Help desk demands continue to grow, often without growth in IT staffing. While it is possible to streamline your help desk process using on-demand solutions, certain considerations need to be addressed before rolling out any solutions.

Questions such as how do you create a roadmap, how can Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) help, and what service management solutions work best are addressed
in this free report, Service Management Success
by AMI Partners.

Download this white paper now.

Trends in Customer Relationship Management Survey
CRMindustry.com is conducting a benchmark study on the current state of and future direction of customer relationship management (CRM) in organizations today. The questions were designed to capture important information related to budgets, vendors, in-house vs. hosted solutions, the impact of CRM on the organization and more. We recognize your time is valuable so we have kept the survey questions quick and concise. In addition, as a participant, you will receive a complimentary copy of the executive summary. You can start the Trends in CRM survey at the following link:
http://www.customersat3.com/TakeSurvey.asp?si=hYAMT%2Fqam0s%3D
Your response is requested by October 19, 2007.

SAP to Acquire France's Business Objects
SAP AG's agreement to acquire Business Objects SA of France for $6.78 billion marks a big bet by the German software giant in the emerging market known as business-intelligence software.
The boards of the two companies agreed to the deal yesterday. SAP said it plans to launch an all-cash offer of $59 a share for Business Objects, a 20% premium over the last closing price in Paris. It is possible a competing bid could emerge. By acquiring Business Objects, SAP hopes it will improve its offerings by drawing on the French company's position in business intelligence, or software that helps companies track and analyze their performances as well as that of competitors. Such software is used for risk management and corporate governance and has become an increasingly important feature for SAP's customer base of large corporations.
Source:WSJ

BMC Fills Out Its IT Business Services With Emprisa Acquisition
BMC announced the acquisition of Emprisa Networks, which provides automated network configuration, compliance and change management software. BMC had been partnering with Emprisa, and the Emprisa E-NetAware is part of BMC’s new Service Automation solution, which deals with coordinating and running provisioning and updates; server and network configuration; and the packaging and deployment of software across heterogeneous systems. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. With Emprisa Networks, BMC is filling out its IT business service stack. BMC is claiming that Service Automation delivers 90 percent savings in routine IT management costs. Whether that claim is accurate is questionable, automating IT is what corporations are willing to spend money on.

CustomerReach Announces Real-time Web Visitor Monitoring and Live Chat Server Software
CustomerReach Corporation announced pricing and availability of CustomerReach Server Edition -- a live chat product that allows companies to pay a one-time fee for a customer service desktop product as an alternative to enrolling in a monthly subscription service. CustomerReach Server Edition is based on CustomerReach’s flagship live chat software product. The live chat software gives businesses the opportunity to chat with customers while they are visiting the company website to provide help and support, unlike other live chat software, CustomerReach offers unique benefits such as a supervisor monitoring option and the ability to have more than one agent in a chat to ensure no question goes unanswered. CustomerReach is also the only true instant messaging chat service on the market. Rather than using html polling to check periodically for online customers, CustomerReach uses a socket connection, which allows the software to perform more efficiently and reliably with lower latency.

Webinar Series - Best Practices in Customer Support

Parature's Webinar Series "Best Practices in Customer Support" continues with new presentations delivered by some of the industry's leading minds. This month Carlos Quezada of Meru Networks will deliver an informational session on, "World-Class Customer Support Techniques for Technology Organizations".

Gain the insight you need to help reduce costs and enable customer self-service by attending this exciting and informative webinar.

Register Today!

Worldwide IT Spending to Surpass $3 Trillion in 2007
2007 is on pace to be a milestone year for the IT industry, as worldwide IT spending is projected to surpass $3 trillion, according to Gartner, Inc. IT spending in 2007 will reach $3.1 trillion in 2007, an 8 percent increase from last year, and spending for 2008 is forecast grow 5.5 percent and total $3.3 trillion.

On a worldwide basis, IT spending continues to grow at a rapid pace in developing countries. In fact, one-third of IT spending now occurs outside of North America, Western Europe, and Japan. This development will create new innovation in IT, new competitors, new usage patterns, and continued cost improvement benefits for users.

As IT moves East and South, it will mostly affect the growing areas of the industry. End-user spending will globally move towards software, services, and all aspects of mobility. These categories made up 57 percent of spending in 2006, will become 60 percent in 2008, and are forecast to have grown to 63 percent in 2011.

More....

Attracting, retaining IT professionals key concern for nation's CIOs
Ensuring business-IT alignment is a top concern among the nation's leading CIOs, but for the first time in years, it's not the top concern, according to new research conducted by the Society for Information Management (CIO). The impending IT talent crunch has re-focused CIOs' attention on retaining and attracting IT professionals.

More than 130 CIO and IT executives from 112 different companies responded to this year's SIM membership survey, which polled members to determine the issues that are top of mind for them.

IT and business alignment is still a major concern among CIOs, finishing second on the list of top ten issues, followed by:

• Build Business Skills in IT
• Reduce the Cost of Doing business
• Improve IT Quality
• Security & Privacy
• Manage Change
• IT Strategic Planning
• Making Better use of Information
• Evolving CIO Leadership

Some other highlights from this year's report include:

• 78.6 percent of respondents expect to maintain or increase their IT budget in 2008
• 75.4 percent expect to maintain or increase their IT staff
• The CIO or top IT Executive has been in their position for an average of 4.1 years (compared to 3.6 in the 2006 survey)
• 31.4 percent of CIOs report to the CEO (compared to 45.2 percent in 2006); 29.3 percent report to the CFO (compared to 25.4 percent in 2006)
  

More...

