SugarCRM has unveiled a new brand identity as SugarAI, as the vendor continues its shift towards AI-driven customer relationship management (CRM).

The company said the rebrand reflects its evolving product strategy, which aims to push CRM beyond traditional data management and reporting towards proactive, AI-powered sales guidance.

At the heart of this new approach is a refined focus on “precision selling”, where AI is used to interpret signals from across an organization to help sellers prioritize the highest-value opportunities, identify renewal and reorder risks, and take the next best action for customer engagement.

In an announcement, SugarAI CEO David Roberts said the move will help address long-standing limitations in how CRM platforms are used by sales teams.

“CRM must do more than store information; it must help teams take the right action at the right time with proactive, guided execution,” he explained. “Teams don’t need more data or dashboards, they need direction; SugarAI is about turning signals into action.”

CRM as a system of action

The rebrand comes as organizations increasingly look to extract more value from their CRM investments as AI continues to drive new changes in sales and customer engagement strategies.

SugarAI’s platform is designed to connect data from across systems – including enterprise resource planning (ERP) environments – to provide contextual insights that help teams identify renewal risks, spot changes in customer behavior, and prioritize engagement across accounts.

The vendor said this approach is especially suited to complex, account-based industries with long sales cycles and large product portfolios, where understanding customer signals is critical to driving growth.

“Our customers expect Sugar to solve the 30-year-old promise of CRM – to help sellers and account managers get more value from the software than the effort they put into it,” Roberts added. “Sugar will deliver on this promise with its focus on seller experience and integration to ERP data, all powered by AI.”

A pragmatic approach to AI

At a time when many businesses are struggling to prove ROI from their AI investments, SugarAI said its pragmatic approach to the use of the technology will help organizations avoid common pitfalls in AI adoption by connecting intelligence directly to revenue outcomes.

Industry analysts have also pointed to the growing importance of combining operational and customer data to drive more informed decision-making and sales growth.

According to Cameron Marsh, senior analyst at Nucleus Research, the integration of ERP and CRM bridges the gap between customer-facing operations and internal back-office business transactions.

“Surfacing trends and correlations across transactional and unstructured data offers key signals that can be extremely valuable for salespersons,” he explained. “For example, identifying when customers have stopped placing orders or when purchasing patterns change.

“This is a pragmatic approach to AI that supercharges sales and service, and it’s exactly the kind of precision selling the industry needs.”

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Workday has confirmed a data breach after threat actors gained access to a third-party customer relationship management (CRM) platform.

In a blog post on Friday, the HR tech giant said hackers gained access to sensitive information hosted on the affected CRM system, but insisted no customer tenants – or the data contained within – were accessed.

Information exposed in the breach primarily included contact details such as names, email addresses, and phone numbers, the company revealed.

“We recently identified that Workday had been targeted and threat actors were able to access some information from our third-party CRM platform,” the company stated in its advisory.

“There is no indication of access to customer tenants or the data within them. We acted quickly to cut the access and have added extra safeguards to protect against similar incidents in the future.”

Given the nature of the information exposed in the breach, Workday warned customers to be wary of potential social engineering campaigns in the wake of the incident.

“It’s important to remember that Workday will never contact anyone by phone to request a password or any other secure details,” the firm said. “All official communications from Workday come through our trusted support channels.”

Kevin Marriott, senior manager of cyber and head of SecOps at Immersive, said this is a typical tactic observed in the aftermath of a data breach.

“This information is then used in subsequent social engineering attempts, or combined with other data already collected to make future social engineering attempts even more personalized, using the data captured," he said.

Workday data breach the latest CRM-based incident

While Workday didn’t specifically identify the CRM system affected in the breach, the news comes in the wake of a string of Salesforce-based attacks on enterprises globally.

Threat intelligence research shows that the ShinyHunters threats group has conducted a wide-reaching campaign targeting Salesforce users in recent months.

Companies impacted in the campaign are believed to include Qantas, Allianz Life, Adidas, and several other retail brands worldwide.

Similarly, Google recently confirmed it had been attacked as part of the campaign. The discovery came after threat researchers at the tech giant investigating the ShinyHunters group realized it too had fallen victim.

The social engineering campaign involves duping employees into linking a malicious OAuth app to the target company’s Salesforce instances.

Once access to an impacted database has been achieved, threat actors are then able to access, query, and exfiltrate sensitive information from customer environments, according to Google’s blog post detailing the campaign.

Marriott noted that CRM tools are a popular target for threat actors, largely due to the volume of useful information hosted on these platforms.

“CRM tooling is often a key target for threat actors as they typically store limited, but valuable information that threat actors can either use themselves or sell on, with databases full of information that is useful such as email addresses and other personal information,” he said.

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Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has explained his firm’s decision to stop using Salesforce in favor of its in-house AI tools, but admits he thinks the CRM giant isn’t going anywhere soon.

Siemiatkowski comments on X come after Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff questioned Klarna's decision to move away from the platform in 2024, which prompted Siemiatkowski to clear everything up.

“I mentioned that we had removed some SaaS software including Salesforce. It turns out that the recording was leaked to @SeekingAlpha, and they put out a news post about it,” Siemiatkowski wrote.

“Suddenly, @Benioff was asked on stage why Klarna was leaving Salesforce. I was tremendously embarrassed,” he added.

Siemiatkowski said Klarna has shut down the use of Salesforce internally - as it has done with around 1,200 other software as a service (SaaS) platforms - as a part of a strategic shift in its operations.

Through an exploration of data modeling, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), and other concepts, Klarna concluded that its data had become fragmented across many different SaaS platforms and difficult to navigate.

“So, we decided to start consolidating; to put things together, connect our knowledge, and remove the silos. The side consequence of this was the liquidation of SaaS—not all of them, but a lot of them,” Siemiatkowski said

“We did not replace SaaS with an LLM, and storing CRM data in an LLM would have its limitations. But we developed an internal tech stack, using Neo4j and other things, to start bringing data=knowledge together,” he added.

This isn’t the end of Salesforce

The Klarna CEO was careful to say that he doesn’t think this move is a sign of things to come for Salesforce, or that other firms are likely to follow suit and move away from CRMs in the way it has done.

“No, I don't think it is the end of Salesforce; might be the opposite,” Siemiatkowski said.

“Will all companies do what Klarna does? I doubt it. On the contrary, much more likely is that we will see fewer SaaS consolidate the market, and they will do what we do and offer it to others. Those are likely to be your next SaaS,” he added.

He said that it is “very likely” that Salesforce will be one of those companies, considering they are more than just a CRM platform.

“I hope with sharing this we can clarify a lot of speculation and misunderstandings and, in the end, same thing as is always true - just like when mobile came along, we talked about mobile first, now you need to be AI first,” Siemiatkowski concluded.

“Of course all SaaS companies will need to learn adopt and evolve. But if they do there is tremendous opportunity ahead.”

Benioff’s questions may have been answered

Siemiatkowski’s comments in September last year not only sparked a brief war of words, but prompted questions over Salesforce’s position in the CRM space.

In a press briefing ahead of Salesforce Dreamforce 2024, Benioff said he had seen the leaked comments and had asked people to reach out to Siemiatkowski to clarify how the firm was managing its data without a CRM.

“How is he achieving compliance, governance of his company? What is his institutional memory?” Benioff also wondered.

Benioff pondered whether Klarna had developed a new way of managing data or new applications that can function in place of a CRM platform.

“I just know from my own perspective at Salesforce that I need to know who my employees are, who my customers are; their transactions, history,” Benioff remarked.

“I think there’s a broad misunderstanding of artificial intelligence and how it relates to data management and applications," he added.

Klarna's bullish push on AI

Klarna’s SaaS consolidation comes after months of investment in AI use internally that has seen the fintech firm rollout a generative AI assistant for staff that can do the work of 700 workers.

The firm has seen such strong efficiency gains through internal AI use that it has stopped hiring new members of staff, allowing natural employee attrition rates to bring headcount down.

At the time, Siemiatkowski said staff would see direct benefits from these efficiency gains as Klaran would be shifting the money saved into the wages of remaining employees.

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What is sales enablement software?

Sales enablement is a strategic set of activities that support the closing of new deals.

What does sales enablement software do?

• Makes sales and marketing content easy to locate, personalise, and measure for effectiveness
• Provides input that accelerates buying journeys, such as successful sales approaches and recent news about prospects
• Integrates with or offers native applications for communicating with leads via email, call, video conference, and social media
• Aids resource allocation by tracking the performance of sales reps, playbooks, communication channels, and more
• Delivers onboarding and coaching material for sales teams, including training videos, playbooks, and feedback forms

How departments can use sales enablement software

Sales team

Sales can use sales enablement software to close deals in a more cost-efficient way. Sales enablement software is the single point of truth for sales content, thus avoiding valuable information being trapped in silos.

For example, having all pitch decks and playbooks on one platform means reduced time searching for the relevant document to send to a prospect. Some platforms also allow real-time document editing and collaboration, and can track customer engagement with content, helping you increase win rates and decrease time and cost.

In addition, intelligence-driven training videos and prospect insights can quicken the buyer’s journey to a “yes,” also known as sales acceleration.

