, including content management, data warehouses, data marts and specialized file systems tied together with data services and metadata, which will become the "logical" enterprise data warehouse.

Actionable Analytics
Analytics is increasingly delivered to users at the point of action and in context. With the improvement of performance and costs, IT leaders can afford to perform analytics and simulation for every action taken in the business. The mobile client linked to cloud-based analytic engines and big data repositories potentially enables use of optimization and simulation everywhere and every time. This new step provides simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. 

In Memory Computing
In memory computing (IMC) can also provide transformational opportunities. The execution of certain-types of hours-long batch processes can be squeezed into minutes or even seconds allowing these processes to be provided in the form of real-time or near real-time services that can be delivered to internal or external users in the form of cloud services. Millions of events can be scanned in a matter of a few tens of millisecond to detect correlations and patterns pointing at emerging opportunities and threats "as things happen." The possibility of concurrently running transactional and analytical applications against the same dataset opens unexplored possibilities for business innovation. Numerous vendors will deliver in-memory-based solutions over the next two years driving this approach into mainstream use.

 Integrated Ecosystems
The market is undergoing a shift to more integrated systems and ecosystems and away from loosely coupled heterogeneous approaches. Driving this trend is the user desire for lower cost, simplicity, and more assured security. Driving the trend for vendors the ability to have more control of the solution stack and obtain greater margin in the sale as well as offer a complete solution stack in a controlled environment, but without the need to provide any actual hardware. The trend is manifested in three levels. Appliances combine hardware and software and software and services are packaged to address and infrastructure or application workload. Cloud-based marketplaces and brokerages facilitate purchase, consumption and/or use of capabilities from multiple vendors and may provide a foundation for ISV development and application runtime. In the mobile world, vendors including Apple, Google and Microsoft drive varying degrees of control across and end-to-end ecosystem extending the client through the apps.

More information on stategic terchnologies and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Big Data Will Drive $28 Billion of IT Spending in 2012

Big data will drive $28 billion of worldwide IT spending in 2012, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2013, big data is forecast to drive $34 billion of IT spending. Most of the current spending is used in adapting traditional solutions to the big data demands -- machine data, social data, widely varied data, unpredictable velocity, and so on -- and only $4.3 billion in software sales will be driven directly by demands for new big data functionality in 2012. 

Big data currently has the most significant impact in social network analysis and content analytics with 45 percent of new spending each year. In traditional IT supplier markets, application infrastructure and middleware is most affected (10 percent of new spending each year is influenced by big data in some way) when compared with storage software, database management system, data integration/quality, business intelligence or supply chain management (SCM). 

Big data opportunities emerged when several advances in different IT categories aligned in a short period at the end of the last decade, creating a dramatic increase in computing technology capacity. This new capacity, coupled with latent demands for analysis of "dark data," social networks data and operational technology (or machine data), created an environment highly conducive to rapid innovation. 

Starting near the end of 2015, Gartner expects leading organizations to begin to use their big data experience in an almost embedded form in their architectures and practices. Beginning in 2018, big data solutions will be offering increasingly less of a distinct advantage over traditional solutions that have incorporated new features and functions to support greater agility when addressing volume, variety and velocity. However, the skills, practices and tools currently viewed as big data solutions will persist as leading organizations will have incorporated the design principles and acquired the skills necessary to address big data concerns as routine flexibility. 

More information on Big Data and CRM can be found at www.CRMIndustry.com

Nearly 75 Percent of US and UK Businesses Have Mobile Roles to Fill

At a time when global unemployment rates are hitting record highs, results of research released by Antenna Software finds that the mobility sector may be a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy labor market.  The responses from HR managers at 600 enterprises surveyed for the project found that 74 percent of US and UK businesses currently have mobile positions to fill, with almost 1 in 3 companies (29 percent) bringing on a 'mobile strategist,' indicating that as businesses think through the secular impact of mobility, a growing number are assigning ownership for development and execution of business-wide mobile strategies to a specific individual.

Antenna's research also revealed that the demand for workers with mobile skill-sets will accelerate in the next 12 months, with more than half of all companies surveyed (51 percent) recently creating mobile-specific roles.  In particular 20 percent of companies are planning to create 1-2 new mobile related roles in the next year, with some US and UK businesses, roughly 5 percent, planning to create as many as 5-10 new mobile roles in the same timeframe.

