In Depth

In Depth

Customer relationship management (CRM)

• Covid-19 crisis has speeded up contact centre digital transformation

  Pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in many business sectors, including contact centres such as those of the University of Huddersfield and UK Power Networks  Continue Reading

• Digital experience management – web content management for the omnichannel age?

  Digital experience management represents an evolution of web content management for a more omnichannel commercial world. We explore its definition and applicability  Continue Reading

• How business software can stay clear of digital addiction

  Consumer software is notoriously and deliberately addictive. Should companies and B2B IT emulate that or take the high ground of avoiding the spread of user digital addiction?  Continue Reading

• Customer experience software can help companies weather the Covid-19 storm

  Advanced customer experience software can help companies weather the current Covid-19 storm, as well as build resilience. Marks & Spencer is one firm exploring the technology  Continue Reading

• Building enterprise-grade AI: Sberbank and AI Telekom

  Machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing beyond adolescence to prove business value. Practical applications at Sberbank and AI Telekom suggest getting machine learning data in one place, where data scientists can experiment  Continue Reading

• The next stage in football’s digital revolution is ready for the new season

  Technology is playing an increasing role in football, as the Premier League adopts video assistant referees for the first time and clubs turn to data to capture more of their fans’ attention  Continue Reading

• Customer experience must be digital focus for banks

  Omni-channel technologies can help banks stand out from their rivals, but a good customer experience should be their goal  Continue Reading

• Customer analytics applications add artificial intelligence to reduce market ‘friction’

  Customer analytics applications developers are seeking to add layers of intelligence to improve sellers’ interactions with buyers  Continue Reading

• Machines delve deep into customer minds

  Deep learning can help customer insight teams advance rapidly in their mission to understand their customers  Continue Reading

• Put the customer first and reap the reward

  How businesses can develop a granular understanding of their customers’ needs in a hyper-connected world  Continue Reading

• Are you human? How to defeat the bots in e-commerce

  Theatres and other entertainment venues are in a constant war with ticket fraudsters commanding botnet armies, as are other purveyors of high-value, limited-edition goods  Continue Reading

• Shell downstream CIO Craig Walker: Invest time in your team

  Craig Walker, CIO for Shell’s global downstream business, says IT leaders need to invest time in their teams and take them and the business on any change journey  Continue Reading

• Smart speakers open new windows into customer behaviour for CRM

  Voice recognition has become a new frontier for customer relationship management. What does the new voice channel mean for understanding consumers and how will voice data integrate with existing customer intelligence?  Continue Reading

• Digital twins: Revolutionising product businesses

  Among the technological drivers in industrial firms are IoT platforms that implement the concept of a digital twin. We explore the benefits  Continue Reading

• Making sense of data with cloud-based BI

  An Australian non-profit group has turned to business intelligence and analytics to simplify reporting requirements, even as adoption of such tools vary across the Asia-Pacific region  Continue Reading

• Is artificial intelligence hype sowing damaging confusion?

  IT vendors have leapt on the artificial intelligence/machine learning bandwagon, spreading a level of confusion that threatens potential technology benefits with AI washing  Continue Reading

• Can cloud-based ERP buy you business agility?

  Enterprise applications has evolved into silos of software systems. The cloud is now offering a different approach to ERP  Continue Reading

• Higher education and healthcare use specialist CRM in all but name

  Customer relationship management software may be targeted at businesses, but the healthcare and higher education industries have redefined it to gain better insight into their users  Continue Reading

• Pros and cons of CRM software

  Computer Weekly reviews the latest research into the leading customer relationship management and customer experience software providers  Continue Reading

• Five ways to cut the risk of Salesforce

  Best practices for IT professionals seeking to implement Salesforce’s product portfolio  Continue Reading

• Co-ordinating data sources is the key to CRM success

  Next-generation customer relationship management requires a data-first strategy  Continue Reading

• Users should stay grounded while ERP suppliers take to the cloud

  User organisations are advised to keep their heads while suppliers show signs of cloud intoxication  Continue Reading

• Can you work around SAP indirect access software licensing?

  The SAP legal case against Diageo highlights the seemingly arbitrary rules governing software licensing  Continue Reading

• At IBM’s Watson lab, customers marry the power of AI with the IoT

  IBM formally inaugurated its Watson Internet of Things headquarters in Munich, Germany in February, and Computer Weekly went to meet the customers and partners who are using Watson AI to deliver on the promise of the IoT  Continue Reading

• How artificial intelligence is powering retail customer experience

  Retailers are beginning to explore how cognitive computing and AI could make e-commerce smarter and more personalised  Continue Reading

• Hexagon turns to Salesforce IoT Cloud to smarten up robots

  Hexagon, a manufacturer that measures and monitors robot, and other, components is using the Salesforce IoT Cloud to better tune components to environmental factors  Continue Reading

• CW@50: Spreadsheets and ERP – 50 years of software coding business

  Business software has been a rich field for IT professionals over the past five decades, and we are on the cusp of a new era of customers rolling their own for competitive advantage  Continue Reading

• An overview of cloud customer relationship management

  Businesses are confident about buying customer relationship management (CRM) software as a cloud-based service. Computer Weekly looks at the main players  Continue Reading

• Digitisation connects customers to companies on a new level

  ‘Digital’ provides more ways for people and businesses to connect than ever before, and a transformed role for IT in businesses old and new  Continue Reading

• First steps taken on 'omni-channel' customer experience

  The future customer experience might be personalised, but there is a long road ahead yet  Continue Reading

