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CompUSA Closes Shop
Forget Black Friday. For the best deals on gadgets and PCs this holiday season, look no further than your neighborhood CompUSA. The embattled electronics retail chain was dealt its final blow Friday when it was sold to Specialty Equity, an affiliate of private equity firm Gordon Brothers Group. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the immediate result is that Specialty Equity will close all 103 CompUSA stores in the United States, according to a press release issued late Friday. Gordon Brothers will "initiate an orderly wind-down" of each of the stores, the company says. That's great news for consumers looking for bargains. CompUSA will remain open through the holiday shopping season, presumably with "Everything Must Go!"-style signs. It was clear all was not well at the retailer when in March it closed half of its stores due to pressure from bigger chains like Best Buy and Circuit City.

Ask.com Adds Privacy Tool To Let Users Erase Search Data
Ask.com unveiled Tuesday a "privacy switch" that lets users completely erase their search queries and related data from the search engine's servers. The new feature, dubbed AskEraser, gives users control over whether their information is retained by the search engine. Company officials and privacy advocates hope the "privacy switch" will pressure other Internet companies to follow suit. However, and more importantly, data that Ask.com erases will be first sent to Google, which recently signed a five-year contract to serve ads alongside Ask.com search results. Google is under no apparent obligation to erase any information it receives from Ask.com, even in cases in which the user switched on the AskEraser function.
Source: WSJ

SupportSoft Helps Protect TalkTalk Customers Against Wireless Fraud
TalkTalk, the home phone and broadband provider from the Carphone Warehouse, is using SupportSoft technology to make it easier for customers with a generic modem to set up the right security information themselves. TalkTalk customers receive a CD that guides them through a very simple setup process to ensure their security settings are configured to deliver optimum protection from hackers. TalkTalk has integrated SupportSoft's SmartAccess technology into its broadband service, Connect & Go, as one solution to combating fraud for customers who are using a modem or router. TalkTalk uses the solution to assist subscribers in automatically setting their Wi-Fi security in cases where they have a built-in wireless adapter or a TalkTalk USB adapter. SmartAccess verifies customers' system characteristics, such as firmware version and modem, configures users' PCs and wireless gateway router with the latest software as needed, and provides interactive instructions to connect all the key components together.

Antenna Software Outfits Pitney Bowes Canada with Enterprise Mobility Solution
Antenna Software, Inc. announced that Pitney Bowes Canada will deploy its AMPower SERVICE solution to its 400 field technicians. Pitney Bowes Canada selected Antenna’s mobile field service application to help customer service representatives improve productivity and better meet service level agreements (SLAs) with clients. With AMPower SERVICE, calls are automatically dispatched to representatives in the field, giving them the essential facts around customer requests right from their BlackBerry smartphones. This helps them to be fully accountable for managing service requests from start to finish, with little, if any, intervention required from the call center or management. Because the service representatives are better equipped to respond to calls and solve problems faster, Pitney Bowes Canada can expect to improve productivity, meet more SLAs and increase customer satisfaction.

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Companies will target faster-growing emerging markets along with small and medium-sized businesses to offset slower U.S. spending growth, IDC predicted, and in some cases they will need to make acquisitions to launch into promising sectors. IDC sees tech spending in Brazil, Russia, India, China and nine other emerging countries, including Poland and Mexico, growing 16 percent in 2008.

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Midsize Enterprises Will Increase ERP Budgets by 5.1% in 2008
AMR Research released the “Midsize ERP Spending Report, 2007-2008,” which found midsize enterprises will increase their ERP budgets by 5.1% on average in 2008.

Growth in ERP spending was fueled by several factors. As midsize organizations fight for market share against increasingly diverse global competition, increased profitability, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction become priorities. And, with globalization, the pool of potential customers is ever-growing, creating a need for streamlined processes to help meet demand.

The survey found an increased interest in pure software-as-a-service (SaaS) and on-demand purchasing models. 39% of larger midsize companies (500-999 employees) are planning to purchase SaaS or on-demand software in 2008. And the numbers are rising. AMR Research predicts that over the next three years these new purchasing models will become a mainstream purchasing method.

In addition, by 2010, 43% of companies would like to employ a single, global financial and shared services ERP system.

