>The IBM announcement doesn't look like much more than a marketing deal to me.
true enough, but a nice body blow to larry on both the CRM and DB flanks, eh? speaking of big mouth striking again, here's another forgettable ego-rant from the CRM 99 trade show in SF:
"Ellison also sparred with a reporter from KPIX-TV over his ongoing feud with officials of the San Jose International Airport concerning his Gulfstream V jet. Airport officials are trying to get Ellison to stop using his jet at night, citing a city ordinance banning jets over a certain weight from taking off or landing between 11:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. Ellison says the ordinance should not apply to his quiet, private jet. 'It's wacky,' Ellison says. 'It's as if they're saying people who weigh more than 200 pounds shouldn't be allowed to come into a store past 6.'"
oh, the shame.
if you're interested, here's a blurb from the consultancy front ...
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ENP
November 01, 1999, Issue: 011
Section: Top Of The News
CRM Goes Mainstream -- Building A Better Customer Experience
Michele Pepe
techweb.com
New York - After dedicating the past few years to streamlining the back-office operations of their large accounts, enterprise partners are preparing to take the next big step in a high-tech world: maximizing customer rapport for their clients.
At present, the customer relationship management (CRM) space harbors a nook or cranny for just about every type of solutions provider, from Web boutiques to electronic-commerce powerhouses and everything in between, said Stephen Lane, senior analyst in the professional services practice at Aberdeen Group Inc., Boston.
But when it comes to deploying end-to-end CRM solutions, the Big Five consultancies appear to have captured the limelight for now, analysts said.
Consider these statistics. Deloitte Consulting said its CRM practice doubled in size during the first half of the year, today employing more than 1,000 full-time practitioners. Meanwhile, Ernst & Young LLP generated almost $360 million in CRM business in 1998, said analysts, and executives of the company expect services tied to CRM and E-commerce to account for 50 percent of consulting revenue by 2002. KPMG LLP, another Big Five player with CRM aspirations, dedicates about 1,200 people to this fast-growing niche, focusing on six vertical markets, said a company spokesman.
While the idea of managing customer relations is not a novelty, the introduction of new or enhanced touch points-ways in which customers contact and conduct transactions with businesses-and increasingly complex back-room computing processes have contributed to the need for enterprises to develop methodical CRM strategies, said analysts.
In many cases, the rise of the Internet was the deciding factor.
"The Net is an integral part of CRM strategies today, and the idea of portals will become stronger in the future," said Doug Holden, global partner in charge of customer management at New York-based KPMG. "The goal of CRM is to help our clients pinpoint market opportunities while giving their customers integrated, easy-to-access service."
With their CRM practices, the enterprise consultancies aim to tie together front-end services, including sales and marketing, and link those functions with back-end operations. The latter, which include inventory management, finance and warehousing, were the focal point of recent efforts by consulting firms to deploy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
An ideal CRM scheme lets customers enter a transaction through any portal they choose, be it a store door, Web site or telephone, and exit without ever having glimpsed the complexities underneath, said Holden. The technology should be transparent to the user.
"The relationship with customers has become the key differentiator among companies," said Paul Cole, director of the Customer Connections Solutions practice at Ernst & Young, New York. "It's all about distinguishing between your customers and giving each of them what they want as individuals."
Some of the most prominent verticals targeted by enterprise partners with CRM practices include financial services, technology, consumer and industrial markets, communications, health care and government, said sources.
"In the past six months, government agencies such as the United [States] Postal Service have become aware of the need to move to a more customer-centric model," said Holden. "That's quite a switch for an organization like [USPS]. They're not used to seeking [a loyal customer base]," he said.
At GE Power Services (GEPS), KPMG consultants have begun to integrate call center operations with sales-force-automation programs, said Jose Lopez, general manager of Parts and Customer Support Operations at GEPS, an Atlanta-based arm of General Electric Co. Once completed, the project will lead to automatic information exchange between operators and salespeople so that each group may better serve customers.
In the meantime, integrator Unisys Corp. also is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to CRM. The Blue Bell, Pa.-based company launched an official CRM practice last month. At the same time, Unisys is proceeding to the next phase of its own in-house CRM implementation, with the help of integrators and consultants at Ernst & Young.
"We've already helped a number of clients think through their CRM strategies, but we want to go a step further," said Terry Hisey, vice president and general managing principal of Unisys Information Services, the company's consulting and integration division. "We want to take all the things we learn internally and apply them to the practice."
Because CRM consists of an intricate set of applications, integrators are not going it alone. Instead, they continue to partner with a crew of vendors in the customer relations space. Developers that claim to handle various parts of the CRM technology equation include Siebel Systems Inc., San Mateo, Calif.; Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J.; Broadvision Inc., Redwood City, Calif.; and Pivotal Corp., North Vancouver, British Columbia. |