Among those companies with mobile positions to fill, 25 percent have found it difficult to find the right workers, and of those companies the vast majority (93 percent) have indicated it is not due to a lack of applicants, but rather the absence of someone with the right qualities for the job.  In fact, the volume of applicants was actually cited as the key reason that 40 percent of organizations have been easily filling new mobile roles.  These findings point to the importance of clearly defining what skill sets and qualities are most crucial for these new roles as they are created.

Against a backdrop of growing demand for mobile talent is the emergence of a new mobile role – the mobile strategist.  Antenna's research found that nearly 30 percent of companies surveyed currently have a mobile strategist, chief mobile officer, or head of mobile that is devoted specifically to mobile strategy and execution across departments. 

Antenna's research also found that the mobile skill-sets most in-demand with UK and US businesses at the present time are those relating to mobile development and mobile management.  More specifically, 20 percent of businesses are currently recruiting mobile app developers and mobile content creators, while 23 percent are looking to hire those with mobile device management (MDM) expertise.  The uptick in mobile management skills is aligned with the ongoing BYOD trend that many companies are grappling with today as more new devices are released into the market.

More information on mobile and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Survey: U.S. Corporations Aim to Tackle IT Challenges with Cloud Computing

Forty-four percent of U.S. executives aim to tackle current IT challenges through leveraging cloud solutions, and they are planning to invest more in cloud computing in the future. That is the finding of an IDC survey commissioned by T-Systems. Corporations expect cloud computing to deliver lower IT costs (26 percent) and to enable them to replace legacy systems (21 percent) and adopt new applications more flexibly (14 percent).

Cloud computing is seen as most likely to deliver solutions for Customer Relationship Management (31 percent), productivity tools like email, collaboration or Office packages (28 percent), online stores, and Enterprise Relationship Management (26 percent each).

Corporations continue to have reservations about security, but they are no longer the decisive criterion against cloud. The concept of security now extends to issues such as how cloud computing will impact compliance requirements or data availability. That is prompting corporations to consider the right cloud type and cloud service needed. Enterprises see an opportunity in the private cloud for providers to fulfill their security requirements and agree on service level agreements. 40 percent of U.S. respondents have implemented a private cloud strategy while only 13 percent are relying on public cloud and 16 percent on hybrid cloud solutions.

In the course of adopting cloud computing, enterprises are increasingly considering new service providers, and they are also considering providers whose services they have not previously used. In ERP more than half are considering providers with whom they have had no previous experience.

More information on IT and Cloud Computing can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Less Than 1% Of Online Purchases Come From Social Channels

Thirty-nine percent of online retail transactions by new customers start with clicks from paid or organic search results and less than 1% come from social channels according to a new Forrester report.

In order to determine how and when shoppers touch various platforms when completing a transaction online, Forrester partnered with GSI Commerce to examine 77,000 consumer orders made over a period of 14 days in April 2012. Findings in the report include:

-- Multiple platforms influence many buyers. While 33% of transactions by new customers involve more than one trackable touchpoint, 48% of repeat customers visit multiple trackable touchpoints. The most popular platforms include organic search, paid search, and email.

-- Email and direct traffic matter for frequent customers. Thirty percent of transactions by repeat customers start with an email from the retailer, and an additional 30% type the retailer's URL directly into a browser.

-- Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. Forty-eight percent of consumers reported that social media posts are a great way to discover new products, brands, trends, or retailers, but less than 1% of transactions could be traced back to trackable social links.

More information on social  media and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

By 2014, 10-15% of Social Media Reviews to Be Fake, Paid for By Companies

Consumers' increased reliance on social media ratings and reviews will see enterprise spending on paid social media ratings and reviews increase, making up 10 to 15 percent of all reviews by 2014, according to Gartner, Inc. However, analysts predict that increased media attention on fake social media ratings and reviews will result in at least two Fortune 500 brands facing litigation from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the next two years.

Organizations who opt to pay for fake reviews can, and have, faced both public condemnation as well as monetary fines. In 2009, the FTC determined that paying for positive reviews without disclosing that the reviewer had been compensated equates to deceptive advertising and would be prosecuted as such.

As the FTC begins to crack down on this practice of fake reviews/ratings, some reputation management companies are taking a different approach, not posting new, fake, favorable reviews, but identifying fake and defaming reviews and requesting the reviewers or host site remove them or face legal repercussions. Gartner analysts said they  expect a similar market of companies to emerge specializing in reputation defense versus reputation creation.