Marketing

Marketing can use sales enablement software to track the impact of sales collateral on closing deals.

Sales enablement software offers a unified platform for sales and marketing to collaborate. An example is the versioning and performance analytics of marketing content: sales reps can personalise general-use assets, and the software tracks how individual customers engage with them. This provides insight to marketing teams as to what content is most effective at closing deals and how different customer verticals respond to it.

Furthermore, the knowledge gathered about the target market’s needs and pain points can enable marketing departments to improve their existing campaigns and expand the sales funnel.

Product management (PM)

PM can use sales enablement software to maximise client satisfaction at the onboarding stage.

Sales enablement software can also help increase customer retention, which involves collaboration with product teams. In the final deal stages, product managers must work with sales to deliver successful client demos and onboarding. For example, if you’re selling a technology product, you can determine customer requirements from past communications and engagement with sales collateral. This gives you a head start in building the right solution for the client.

Product teams that use existing knowledge from the buying journey deliver a functional service more quickly, increasing client satisfaction and retention.

Strategy

Strategy teams can use sales enablement software to better understand customer verticals and build new roadmaps.

Analytics are a powerful sales enablement tool, and can inform the future direction of your company. Insights such as buying journey duration, market segmentation, and revenue prediction can tell strategy teams whether existing targets are being hit and where future profits may come from. Furthermore, qualitative data, such as product demo notes, help teams re-examine market needs and buying behaviors, thus influencing company strategy.

Also, by tracking the performance of sales teams and revenue streams, strategy execs can make better budgeting decisions across products, geographic locations, and customer verticals.

Features and benefits of sales enablement software

Sales enablement vendors cover a wide variety of features, with some—such as Highspot, Seismic, and Showpad—regarded as comprehensive end-to-end providers, and other players focused on key elements including coaching, email tracking, and market intelligence.

Below, we outline the top features found across sales enablement solutions.

Sales content management

Content management enables you to easily find, personalise, and track your sales collateral. This feature saves you time and money by locating data in a targeted way—including decks, notes, and playbooks—and increases win rates by adapting templates to client profiles. Advanced tools include real-time document editing and versioning, and tracking the collateral’s impact on deal progression.

Sales intelligence

Software offering sales intelligence ensures rep readiness when communicating with customers. Internal sales analytics measure individual quota fulfillment, predicted revenue, and traits of successful pitches. You can also use industry intelligence to identify high-value targets, get AI-driven recommendations, and stay on top of relevant news.

Sales acceleration

Sales acceleration tools move your leads along the pipeline more quickly, which makes you more money in less time. Example tools include intelligence-driven playbooks that adapt to industry and buyer profile, communication recommendations based on language analysis, and collaboration features that remove workflow duplication and silos.

Customer engagement

Some sales enablement products provide native applications that send and track communications across channels including email, phone, video conference, and social media. Metrics are aggregated and analysed, including email open rates, and time spent on attachments such as videos. This helps you optimise low-performance messaging and make the sales process more personal. Customer engagement solutions tend to work hand-in-hand with CRM products, which store customer and pipeline data.

Sales training

With sales training software, reps can be onboarded, coached, and given feedback in a streamlined way. Advanced features include measuring the impact of coaching content on win rates and quick-fire training recommendations according to customer profile and deal stage. Some tools include, or can integrate with, workforce management features such as incentive, quota, and territory management.

How much does sales enablement software cost?

Some providers provide quotes after an initial discovery call or product demo—including Highspot, Seismic, Outreach, Chorus.ai, and Gong.io. This is typically a bespoke pricing model, based on your sales team size, technical requirements, size of pipeline, and other variables.

Solutions that focus on a specific segment of sales enablement usually offer pricing plans on a per-user basis, billed monthly or annually. For example, content management software Bloomfire starts at £20 per user a month, and Content Camel starts at £12 per user a month (both billed annually).

For sales solutions that include email marketing and advanced performance analytics, you’re looking at £39 per user a month for Zendesk Sell and £42 per user a month for Zoho CRM (both billed annually).

Sales intelligence solutions can be pricier than other sales enablement segments: for example, Linkedin Sales Navigator, which helps you target and communicate with prospects, starts at £65.43 per user a month (billed annually).

Note that some providers may charge extra for software implementation.

Some products, such as Zendesk Sell and Content Camel, may offer free trials.

Sales enablement software FAQ

Below, we've answered the most frequently-asked questions about sales enablement software.

What is the goal of sales enablement software?

The goal of sales enablement software is to get your business more sales with higher efficiency. Vendors offer a mix of propositions towards that goal, such as creating targeted sales content, using data-driven playbooks, accelerating customer buying journeys, and streamlining team learning needs.

Without some form of sales enablement software, chances are fewer deals would get done and pipelines would progress more slowly. High-potential conversations may not be actioned in a timely manner, and learnings from high performers wouldn’t be as readily available. So, whether it’s an end-to-end sales enablement solution or niche products, such as coaching software, your bottom line is likely to benefit from having more streamlined, productivity-enhancing sales support.

Is sales enablement software the same as CRM?

CRM can have overlapping features with sales enablement products, such as pipeline management, email templates and tracking, note-taking, rep assignment, and revenue prediction. However, sales enablement solutions don't typically store customer records in as great a detail as a CRM would—for example, many don’t offer customisable data fields. Conversely, CRM products don’t tend to include native phone and video conferencing, content editing and tracking, or sales training capabilities.

Some advanced CRM solutions with AI-powered recommendations and automation, such as Zoho CRM and Hubspot CRM, can be considered sales enablement products, as they help sales teams focus their attention on high-value prospects while saving time on manual tasks. Many CRM products can also be integrated into sales enablement software, syncing contact and communication data, and avoiding missed opportunities.

What are examples of sales enablement software?

Some sales enablement solutions offer an end-to-end suite of tools in one platform, from content management to sales intelligence, acceleration tools, customer engagement, and sales training. Examples of all-in-one platforms include Seismic, Highspot, and Showpad.

Providers like Dooly, Bloomfire, Content Camel, and Conga focus heavily on content management. Software focusing on sales intelligence includes LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Chorus.ai, and Artesian. Software focusing primarily on sales acceleration includes Accord, Gong.io, and Outreach. Products with a primary focus on customer engagement include Clearside, Zoho CRM, Hubspot CRM, and Zendesk Sell. Finally, software specialising in sales rep training includes Lessonly and SalesKen.

Main takeaways

Here are the five key points to remember:

• Sales enablement software gets you to a closed deal quicker by equipping your team with relevant information, content, and analytics
• There are five common features across sales enablement solutions: content management, sales intelligence, sales acceleration, customer engagement, and sales training - some providers offer a mix, while others focus exclusively on one or two features
• Sales and marketing teams can achieve greater results if relevant content is located and personalised more easily, with customer engagement measured under the same platform
• Tracking customer buying journeys, including content and communication effectiveness, helps identify improvement points across your sales efforts
• You can integrate your existing programs, including CRM, email, and video conferencing, with sales enablement products

Further reading

To further unpack why sales enablement software enhances productivity, read our features on finding common ground between sales and marketing and what it takes to be genuinely data-driven.

You can also have a look at our buying guides for the best product management and the best employee experience software.

The best sales enablement software provides an easy way to gather and organise data and analytics for improving sales conversions and rates.

The best sales enablement software providers

Click the links below to go to the providers' websites:

1. Mediafly
2. Highspot
3. Showpad
4. Seismic
5. DocSend
6. Guru
7. Acquire
8. Brainshark
9. Aritic
10. Mindtickle

Sales enablement software solutions have become increasingly integral to the modern business, not least through integration with existing marketing and customer relationship management software.

The result is a digital platform that is able to take data in real-time and analyse it for insights, especially in terms of improving sales conversions and rates. This means the ability to train and develop sales teams to boost effectiveness and productivity, while supporting existing customers to increase upsell as well as cross sell.

Sales enablement software therefore aims to not just increase sales, but also sales efficiency, meaning that you can increase turnover while reducing costs, therefore improving overall profitability.

Here, in no particular order, we'll feature the best sales enablement platforms currently available.

1. Mediafly

Helps sales teams keep their content organised

REASONS TO BUY

• Easy to use
• Intuitive

REASONS TO AVOID

• Reporting tools could be better

Mediafly makes easy-to-use software that is favoured by many of the world’s Fortune-ranked companies, if you need such a seal of approval. In short, it helps organisations give their buyers insights that help them make decisions on purchases. Featuring a simple yet elegant interface that helps remove the stress of “selling”, it provides a central location for managing personalised content, robust mobile support, presentations support and even integration with asset management software, if required.

2. Highspot

Helps to drive customer conversations

REASONS TO BUY

• Wide feature set
• Designed for collaboration

REASONS TO AVOID

• Lacks keyword tagging

Highspot is a feature-rich sales enablement platform that combines content management, training, contextual guides, customer engagement and actionable analytics. It’s especially useful in providing visibility into content that sales teams are finding useful, and its powerful search functionality is almost Amazon-esque in nature (though it could be improved further with more robust tagging of content).

