In an earlier post we noted that 2006 was the year of Small and Medium Size business in technology, both as customer and vendor. We also promised in the same post that we would identify later the software that would make its way into the marketplace this year, benefiting the SMBs. Our first entry includes two different software applications that are both going to find adoption in the New Year, and eventually they will be adopted together, integrated as it were. Customer Relationship Management will continue to find high adoption rates among in the SMB markets, especially the on-demand CRM systems, NetSuite, etc., which enable a level of interaction between you and your customers, and even internally between sales, marketing, support and management, that lift them high above the simple contact managers that most SMBs employ. The second half of this union will be Collaboration software, made possible by the Internet. Like the on-demand CRM services, these collaboration 'services' billing is based on named users or application service use, or a combination. These applications enable users to collaborate around a project or initiative they are working, allowing them to carry on group conversations, set schedules, store important shared documents, etc.. Companies in this space include near-time.net, which was reviewed by a British Accountant here with accolades; Jotspot, which I have been tinkering with, it looks pretty good and offers some rich functionality and you can try a highly functioning version for free; and, finally, SocialText, which I have not tried but which looks like a very useful service. But the real news of 2006 will be the marriage of these two services, on-demand CRM and Collaboration tools. The founder of SocialText wrote an interesting article about the End of Process, but that's not going to happen, not soon and not ever. Too much of basic business requires a process approach. On the other hand in many business models, process is not enough. Proposals, contracts and project implementations require an enormous amount of unstructured communication and collaboration. This is where the new collaboration tools come into play. They enable the users to continue the unstructured collaboration but they put it all in a package that allows easier sharing and communication. And one of the great benefits is that collaboration tools preserve the firm's collective memory, unlike e-mail inboxes which eventually go dark. Why the union of CRM and the new online Collaboration tools? Because much of the most important communications in any company takes place 'around' the customer record. When CRM and Collaboration are integrated so that the customer record can reflect the efforts of the people who bring your products and services to fruition in the market by working together, both the process and the unstructured collaboration, you will not only have incredible insight into your current business but a foundation of knowledge on which to build the future. |