Gartner believes that although consumer trust in social media is currently low, consumer perception of tightened government regulation and increased media exposure of fake social media ratings and reviews will ultimately increase consumer trust in new and existing social media ratings and reviews.

More information on social media and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Six Core Principles to Tap the Power of Social Media

Gartner has identified six core design principles that distinguish social media from other approaches to communication and collaboration, and form the foundation for its unique mass-collaboration value proposition. Business leaders should apply these principles to shift away from a "provide and pray" approach to a motivate and engage strategy.

Participation: Getting Communities to Work for You

Successful social media solutions tap into the power of mass collaboration through user participation. Many organizations miss the participation principle and look at social media as another channel for corporate communications rather than an opportunity for mass collaboration. Instead, Gartner recommends that business leadership set active participation as a priority design goal, with everything else revolving around getting the community to contribute valuable content. Providing seed content to promote community contributions, and motivating content contribution through social incentive mechanisms — such as social status and gamification — are recommended to drive participation.

Collective: People Must Swarm to the Effort

With social media, participants "collect" around a unifying cause. People go to the content to contribute their piece to the whole. However, the most challenging effort with social media is to gain community adoption, and speed is critical. Swarming is almost completely dependent on the organization’s purpose for mass collaboration. Gartner advises organizations to pursue a specific and well-defined purpose that is easily identifiable and meaningful to the target audience. It’s important to capitalize on physical world events, as well as online events, as part of a "tipping point plan" to rally people and catalyze a community.

Transparency: The Community Validates and Organizes Content

A social media solution also provides transparency, in that participants are privy to one another's participation. It is in this transparency that the community improves content, unifies information, self-governs, self-corrects, evolves, creates emergence and otherwise propels its own advancement.
Gartner recommends empowering the community with a robust capability to view, use and provide feedback on the contributions of others: with functionality such as thumbs up and thumbs down, tagging, voting, star ratings, and social commentary. Employing transparency with social status and gamification mechanisms, such as leader boards, virtual currencies and badges, also helps to create incentives and recognize valuable contributions.

Independence: Provides the "Mass" in Mass Collaboration

Independence delivers anytime, anyplace and any-member collaboration, which means any participant can contribute completely independent of any other. To aid independence, Gartner advises organizations to consider the potential scale of the social media solution, and examine the design for anything that may impede anytime, anyplace and any-member collaboration. They should also eliminate, or at least minimize, any workflow, controls, administration and moderating, or other gating mechanisms that can create bottlenecks and negatively impact scale.

Persistence: Contributions Must Endure for Scaled Value

Organizations should make it easy for participants to capture content using evolving technologies, such as contextual information capture, to help collect more interaction content. They should examine how much persistence is desired, how much of the contribution to capture, how to manage it and how long to maintain it, whilst identifying content that is critical to the purpose of the social media effort.

Emergence: Communities Self-Direct for Greater Productivity

The behaviors in mass collaboration cannot be modeled, designed, optimized or controlled like those in traditional systems. They emerge over time through the interactions of community members. Emergence is what allows collaborative communities to come up with new ways of working or new solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

An organization should observe social media behaviors, examine how productivity actually manifests itself through community interactions, then guide the community or make other organizational behavior adjustments to accommodate new ways of working.

More information on CRM and social media can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Engaging The Always Addressable Customer

Nearly one-third of US online adults accessed the Internet multiple times per day and from multiple physical locations last year, according to a recent Forrester survey of 8,400 respondents, and that number is only going to go up. This data represents advances in both technology and user behavior that have ushered in a new era of interactivity, where marketers have a brand-new consumer to reach: the always addressable customer. This evolved consumer owns and uses three or more connected devices, goes online multiple times per day on any device, and goes online from many away-from-home locations.

For the always addressable customer, active engagement in advanced social media and mobile technology is a matter of fact, not an exception to the rule. And it's not just the younger generations displaying this integrated advanced behavior -- 38% of all US online adults can be defined as an always addressable customer.

So what does this mean for marketers? It means that buzzwords like "SoLoMo" aren't enough to account for what customers truly want and need. The bar has been raised for marketers when it comes to offering value and service, rather than just messages, to the majority of brands' audiences. But there is good news for marketers: The opportunity now exists to be able to address customers' needs wherever and whenever they crop up.