3. Showpad

An enterprise solution with strong mobile support

REASONS TO BUY

• Combines multiple marketing functions
• Solid mobile support
• High-res image support

REASONS TO AVOID

• Folder structure could be simplified

If you’re an enterprise seeking an all-in-one sales enablement profile, Showpad goes the distance by integrating training and coaching software with innovative content solutions. Its basic features including allowing teams to manage marketing campaigns, discover better ways to carry out sales processes and share information about products with with clients. In addition to desktop, Showpad can be used on Apple’s iPads and iPhones. It also features excellent support for high-resolution images, which only aids the selling process.

4. Seismic

A mobile-first solution with excellent search capability

REASONS TO BUY

• Mobile-friendly approach
• Robust search functionality

REASONS TO AVOID

• Has a steep learning curve

Seismic takes a mobile-first approach to sales enablement that allows teams to deliver content on any device. It’s a cloud-base solution that lets field reps create compliant materials that are customised to enable more effective selling. Used by corporations such as IBM, American Express and PayPal, its data and insights capabilities help teams form a strategic view of how and when content is being shared. You can also set permissions for content and add instructions and descriptions to help teams find it faster.

5. DocSend

Supercharge your team’s document collaboration capabilities

REASONS TO BUY

• Improves visibility of document usage
• Very easy to use

REASONS TO AVOID

• Search would benefit from file tagging

Docsend was created to help salespeople find content to engage with customers and seal deals. One of the software’s big plus points is that it helps to increase control around documents, allowing users to better track different customers or users who receive (and open) presentations documents. There’s broad support for many different document types, and it’s so simple to use that it requires very little training for teams.

6. Guru

AI-driven software adapts to user patterns

REASONS TO BUY

• AI adapts to users over time
• Very user-friendly
• Easy to maintain

REASONS TO AVOID

• Requires a lot of maintenance

Guru is one of the best ways to store and quickly reference company information and processes. It’s an intuitive AI-driven system that strives to consolidate information from various sources (such as Google Docs and intranets) and learns over time. Like Trello, it works using cards which are created in spaces for sharing knowledge and keeping it up-to-date. These cards are bite-sized, which encourages workers to write in short-focused chunks. Guru is especially useful if your organisation uses Slack, which can be easily integrated.

7. Acquire

Helps teams communicate better with customers

REASONS TO BUY

• Wide feature set
• Works without browser plugins
• Strong reporting functionality

REASONS TO AVOID

• Needs more chat notification sounds

Acquire is a communication software solution that helps teams offer customer service across multiple platforms in a bid to reduce complaint resolution times. Its scalable suite of tools includes live chat, co-browsing, and video and voice calling, which are available on the desktop and in app format. Acquire features a clear user interface that’s simple and intuitive, with key statistics such as visitor waiting time placed front-and-center. It works without installing any plugins in the browser, and its reporting functionality is particularly impressive.

8. Brainshark

Helps prepare sales teams with on-demand training

REASONS TO BUY

• Suitable for geographically disparate workforces
• Multi-functional software is easy to use

REASONS TO AVOID

• Reporting could be improved

Brainshark helps organisations train their sales teams across the world to become more efficient. In addition to delivering content to salespeople themselves, it can be shared with clients and influencers to provide an alternative perspective on how the sales training process could be improved. Communication, training and compliance is wrapped up in a single application that’s been designed in a way so that employees can’t cheat or game the system.

9. Aritic

Useful for managing and sharing documents

REASONS TO BUY

• Robust document management
• Useful automation processes

REASONS TO AVOID

• Has a steep learning curve

Aritic is a useful tool for generating, automating and managing documents while storing and sharing them more efficiently. Especially handy for businesses whose sales processes often get document-heavy, Aritic can automate proposal management processes and allows teams to share marketing collateral more efficiently. It’s all powered by a native document comparison engine that’s powered by machine learning and compares changes across versions.

10. Mindtickle

A novel way of encouraging sales reps to learn

REASONS TO BUY

• Intuitive and easy to use
• Gamification can drive engagement rates

REASONS TO AVOID

• Modules only as useful as creators make them

Mindtickle is one of the most comprehensive sales readiness platforms around. It provides capability to develop, coach and improve performance of sales reps wherever they are located. One novel feature is its gamification element, which displays leaderboards to show users’ scores in relation to other members of their team. Intuitive and easy to learn, it makes great use of content modules that span everything from articles to videos and presentations.

CRM specialist Salesforce has announced a new partnership with WhatsApp, which will enable businesses to sell, market and provide support via the messaging platform.

Available from December 2022, new WhatsApp-first business messaging has been designed to facilitate a convenient and personalised communication experience through customers’ preferred method of contact – messaging.

According to recent Salesforce data, 90% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products, with 66% of online adults around the world preferring messaging as a way to communicate with a business.

In response, the new Salesforce-WhatsApp integration will enable brands to customise this communication experience and answer questions directly, provide support, as well as promote and sell products.

“WhatsApp-first business messaging enables every Salesforce customer to provide personal and conversational experiences that increase sales, improve customer service, and engage customers wherever they are,” commented Michael Affronti, General Manager of Messaging at Salesforce.

The partnership leverages Salesforce Genie, the company’s new data platform that powers the first real-time CRM, Customer 360, to offer seamless and personalised experiences across sales, service, marketing, and commerce.

Salesforce says this will enable companies to target certain audiences with real-time data and channel customers into a one-to-one chat through Click-to-WhatsApp ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Businesses will have the ability to craft an end-to-end customer journey and personalisation of marketing-driven interactions with the Genie-powered Marketing Cloud Customer Data Platform (CDP).

AI and automation also aim to improve conversation quality and reduce support time, as well as a host of additional features such as customisable message templates that include brand images and videos, and customisable buttons that allow users to respond with a single tap.

Additionally, all messages sent between businesses and customers are protected by Signal encryption protocol.

As part of the pilot for the integration, L’Oreal brands will use WhatsApp to reconnect with consumers who had previously left items in a shopping cart, sending them coupons and offers directly in the chat thread.

“As more customers use their mobile devices as their primary way to engage our brand, we need a single messaging solution that pulls in information across sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT, to help us deliver personalized customer service, deliver product recommendations, and increase sales,” explained Asmita Dubey, Chief Digital & Marketing Officer at L’Oréal.

It’s widely understood that pursuing growth without user retention is fighting a losing battle. But the vast majority of ‘growth hacks’ offer only short-term solutions leading to transient up-ticks that don’t offer long-lasting benefits to your business.

This whitepaper aims to deliver a broadly applicable framework for improving user retention at various stages of the user lifecycle, to help deliver robust, and lasting growth.

Download now to discover the tools for boosting new, existing, and lapsed user retention for your product.

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Customer relationships are at the heart of business, and there are several customer relationship management (CRM) platforms that can help you build and make the most of them, regardless of which sector you’re in.

If CRM only helped your organisation and track customer data, or just saved time, or only made it easier to build relationships, it would be a valuable system. That CRM combines all these benefits means it serves an even more important purpose.

Ultimately, CRM helps you develop a better understanding of your audience and your own operations. When a business understands itself at least as well as it understands its customers, it’s more likely to spot inefficiencies and opportunities to be exploited.

If you’re not already using a CRM system then here’s why you should be – and if you are already using one, we’ll look at some applications and benefits that you might not yet have taken advantage of.

Embracing CRM for efficiency and greater outcomes

The first major benefit of CRM is that it frees staff from administrative tasks, so they can focus on more productive things. Teams won’t have to spend as much time logging emails, calls, meetings and interactions – all of this information will be collected and aggregated within the system. This leads to productivity gains that could realistically cover the costs of a CRM subscription.

It’s not just about efficiency, though. A CRM system helps you serve customers better. In very small businesses, customers might communicate with a single person, who can gain an understanding of their needs and plans – but as the company grows, that relationship is often lost. Customers end up talking to representatives who don’t know the ins and outs of their businesses, and who aren’t clued in on what interactions they’ve had before. It’s hardly an encouragement for them to do business with you.

A CRM platform lets you keep track of all the conversations, spreadsheets and pieces of communication with customers, while letting your organisation speak with a single voice and provide a consistent service, whether working with new leads and existing customers. As well as providing a better experience for customers, it opens the door to cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Businesses can, for example, look at what customers have previously purchased, which can inform the goods and services that can be offered subsequently. Many are likely to interpret this as good customer care, rather than intrusive.

Improving relations with individual customers is a good thing – and collecting information about your whole clientele allows you to discover trends and better understand your market. As the Harvard Business Review notes, you can “identify the most valuable customers over time, and increase customer loyalty by providing customised products and services”.

CRM builds relationships through relevance

When we say CRM can help you understand your market, that doesn’t just mean defining a homogenous set of customers. Differentiating between customer types allows you to devise tailored strategies for increasing sales in each segment.

Marketing campaigns, for example, can target potential customers with only relevant information, which can be based on previous search or purchase histories, alongside demographic information. Tailored strategies, too, mean you don’t waste money and effort promoting irrelevant products or services either to customers who won’t purchase them, or through channels their leads won’t encounter. More importantly, they ensure your offerings are relevant, which is crucial to retention.

