Oracle Fusion CRM : A Boom For Sales Performance Management

Posted on January 27, 2012 by admin

Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is boom for sales performance management, because of these main reasons:

  • Sales planning, prospecting and productivity are the key challenges for a sales rep to increase their sales performance. Oracle Fusion CRM delivers these three areas for better results and revenues
  • Sales information is configured on Role-based user experience viz., sales executives, sales managers and a sales rep, helps to extract information when they need it
  • With Oracle Fusion CRM Sales reps can easily design, modify and execute sales plans using the integrated territory management, quota management and incentive compensation solution
  • Oracle Fusion CRM analysis the existing customers purchasing patterns to generate high quality lead and better prospecting
  • Sale reps can create their own personalised sales campaigns based on their each prospects using the inbuilt Campaign Management, thus reducing dependence on Marketing
  • Embedded Social collaborations, integration with Mobile and Microsoft Outlook reduces the reporting and increase productivity
- Chippada Chittibabu, CRM Sales Consultant, CRMIT
Posted in Campaigns, CRM, Oracle, Oracle Fusion CRM, Sales, Uncategorized, Why CRM? | Leave a comment

SmartCon

Posted on January 24, 2012 by admin

Sugar CRM conducts a conference called SugarCon and they are promoting it heavily through various channels. Today I got an Email about this conference and found a curious announcement there:

To be frank, there is nothing new in this scheme:

  1. All major conferences invite experts to present sessions
  2. It is quite common to ask them to present their topics / ideas online
  3. With the emerging Social Web, participants vote and decide which topics should be presented in a conference

Now, Sugar CRM has combined this #1, #2 and #3 to a powerful Email Campaign, whereby it asks general public to submit their ideas and present them, if those ideas get enough votes. Smart, But nothing great.

But, look at it from the Social CRM perspective, you will understand how Sugar CRM has scored many big wins here:

  • By making this sound like a contest, they are inviting clicks, whether people submit ideas or not, they will come to the website and read all about it
  • They have opened this ‘Submit your ideas’ to everybody, not just experts, a perfect Social Web Scenario (More participation, better conversations, better relationships)
  • By adding a prize (Free pass to SugarCon) element, they have made this more attractive, BUT it is not going to cost them anything, in fact having a speaker for free saves them money!
  • But, what if many people jump at the opportunity and submit stupid ideas, just to get a free pass to the conference?
  • No problem, introduce votes, Only if your topic gets high number of votes, you will win your pass
  • This actually means, Sugar CRM needn’t appoint anybody to moderate / filter out junk topics, they are filtered by the real users, for free!
  • OKay, What if I ask my friends and coworkers to vote for me?
  • Again, No Problem, When you do that, you are indirectly selling my product (conference) to others, getting me new leads, again for free. So let me go and encourage you to do it (Notice the place where Sugar CRM actually asks you to spread the message, for your own sake of course ;) )
  • They haven’t announced how many such ‘public’ sessions will be presented in Sugar Con, Means they can control what is the ‘minimum number of votes’ you need to win the pass, and this can be used to eliminate all those ‘stupid, yet popular’ topics
  • Best part is, they are making the CRM community think of innovative topics to be presented in SugarCon, that way it will be driven by real users, not just few experts / thought leaders, Priceless!
- Naga Chokkanathan, Direct (Innovation), CRMIT
Posted in B2C, Campaigns, Case Studies, Communication, CRM, Events, Feedback, How To, Lead Generation, Learning, Marketing, Media, SCRM, Social CRM, Social Media, Sugar CRM, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Global Reach

Posted on January 24, 2012 by admin

Just did a quick scan of the countries in which we have done Oracle CRM On Demand Implementations, Eighteen, Wow!

In 2012, Looking forward to increasing this number to 80+ :)

Posted in CRM, CRMOD, Customer Service, New Customer, News, Oracle CRM On Demand, Project News, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

How Oracle Fusion CRM Handles Multilingual Implementations

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

Oracle Fusion CRM comes with an interesting architecture for handling multi language implementations. This means, during the initial deployment phase itself, number of languages can be configured so that the user can choose their preference during login.

In fact, Fusion CRM Provides two language choices when any user logs in:

  1. Default Application Language
  2. Current Session Language

Once these two are setup, whenever the same user logs in again, they would only see the Oracle Fusion CRM interfaces in “Default Application Language”, They can change it to a different language in “Current Session Language” temporarily, But it is not a permanent change, until “Default Application Language” is changed.

As far as the support for multiple languages go, Oracle Fusion CRM Provides a user friendly interface for translating labels and other text from one language to another. This goes through an approval cycle before it is shown to the end users. Any corrections / rework can be done at this stage.

