While cloud-based CRM tools are making inroads in bridging data silos, CRM systems on their own can’t bridge the gap and meet the challenge of pulling all the pieces together from various data sources to create a 360-degree view of the customer.

Despite the promise of cloud-based CRM tools, maximizing their value in an increasingly fragmented market has become a daunting task. A new generation of niche tools are becoming more necessary to solve data management challenges.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ perspectives in SearchCRM regarding these issues and learn how Azuqua is positioning itself to be the latest company to attack this problem.

A growing number of Internet of Things (IoT) vendors are teetering on the edge of Gartner’s “peak of inflated expectations” and risk falling into the “trough of disillusionment” in Gartner’s Hype Cycle because of slower-than-expected IoT adoption in 2015.

Rather than face another frustrating year, I think there’s an opportunity to jumpstart corporate IoT initiatives in 2016 by turning around the “long-tail” idea.

Click here to read my latest commentary in Sandhill.com about Turning the Long Tail around in the IoT.

One of the ultimate ironies about today’s Cloud Computing environment is that the proliferation of Cloud services is making it more complicated to take advantage of the new generation of ‘on-demand’ capabilities that were once expected to make IT simpler and more economical. As a result, many organizations are turning to proven managed cloud service providers to bring order to all the confusion.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ perspectives regarding this market trend in our guest blogpost hosted by Cloudnexa.

The escalating terror attacks that are gripping the world will dramatically change the technology landscape in the coming year. As the threats of more deadly attacks on innocent people become more pervasive, people’s attitudes and public policies toward technology will fundamentally change.

Whether we like it or not, technology has become a tool of today’s rapidly growing terrorist groups. They recruit new members, showcase their latest atrocities and promote their causes via social media. They use encryption to hide their plans and coordinate their attacks. And they are becoming more adept at not only hacking government and corporate databases for political purposes but also getting closer to gaining access to power plants, manufacturing operations and other key components of the “grid.”

As a consequence of these intensifying threats, there will be a groundswell of demands in 2016 for new technology policies, products … Read More »

One of the clear indications that the cloud movement is becoming mainstream is the growing number of CFOs and finance departments that are adopting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to support their corporate responsibilities.

Even more interesting is how cloud-based alternatives can redefine the accounting and financial management function in forward-minded organizations.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ views in E-Commerce Times about the business impact of these trends.

THINKstrategies announced today that INetU has been named winner of the Cloud Computing Business Value (CCBV) Award. This program promotes the measurable business benefits delivered by today’s Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions.

The CCBV Awards is an ongoing program administered by THINKstrategies’ Cloud Computing Showplace to recognize Cloud companies that are delivering measurable business benefits to specific user organizations. These benefits can include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations and greater profitability.

INetU combines state-of-the-art managed cloud and hosting solutions with the industry’s top-rated service and support. Organizations choose INetU for reliable, flexible, secure, and compliant hosting services to safely accelerate their business growth while reducing their investment in managing IT infrastructure. Its global data centers, personalized solutions, deep expertise and outstanding service have earned INetU the highest customer satisfaction scores in the cloud hosting industry.

Two examples of … Read More »

THINKstrategies is pleased to now be contributing its industry perspectives to TechTarget’s SearchCRM website.

Our first guest blogpost examines Salesforce’s foray into IoT extends personalized CRM, and our second commentary discusses how SAP’s customer engagement strategy could trump CRM.

I hope you find these columns valuable and welcome your feedback.

THINKstrategies is pleased to be a new contributor to the Future of Customer Engagement and Commerce blog hosted by SAP hybris. The website is focused on the rapidly escalating challenges of omnichannel marketing in the business-to-business (B2B) environment.

THINKstrategies is contributing its perspective regarding how the Cloud, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data are shaping these issues and providing new methods to capitalize on these opportunities.

Our first blogpost discussed why modern customer engagement is a numbers game. Our second blogpost examines who’s responsible for the customer experience (Hint: it’s not the CMO).

The cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) are creating new business possibilities for value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators (SIs) and other solution providers despite past predictions of the “disintermediation of the channel.”

However, the nature of the cloud marketplace and the way in which IoT initiatives are actually deployed also make it harder for hardware vendors and software developers to track how their systems and applications are sold and utilized.

This creates a myriad of channel sales, marketing, billing, compensation, support and compliance issues that need to be addressed if the cloud and IoT markets are going to continue to expand via third-party channels.

Click here to read THINKstrategies’ perspectives about the challenges of tracking these issues, and how Zyme is addressing these issues in Sandhill.com.

The volume and variety of data being produced from a widening array of sources is growing exponentially.  And, everyone from corporate executives to end users are becoming more data-driven for decisions and day-to-day activities. They need the right data to be in the right place at the right time. To keep pace with growing amount of data throughout their organization, they are pursuing cloud and finding that optimizing data and moving data to the cloud can be more complicated than expected.

THINKstrategies’ latest whitepaper published on behalf of Attunity will:

Explain the escalating ‘Big Data’ challenges facing enterprises,
Describe how a new generation of cloud alternatives can respond to these challenges, and
Show how Attunity’s software is addressing these issues.

Click here to download a copy of this whitepaper.