Loyalty, as we knew it, is certainly waning, and customers may be looking out for more incentives, such as rewards, rebates and discounts. However, according to recent consumer research from Kantar Retail, 71% of consumers now claim that loyalty incentive programmes don’t make them loyal at all. With competition as fierce as it’s ever been, people buy because a brand’s relevance meets their needs at that moment. That doesn’t mean that loyalty is a lost cause, though, only that you need to make meaningful connections.

Many see this as an opportunity, with brands able to establish new and more solidified relationships with customers, based on emotional resonance. Attachment, of this kind, leads to brand advocacy, and stems from positive experiences as well as an exchange of values. Businesses need to find these elements and nurture these relationships.

All of this is much easier when you’re using CRM. This is because it allows you to centralise customer intelligence, regardless of the point of collection. Every team member has an overview of a customer’s likes and desires, the imperatives that drive the customer’s business, their past purchases, and more. Diverse parts of the organisation can build upon the advances made and information acquired by any other. All this can be leveraged to keep your brand relevant to your customers, and ensure they’re not motivated to look elsewhere for a business that can satisfy their needs.

CRM makes your data work for you

As well as segmenting customers by their various needs, a central CRM system lets you track the different states of all your ongoing relationships. CRM, effectively, allows you to see where in the journey your customer is, and separate them based on your interactions.

Having brought together all this data, CRM can also present it in an accessible manner – a capability whose value shouldn’t be underestimated. Spreadsheets and disconnected systems might be daunting, and require a lot of manual work, such as data entry. Deriving insights will be especially tough given the lack of historical context or the full picture of a customer relationship to derive proper insights. That’s before generating graphical ways to present this data. CRM, on the other hand, performs most of these tasks as a given, with customised dashboards helping to translate the data.

CRM data, thus, helps businesses to strategise next steps for different customer groups, and to deduce which are likely to exhibit similar purchasing patterns. This in turn helps generate better data on which to project sales and income.

This last point is key. Such insights, as Lee Davis and Cassie Bottorff write at Forbes can “help businesses more accurately forecast, and take the guesswork out of planning for the future”. They add: “You can leverage insights about your customers, pipeline, sales performance and forecasts from data analytics tools to decide what product to make next, or how to improve customer service.”

The UK government is opening up its Help to Grow: Digital scheme to businesses with at least one employee.

Previously, SMBs needed at least five people on their payroll to qualify for the initiative. Still, the change has opened it up to 760,000 more companies - 1.24 million in total - according to the government.

Help to Grow: Digital was launched alongside Help to Grow: Management in 2020 and they were aimed at smaller companies and startups that needed help with digital transformations or for those looking to learn more about scaling up. The Digital scheme offers discounts of up to £5,000 for government-approved software - mainly CRM and e-commerce products.

Approved software includes e-commerce companies Shopwired, Gob2b, Kentico and EKM, while CRM products are available from Zymplify, Livepoint Software Solutions and Gold-Vision CRM. These are all UK-based businesses and there are also digital accounting products available from Sage, Intuit and Crunch.

The scheme is open to all sectors and industries, though each company will need to have been registered in the UK with Companies House or at least be a registered society on the Financial Conduct Authorities Mutuals Register. The minimum number of employees is down to just one, but this needs to be someone who is not the owner and the maximum is 249 employees. Firms must also have been actively trading for over 12 months and have an incorporation date longer than 365 days before their application.

Each eligible business will receive one discount towards the purchase of just one approved software product worth up to £5,000, which doesn't include VAT. And, this must also be the first time they have purchased the approved software.

The government also plans to increase the number of approved software available in the coming months.

Microsoft has taken a bold step into the CRM market with the release of its Digital Contact Center Platform, announced at the firm's virtual Inspire event.

The Digital Contact Center Platform combines audio, video and chat services from an array of products, such as Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams, Azure and the recently acquired Nuance AI.

The service pulls together productivity and collaboration features as well as customer service technologies, similar to Zoom's own Contact Center. The combination of Dynamics, Teams and Nuance brings together a comprehensive "yet flexible" service for contact centres, according to Charles Lamanna, the corporate VP of business applications and platform at Microsoft.

"Best-in-class" AI capabilities will also power self-service experience, live customer engagements and even fraud prevention, Lamanan notes. Conversational AI capabilities will come directly from Microsoft's $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance AI, a deal that was completed earlier this year, despite some concern from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.

"This gives both customers and agents tools to resolve issues faster and with more personalised service, thus reducing resolution times while improving customer satisfaction," Lamana wrote in a blog. "It also enables contact centres to offer targeted incentives to build brand loyalty and upsell opportunities to boost revenue."

On average, customers use multiple channels to communicate with a specific brand, according to Microsoft. The Digital Contact Center Platform will streamline this and offer secure interactions to resolve customer needs with automation, connect them to virtual and live agents that are best suited to their needs, and offer a 'hyper-personalised omnichannel' service.

The will also be real-time insights and analytics to improve customer satisfaction as well as instant trend information with user behaviour tracking and predictive targeting functions.

Microsoft can also offer an extensive partner network for its contact centre network with Accenture and Avanade providing services for 'customer experience transformation'. Additional partners include Hitachi, KPMG, PwC and Genesys.

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Microsoft is attempting to simplify customer relationship management (CRM) with the launch of Viva Sales, the latest addition to the company's employee experience platform.

The 'Sales' version will work with all other CRM services, such as Salesforce or Freshworks, Microsoft has confirmed.

Viva Sales will take customer engagement data from Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams with AI software offering personalised recommendations and insights for sellers so that they can be more "connected" with their customers. What's more, because it works with other CRM platforms, users won't need to learn a new system or even pay another subscription fee.

Customers can be tagged using Microsoft 365 tools with Viva Sales, automatically saving it as a customer record and creating a new profile with all their relevant data. These profiles can be easily shared with the rest of the sales team, which reduces the need for client research.

Viva Sales has "Context IQ" AI models built-in that provide "follow-through" recommendations and reminders to users. Context IQ, which was announced at the end of last year, ensures relevant content is connected across Microsoft apps and services, such as Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365, so sellers save time and stay in the "flow of work" and close their deals.

The platform is an expansion to its existing Viva employee experience service, launched in February 2021, which aims to give businesses a way of combining staff training, management, and engagement into a single portal.

"The future of selling isn't a new system. It's bringing the information sellers need at the right time, with the right context, into the tools they know, so their work experience can be streamlined," said Judson Althoff, executive vice president and CCO at Microsoft. "Empowering sellers to spend more time with their customers has been our goal - and we've done that by reimagining the selling experience with Viva Sales."

Viva Sales automates the "busy work", Althoff added, as it captures "critical information" about customers, enabling sellers to get their job done.

With the wide-ranging capabilities that Netsuite offers, Netsuite integration projects can involve many applications. This guide can support you in simplifying this process with a checklist of things to consider in your planning.

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Salesforce has announced a definitive agreement to buy Tropps.ai, a sales and revenue communications platform.

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of July 2021, with some closing conditions still to be agreed upon, though no fee has been disclosed as yet.

Once complete, the deal will see Troops integrated into Slack as a tool to deploy sales information. Troops is essentially a Slackbot for sales teams, that takes CRM data from the parent company and imports it into Slack for efficiency purposes. So for Salesforce, customers will be able to see their sales information directly in Slack, making a sort of sales hub.

It works with system records, which are deployed in a Slack channel so that customer-facing teams are supported with all the information they need to close new deals and assist existing customers.

The firm is a long-time partner of both Slack and Salesforce, which makes for a very logical acquisition. In a statement, Troops said it was "an incredible milestone" in its history and tanked its community, customers, partners and investors.

"When we started Troops, we wanted to reimagine how work gets done," CEO Dan Reich said in a statement. "We wanted to make work easier, more intelligent, and more collaborative. In 2016 we launched our first product making that vision a reality by injecting mission-critical, actionable workflows into a new medium people were gravitating towards."

The acquisition is one of the biggest changes for Slack since it was taken over by Salesforce, which itself is looking to streamline its many offerings. The company's many services have come through multiple acquisitions, including Tableau and MuleSoft, which Salesforce has tried to harmonise into interoperable products. The company recently announced Salesforce Flow, which is a low-code workflow tool to help incorporate all its tools.

Oracle has announced its new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered marketing automation solution: Fusion Marketing.

Available as part of Oracle Advertising and CX, Fusion Marketing helps marketers automate lead generation and qualification from start to finish.

“CRM has become the system that both sellers and marketers love to hate, due to disconnected workflows, too much manual administration, and siloed data often preventing sales and marketing teams from working with each other to engage customers and drive revenue,” explained Oracle.

Addressing roadblocks in conventional marketing, Fusion Marketing helps brands create campaigns with consistent messaging across customer touchpoints.

The platform guides marketers through the entire campaign creation and execution process and helps businesses generate targeted audience profiles, identify relevant customer references, plan advertising budgets, and more. A built-in dashboard enables marketers to view campaign performance in real time.

But that’s not all. Following the launch of an advertising campaign, Oracle’s Fusion Marketing automatically generates and qualifies leads.

