SaaS 2.0 Free Report

Now for its second act SaaS is ready to leverage its Web roots and take on the bigger challenge of integrating people, partners, business processes and data.

Learn where SaaS is headed and how SaaS is changing the fundamental economics of the software business,
and how some are integrating composite applications
to build SaaS 2.0 solutions.

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Microsoft buys Facebook stake for $240M
Rapidly rising Internet star Facebook Inc. has sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc. The deal announced Wednesday after several weeks of negotiation values Palo Alto-based Facebook at $15 billion — less than four years after Mark Zuckerberg started the online social networking site in his Harvard University dorm room. Microsoft also will sell Internet ads for Facebook as the site expands outside the United States, broadening an existing marketing relationship that began last year. Besides validating Zuckerberg's decision to rebuff a $1 billion takeover offer from Yahoo Inc. last year, Microsoft's money should be more than enough to pay for Facebook's ambitious expansion plans until the privately held company goes public.

Cisco WebEx and Oracle Launch Collaborative CRM Solution
On-demand collaboration applications and services provider WebEx, now part of Cisco, and Oracle, an enterprise software company, announced that they will offer Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand Service, a customer relationship management (CRM) application service, through the WebEx Connect application ecosystem. CRM On Demand by Oracle delivered by WebEx combines Cisco WebEx's on-demand collaboration expertise with Oracle's enterprise-class Siebel CRM On Demand Service, to create a collaborative CRM designed to accelerate sales cycles at businesses of any size.

IQPC Announces the 3rd Annual Call Center Summit: Leveraging Measurements and Technology to Drive Performance and Improve the Customer Experience
January 28 - 31, 2008* Colonnade Hotel Coral Gables* Miami, FL
From the creators of the SOLD OUT Call Center Week – IQPC brings you the 3rd Annual Call Center Summit. This year’s annual conference promises to be another exiting Call Center IQ event - with new speakers, new tracks, hot topics and new site tours this is a conference you can not miss! For more information, click here:
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Introducing the newest release of Numara FootPrints 8! The web-based automated service desk management solution that's so easy to configure and implement, you'll be up and running - and enjoying improved productivity - in just weeks!

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Gartner analysts said the first step of a business justification model is to understand the business objectives and goals. Then it is critical to understand and evaluate the business capabilities and implications, including self assessments on competencies, maturity assessments, gap analysis and an evaluation of the business’s current state versus future state. Additional key steps in the model are the portfolio management and governance phases.

The model also provides a mechanism for IT leaders to communicate and work with business leaders. IT leaders must focus on business language to get the attention and support of business leaders. This means focusing on justifications for investments into emerging technologies based on the effect to the business, such as increasing sales, creating new sources of revenue and increasing speed of communication.
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Companies Worldwide Struggle to Attract, Retain Workers
A large majority of companies in the United States and around the world are struggling to attract and retain top-performing and critical-skill workers, according to a new study by Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Furthermore, many employers do not fully understand why workers join or leave an organization, an obstacle that greatly increases the challenge of finding and keeping good employees.

Two of three companies worldwide report difficulty attracting top-performing workers, while a full 70 percent have difficulty attracting critical-skill employees, according to the 2007/2008 Global Strategic Rewards study. These trends show remarkably little variance around the world. In addition, more than half of companies report difficulty retaining top-performing (52 percent) and critical-skill (56 percent) workers. The United States has the highest median voluntary turnover rate, at 11 percent, while Latin America has the lowest, at 5 percent. The study results are based on a survey of 946 companies and a complementary survey of 13,000 employees.

Efforts by companies to limit turnover appear to be hampered by an incomplete understanding of employee priorities. For example, workers rank stress as a top reason they would leave their company, but it is not even among the top five reasons that employers cited. Instead, employers cite insufficient pay and lack of career development and promotion opportunities.

The study found that when employees are satisfied with stress levels and work/life balance, 86 percent are more inclined to stay with their company (versus 64 percent when dissatisfied) and 88 percent are more likely to recommend it as a place to work (versus 55 percent when dissatisfied).

The study also found that to attract, retain and motivate the best employees, companies must clearly communicate expectations about rewards and then deliver as promised. More than two-thirds (69 percent) of employees who say their employers succeed at both promising and delivering rewards are committed to their company and motivated to help it succeed, versus about one-fourth of workers overall. These employees also are more likely to be top performers.

Other findings from the Global Rewards study:

• Incentive compensation: Globally, companies are making more workers eligible to participate in incentive compensation programs, although nearly one-half of employers also raised the financial targets that must be met to earn those bonus rewards.

• Performance management: Roughly one-half of companies say their managers do a good job at performance management. Managers at U.S. companies received the lowest ratings, while those in Asia-Pacific received the highest.

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Study Finds Significant "Engagement Gap" Among Global Workforce
Employees do not believe their organizations or their senior management are doing enough to help them become fully engaged and contribute to their companies' success, according to a new global workforce study conducted by Towers Perrin, a global professional services firm.

Just 21% of the employees surveyed around the world are engaged in their work, meaning they're willing to go the extra mile to help their companies succeed. Fully 38% are partly to fully disengaged. The result is a gap -- which Towers Perrin has dubbed the "engagement gap" -- between the discretionary effort companies need and people actually want to invest and companies' effectiveness in channeling this effort to enhance performance. The study found that companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more successful in retaining their most valued employees than companies with lower levels of engagement.

The most striking data about the linkage between employee engagement and financial performance come from a study of 40 global companies which involved a regression analysis of company financial results against engagement data. It found that firms with the highest percentage of engaged employees collectively increased operating income 19% and earnings per share 28% year to year. Those companies with the lowest percentage of engaged employees showed year-to-year declines of 33% in operating income and 11% in earnings per share.