Technically speaking, all these language specific texts are stored in a Strings Repository. It has three tables:

  1. Base Table (English)
  2. Translation Table (All installed languages)
  3. Languages Table

If you have 100 labels in your Fusion CRM application, and 5 languages installed (Including English), “Base Table” will have 100 labels and “Translation Table” will have 400.

Similar to this, Fusion CRM also supports multiple currencies, number / date / time formats, Territory preferences and many more. Truly a global CRM application!

Posted in CRM, Globalizing, How To, Oracle, Oracle Fusion CRM, Personalization, Technical, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Social Media Q & A

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

Rypple.com posted some interesting questions regarding usage of Social Media in today’s enterprises. I have tried to address them based on our experience in handling Social Media / Social CRM Projects. Please share your thoughts too:

What companies are using social media internally?

Almost all companies need to adopt this sooner or later. But as the first wave, B2C companies seem to be doing this more than their B2B counterparts, If you want to drilldown further, FMCG companies, Telecom, Media, Banks followed by Retail is my order.

How are they using social media with their employees? And how is it helping?

This is still a ‘guess’, but it is very clear that your Social Media strategy *should* include an internal collaboration strategy too, Because it gives you immediate visibility and ROI, before even you attempt at speaking to people external to you.

I feel the value add is in the areas of searching for past experiences and finding the right resources to close a new business or a client problem faster. Other aspects could be knowledge sharing, Groups etc.,

Do employees get more work done when they can utilize social media tools? Why or why not?

People argue both ways. One school of thought says that Social Media tools improve productivity, while others feel it is a distraction. As of now many companies are keeping them separate (Social Media Team) until it becomes clear what is effective and why

If you ask my personal opinion, I am from the “Yes, Social Media Tools help me **work** better” group. But that is only because I am confident about my discipline and ability to make best use of it, Can’t say the same about everybody else, even my closest colleagues :)

Will younger workers want to work at an organization that doesn’t embrace real-time, collaborative tools?

A big fat No :) They may still work, but the *want* part will certainly be missing. For the web 2.0 generation, social tools are a way of life, not an optional thingy

- Naga Chokkanathan, Director (Innovation), CRMIT

(Originally written at : http://www.quora.com/What-companies-or-individuals-are-using-Social-Media-most-effectively-for-the-Enterprise)

Posted in B2B, B2C, Communication, CRM, Customer Service, Marketing, Q & A, SCRM, Service Management, Social CRM, Social Media, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized, User Adoption | Leave a comment

Law Of Non Resistance : How It Works?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by admin

Whenever we refuse to accept a situation, we actually put in more power to it and this makes it even harder to solve. The moment we decide to resist it, we direct negative energy to that object or situation and this makes the problem appear even bigger. We start losing hopes, feel dis-empowered and ultimately lose the energy to overcome it. This is called violation of Law of Non Resistance.

The saying goes like this “what you resist always persists” and struggling with any situation is a clear sign that you are moving against the flow. But believe me, you can change this direction anytime you want. To actually make this Law of Non Resistance work for you, the easiest way is to recognize the problem and view every aspect related to it.

As you start acknowledging it, you start giving positive energy to it and this helps your action to target the problem appropriately. And giving out positive energy allows you to receive positive energy, as well. This is how the law works for you and pushes you to move in the correct direction.

If in case, you are not able to find a solution for the problem, you can leave it for a while and wait for sometime until you get some ideas to resolve it. But in this case, you got to leave the problem peacefully and need not think about it for the rest of the day. So remember, whenever you start facing your problems, you head towards your life’s purpose and when you do not, you actually invite lot of struggle and suffering in your life.

- Charu Mehta

Posted in Soft Skills, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Visual Navigation Of Customer Support Calls

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

Today I noticed an interesting question in Quora (http://www.quora.com/How-long-will-it-be-until-I-can-navigate-automated-customer-service-calls-visually) about Visual Navigation of Customer Support Calls

How long will it be until I can navigate automated customer service calls visually?
My phone has a screen on it. I don’t want to listen carefully to your menu options, even if they have recently changed.

Very interesting scenario. I responded with an answer like this. What are your thoughts?

Ah, super practical question, Why not?

But technically, I think there are HUGE challenges, Even with sophisticated Computer Telephony Integrations in place, Voice based calls and kept separate from data transfer, hence using a smart phone to handle both voice and data (choices for you to choose from) is difficult, at least as of today.