In addition to directing customers to an automatically generated landing page, each campaign includes customer references tailored to the industry and interest of the customer. Fusion Marketing also allows enterprises to track engagement across multiple campaign channels, including emails, online ads, and microsite visits.

The platform uses AI to analyze leads at the account level, predict when consumers are ready to speak with a salesperson, and generate a qualified sales opportunity within any CRM system.

"It is time for our industry to think differently about marketing and sales automation so that we can transform CRM into a system that actually works for both the marketer and the salesperson," said Rob Tarkoff, executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience.

"This is not about forecasts and rollups or a reporting tool to see how the sales force is performing, but instead about turning CRM into a system that helps sellers sell. A huge part of that change is bringing marketing and sales teams together and eliminating the low-value, time consuming tasks that distract from building customer relationships and closing deals. That's why we have invested so much time engineering a system that will help marketers fully automate lead generation and qualification and get highly qualified leads to the sales team faster."

Yext has announced the availability of its AI Search solution on Salesforce ‌AppExchange.

Yext AI Search for Salesforce helps brands enhance the customer support experience for agents and customers alike. In contrast to keyword-based search that only returns links, Yext pulls accurate answers from documents and articles and serves them as rich snippets.

Once installed, businesses can automatically add Yext AI Search to their custom Salesforce help site, agent consoles, and support forms.

"Collaborating with Salesforce highlights just how important search is to customer support in today's digital-first age," said David Rudnitsky, president and chief revenue officer at Yext.

Rudnitsky continued, "Businesses are constantly inundated with support questions, and the vast majority can be solved more easily and most cost-effectively with AI search. Our integrations solve this, marrying a support platform with a search platform to put information at the fingertips of both support agents and customers, so they can self-serve and resolve issues quickly."

Yext AI Search app’s other notable features include help site search that gives contextually relevant answers; support form deflection for answering customers’ issues in real-time; and agent console search for agents’ convenient access to FAQs within the Salesforce site.

Salesforce AppExchange GM Woodson Martin said, "Yext AI Search is a welcome addition to AppExchange, as they power digital transformation for customers with a search platform that enables faster resolution times, more manageable ticket volumes, and higher customer satisfaction rates. AppExchange is constantly evolving to connect customers with the right apps and experts for their business needs."

“By having instant access to information about an issue, customers will be able to self-serve and resolve issues on their own instead of having to contact customer support, while support agents will be empowered to drive faster resolution times overall,” added Yext.

Yext AI Search is priced at $2,000 per annual installation, and discounts are available for nonprofit organizations. To learn more about Yext AI Search for Salesforce Service Cloud, head over to Salesforce AppExchange Solutions.

Salesforce has expanded Health Cloud, its cloud-based service for health care organizations, with several new features targeting remote patient management and data protection.

The company has added four enhancements to Health Cloud. The first addition, remote patient exception monitoring, harvests data from connected health care devices and presents it in a single dashboard interface targeting care coordinators.

Metrics displayable in the dashboard include heart rate and blood glucose levels. This will enable health care workers to better understand patient conditions without needing physical visits, Salesforce said.

Salesforce's new appointment management feature suggests remote and in-person appointment times for patients. Users can select available appointment types and times via any device, and the system can also offer pre-appointment questionnaires to help gather the necessary data ahead of the appointment.

The cloud service provider says this will reduce no-shows and administrative costs incurred through manual back and forth with human schedulers.

The third new feature, medication management, tackles the management of medication lists. Many clinics still use manual, paper-based systems to track patient medication, making it difficult to monitor medication adherence, Salesforce said.

Targeting pharmacies, small clinics, and retail outlets, medication management will reduce the administrative overhead of tracking patient medication lists. The service will also integrate with RXNorm, a system that standardizes naming conventions for generic and brand name drugs in the US.

The final enhancement focuses on regulatory compliance and helps in-home patient care companies protect patients' health information. Salesforce is certifying Salesforce Maps, B2C Commerce, and Order Management services as compliant with the US government's HIPAA health care privacy regulations.

This certification gives mobile health care workers access to sensitive patient data on the move via Salesforce Maps while staying compliant with regulations, the company said. It also enables companies, including retail health locations and pharmacies, to set up e-commerce stores dealing with sensitive patient orders via HIPAA support in Salesforce B2C Commerce and Salesforce Order Management.

As with all businesses, retailers have had a tough time during the pandemic and although things look to be improving as restrictions are lifted, sellers may continue to experience challenges for a while to come.

Here we look at five technology challenges retailers are still facing.

1. Tackling e-commerce

For many stores and retail businesses during the pandemic, the reduced footfall on the high street and government-enforced closures meant that business owners had to think differently in order to survive. For most, the answer was to move the majority of their commerce online.

2020 proved to be one of the most successful years for digital retail, with sales reaching £2.96 trillion – a growth of 18.4% according to eMarketer’s 2020 report. Retailers believe this is set to continue, with consumers still preferring to shop online, and the projected growth is expected to reach £3.52 trillion by the end of 2021.

Looking ahead, many sellers have adopted new strategies and technologies to claim more of this growing market – most commonly by starting an e-commerce site or expanding an existing one. Yet some smaller retailers still don’t have an online presence, often because the initial outlay to set up an e-commerce operation can be prohibitively expensive. In these cases, social media could be utilised, as long as it’s done right, with regular posts and positive customer interactions.

Even if you have moved online (and you might be left behind if you don’t) not all retailer websites are up to scratch. With strategies to increase basket value, or attract new customers, a lack of interactive features could really limit retailers’ ability to keep up with the larger competition.

Then there’s also the growing trend of m-commerce, with the majority of online purchases now being made on a mobile device, according to a report by Broadband Search. Retailer sites today need to be mobile-optimised, and by offering their product and services in the spaces that their customers are operating, retailers will continue to improve brand affinity.

2. Digitising customer expectations

90% of consumers today expect consistent shopping experiences with their favourite retailers, whether that's in store or via an e-commerce site. And when it comes to stores' e-commerce platforms, they cannot be used alone; consumers want to see that whatever they’ve added to their online baskets on their desktops also shows up when they log in to their accounts on their smartphones.

Seamless shopping expectations don’t just begin and end with physical stores and their e-commerce platform, however; the interest in offering an 'omnichannel' experience is high, with the majority of retailers realising this strategy is the best way forward.

Wherever customers interact with stores today – in person, online, over the phone, or via social media, retailers need to always be able to know who they are and what they want. Despite this, only a small minority of sellers offer aligned customer touch-points, which negatively affects their ability to maintain communication with their customers and could in turn lead to brand damage.

Retailers need to be able to offer a unified view, and this can be supported through digital transformation. By investing in the right technology and implementing CX platforms, retailers could improve their overall customer experience, streamline processes, and save costs.

3. Poor customer data

In order to achieve the great experiences expected by customers, collecting and storing consumer data is key to being able to understand buying behaviour and deliver personalised shopping based on insights. But even today, many retailers either have customer data from which they don't know how to extract insights, or the data is out of date.

In fact, a study by Deloitte found that 71% of consumer data was inaccurate, and by not having the right data or data segmentation to know your customers, retailers risk losing business to the competition.

An example of this might be customers who are bombarded with incorrect offer messages for an item they may have already purchased, and even returned, purely down to inefficient data management within the organisation.

To overcome this, retailers need to ensure data quality through a data cleaning solution, to ensure its accuracy before being analysed for customer insights.

4. Multiple security risks

With the increase in online shopping, 24% of consumers today are concerned about how their data is being used, despite this number being nearly half what it was in 2018. Even with the number of those concerned dropping, a key expectation from all consumers is for retailers to protect their data.

Retailers need to ensure that those accessing their e-commerce sites are legitimate (through the use of an email verification link, for example) to prevent malicious actors gaining access to confidential customer data, including card details, or sending phishing emails to customers posing as the retailer.

Even in physical stores, advancements in technology - the introduction of till-less shopping and the rising popularity of contactless payments - means retailers are not only facing the challenges of implementing these shopping methods, but they’re also expected to increase surveillance and protect public safety.

All of this, plus a lack of skilled IT staff to support these new in-store facilities, adds to complications, rising costs and shrinking margins.

5. Lingering supply chain issues

Lastly, even with restrictions lifted and a return to a new “normal”, COVID-19 is still having a lasting effect on supply chain management in 2021.

Fulfilment delays continue to affect retailers, as others struggle with product shortages, and for those sellers offering omnichannel experiences, the complexity of having multiple channels to market means that customer demands are not being met.

Overall, as long as retailers deliver what their customers expect, and utilise the new technology opportunities available, success will be achieved in the new normal and well into the future.

B2B buyer preference has shifted towards digital in recent years, and the restrictions necessitated by the pandemic have only pushed B2B e-commerce to a place it should have been much earlier.

While B2C processes have already largely gone digital as e-commerce has taken over, B2B has lagged behind. B2B processes, though involved in many of the behind-the-scenes processes of business-to-consumer online selling, have remained manual and inefficient.

