Biographical Information

Tom Kaneshige

Articles for Tom Kaneshige

CRM in Action: Contact Centers

Time Warner Desert Cities combats churn.

Marketers to Measure Performance

Spending on technology that measures marketing efforts takes center stage; three guiding principles

Amdocs Unveils ClarifyCRM 11

Thin is in for anytime, anywhere access; company takes responsibility; commitment to the CRM cause, says analyst

SAS Wins IDC Affections

CRM analytics hot spot; real-time tools boost the online experience; unearthing trends in heaps of customer data

Spam: E-Marketing's Alter Ego

Jupiter Research reports email campaigns on the rise; dawn of mega spam; CRM to the rescue, sort of

Stampede Toward the SMB

Microsoft Business Solutions combines Great Plains, Navision and bCentral; delivers industry-specific solutions; a product roadmap

LivePerson Rolls Out Online Sales

Web collaboration specialist breaks out of the online chat box; new sales edition; a much-needed revenue stream, says analyst

SFA for the Little Guy

Intuit unveils Sales Manager service as part of QuickBase; starts at $249 per month; CRM hosting arena heats up

Asia-Pacific Brims with Opportunity

ChannelWave goes to Japan; Onyx eyes China; IT investment in Asia-Pacific on the verge of growth, says IDC

Getting Real

Startup LiveWire Logic unveiled RealDialog for online chatting; linguistics verses keyword; the virtual agent

SAS Ramps Up Marketing Automation Efforts

Forms marketing and customer analytics practice within SAS Americas; getting more in the loop; a smart move, says analyst

mySAP CRM's Portal Twist

Adds workforce management features; software converges on the portal; the people-centric approach

AMR's CRM Spending Report

A key finding: CRM spending will be driven by companies that sell to other businesses -- not consumers

Demand Chain Best Practices

Aberdeen Group offers e-commerce tips; the dawn of DCM; much work remains

Blue Martini Goes Deep

Expands on key manufacturing vertical with release 5; configuration and quoting; taking XML orders

FranklinCovey's E-Marketing Journey

Outsource, homegrown, best-of-breed; marketing automation's missteps; an email blast

E.piphany Completes E.6 Suite

Launches E.6 Service for call centers; allies Tibco for system-to-system integration; best architecture, says analyst

Tech Spending on the Rise

Integration technology standards drop prices; companies opening wallets; surprising in today's economy, says Yankee Group

Manugistics, Cognos Strike Alliance

Marrying business intelligence with enterprise solutions; in search of ways to cut costs; a supply chain resurgence

Call Center Agent Gets the Call

Next wave of CRM moves to the frontlines, says Datamonitor; work-force optimization; vendors ready products

Verizon Picks ChannelWave Over Siebel

PRM sector gains validity; fastest time to market and lowest cost of ownership were key deal drivers; Siebel's rough week

Email Management for mySAP CRM

AMC Technology develops products, connectors for SAP; email response management system is the latest CRM extension; third-party think tank

Life Sciences Warm to CRM

BioInformatics reports customer service plays key role; suppliers must meet scientists' unique needs or face severe backlash, says researcher

Life Science Warms to CRM

BioInformatics reports customer service plays key role; suppliers must meet scientists' unique needs or face severe backlash, says researcher

Web Interaction Gets Noisy

Frost and Sullivan predict booming North American market; CRM initiatives drive growth; mid-market madness

What's Your CRM Priority?

GartnerG2 answers debate over customer retention verses customer acquisition; monitoring the pulse of consumers

Portal Player Turns to CRM

Art Technology Group unveils ATG6 Beta; online selling, marketing and customer support; "our portal connects with everyone," says exec

Best Practices for CRM

Consultancy delivers step-by-step guide; tactics for building company-wide support; the customer culture

Tiny CRM Services Firm's Grand Opening

Customer Management Gurus hopes to ride services upswing; consultancy on the cheap; a virtual shop

Kana Readies for Big Push

Takes aim at healthcare, with partner Aspect; integrates content creation tools from Ephox; saving face in a storm, says analyst

Comergent Tackles Transactions, Integration

Release 6 touts 300 APIs; CTO claims 300 percent growth in sales, low-cost Web services architecture; avoiding the PRM fate