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Business Intelligence / Analytics Technology Drives 42% Improvement in Customer Retention in Best-in-Class Companies
A recently published study by Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks company, found that leading field service organizations are adopting business intelligence and data analytics technology and best practices to enable better and faster decisions and reporting within post-sale service organizations. They are also beginning to deploy simulation modeling within their organizations to perform sophisticated “what-if” planning and forecasting.

Among the service organizations recently surveyed, companies that have implemented technology for reporting and decision support have improved:

• Service profitability by 17%
• Customer retention rates by an average of 29%
• Service Level Agreement (SLA) performance by 33%

Best-in-Class organizations are showing greater improvements, with service profitability up 18%, customer retention increase of 42%, and a 44% improvement in SLA compliance.

Other service organization Best-in-Class characteristics include:

• 80% have enterprise-wide balanced scorecard initiatives in place
• 71% have a vice president or higher executive overseeing service functions
• 40% have established enterprise-wide standards and process to ensure data accuracy

Aberdeen recommends that service organizations consider the following strategies to drive efficiency and decision support within their service organization:

• Implement technology and process to ensure data accuracy within the service operation.
• Provide service organization with total visibility into parts, workforce and knowledge across the enterprise.
• Implement technology to enable “what-if” simulations.
• Focus attention on longer-term customer-facing metrics like retention as well as profit.

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Employee Resistance To Using CRM Software is Biggest Hurdle for Companies
A recent survey conducted by Really Simple Systems, a provider of hosted CRM software, revealed that over 80% of respondents regarded employee resistance to using the software as the biggest hurdle they faced when implementing a new system.

The survey questioned 500 users of CRM encompassing SME business owners, directors and sales, marketing and IT managers on their views of the current state of the CRM market and the efficacy of products currently available. Surprisingly, of the users polled, 82.9% of respondents said that getting staff to use the software was the biggest challenge they faced.

Another key finding of the survey revealed that 71.9% of the respondents surveyed said that they would be prepared to trade functionality in their CRM systems for ease of use.

Other findings from the research revealed that:

• 42.9% of respondents use less than half of their existing CRM system's functionality
• 50.5% said that synchronizing data was a major issue
• 67.1% said that finding time to evaluate CRM systems was a major issue

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Mobile Service Providers Are Failing to Meet the Needs of Corporate Customers
Many mobile service providers are failing to capitalize on potentially lucrative corporate contracts because they don’t focus enough on client’s business needs, according to Gartner. Service providers that don’t update their sales strategies to provide tailored solutions to businesses risk losing valuable corporate customers and becoming chiefly consumer players, analysts warned.

Many mobile service providers would argue that they already have a dedicated corporate sales force that focuses on business requirements, but Gartner has found that for the most part, providers are not fulfilling these needs. Instead, the focus is on selling SIM cards with complex, non-transparent pricing schemes and giving discounts related to total spending, rather than delivering individual, tailored services.

According to Gartner, large organizations have four main priorities when buying mobile services: managing costs, managing services, dealing with increased mobile data services and centralizing resources. Only service providers that meet these demands by addressing the contractual, commercial, services and solutions needs of large companies will retain corporate contracts in the long-term.

Managing mobile services is becoming increasingly important to businesses that require different user profiles such as ‘international traveller’ or ‘domestic high data user’. Service level agreements (SLAs) with defined key performance indicators to measure the quality of help desks etc, as well as monitoring the performance of wireless email, are also growing in significance. Device management services are becoming more widespread with over-the-air disabling of lost or stolen handsets via a Web portal a key feature for corporate customers.

Organizations are also looking to service providers to deal with the increased use of mobile data services and provide solutions that extend remote access for mobile workers, such as the ones offered by Orange and iPass.

Gartner recommends that service providers focus on providing large organizations with a single point of contact for contract negotiations, management and solution issues, and recommends the use of Web-based procurement portals to include handset orders, installation and online order tracking, as well as multichannel support by phone, e-mail and fax.

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One in Five U.K. Firms Has a Head of CRM
One in five (19%) top UK corporations have now demonstrated their commitment to customer relationship management by appointing a dedicated Head of CRM, a study by integrated marketing specialist GI Insight has found. This is a substantial increase on the proportion (14.5%) two years ago and represents a growth rate in dedicated CRM Directors of almost one third in the last two years.

The study also analyzed the number of Heads of CRM in total, including those that also have another main job, such as Marketing Director or Customer Services Director. The findings show that 48% of UK top 500 companies now employ a Head of CRM compared to 44% in 2005. These findings serve as a barometer of ‘CRM commitment’ and were compared to findings from 2005.