B2B sites lack the same user-friendly interfaces as B2C sites; they don’t utilise review capabilities, discounts, or chatbots and other automation that would remove the need for calling customer service reps or flipping through catalogues.

Now that the pandemic has forced B2B sellers to quickly jump on the e-commerce bandwagon, we’re seeing the priorities of many companies shift to make digital selling more automated, improve customer relationships, and drive revenue overall.

One main way a majority of companies are pursuing this is by optimising their self-service tools.

How B2B sellers are meeting the rising demand for digital ordering

Even before the pandemic, B2B buyers were already trending towards buying more from websites than sales reps. Online purchasing is more convenient and gives the customer more control of the process. And with most everyone working from home the last year and a half, it’s been much easier not to have to get ahold of real people to complete a purchase.

Now sellers are implementing a variety of initiatives to meet these demands, with self-service tools being one of the top changes.

In a survey of C-level executives and heads of marketing and e-commerce from WBR Insights, 67% of responding companies said they planned to implement more self-service options for customers like self-service portals and customer-event-triggered marketing automation flows.

Other self-service events may include paying invoices online, checking order status or product availability, getting quotations and samples, and reordering.

Benefits of self-service tools for B2B e-commerce

Self-service tools are beneficial not only to shoppers but to merchants as well.

Brian Green, head of commercial sales and GTM in EMEA at Magento, says that “self-service capabilities are core to a good online customer experience” and allow “shoppers to get answers earlier in the sales funnel...without needing to interact with a sales representative.”

On one hand, chatbots make it so customers don’t have to call sales reps or wait hours or even days for an email back to answer basic questions.

On the other, the sales teams themselves are freed up to work on other higher-value services like cross-selling and up-selling and helping customers with more complex issues.

Self-service capabilities empower businesses to be more efficient in all aspects, from streamlining their procurement processes to making supply chains more resilient to disruptions like that of the pandemic. If physical interactions suddenly had to stop again, businesses with automated, online processes would be in a much better position than those with traditional, manual processes.

Some business leaders have qualms about the effect digitisation might have on client relationships if clients feel they can’t get ahold of a real person and feel like all communications are impersonal. However, you’re empowering the customer as well as your sales teams by giving them the tools to help themselves and being there in person why they really need you.

Digitisation also gives you more visibility into buying trends and customer behaviour so that you can adapt your marketing accordingly and deliver more personalised experiences.

Should I adopt self-service capabilities and other e-commerce tools?

If you’re still on the fence about the benefits of self-service, it’s worth asking yourself about the true value of self-service versus your current manual processes.

How much time do your customer service representatives spend on one single client, from the time they take a call, perform a service, and then follow up? What are you paying for this time, and could they be spending this time on more important activities?

Are there processes like recording sales and revenue or analysing data that could be automated for more efficiency? Again, what is the cost of the time it takes to do these activities manually?

Remember, digitisation will not take people out of the equation entirely, but is only meant to automate those processes that don’t need a human touch and make life easier for both buyers and sellers.

Approx read time: 15 minutes

It’s a business imperative for B2B sellers to compete with the high expectations set by B2C e-commerce during the pandemic.

This report analyses the results of a survey of 100 CEOs, CTOs, CDOs, and more in B2B companies across Europe to see what challenges they’ve faced and solutions they’ve created to take on the coming years.

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• The growing emphasis on digital customer experience
• The impact of the sudden shift to remote working
• The new focus on content strategies and environmentalism

Approx. read time: 19 minutes

Over one-third of retailers now sell most of their products and services online and online selling is only becoming more business critical.

How can your business choose the right e-commerce platform to manage customer needs and future-proof your business against future changes?

Download this playbook to find out:

• Five must-have e-commerce capabilities, as identified by leading analysts
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Approx. read time: 7 minutes

The fast-growing digital marketplace is a huge opportunity for digital sellers. How can businesses grow their online presence to capture a greater share of this growth?

In this eBook, you’ll find the results of a survey of more than 100 digital sellers.

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• How sellers are responding to the market environment
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Salesforce have extended their partnership with code integrations that enable developers to integrate their services more efficiently.

The two companies have tied data and workflows from Salesforce's SaaS-based services into solutions running on the AWS cloud. The cloud-native integration will enable developers to pull AWS services, from databases to machine learning-powered features, into their Salesforce applications running in Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. Customers can then pay as they go for the services from within Salesforce-based products.

These services will span different layers of the stack. Developers will connect their Salesforce applications natively to the Amazon Relational Database Service, giving them access to Amazon's home-grown Aurora relational system and managed databases, including Oracle and SQL Server. They will also read and write natively to S3 buckets and other services, such as Amazon's Redshift managed data warehouse.

Services will also include voice and video capabilities, such as Amazon's Chime SDK for embedded real-time communication. On the artificial intelligence (AI) side, developers will be able to use services like Amazon's Textract data extraction to pull data from scanned documents or Amazon Comprehend, a natural language processing service, to pull information from text documents.

Previously, using these services would require custom coding. AWS and Salesforce will smooth the process using low-code tools that include guided setup to help organizations get up and running quickly.

These updates will likely build upon the slew of low-code tools Salesforce rolled out today.

AWS and Salesforce first partnered in 2016, when the latter began using AWS as its primary cloud provider and AWS began using Salesforce as its CRM platform. Since then, the two have ventured into sporadic integrations, including a link between Amazon's Connect omnichannel cloud contact center and Salesforce's Service Cloud call center solution. Salesforce also has cloud agreements with Microsoft and Google.

The partnership won't yield usable products immediately. The two companies are working on the integrations now and expect them to be generally available in 2022.

Salesforce has added new development tools to its platform to enable customers to create and ship apps regardless of technical skill or role.

Its Salesforce Platform now sports low-code tools for interactive app development and automation and new elastic computing, AI-driven data protection, identity management, and DevOps capabilities. Salesforce said this new functionality would accelerate business outcomes and allow anyone in an organization, such as business users, admins, designers, and developers, to build apps and processes using low code.

Among the low-code tools are Dynamic Interactions, an App Builder enhancement. This uses low code to build apps with web components that communicate, exchange data, and react to user actions, enabling users to repeatedly add components to any app without code rather than building it from scratch each time.

Its new Einstein Automate provides business users with low-code tools to build workflows that automate tasks and integrate data. Flow Orchestrator helps compose workflows that automate complex, multi-user processes and MuleSoft Composer for Salesforce.

The latter automates integrations from disparate apps and data sources to Salesforce without code. Users can also simplify processes by using pre-built solutions on Salesforce AppExchange and products in OmniStudio, a suite of no-code tools and pre-built guided experiences.

In addition to low-code tools, Salesforce also announced new tools for people with more specialized skill sets to collaborate with regular business users developing apps using low-code on the platform.

One such tool is Salesforce Functions, which lets organizations deploy code in a serverless environment. This enables developers to write code that implements their business logic, which they can then assemble as building blocks in flows or integrated with Lightning Web Components.

Salesforce said this would “accelerate productivity by making it easy for developers to adopt common industry languages and their supporting ecosystems, as well as their development tools of choice.”

Another new developer tool is CLI Unification. This gives developers a command-line interface (CLI) for building anything on Salesforce and uses cross-cloud commands to manage not just platform resources but also Heroku, Mulesoft, Tableau, and more.

"The future of app development is low-code, where anyone can participate to solve any business problem," said Patrick Stokes, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Platform, Salesforce. "The trusted, powerful Salesforce Platform makes it easier and faster for everyone to build apps and get back to growth.”

Salesforce has secured a high profile partnership with Disney Content Studios which will use the platform to support marketers and filmmakers for both streaming and theatrical content.

The cost of the deal has not been disclosed, or the length of the partnership, but Disney's StudioLAB will use technology from the Salesforce Customer 360 suite, which includes apps for marketing and commerce.

The deal will initially focus on streamlining production and marketing by developing digital workflows, performance analysis to inform 'executive decision-making', and the deployment of software that allows studio personnel to access workflows from any device.

Disney's StudioLAB is a unit dedicated to finding and deploying new technologies for storytelling. Its team is compromised of software engineers, film producers, theme park designers, and game developers, and its partners already include the likes of Microsoft, HPE and LG.

With Salesforce onboard, StudioLAB will also explore the use of technology to manage and accelerate content production with both companies collaborating on content from its initial conception all the way through to post-production, according to Disney.

"Salesforce's platform gives us the ability to accelerate and better coordinate the production process," said Jamie Voris, the chief technology officer for Disney Studios Content. "With Salesforce as our Innovation Partner, we can equip our marketers and storytellers with world-class technology to better deliver against the incredible slate of content we have planned for streaming and theatrical audiences."

Disney is set for a strong finish to the year with a host of films and shows set to be released in both cinemas and on its streaming platform Disney+. To manage this the company has secured partnerships with the world's largest cloud companies, including a deal with AWS to help push Disney+ into more regions across the globe.

Owners of early stage MSPs often wait too long before hiring a sales team, resulting in stalled growth or a stressed-to-the-limit CEO. To get serious about growth, MSPs have to become laser-focused on improving their sales and building a performance sales team.