Partnerware Ceases Operations

PRM vendor stumbles in wake of turbulent economy; new technology faces stiff challenges; "wrong message, wrong time," says AMR analyst

CRM's Evolution

Forrester predicts market comeback; cross-channel integration, verticalization, Web services, new pricing models weigh in; Microsoft will dominate

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Genesys creates a voice portal; Avaya and Aspect also shout offerings; VXML is being heard

Microsoft Taps War Chest

Plans to increase R&D spending and headcount; a shining marketing light among tech's doom and gloom; "a drop in the bucket," says analyst

Calling the Web

Avaya delivers latest version of interactive voice-response system; supports VXML 2.0; "Not quite Star Trek," says CRM evangelist

Mobility Moving Up

IDC reports mobile middleware market on the rise; 105 million road warriors in U.S. by 2006; the email trigger

The Knowledge Center

SupportSoft unveils automation software; IBM already lovin' it; help-desk days are numbered, says Big Blue executive

Can Utilities Spark CRM?

Accenture's energy-outsourcing services charge sales, signs deals with CustomerWorks and BC Hydro

CRM Market: Classic Consolidation

Meta Group rates the suite vendors; a few application domains show signs of maturity; presence and performance

Aberdeen's CRM Snapshot

Short-term growth barriers hid long-term pot of gold; suite vendors face sophisticated customers; e-marketing evolves

CRM Goes Airborne

Airborne Express unleashes Onyx software and portal in phases; 700 sales and marketing employees get customer information at their fingertips

M&A Watch: MindArrow Systems and Category 5

Email marketing meets e-commerce; Nasdaq listing on the cheap; "Doing $5 million in revenues isn't acceptable," says CEO

Microsoft Juices Up SMB Offerings

Dynamics 7.0 and eEnterprise 7.0 integrates with upcoming CRM products, connects to systems both inside and outside the firewall; employee 'smart tags'

LivePerson Acquires NewChannel

Provider of Web chat services hopes to jumpstart sales with acquisition; "risky bet" says industry watcher

Blue Martini Teams with Tibco

CRM vendor touts deeper integration with ERP systems; takes aim at heavyweights SAP, JD Edwards, Oracle and PeopleSoft

Jabber, Virtual Personalities Link Up

IM technology joins automated response system for new-age customer service; chatting with a computer

Global Marketing's Big Comeback

E.piphany puts global spin on marketing software; out-of-the-box features and multi-lingual support; "Borderless CRM"

Building Web Service Bridges

Cape Clear opens up development platform to Salesforce.com customers; "the new era of integration has begun," says CEO

Knexa.com Thinks Big

Despite tremors on Wall Street, a tiny Canadian software developer takes giant steps with an acquisition that doubles the company's size

CRM Asia: Red Light, Green Light

Siebel claims business is clicking on all cylinders; industry watchers are divided

Wireless CRM Beckons

Vendors and customers alike know it's coming; Frost and Sullivan points to 2004 and 2005 as peak growth years

Gunfight on the CRM Frontier

The Sage Group creates CRM division to go head-to-head with Microsoft's Great Plains Software

CRM's Fatal Flaws

AMR researcher points to misguided project implementation strategies, lack of governance and bound architecture

Marketing's New Point Man?

ListenPoint unleashes Web-based marketing software; module collects field intelligence for corporate brass, aiming to boost sales

Marketing Moves

Budget-strapped marketing departments need to do more with less, which is why CRM vendor Blue Martini Software began shipping today a standalone relationship marketing application to help marketers manage customer touch points automatically.

Salesnet Moving On Up

Unveils 'extended' version featuring Web services API, field access and others; targets enterprises with 50 to 250 sales force

Azerity's Big Challenge

New ProChannel 5 suite gets analytics, mobility and much more; analyst sees opportunity and hurdles

Microsoft CRM Crystallized

Reporting and analysis tools integrated into Microsoft's first .NET business solution; legitimate and proven partnership, says analyst

Contact Center Convergence

Kana study shows increased Web self-service activity, but telephone calls still rule the roost

CRM: A Mixed Bag

The future of a CRM investment rests on the company's ability to document and measure returns, according to a study by Harte-Hanks, a CRM vendor targeting community banks and credit unions. Harte-Hanks surveyed nearly 500 North American companies spanning manufacturing, finance, retail and transportation.