In a related study over a longer time horizon (three years), the firmswith the highest levels of employee engagement achieved a 3.7% increase in operating margins, while those with the lowest levels of engagement suffered a drop of 2%.

Engaged employees also are more likely to see a direct connection between what they do and company results, according to the study. More than 80% of engaged employees believe they can and do contribute to the quality of products and services, and to customer satisfaction. Only half as many of the disengaged share that view.

In addition, engagement has a direct impact on retaining employees. Half of the engaged employees had no plans to leave their company, compared with just 15% of the disengaged ¾ and roughly a third of the workforce overall. Less than 5% of engaged employees said they were actively looking for another job compared with more than one in four of the disengaged employees.

The Towers Perrin study also debunks a widely held view that engagement is an innate trait. Rather, it is the organization itself -- and most particularly, its senior leadership -- that has the biggest impact on engagement levels.

The study's findings point to three areas of focus for companies to increase engagement and tap the reservoir of employee discretionary effort.

• 1.Employees need their senior leaders to demonstrate inspiration, vision and commitment. Only 38% of employees surveyed felt senior management communicates openly and honestly, and just 44% agreed senior management tries to be visible and accessible. In addition, only 10% of employees agreed that "senior management treats us as if we're the most important part of the organization." More than half felt that senior management "treats us as just another part of the organization to be managed" or "as if we don't matter."

• 2. Employees want to give more to their companies and their jobs, but also want a clearer picture of what's in it for them. The study shows that employees are optimistic about their jobs and have a strong desire to learn and grow. More than three out of four employees love or like their job (86%) and their organization (77%). In addition, 83% "look for opportunities to develop new knowledge or skills," and 84% "enjoy challenging work that will allow them to learn new skills." But, as the engagement scores show, they are not delivering the full discretionary effort these views would suggest because they don't feel their companies and leaders are meeting these needs and creating the conditions that will sustain engagement. For instance, just 36% agreed they have excellent career opportunities at their organization, and more than two-thirds said they are sometimes or frequently frustrated by their organization's people-related decisions. And while 68% agreed their organization has a reputation for financial stability, only 54% agreed it had a reputation as a great place to work.

• 3. Employees want to work for a company that is seen as a leader. A big part of what's in it for employees is an organization's reputation. Employees worldwide show a desire to work for an organization that strives for excellence in the eyes of its employees, customers and the world at large. According to the survey, top drivers of higher engagement ¾ all within the organization's control ¾ include senior leadership behavior, a commitment to corporate social responsibility, the company's reputation, and sufficient opportunities for learning and development.

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CRM Projects Fail Because Users Say ‘No Thanks’
Nearly one-third of customer relationship management (CRM) software deployments end in failure, according to new research from AMR Research Inc. The bottom line is that sales representatives and, to a lesser extent, marketing professionals, just aren't using the technology, and that non-adoption is leading to failure. The Boston-based research firm recently surveyed 190 IT and line-of-business executives and found that 29% of CRM projects fail. That's slightly better than the 31% failure rate AMR Research uncovered in 2006, but it's much worse than the 18% rate discovered in 2005.
Full Article...

The True Drivers of Loyalty
A number of misconceptions about loyalty have led companies to make misguided investments in customer management programs. The notion that loyalty is all about improving customer satisfaction is perhaps the most common mistake. The frustrating truth is that what customers say about being satisfied turns out to be a poor indicator of loyalty. In fact, a consistent finding from customer research is that 60 percent to 80 percent of lost customers across all industry segments reported on surveys just prior to defecting that they were "very satisfied" or "satisfied." To attract and retain the most loyal and profitable customers, a firm must first understand the true drivers of loyalty -- the customer attitudes that drive the different types of behaviors that must be understood and nurtured.
Full Article...

Five New Rules for Management
In the process of working with some of the best run companies in the world, the authors of HumanSigma have learned a great deal about how the world's finest organizations unleash the power of their human systems and how the worst fail to do so. Though the specific ways that the HumanSigma [management] model may be implemented in your company may vary, the underlying philosophy can be boiled down to five new rules, listed in this article.
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Amazon.com's IT Leader Leaving Huge Customer Service Infrastructure as Legacy
CIO Rick Dalzell is leaving Amazon.com after 10 years of constant change, inventions in personalization, product and service offerings. During Dalzell's tenure, Dalzell has overseen $2 billion worth of technology investment. On his watch, the company's IT infrastructure has scaled to support $10.7 billion in sales, more than 69 million active customer accounts, 42 product lines from apparel to video games, more than 1.1 million third-party sellers, and a growing contingent of software engineers who are tapping into the computing prowess and Web services the company has developed over the years. Then there are all the technological innovations the company's legion of software engineers have brought to market, many under Dalzell's leadership. His retirement presents an opportunity to examine how Amazon.com has changed over the past 10 years, how it executed on its vision, and how it beat investors' skepticism and changed retailing.
Full Article...

After Theft, Tech Support Call Lands Man in Jail
Here's a tip: if you steal a printer, don't call the manufacturer asking for driver software. It's a lesson that Timothy Scott Short learned all too well this month, when he was arrested after placing a couple of calls to Digimarc Corp.'s tech support line.
Full Article...

Free, Perfect, and Now: Connecting to the Three Insatiable Customer Demands
by Robert Rodin, Curtis Hartman

In a world where knowledge is king, the Web never sleeps, and competitive challenge increases exponentially, Robert Rodin shows you how to prepare for the three insatiable demands of today's customers: they want their product or service FREE, they want it PERFECT, and they want it NOW. No matter what business you're in, you have to find a way to respond -- or risk losing your customers to competitors who are discovering new ways to sell your product or service cheaper, better, and faster than you've ever imagined.

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