Top 15 Customer Relationship Management vendors revealed

Definitions of Customer Relationship Management on the Web:

CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer. It includes methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an organization manage customer relationships in an organized way. The Customer Perspective of the Balanced Scorecard may contain references to a CRM program.

1. Amdocs CRM v. 6 - Amdocs Ltd.
2. C2 CRM v. 8.0 - Clear Technologies Inc.
3. CMS/Oncontact V, v. 5.2 - Oncontact Software Corp.
4. ExSellence 5.0 - Optima Technologies Inc.
5. Firstwave CRM v. 3.1 - Firstwave Technologies Inc.
6. growBusiness Solutions v. 3.1 - Software Innovation ASA
7. Infor CRM - Infor
8. mySAP CRM - SAP AG
9. Onyx v. 6.0 - Onyx Software Corp.
10. PeopleSoft CRM - Oracle/PeopleSoft Inc.
11. Pivotal v. 5.9 - Pivotal Corp.
12. Salesforce.com - Salesforce.com Inc.
13. Saratoga CRM 6.5.3 - Saratoga Systems Inc.
14. Siebel 8.0 - Oracle/Siebel Systems Inc.
15. Tibco Process RM v. 9.0 - Tibco

What Are They Famous For?

Bizarre Products, Branding & Advertising

Bizarre products, branding and advertising is the new movement in attracting consumers. Even wrong placement of movie ads such as Liongate’s ‘opps, we didn’t mean for Captivity to be advertised in public’ poster and billboard placements among Los Angeles streets.

You may think it’s bizarre but bizarre products, advertising and displays get attention and makes thousands upon thousands of dollars every year. Bizarre and usual increases a company’s brand awareness.

Aqua One Technologies Inc. are the creators of Fish 'n Flush and the product is a perfect example of bizarre brand awareness. They design, manufacture, and market water control and conservation technology for toilets. Not very exciting but necessary. I would have been interested in looking up a company called Aqua One or a business that specializes in water and conservation technologies. But with the Fish N Flush, I’m at they’re site learning more about them. They even have a tabk for the Christmas decorating nuts I mean enthusiast.

Being Spaces: Commercial living-room-like settings,

Tryvertising: Letting a customer try out the goods before buying inside the store.

Sympvertising: Trying a product before you buy it in everyday life situations

Three new words in product and company branding.

Starbucks is a great example of Being Spaces. Starbucks centers on providing a comfortable living room type environment that invites customers to sink into a comfortable sofa chair and read a book while sipping their Grande Double Mocha.

Many forms of mass media advertising is dying or at least dawdling down to a slow drip. In response to sluggish media response, companies are providing product samples in subtle ways such complimentary placements in hotels. A large scale Tryvertising: / Sympvertising comes from hotels that have partnered with luxury carmakers to offer high end cars to guests during their stay. Guests get to ‘test drive’ they’re next potential model car while they visiting or conducting business in one of their travel destinations.

Anther example of new brand marketing and advertising is Pop-Up Retail establishments. The London Fashion Bus is a continually touring showroom with over 1,400 pieces of work from 40 clothing designers. The refitted double-decker bus brings unique designer pieces to areas throughout Britain. The Pop-Up Retail bus provides unique young designers clothing to a wider audience.

NIKE is doing what it does best by hitting the road with they’re Nike Runner's Lounge.

The lounge is a temporary sympvertising location where athletes can, get free massages, drinks and snacks and perhaps most significantly, test-drive Nike's line of running shoes.

Its first lounge was in Vancouver strategically located along Vancouver's Seawall, a major running route in the city and coincided with the preparations for the Vancouver half marathon.

New bizarre products, branding and advertising is everywhere, and here to stay in various shapes and forms. Original & bizarre is the new trend and aspiring consumers outside the big cities to try little pieces of city life. In addition, consumers now have access to the latest and greatest from happening urban metropolis.

A Career Where You Never Grow Old & You Never Grow Up

San Francisco Bans Plastic Bags

(Reuters)
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to become the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets to help promote recycling.


Under the legislation, beginning in six months large supermarkets and drugstores will not be allowed to offer plastic bags made from petroleum products.

"I am hopeful that other U.S. cities will also adopt similar legislation," he said. "Why wait for the federal government to enact legislation that gets to the core of this problem when local governments can just step up to the plate?" said Ross Mirkarimi, the city legislator who championed the new law.

Mirkarimi said the ban would save 450,000 gallons of oil a year and remove the need to send 1,400 tons of debris now sent annually to landfills. The new rules would, however, allow recyclable plastic bags, which are not widely used today.

The tree hugger in me is excited but the sensible part of me is wondering if this can really work in San Francisco let alone in any other city. The idea of an entire city relying on canvas and paper bags seems like a huge task. Noble effort, but nevertheless a huge task in convincing consumers to use non plastic bags. There are just too many people who are indifferent regarding the concept of less means more.

Plus, being someone who didn’t have a car for a long time I can already see the arguments of having to carry home less groceries because paper bags are either not strong enough or too bulky to carry more than a couple of bags.

Than again, plastic bags are a large majority of the trash that is thrown about on the streets, in the oceans, on the beaches and filling up city dumps (sorry I don't remember the correct name for these places). Some experts say the bags are one of the biggest sources of pollution in the cities.

But how will this affect both the small and large merchants? Will their profits increase because they no longer need to order plastic bags or will they have to order new non plastic bags to meet the needs of they’re customers?