SAS, CSC Strike Up Partnership

Consultants in North American and Europe trained on latest analytical CRM technology

E.piphany, Genesys Join Forces

Integrate offerings to deliver real-time analytics and intelligent routing; arms contact center agents with latest customer info

Onyx Unveils Enterprise CRM 4.0

Unwinding at a cafe in Palo Alto, Calif., after a long sales tour, Onyx CEO Brent Frei couldn't stop talking about his software's strong technical foundation. Three weeks later, Onyx unveiled today its Internet-based Enterprise CRM 4.0 suite, developed specifically to run on a Web services-enabled platform.

Marketing Faces Loaded Guns

A 360-degree view of customers is the holy grail of e-marketing -- and it doesn't come easily, reports Xchange, a CRM vendor, in a white paper released earlier this week, entitled, One-to-One Mass Marketing: Managing a Million Customer Relationships.

Best Practices in Sales Force Automation

Consulting firm surveys 45 SFA users in 12 industries and 42 software vendors; comes up with formula for success

Siebel Taps Overseas Wireless Market

Japan's NTT DoCoMo Kansai, Italy's TIM employ CRM software to manage burgeoning user base and decrease churn

Kana Rides eCRM Telco Boom

Churn is the ugly word among telecommunications companies that means customer turnover. But CRM vendor Kana Software claims its e-service applications free up customer service representatives to take care of pesky customers, and thus reduce churn.

Customer or Capital: Who is King?

AMR analysts square off on whether companies should lead with CRM or SCM technology; TaylorMade-adidas makes its choice

AMR: E-Business Renaissance?

Compared to recent quarters, Q1 2002 posted an overall higher rating across all enterprise e-business initiatives such as CRM, SCM, ERP, e-sourcing and private trading exchanges.

Pivotal's Turning Point

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company unveiled CRM offerings tailored for investment banks, healthcare insurance firms and real estate-construction companies in the mid-enterprise space -- companies and business units with $100 million to $3 billion annual revenues.

Telcos Reap CRM Returns

Amid widely reported CRM failures, a Fujitsu Consulting study today found a bright spot in the telecommunications sector -- one of the fastest adopters of CRM technology.

UpShot Aims at MS Office

The goal is to make it easier for sales folk to use UpShot's service. The announcement is also a pre-emptive strike against Microsoft, the maker of these applications, which is planning to enter the CRM space later this year.

Scoring Happy Customers

Are your customers happy? It's the critical question facing many Web retailers, and no one's really found the answer yet. Help though, may be on the way. Online comparison shopping site BizRate.com and marketing analytics and data collection firm Coremetrics have teamed up to help companies get more aligned with customer behavior.

Western Europe's SMBs Opening IT Wallets

A free-for-all is brewing in Western Europe's small to medium-business (SMB) arena, according to report released today from London-based researcher Datamonitor. And as vendors converge on the opportunity there, consolidation is inevitable.

Oracle's ''Lease'' on Life

This week Oracle unveiled its Lease Management module as part of its Oracle 11i E-Business suite. The module automates and manages the lifecycle of leased products, from loan origination to contract termination.

Analytics Revealed

Patricia Seybold Group looks at key factors of CRM analytic applications; reports on the pros and cons of real-time analytics

Web Services Reality Check

The Web services explosion is just around the corner, according to a report by market researcher Patricia Seybold Group this week. But a pulse check at a recent CIO forum on the future of CRM, however, showed little Web services fanfare to date.

Reveries Revels in CRM

Reveries, an online magazine for marketing professionals, uncovered interesting tidbits about the public perception of CRM, after posting a survey on its Web site. The Westport, Conn.-based company released results this week, with one of the more humorous findings about confusion over the meaning of CRM -- not the technology but the abbreviation.

E.piphany Lays Off 15 Percent

CRM software vendor stumbles in Q1; analyst expects more bad news from Silicon Valley companies through the summer

It's the Data, Stupid!