In this definitive guide, several sales experts in the managed services industry, including Liongard’s Chief Revenue Officer, Adam Slutskin, share their best advice about how to:

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Akamai has launched Vaccine Edge to facilitate the rapid distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

Built on Salesforce’s Vaccine Cloud that streamlines vaccination processes, such as inventory management, staff training, payment, and reimbursement, Vaccine Edge helps manage vaccine programs at scale by enhancing signup processes on accredited vaccine registration websites.

Prepped to handle unprecedented traffic, Vaccine Edge offers faster load times, regardless of the number of users registering simultaneously. Furthermore, when workloads are too high, Vaccine Edge passes visitors to a virtual waiting room to keep their position in the queue.

Akamai’s Vaccine Edge also comes with denial-of-service (DDoS) protection to thwart botnet and web application attacks that exceed request-rate thresholds. What’s more, violators are automatically blocked to protect site service infrastructure.

"Citizens need accurate, up-to-the-minute information about vaccination eligibility and the logistics of booking an appointment," said Mani Sundaram, executive vice president, global services and support and chief information officer at Akamai Technologies.

"Vaccination registration websites must make this all happen — and handle sudden spikes in traffic. Vaccine Edge helps our customers provide a reliable user experience without creating more complexity for their IT teams."

The solution is currently available to local governments in the US and Canada, retailers, pharmacies, health care clinics, hospitals, nonprofits, and educational institutions. Optional add-ons include real user monitoring and analytics, load testing and peak event readiness, and bot mitigation.

"For most vaccine recipients, the first step in protecting themselves is scheduling an online appointment," said Meredith Flynn-Ripley, senior vice president and general manager, Salesforce Vaccine Cloud.

"Akamai's Vaccine Edge solution can help provide patients with an efficient, effective, and equitable experience integrated with Salesforce."

IBM has announced plans to acquire 7Summits, a consultancy firm that specialises in projects based on software as a service (SaaS) applications from Salesforce.

IBM said the deal, the financial terms of which have not yet been disclosed, "is part of a broader IBM investment strategy in services and ecosystem partnerships to enable our clients' digital transformations through hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI)".

Milwaukee-based 7Summits was founded in 2009 and designs and develops digital experiences with Salesforce software in order to help business improve their sales using customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

The company, which has 66 employees across Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Austin and San Francisco, will join IBM’s Global Business Services’ Salesforce division, which IBM says is facing “rising client demand” – no doubt fuelled by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

"7Summits is part of a broader IBM investment strategy in services and ecosystem partnerships to enable our clients' digital transformations through hybrid cloud and AI," said Mark Foster, senior vice president of IBM Services.

"Salesforce plays a critical role in transforming customer, employee and partner lifecycle processes into intelligent workflows that deliver accelerated business outcomes."

IBM added that, following the deal, its Global Business Services arm will significantly expand hiring, training and certifications to support key growth areas for Salesforce, including Tableau, Mulesoft, and Vlocity, while continuing to build out new Salesforce specific offerings that leverage IBM complementary capabilities and deep industry expertise.

Tyler Prince, executive vice president of Worldwide Alliances and Channels at Salesforce, commented: "Our partner ecosystem is a driving force of our growth, and the addition of 7Summits to IBM's fast-growing Salesforce business will provide even more value for our customers' digital transformations.

"The combination of both companies' Salesforce consulting and design capabilities will help businesses in any industry keep pace with rapidly changing customer expectations, helping them thrive in an increasingly digital world."

BQE Software, a software provider specializing in professional services firms, announced the launch of its CORE CRM.

The customer relationship management (CRM) solution provides business managers with a series of tools to manage and grow their businesses. According to BQE, this CRM is easy to use, includes an intuitive user interface and integrates seamlessly with the BQE CORE platform.

"Over the past 25 years, BQE has been a leader in the development of software tools that enable professional service firms to manage every aspect of their business from time and expense tracking, to invoicing, accounting and HR,” said Shafat Qazi, BQE CEO and founder.

“With the addition of CORE CRM, we are empowering our customers to win more business and grow their existing client relationships.”

CORE CRM is a cloud-native platform that users can securely access from anywhere and at any time through a desktop computer or mobile app to gain real-time, unlimited access to a host of CRM tools, including:

• Lead and prospect management
• Marketing campaign management
• Sales goal management
• Opportunity tracking
• Quoting and proposals
• Sales pipeline funnel and forecasting.

CORE CRM also includes a customizable sales and marketing resource library, unlimited email templates, to-do lists, notes and follow-up management.

"For years, our customers have been asking us to build CRM tools that understand the unique needs of a professional services firm,” said Qazi. “During our research, it became abundantly clear there was an amazing opportunity to fill a void neglected by the major CRM platforms available today. In addition, having all of their business tools integrated within the single, beautifully designed BQE CORE platform simplifies their workflow while reducing costs."

BQE Software’s clients include a wide range of professional services firms, like architects, accountants, engineers, attorneys, IT specialists and business consultants. BQE Core centralizes and streamlines how companies use information to engage in time tracking, billing, project management and accounting.

Sabre Corporation, a software and technology company involved in the global travel industry, is working with Google to launch its first product powered by proprietary Sabre Travel AI technology.

The travel-based Sabre Smart Retail Engine will launch in early 2021 and will be powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology and advanced machine learning (ML) capabilities. The development of Sabre’s Smart Retail Engine came together through its relationship with Google.

"We are excited to bring this intelligent retail engine to market as part of our offer management strategy, marking another step towards achieving our 2025 vision of delivering truly personalized travel," said Wade Jones, chief product officer at Sabre. "By bringing together some of the brightest minds from Google and Sabre, we are accelerating the delivery of this smart and scalable retailing engine that we believe will enable customers to deliver personalized offers to their customers, better serving the needs of today's traveler, while unlocking more value per passenger boarded."

The Sabre Smart Retail Engine combines Sabre's offer management and customer segmentation abilities with Google's powerful merchandising solution. It’ll use real-time shopping data, content and AI/ML-based decision support models to create personalized offer bundles.

The Smart Retail Engine technology will dynamically price travel offers using customer segmentation techniques. Its bundles can include seats, baggage, and other ancillaries. It’ll eventually also include rental cars, hotel stays and other third-party offers.

Sabre Travel AI works with Google Cloud AI solutions and automated ML tools to identify, analyze and predict consumer behaviors, which are based on real-time shopping and travel-specific business insights. This will help travel clients quickly create relevant and personalized content, meet traveler demands and create more revenue opportunities.

"We are pleased to be working side-by-side with Sabre to bring innovative, industry-first technologies to the travel space," said Ravi Simhambhatla, managing director, digital transformation officer – travel & transportation, Google Cloud. "Today's announcement, as well as Sabre Travel AI, are what we hope will be the first of many concepts generated from our partnership."

Samsung registered record-high revenues in the third quarter of 2020, reclaiming its title of the global tech leader at a time when nearest rival Huawei remains quashed by US sanctions.

The Korean tech giant managed to rake in a record-breaking 66.96 trillion won (£45.4bn) in consolidated revenues between July and September 2020, an increase of 8% from Q3 of 2019.

Samsung’s operating profit skyrocketed to 12.35 trillion won (£7.78 bn) a 52% increase from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, its net profit increased by 49% to 9.36 trillion won (£6.31 billion).

The company’s exceptionally strong revenues are credited to its 50% increase in smartphone sales and a staggering 82% rise in microchip profits.

Strong sales of Samsung’s premium TVs and appliances also contributed to the impressive results.

Samsung's gains appear to have been at the expense of rival Huawei, which is suffering steady decline as a result of tough US sanctions and a number of countries moving to ban the sale of its networking technology.

Last week, it was reported that the Chinese tech giant's revenue growth for the first three quarters of 2020 had drastically slowed down in comparison to the same period last year. Huawei saw revenues increase by just 9.9% from January to September – that's compared to record growth of 24.4% recorded in the first nine months of 2019.

Commenting on the revelations in a blog post, Huawei said its business results “basically met expectations”.

Last July, Huawei briefly held the title of the world's biggest smartphone brand, managing to outsell Samsung for the first time in the second quarter of 2020. It managed to ship 55.8 million devices, according to research from Canalys, with 70% of its business in the Chinese mainland. In comparison, second-placed Samsung shipped 53.7 million smartphones, a 30% fall against its Q2 2019 results.

Canalys senior analyst Ben Stanton said that “few people would have predicted” the “remarkable result”.

"If it wasn't for COVID-19, it wouldn't have happened,” he added.

However, although impressive, the success was short-lived and largely credited to Huawei’s presence in China, where the markets were early to reopen following lockdown restrictions. By the end of Q2, Samsung managed to recover from the economic effects of the pandemic and reclaim the top spot.

Salesforce's dominance of the customer relationship management (CRM) software market might be under threat from a fresh strategic challenge from Microsoft.

Despite not having much luck in the market for the past 20 years, the tech giant has told sales teams to get existing customers to adopt its Dynamics 365 products, according to analysts cited by CNBC.

A 'major' Microsoft partner reportedly indicated the plans to RBC Capital Markets. They suggested that partners typically resell Microsoft software, often in conjunction with consulting services, hardware, or other software.