More information on Customer Relationship Management can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Growth-focused private companies embrace digital tools for customer engagement and research

In today’s highly competitive world of compressed margins and slow economic growth, private companies are looking for new ways to boost revenue. One key way is to engage and learn about customers via digital means rather than strictly through traditional avenues such as direct mail and print advertising. According to PwC US’s Private CompanyTrendsetter Barometer, most private companies (70%) are now doing some form of customer outreach through digital avenues, including via email and company websites. Within this group of Trendsetter companies that engage/research customers digitally, 67% are leveraging social media and mobile devices to that end.

Fast-growth private businesses in particular are embracing digital tools in their customer outreach. Among Trendsetter companies, those that use digital means to engage and learn about customers forecast 11.3% revenue growth over the next year, compared with 6.3% revenue growth projected by private companies that are not using digital tools for customer-engagement purposes.   

Notably, private companies using digital means of customer engagement and research to a moderate/great degree also tend to have higher annual revenue ($244 million) than those using digital means to a smaller degree ($191 million).

Digital Tools Deliver Clear Value, But Full Benefits Depend on Data Analytics

Targeted marketing to individual customers -- for instance, via email promotions, text messages, and pop-up ads -- is the top way private companies are using digital technology for customer engagement/research (65%). Half of private companies that are using digital channels for customer engagement/research are also encouraging customers to act as brand ambassadors — for example, by posting online testimonials about products and services and spreading the word via social media. Roughly the same percentage (48%) use digital means to solicit customer insights for product development, including innovation.

Private companies that are using digital channels for customer engagement are notably positive about the benefits, saying that digital means help their businesses do a better job of marketing their products/services to customers (76% of respondents) and improve customers’ experience and overall satisfaction (72%).  

Relatively fewer Trendsetter companies are using digital tools to research customers: 43% are using such tools to gather information on customers' behavior and preferences, while 40% are employing digital means to obtain demographic information. Despite these lower percentages, fully three-quarters (75%) of the companies using digital technology in their customer-focused efforts say that doing so helps them obtain better and more useful information.

Three-quarters (75%) of Trendsetter companies consider the customer information they collect (via both digital and traditional channels) relevant to their product development and innovation. This percentage rises to 84% among private firms that use digital tools to a great or moderate degree.

Nonetheless, roughly one-quarter (28%) of private companies have not yet enlisted digital tools in their customer outreach. Meanwhile, among those companies enlisting digital technology to that end, only a minority (28%) believe that doing so is currently helping them achieve lower costs.

More information on Customer Engagement can be found at www.CRMindustry.com.

Nexus of Forces Social, Mobile Cloud and Information - Is the Basis of the Technology Platform of the Future

A Nexus of converging forces -- social, mobile, cloud and information -- is building upon and transforming user behavior while creating new business opportunities, according to Gartner, Inc.

Although these forces are innovative and disruptive on their own, together they are revolutionizing business and society, disrupting old business models and creating new leaders. As such, the Nexus of Forces is the basis of the technology platform of the future.

Not that long ago, people's most sophisticated computing experience was at work, and computing was limited at home. Now, in most cases, the opposite is true. The consumerization of IT is a result of the availability of excellent devices, interfaces and applications with minimal learning curves. As a result of using these well-designed devices, people have become more sophisticated users of technology, and the individual has been empowered. People expect access to similar functionality across all their roles and make fewer distinctions between work and non-work activities.

Social is one of the most compelling examples of how consumerization drives enterprise IT practices. It includes personal activities of sharing comments, links and recommendations with friends. Consumer vendors have been quick to see the influence of friends sharing recommendations on what to buy.

Social technologies both drive and depend on the other three Nexus forces:

• Social provides an important need for mobility: Accessing social networks is one of the primary uses of mobile devices and social interactions have much more value when they are possible wherever the user is located.
• Social depends on cloud for scale and access: Social networks benefit from scale, the kind of scale that is really only practical through cloud deployment.
• Social feeds and depends on deep analysis: Social interactions provide a rich source of information about connections, preferences and intentions. As social networks get larger, participants need better tools to be able to manage the growing number of interactions, which drives the need for deeper social analytics.