Service Level Management Acceptance on the Rise and Linked to Business Survival
A new study released by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) reports that Service Level Management (SLM) acceptance continues to grow and that IT executives increasingly view SLM as a vital factor to business success. The 2007 comparative study shows that the number of surveyed organizations implementing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) has risen to 82% of respondents, a 26% increase since EMA’s 2003 findings.

Key findings that are detailed within the report include:

• 90 percent of end users perceived SLM as critical or important to their executives and directly tied to business survival
• 82 percent of organizations surveyed have implemented SLAs
• 79 percent of respondents cited ITIL as an adopted methodology
• Internal education is key to success and also one of the greatest challenges for organizations implementing SLM
• 56 percent of end-user respondents report having no sense of ROI either before or after employing best practices
• More users associate IT-business alignment with BSM than with SLM
• SLM and Configuration Management Database (CMDB) initiatives can coexist very nicely – as one survey respondent notes, “you can’t do sophisticated SLM without a CMDB”

EMA’s research reveals a marked correlation between enforcing standards and achieving results. SLM adoption, paired with the right mix of best practices, is continuing to provide positive outcomes. More than two-thirds of the respondents reported increased operational efficiency and customer satisfaction after rolling out their SLM initiatives.

More...

Consumers Are Turning To Online Reviews In Large Numbers
Enabled by new information technologies, consumers have real-time access to information, insight and analysis, giving them an unprecedented arsenal to help make purchase decisions. At the same time, these technologies provide a voice and a venue for anyone with something to say, allowing individuals to shape reputations of consumer companies and their products, according to a new Deloitte study.

To build their knowledge arsenals, consumers are turning to online reviews in large numbers – and those reviews are having a considerable impact on purchase decisions. According to a recent survey by Deloitte’s Consumer Products group, almost two-thirds (62 percent) of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. Of these, more than eight in 10 (82 percent) say their purchase decisions have been directly influenced by the reviews, either influencing them to buy a different product than the one they had originally been thinking about purchasing or confirming the original purchase intention. Interestingly, while the percentages were slightly higher for the younger generations, all age groups are reading and acting on online reviews at significant rates. In addition, the reach of consumer reviews isn’t limited to the online world; seven in 10 (69 percent) consumers who read reviews share them with friends, family or colleagues, thus amplifying their impact.

While the survey found that reputation and word of mouth – both factors that are greatly influenced by online reviews – are the key factors that influence consumers’ decisions to purchase a new product or brand, many other factors also play a significant role. “Better for you” ingredients or components, eco-friendly usage, and sourcing were each cited by approximately four in 10 consumers as important factors in making purchase decisions, while eco-friendly production and/or packaging was cited by more than one-third (35 percent).

Recent recalls of imported products are also contributing to this trend: one-third of survey respondents (33 percent) said that, as a result of recent recalls, they now look for more information on the packaging/product and almost one in five (18 percent) said they now look for more information on the Internet or in other locations.

More...

Information Central: The Contact Center's Next Big Thing
Today's contact center should be to customer insight what Grand Central Station is to New York's transportation system: a vital hub. Contact center process and technologies should bring information to agents from marketing, sales, R&D, billing, and the Web, and collect information from the contact center -- from agents, call recordings, IVR activity -- and deliver it back to all those other "destinations." Far too often, however, the customer insights generated on a daily basis inside the contact center die there; and at the same time, the contact center is too busy trying to meet challenging call volume metrics to look at the insight the rest of the organization could provide. This is a lost opportunity for sharing information that ultimately can help boost customers' satisfaction and value to the organization.
Full Article...

The Business Case For Mobile E-Mail
The business case for putting mobile e-mail into the hands of more employees gets easier to make as smartphone prices decline. It also helps that IT tools for managing mobile e-mail across companies keep improving. The challenge now: getting the people who need mobile e-mail and those who manage it on the same page.
Full Article...

Wal-Mart: A Snap Inspection
Customer service is becoming what appears to be an enormous problem for WalMart. Many of Wal-Mart's workers feel outright hostility toward the company, and, by extension, they often treat customers with indifference or worse. That puts Wal-Mart in a box. Without reasonable service, the company is forced to compete almost solely on price. That in turn squeezes margins and makes it difficult to pay employees the better wages and benefits that could boost morale. It's a vicious cycle that now appears to be working against Wal-Mart.
Full Article...

What Service-Based Costing Really Means
With service-based costing – a concept from ITIL -organizations calculate the full cost of their products and services. They propose a budget that includes not just the expected "keep the lights on" services but also the many things clients have requested and the many good ideas their IT entrepreneurs generate for better serving the business.
Full Article...

IT Survival Guide
We've all been there--asked to come up to speed quickly on technologies outside our expertise and experience. For every IT staffer and manager stuck in this situation, InformationWeek has created this Survival Guide. Tuck it away for the next time you get asked about network access control, open source, or virtualization. The guide highlights the opportunities for cost cutting and innovation and the keys to success. It's meant to help get you through the next business technology storm, because you can be sure it's coming.
Full Article...

Spiral Up: And Other Management Secrets Behind Wildly Successful Initiatives
by Jane C. Linder

Maybe the reason so many well-intentioned management initiatives fall short is because typical "best practice" methods only help managers avoid failure, rather than produce genuinely spectacular results. Jane Linder proposes a new way of managing. Based on her study of more than 40 wildly successful projects, she has identified five characteristics that fly in the face of conventional practice. Spiral Up presents accounts of everyday project champions who have produced breathtaking results . . . and shows readers how to do the same.

More Info...

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White Paper: Using Web-based Support Tools to Improve Customer Service
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