• Why Pegasystems' CEO, Alan Trefler, has learned to think smaller

  Pegasystems has made its name supplying CRM, analytics and case management software to the world's largest companies. Now CEO Alan Trefler plans to use cloud computing to broaden Pega's appeal  Continue Reading

• British Gas Smart Metering consolidates data with Qlik on Hadoop

  British Gas Smart Metering has used QlikView dashboards on Hadoop data lake to gain single view of its business  Continue Reading

• Digital transformation needs business leaders to develop new skills

  A panel of experts discuss the capabilities business leaders and corporate IT need to develop for digital  Continue Reading

• Managing your customer’s multi-channel service experience

  Customers expect the same levels of service however they contact you – by phone, in store, on the web or from mobile. How do you deliver the best multi-channel experience?  Continue Reading

• Using data analytics to deliver more personalised customer service

  Personalisation has been the goal for many retailers, but can the emergence of big data analytics be the solution they are looking for?  Continue Reading

• Is customer experience management the new CRM?

  Consumers have far more information today than they have ever had, and this simple fact is a major game changer for anyone who sells anything  Continue Reading

• Why the CIO should loosen the grip on enterprise IT

  CIOs need to decentralise IT systems and provide the business with access through APIs  Continue Reading

• Five critical actions CIOs should take to improve the customer experience

  Actions include upgrading IT roles, amending measurements, structural changes and a cultural shift from internal to external  Continue Reading

• Digital customer experience: Beyond the website

  Organisations are faced with the challenge of delivering their customers with an online experience that goes far beyond just a website  Continue Reading

• RAC drives customer care to the cloud with NewVoiceMedia and Salesforce

  Automotive services organisations turns to cloud-based telephony and CRM system to improve customer care levels  Continue Reading

• Are bricks-and-mortar stores the next step for online retail?

  Retailers are rethinking their online strategy, realising that physical shops are again one of their biggest assets  Continue Reading

• How to dance the innovation step with CRM suppliers

  When it comes to outsourcing your company’s technology activities, you need more than just a degree of trust  Continue Reading

• Mobile apps bring benefits and problems for enterprises in Poland

  Mobile business applications are gaining importance in Poland as broadband coverage expands and smartphone and tablet use increases  Continue Reading

• Customer experience is big differentiator for organisations

  It has become hard for firms to stand out from the crowd in pricing, products or services. Now customer experience is the big differentiator  Continue Reading

• Travel Corporation finds data fast track with Informatica Cloud MDM

  The Travel Corporation has chosen Informatica Cloud to migrate on-premise systems and data into Salesforce.com  Continue Reading

• SAP bets future on cloud in central and eastern Europe

  SAP’s turn to cloud services for the delivery of its business applications seems especially energetic in central and eastern Europe  Continue Reading

• Review 2014: Top 10 business applications stories of 2014

  This year’s top 10 business applications stories show an increasing corporate IT appetite for better collaboration between organisations  Continue Reading

• Dutch organisations gradually take up cloud HCM software

  While organisations in the Netherlands tend to use the traditional HR modules of the large software packages, some diversity is beginning to emerge  Continue Reading

• Inside the Digital Catapult, six startups at the forefront of data innovation

  The recently opened Digital Catapult in London’s Kings Cross is home to ambitious technology startups innovating around big data  Continue Reading

• Unlock the business benefits of digitisation

  Analytics technology can help to transform the customer experience, but to achieve its full potential, IT and marketing must work together  Continue Reading

• Subscription-based businesses are cheerleaders for CIOs on the board

  CIOs at subscription-based businesses play a crucial role in transforming their enterprises by focusing on customers  Continue Reading

• CIO Interview: Gary Steen, CTO, TalkTalk

  Gary Steen, CTO at ISP TalkTalk, says transforming internal IT will help him meet growing demands for superfast data connectivity  Continue Reading

• Cloud applications spread across IT in Italy

  The cloud computing market is growing in Italy. Research from the Politecnico of Milan shows cloud investment in 2013 is at €1.18bn  Continue Reading

• SAP User Group offers industry experience to Birmingham City University students

  Students at Birmingham City University are gaining industry experience through a link with the UK and Ireland SAP user group  Continue Reading

• Find out what the customer wants and deliver it effectively

  Consumers want to be able to buy something on their smartphones, without having to turn on a PC. If they have a happy and efficient experience, strong loyalty will result – and they might tell others via social media  Continue Reading

• Engaging with customers in whichever way they choose

  As we share more data about ourselves, companies that use technology in a smarter way to engage with customers will be the ones to succeed  Continue Reading

• Power in the palms of their hands: serving the customers of the future

  Customer information is provided at every touch in our socially enabled lives. By 2020, everything will be known about us  Continue Reading

• From chess to ping pong: How Pegasystems is capturing the Fortune 500

  Pegasystems is winning business from the world's leading companies as business process management technology enters the mainstream  Continue Reading

• Technology you can bank on

  Lessons a bank based on social media and Web 2.0 can teach the broader financial services industry  Continue Reading

• Consult experts to get the most out of a SaaS roll-out

  Businesses often lack in-house expertise and services providers can help them with the project planning, design and up-to-date practices.  Continue Reading

• Top 10 public sector IT stories of 2012

  There were big moves to reform government IT this year, but despite an appetite for change there are also signs that old habits do not die easily  Continue Reading

• Irish dairy exporter plots expansion with data matching

  Irish Dairy Board aims to match consumer preferences with the dairy produce of farmers and processors. Aligning data from multiple sources is critical if data matching is to sub-serve export growth  Continue Reading