Mobile computing is forcing the biggest change to the way people live since the automobile. Mass adoption forces new infrastructure, it spawns new businesses, and it threatens the status quo.

However, mobile does not stand alone as an isolated phenomenon. People will interact with multiple screens working in concert. Sensor data will transparently enhance the experience, integrating the virtual and physical worlds contextually. The information gathered in this immersive world will have tremendous value and, ultimately, the lasting relationship will be between a user and a cloud-based ecosystem.

Cloud computing represents the glue for all the forces of the Nexus. It is the model for delivery of whatever computing resources are needed and for activities that grow out of such delivery. Without cloud computing, social interactions would have no place to happen at scale, mobile access would fail to be able to connect to a wide variety of data and functions, and information still would be stuck inside internal systems.

The model of cloud computing is what Gartner calls a "global-class" phenomenon because it focuses on outcomes connected across the globe rather than technologies and outcomes centered on an internal enterprise strategy. In a global-class computing world, everything shifts to the culture of the consumer and the externalized view of computing.

Information is not stored anywhere in particular. Rather, it is stored everywhere. For years, technologists have discussed the ubiquity of information without realizing how to take full advantage of it. That time is here now. Social, mobile and cloud make information accessible, shareable and consumable by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Knowing how to capture the power of the ubiquity of information and utilize the smaller subsets applicable to a company, a product and customers, at a specific point in time, will be critical to new opportunities and for avoiding risks.

More information on social media and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

Adoption of Online CRM Soars in One Year Overtaking Traditional In-house Systems for the First Time Ever

New research from Really Simple Systems reveals high confidence in online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM systems as over half of those surveyed see better value than in-house equivalents. With confidence in cloud solutions increasing substantially, of those surveyed, 56% are using an online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM system, compared to 45% this time last year. Furthermore, only 15% of respondents admitted to still having some reservations on the adoption of online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM; a vast improvement on the 23% in last year's survey.

From a sample of 685 respondents, the majority from small and medium-sized organizations with less than 50 employees, over half revealed that they believe online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM solutions offer better value than in-house equivalents (up on last year's 44% to 50.1%). Furthermore, confidence in online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM solutions overall has increased substantially, with 72% of respondents claiming to have more confidence generally that a year ago and 80% saying they thought online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM solutions required less IT support.

In terms of social marketing, 67% of those surveyed use social marketing, with LinkedIn the most popular tool (81%) and 34% believing that they saw a positive ROI from using social marketing. Worryingly however, 59% of businesses claim to be unable to measure any ROI from their social marketing efforts.

The survey also confirmed that 61% of businesses are using in-house ERP/Accounting solutions (down from 69% in 2011) with 53% of those questioned saying they would be confident in switching to a cloud solution - aside from online CRM, web CRM and small business CRM - when the time comes - a figure 5% up on last year's 48%.

More information on CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com.

IDC Study Reveals Emerging Social Media Trends Across Vertical Markets

IDC announced the availability of a new study, 2012 U.S. Social Media Trends by Vertical, that highlights the adoption of social media as an emerging technology across six major vertical markets including banking, government, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and utilities. Part of IDC's annual vertical view survey, the unique study found that similar to Internet adoption in the 1990’s, B2C companies - especially retailers - are driving social media adoption while B2B companies lag behind. The report also found that social media is enabling organizations to increase productivity and improve knowledge sharing as they leverage social networks to share best practices and identify appropriate resources.
Additional key findings include:

-- Increasing awareness of product and services is the top social media investment driver

-- Respondents cited managing and tracking all posted content as the top challenge to social media

-- Social networking accounts for half of the social media budget

-- Marketing is the biggest user of social media and is driving the purchasing decision of these technologies

The study also found that when comparing social media investment to other emerging technology areas, retailers more than any other industry are making strong investments. Successful retailers are integrating their mobile, analytic and social media strategies into one cohesive business approach. Social media touch points such as Facebook, Twitter, and Groupon are enabling these organizations to analyze customer behavior and in turn deliver personalized offers direct to a consumer’s mobile device.

Across all verticals, the research found that moderating conversations about products and services was not a high priority. IDC notes that companies are not taking full advantage of the communications aspect of social media and are using it more as one way method of communication – gathering feedback or pushing brand messaging to a wide audience – rather than collaborative communication as the medium was intended.

More information on CRM and social media can be found at www.CRMindustry.com