Data-platform integrator Acta builds interface to Trillium data-quality software, hopes to address critical data flow and integrity issues

Datamonitor: The End of eServices

The lines between service automation and other software are blurring, and thus signaling the fall of standalone eServices

CRM: The Ties That Bind

The word is out: Integration is the key to unlocking CRM's potential. Everyone from vendors to consultants and customers claim they can do it -- but it's just not that easy, industry watchers say.

Akibia Consulting's Vertical Challenge

Analyst: Integrator helps companies translate generic CRM into the most valuable approach for specific industry, business

Siebel Lands Medicare Call Centers

State-of-the-art solution for giant, public healthcare agency helps Siebel open market share lead

CRM Tool Seeks to Reduce 'Abandonment'

Seldom will shoppers fill up their carts and then leave them at the cash register, never to return. But this happens all the time on the Web. That's why CRM Metrix, a marketing software company, announced its Abandonment Tracker product today.

AMR: State of the CRM Union

To this end, AMR released a report entitled, 'It Was the Best of Quarters, It Was the Worst of Quarters,' detailing CRM vendors' rocky financial performance in Q1 this year. On the upside, CRM vendors did a noble job of pulling out decent numbers in what is arguably the slowest-selling quarter of the year, according to AMR.

Sister CRM Technologies Slow Start

London-based researcher Datamonitor says PRM and ERM have limited market opportunity today

IDC: Asia-Pacific CRM Sales Poised for Growth

CRM Turf Wars

CRM suite vendors are biting and clawing for sales in untapped international markets.

Intuit's CRM for the Little Guy

SAS Tackles CRM

SAS Institute has been pouring research dollars into building an analytical tool for the marketing community, in hopes of picking up sales in the hot CRM space.

PeopleSoft Turns Up the Heat

PeopleSoft makes its big bet on e-business at its strategy summit in Las Vegas.

IDC Validates Hot CRM Service Market

The market for customer relationship management (CRM) services is heating up.

Siebel's eFinance 7

Talisma Beefs Up Contact Center Suite

Astea: CRM to the Rescue

Datamonitor: High Costs, Cultural Hurdles Stymie Great Expectations

Baan's Nice Guy Image

Baan's E-Biz Rise -- and Fall?

Forrester Eyes Marketing Cultural Shift

PDAs Improve Customer Care

SAP Chasing Siebel

S1 Picks Up Ireland's Point Information Systems

Pivotal Plants Mid-Market Flag

Dataquest: CRM Services Rising

Middlemen Flock to Siebel

Siebel Claims Broad Mobile Footprint

PwC Consulting to Change Name

Bankers Want Some FaceTime

Akibia's Nine Steps to ROI

AMR Breaks Down Siebel 7

Unica Rounds Out Suite

Salesforce.com Snatches Away Oracle Exec

Siebel On A Roll

Onyx's PRM Portal Push

mySAP CRM Delivers to Pitney Bowes

Utopy's Killer App?

Oracle Answers CRM Critics

CIOs Eyeing Big Tech Purchases Again

Hewson Group: European Gov. Should Adopt CRM

E.piphany Unveils E.6

Mid-Market Madness

Kana's Case for Happy Customers

PeopleSoft's Aggressive CRM Rollout

Blue Martini's Latest Concoction

ATG Wins Hyatt Hotels

Oracle's Latest CRM Spin: Pay Up!

Aberdeen's Top Ten CRM Projects

eCRM's Personalized Spin

Salesforce Answers Microsoft Challenge

DMR Talks CRM

Microsoft Wades Into CRM

McKinsey's CRM Best Practices

Datamonitor: Financial Services Lag in CRM

Chartwell Maps CRM, Utilities

Datamonitor: CRM Rising

Baan's Bundle

MarketSoft, Centra Join Forces

Eloquent Unleashes LaunchForce

Siebel Rolls Out CRM Flavors

First to market: eMedical 7 and eConsumer Goods 7 vertical solutions.

Aprimo Claims 65% Growth in 2001

Surviving CRM

CRM can add to the top line and cut costs, too, but many projects fail. Smart companies are learning how to improve the odds.