So, the immediate options seem to be:

1. Pure voice (Current system which you described)
2. Pure data (Use a Website / PC to log your tickets)
3. Voice and data (iPhone / Android / Blackberry app where calls can be made and menu options can be ‘download’ed on the fly so that you can choose from there, instead of listening, use Voice only for talking, not for hearing / choosing)

Future option:

Make a voice call : get the menu options as a data back to your phone : Dynamic display : Choose : Speak / Act

On second thoughts, there are few phone apps which do this already, isn’t it? For example, the app used to query for balance in a prepaid account? If Phone companies can extend it to call centers too, it will be a good start!

Once the telephony system is there to support this, CRM systems can provide a much better navigation for phone users, depending on which device they are using

Naga Chokkanathan, Director (Innovation), CRMIT

Posted in B2C, Case Studies, Communication, CRM, Customer Service, Feedback, How To, iApps, mCRM, Mobile CRM, Mobile Devices, Mobiles, Q & A, Service Management, Service Request Management, Technical, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized, User Adoption | Leave a comment

Finding Time For Yourself

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

Some simple tricks for finding time for yourself:

1. De-clutter your schedule

  • Look at your timesheet for time wasters
  • Analyze timesheet to find tasks you spend most of your time with least results/ satisfaction
  • Try and be more efficient in selected activities
  • Drop / reduce time for few activities which may not make serious sense

2. Learn to delegate

  • Identify & delegate to others tasks which they can do better, not important to you or need early completion
  • Coach/ train/ mentor people to handle tasks which you may want to delegate

3. Learn to say ‘no’

  • Typical tasks which you may want to say NO to could be: Tasks not adding to your Goals/ KRA, Paucity of time/ preoccupation, You do not have the skills/ confidence to do, Not interested/ motivated to do the task
- Bhasker Rao, Director (HR), CRMIT
Posted in How To, Soft Skills, Tips & Tricks, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Twitter’s Self Service Advertising Platform & What it means for Social CRM

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

Buzz is that Twitter has launched a Self Service Advertising Platform for certain markets. We can expect it to go mainstream soon.

For quite sometime, Twitter uses promoted tweets, promoted trends etc., to make money. But they were not as self-service as Google Ads or few other alternatives. Having a system where people can manage their own Twitter Ads (& use them as per their budget) is going to add lot of value. And improve user adoption too.

Social CRM will jump into the bandwagon too, Soon we can expect features such as create a Twitter Ad from your CRM, Track effectiveness of a Twitter Ad, Track responses to a particular Ad, End to end campaign effectiveness reports etc., Exciting!

Do you use Twitter Ads? Are you planning to integrate them to your CRM? If yes, how? Who will benefit most from a platform / integration of this sort? Share your thoughts.

Posted in Campaigns, Communication, CRM, Lead Generation, Marketing, Media, News, Personalization, Sales, Self Service Portal, Social CRM, Social Media, Uncategorized, User Adoption | 1 Comment

Why New Business Models For US Banks?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

Reportedly, second and third quarter was an impressive period of significant improvements for US banks, but still we get to hear some news about the stocks of large banks that declined by more than 20 percent. This is happening since the beginning of the third quarter and four out of every five people are trading below the book value. Do you know why?

Here’s a sneak peak…

While some commentators blame the fear of double dip recession or may be Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, McKinsey Quarterly has tried to draw attention to three additional factors. The undermining issues brought to light by this business journal include the new bank capital requirements initiated under Basel III international-banking regulations, impact of new US banking regulations retorting to financial crisis, Dodd–Frank Act, and continuous deleveraging of customers.

As per the estimates, if these banks continue following the current business model, their average ROE (Return on Equity) is expected to fall from 11% to 7% by the year 2015. Moreover, the investors are also willing to see bank management teams to put forward trustworthy and far reaching plans to fill this gap. This is the current scenario, but what next?

What does the current status imply?

Out of these three factors, Basel III requirement is the most significant, since without justifying actions, they could reduce ROE of some banks by 5%. And that is why, it is being estimated that US banking system will require almost $500 billion in retained earning or may be an absolutely new equity to meet new standards. The second threat is also stepping forward slowly, as an amendment caps fees on payments and there is also a requirement to move many Over-The-Counter (OTC) businesses to clearing houses. This will probably lead to more expensive and complex day to day operations.

Then the next threat is all about unwinding of consumer debt and according to the analysis, when excessive borrowing becomes the principal cause of recession, businesses tend to spend next eight years to restructure their balance sheets. So, there is a very little prospect for the companies to return from those borrowing levels and some may never even return.

Therefore, banks must constrict the most out of all the capital cash especially that they have been neglecting from more than a decade. In fact, linking to risk adjusted capital usage would prove even more helpful in such a scenario.

- Charu Mehta, CRMIT

Posted in Case Studies, CRM, Customer Service, Finance and Banking, How To, Leadership, Learning, Media, News, Uncategorized | Leave a comment