CSO Insights First Views

Historically, we have left the task of reviewing CRM products to SellMoreNow, ISM, the Gartner Group, etc., focusing our efforts on doing "project reviews": obtaining firsthand user perspectives on how these applications were performing in the real world. In the past year, due in main part to Salesforce.com and SugarCRM opening up their platforms for other solutions to be developed around, we have seen literally hundreds of new sales and marketing effectiveness applications emerge. As a result of requests from research clients to help them wade through this deluge of product offerings to identify the ones that might increase their sales effectiveness, we are starting this new First View series.

The intent of these articles is to provide clients with insights into new applications that we feel offer innovative approaches to solving the sales and marketing challenges that companies face today, above and beyond what they can currently do with their core CRM application. Since these are emerging technologies, the comments presented here represent our personal perspectives on the impact these systems could have on sales performance. As always though, the proof is in the pudding, so we will be tracking the adoption of these systems over time to ensure that user reality matches our expectations.

First View: Landslide Technologies - The Integration of CRM and Sales Process
First View: FirstWave - Marketing Campaign Optimization
First View: Cloud9 Messenger - Sales Management Metrics Go Mobile
First View: Jigsaw - Optimizing CRM Data Management
First View: Cloud9 Analytics - Pipeline/Forecast Management Optimization
First View: Connect and Sell - Turbo-charging Telesales Productivity
First View: TimeTrade Systems' Time Driver - Avoiding Failure to Communicate