More detailed analysis of the study revealed a number of sectors that score particularly highly for appointing Heads of CRM. Three industries stand out from the crowd:

Retail – of retail organizations appointing a Head of CRM, 52% of these are dedicated Heads of CRM. Because transactional data is so fundamental to customer relationship management in retail, the sector’s leading position for appointing dedicated Heads of CRM may well also reflect some of the ways in which retailers can use the data and analysis outputs that come out of their CRM programs.

Media and entertainment – of media and entertainment organizations appointing a Head of CRM, 50% of these are dedicated Heads of CRM. This was entirely unexpected. Music labels, publishers, broadcasters, cinemas, and so on are, after all, mainstays of the above-the-line advertising industry. However, customer value is often much higher now than in the past. Newspapers are engaging their readers with a wide range of online and offline services, music publishers are also issuing games, technology, infotainment products and much more. And the culture of home entertainment has been vastly boosted by increasing levels of DVD viewing and television usage.

Travel/leisure/hotel - of travel, leisure and hotel organizations appointing a Head of CRM, 46% are dedicated Heads of CRM. Businesses in this sector seem to be coming back into play as effective CRM players. This is a crucial return to form for the sector, seen in the 1980s as pioneers of loyalty and database marketing initiatives, but who slipped to the back of the pack in the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium.
Source: CustomerThink

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The Customer Connection: The Global Innovation 1000
In the third annual Global Innovation 1000 survey of the world's largest corporate R&D spenders, Booz Allen Hamilton experts found no correlation between how much companies spend on R&D and their innovation success. Rather, the most successful companies align their innovation efforts with corporate strategy and listen to their customers every step of the way.
Full Article...

Premier 100 IT Leaders 2008
Without a doubt, streamlining IT saves companies big bucks. Yet cost savings aren't the primary force driving the IT simplification boom. What these and many other Premier 100 IT Leaders say they are striving for is nothing short of overall business transformation. Simplifying vendor relations, consolidating systems and streamlining IT infrastructure clears a direct path to business process innovations, consistent operational excellence and overall market agility.
Full Article...

How to Use Enterprise Blogs to Streamline Project Management
A report earlier this year by consultancy Forrester Research revealed that 54 percent of IT decision makers expressed an interest in blogs. Of the companies that had piloted or implemented blogs, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) said they used them for internal communications. Fifty percent said they used blogs for internal knowledge and content management -- and these companies are leading the way of the future, analysts say. If you're just now preparing to take the blog plunge, changing decades of work habits for a generation of information workers tethered to e-mail won't be easy. Blogs also remain a tough sell for traditional IT leaders who value a command-and-control, top-down hierarchy when it comes to their infrastructure. For implementation success, say analysts and practitioners who have championed the technology, you'll need enterprise-worthy blogging tools and test group members who become believers and ideally will evangelize the technology.
Full Article...

Best Practice Deployment of Acceleration Solutions Based on ROI
Data center consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing, and the webification of critical business applications like CRM and ERP systems have created more mobile and remote office users -- the net result of which is the increasingly pressing challenge facing IT architects to deliver secure and optimized access to applications. To address the many variations in architecture and organization-specific needs, a flexible solution is needed to speed application delivery, secure remote access, and WAN optimization.
Full Article...

Aligning IT Roles to Business Responsibilities
As the digital world progresses at a rapid pace, fewer business issues have become greater than information and IT security, with organizations around the world falling victim to security crises and lost productivity associated with delays in access to applications and systems. The security risks that an organization is exposed to as a result of orphan accounts, high-privileged access held by unauthorized users and access privileges carried by users as they move from one job function to another have been cited as the main IT audit findings. As organizations look to streamline and improve the efficiency of their identity management (IdM) infrastructure and add value to existing IT relationships within the business, role-based access control (RBAC) is one solution that can be adopted by organizations to streamline efficiencies and apply access controls across all applications and systems in their enterprise.
Full Article...

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
by Marshall Goldsmith, Mark Reiter

America's most sought-after executive coach shows how to climb the last few rungs of the ladder. The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They're intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle -- and as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shows in this book, subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small "transactional flaws" performed by one person against another (as simple as not saying thank you enough), which lead to negative perceptions that can hold any executive back. Using Goldsmith's straightforward, jargonfree advice, it's amazingly easy to change your behavior.

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