Craig Noble, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would be disappointing if grocers rejected the biodegradable plastic bag option, since more trees would have to be cut down if paper bag use increases.

Lastly,

The 50 grocery stores that would be most affected by the law argued that the ban was not reasonable because plastic bags made of corn byproducts are a relatively new, expensive and untested product.

If the plastic bags are expensive, shouldn’t they welcome the canvas and biodegradable plastic bags? Would it not save them money? By selling canvas bags, the stores could make more money and advertise on they’re canvas grocery bags. So this seems like a weak argument.

A career in

Product Development

High School Girls Reveal Truth of Misleading Advertisements

News Source: (Reuters)

Ribena Juice Maker Is Squeezed Dry After High School Girl Evaluation

Ribena, one of the world's best known fruit juices were fined by a New Zealand court after two high school girls exposed the makers for misleading consumers over vitamin C levels in their Ribena blackcurrant drink.

Sorry, but I just love this story and just have to repeat the collness that it was two high school girls that made the discovery. Ok…moving on.

High school students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo in 2004 tested the drink against advertising claims that "the blackcurrants in Ribena had four times the vitamin C of oranges." Instead, the pair found the syrup-based drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C.

Ribena Juice made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) didn’t pay any attention to the results found by Devathasan and Suo until their complaints reached the New Zealand's consumer watchdog Commerce Commission. However, not too long afterwards, the company appeared in an Auckland court on 15 charges of breaching the New Zealand's Fair Trading Act, GSK pleaded guilty and admitted its ads may have left consumers with a wrong impression of the health benefits of Ribena.

The judge fined the company a total $163,700 for misleading advertising.

The Commerce Commission said GSK's behavior was a "massive" breach of trust with the New Zealand public.

"As a multinational company specializing in pharmaceuticals and health products, they should have had robust testing and quality assurance systems in place to ensure its product was delivering what it promised," Commission chair Paula Rebstock said in a statement.

GSK told the court it had not deliberately set out to mislead consumers, and the fault lay with its testing methods.

"The fact that some of our products had incorrect labeling is to us, unacceptable, and we sincerely regret any confusion caused to customers who feel they may have been misled," GSK said in a statement.

The court also ordered the company to place advertisements in major metropolitan New Zealand newspapers to correct its mistakes.

"We're just blown away that anything we could have started as a consumer could have blown up into something so huge," Devathasan told Radio New Zealand.

Congratulations to Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo for work well done!

Inspiring Teenagers

The Five Things I Learned Last Week

I’m a lot of things; why should I choose to be only a few. I thirst for a variety of things; self improvement, adventure, peaceful relations, a better world and a career that continues to grow. I laugh at what bothers me as well as my own mistakes and at the stupidity of others. I am continually amazed at how little others truly think outside themselves. Than again, I’m pleasantly surprised when someone does something out of character. The world is full of surprises; some good, some bad. You can not expect too much from the world or others. You take the happy little moments when you can and you remember that you can only be held accountable for your own actions.

In my opinion, positive energy attracts negative energy. Maybe there is a legitimate scientific reason or explanation why or maybe it’s just part of my life experienced framework. However the simplest answer for me seems to be “why should they get what I don’t”?

Some people will never care what the truth is; it’s not nearly as interesting as what they believe something to be. As to whom I am; I don’t know yet, but I can’t wait until the end of the movie to find out. I hope I’m one of the bad gurls turned good, they always have the best parts in the movie.

The Five Things I Learned Last Week

1. Expect more from yourself than you do others.
2. Laughter can be the best medicine.
3. When you lose your temper, the only one who loses is you.
4. The definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing and expecting different results.
5. Do not allow others to make you into what they believe (or want to believe) you are

Creating Good Habits For Success

The Difficulty of Being Different

As children, we live boldly, seldom afraid or embarrassed to seek out what we want or to speak our minds. As we grow older, we tend to fold our inquisitive and creative minds and place them into a secret drawer while we chase career opportunities. Most times, or at least for most people we leave the drawer untouched, afraid that it might obstruct us in our career success as we conform to society’s acceptance of living.

Many people withhold opinions, thoughts and wants because we grow up being told we must make sacrifices in order to live society’s accepted vision of success. However, it doesn’t change the fact that we continue to possess opinions, thoughts and wants that goes completely against what most of us have been taught is “strange” “unusual” or even selfish. Hasn’t some of the most successful or even most admired people been the ones who chose to abandon society’s guiding principles?

On the other hand, it’s only when these people have gained some level of notoriety that it is deemed acceptable - for them; not for the unknown. So here is this feeling that has been beating within me for the last few years. It peeks around the corner of my subconscious and chooses the moment when it finds the least resistance to leap.

Teeth bared, claws raised and than rips into this emptiness, making the want bigger and more profound. I know what this apparition is seeking and yet the conformed part of me is resisting because it knows that no matter how much it protests there in nothing to fill the ravenous need except for what it wants and that part of me isn’t ready to give in.

If I could have anything it would be the ability to turn down the volume of my emotions, to not want the off beat side road compared to the neatly paved boulevard of everyday life. To live life as everyone else who has learned to be content with three piece suites, regular career schedules and brochure perfect biographies.

The simplest way to live your truth is to leave the expectations of other behind and live the way you feel most worthwhile. If it is so simple why do so many people (including myself) slap on fresh coat of paint that lets you pretend your partially unhappy life is just as nice as everyone else's, even if it easily flakes off?

Step By Step Plan to Career Change