It is thought that the push could lift Microsoft's Commercial Cloud, a group of products that now represents over one-third of the company's total revenue, and encroach further into an area dominated by Salesforce in the process.

"Microsoft engages executives throughout the agreement renewal process and we routinely check in with salespeople to make sure they're exploring Dynamics 365 and Power Platform prior to each deal's completion," Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw said to CNBC.

"This is about being efficient with customer engagement and ensuring awareness of the growing interest we see in these offerings, without introducing any change to the structure of customer agreements."

RBC analyst Alex Zukin told CNBC that the move was a "new priority" for Microsoft. Zukin also said the unnamed Microsoft partner indicated that the tech giant's senior leadership must approve any enterprise license renewal that leaves out Dynamics, which includes CRM and other business management software and PowerApps.

Microsoft's sales executives want their teams to talk with clients about the Dynamics 365 cloud services, particularly about renewal times, according to RBC's source, which said the efforts became more pronounced when the company's current fiscal year began in July.

In the second quarter of 2020, Dynamics grew 38% compared to the same period the year before, faster than most other Microsoft products. In the 2020 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, total Dynamics revenue exceeded $3 billion, with more than 60% coming from Dynamics 365.

Twilio has announced it's buying customer relationship management (CRM) startup Segment for $3.2 billion (£2.45 billion) in an all-stock deal.

This deal marks Twilio's eighth acquisition since it was founded in 2008 and it's largest to date, surpassing its $2 billion takeover of SendGrid back in 2018.

Twilio, which currently has a market cap of $43.83 billion, said the deal will enable it to leverage Segment's technology in order to equip businesses with "single, unified view that helps companies better understand their customers in order to engage more effectively."

Segment, which boasts big-name customers including VMware, Trivago and IBM, provides a set of APIs to pull together customer data from a variety of sources, including CRM tools, customer service applications, and websites.

“Data silos destroy great customer experiences,” said Jeff Lawson, co-founder and CEO of Twilio. “Segment lets developers and companies break down those silos and build a complete picture of their customer.

"Combined with Twilio's Customer Engagement Platform, we can create more personalized, timely and impactful engagement across customer service, marketing, analytics, product and sales. We are thrilled to welcome Segment to the Twilio team.”

The company also boasted that the deal will accelerate Twilio’s growth with a combined total addressable market of $79 billion, bringing it one step closer to achieving its vision of becoming "the world’s leading customer engagement platform trusted by developers and companies globally."

When the deal closes, Segment will become a business division within Twilio, with the company's co-founder and CEO Peter Reinhardt reporting to Lawson.

“Together, Twilio and Segment have an incredible opportunity to build the customer engagement platform of the future,” said Reinhardt, Segment’s co-founder and CEO.

“We created Segment to help businesses set themselves apart in the digital age and deliver rich, connected customer experiences built on high-quality data. By joining forces and applying our customer data platform to Twilio’s engagement cloud, we’ll be able to make the entire customer experience seamless from end-to-end.”

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020, Twilio said, adding that the boards of both companies have approved the merger.

Experts expect the initial demand for the COVID-19 vaccine to outweigh the supply significantly, so managing its distribution will be critical in the early stages. Salesforce aims to help government agencies and health care organizations manage the process with its new Work.com for Vaccines solution.

Salesforce’s all-new Work.com for Vaccines will give government agencies and health care organizations insight into the challenges that’ll go into the full-scale COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Some of the difficulties it’ll tackle include vaccine and PPE inventory levels, patient eligibility and prioritization, public outreach, patient tracking and even efficacy reporting.

From start to finish, Work.com for Vaccines aims to be a complete solution for the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine.

Build atop the existing Work.com platform, Work.com for Vaccines will allow organizations to manage the COVID-19 vaccine at scale with the following vaccine administration management capabilities:

• Public Health Command Center: This will provide a comprehensive view of vaccine management data from a single dashboard, including current vaccine inventory, PPE inventory and inventory forecasting.
• Vaccine Inventory Management: This will give organizations insight into the availability and maintenance of adequate vaccine doses, syringes, and PPE stock levels to meet public health needs
• Vaccination Appointment Scheduling: This system will allow patients to easily schedule vaccination appointments and will include an online signature capture.
• Clinical Vaccine Administration: This system will ensure onsite staff is trained in proper vaccine administration and that preapproval screenings are completed to avoid in-office bottlenecks. It also uses AI and data analysis to log and track vaccine administration and the results.
• Vaccine Outcome Monitoring: This feature will allow patients to self-report their experiences with the vaccine to verify its effectiveness and address any lingering medical concerns post-vaccination.
• Public Health Notifications: This feature will allow public health officials to curate accurate education and outreach campaigns and rapidly communicate with providers and people via their channel of choice. They can also set automated communications for reminders for booster vaccinations to free up staff for other tasks.

Pricing for Work.com for Vaccines will vary. It’s open to all government agencies and private health care organizations. It’ll also include existing Salesforce Customer 360 products.

Salesforce shares jumped as much as 12% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after the business reported strong Q2 earnings.

The company said it had $5.15 billion in second-quarter sales, representing a 29% year-over-year jump and surpassing the $4.9 billion analysts forecasted. Salesforce also raised its sales guidance for its fiscal 2021 from $20 billion to between $20.7 billion and $20.8 billion. The company also raised Q3 revenue guidance from $5.24 billion to $5.25 billion, which is approximately a 16% year-over-year increase.

The quarter’s subscription and support revenues reached $4.84 billion, signifying a year-over-year increase of 29%. Professional services and other revenues for the quarter were $310 million, a 23% year-over-year rise.

The Salesforce Sales Cloud saw $1.28 billion in revenue, up from $1.13 billion a year ago. Service Cloud revenue rose to $1.3 billion, up from $1.09 billion. Salesforce Platform and Other revenues also went up, reaching $1.51 billion, up from $912 million. Lastly, Marketing and Commerce Cloud revenue amounted to $746 million, up from $616 million the previous year.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said it was humbling for Salesforce to achieve one of the best quarters in its history against the backdrop of “multiple crises” affecting communities worldwide.

"Salesforce was founded on our belief in stakeholder capitalism and our core values of trust, customer success, innovation and equality. Our success in the quarter brought all of this together with the power of our Customer 360 platform, the resilience of our business model, putting our customers first and doing our part to take care of all of our stakeholders,” Benioff added.

Benioff expects that Salesforce will “emerge from these times even stronger.”

In a conference call with investors on Tuesday, Benioff was asked by analysts if mergers and acquisition activity will now pick up. Benioff responded with, “We’re not in a good M&A environment,” adding, “Maybe things can change. This isn’t really part of our plan right now.”

A strong Q2 isn’t the only good news coming out of Salesforce this week. On Tuesday, the S&P Dow Jones Indices announced changes to its Dow Jones Industrial Average. The changes included adding Salesforce to the index before trading opens on Aug. 31.

Salesforce has come a long way since its inception as the “no-software” CRM. For the past 20 years, the original pioneer of public cloud has grown to become the critical engagement layer connecting employees and brands to their customers. As customer channels multiply, Salesforce is leading the way for organisations of every size and industry to digitise and manage customer interactions from the outside-in, while at the same time moving critical workflow and data to the infrastructure advantages of the cloud.

In this year’s report, we see the best companies already leading this next wave of internal transformation. They are rapidly deploying Salesforce across their businesses, and scaling emerging technologies to empower employees with solutions that transform how they work, sell, market, and serve customers.

Download it now to discover how the best companies embrace change as an opportunity for creating market differentiation and leverage every competitive advantage Salesforce has to offer to maximise ROI.

Salesforce has announced its plans to roll out three new Marketing Cloud product updates which aim to facilitate working from home for enterprise marketing teams.

The updates include three AI-focused innovations to its Interaction Studio, four new features in the enterprise addition of Pardot, as well as a new Datorama integration with Tableau.

Salesforce’s Interaction Studio, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to manage customer interactions, is to be improved with technology integrated from the company’s Evergage acquisition, which was finalised earlier this year.

Users will be able to build, manage, test, and implement AI-powered recommendation strategies with the new Einstein Personalization Recipes, use an “advanced, continuous learning algorithm” to choose the best suitable offer or experience through Einstein Personalization Decisions, as well as improve personalisation campaigns and customer engagement efforts using A/B/n Testing.

Salesforce also announced that it would be integrating its Datorama analytics platform with Tableau, which was acquired by the company last year for $15.3 billion (£12 billion). The integration is to aid marketers in optimising their budget and data using Automated Marketing Data Integration.

Lastly, the software company will roll out four new features to its enterprise edition of Pardot, Salesforce’s marketing automation product. With B2B Marketing Analytics Plus, users will be able to use AI to sift through and understand data as well as determine best future marketing strategies.

Pardot will also be equipped with Einstein Attribution, which produces report and dashboards for optimised revenue credit assignment and Pardot Business Units, which facilitates campaign management across brands, geographies and segments. Admins and developers will also be able to test, audit and configure IT processes with the new Developer Sandboxes for Pardot.

While the Datorama Integration with Tableau is already available, Pardot Premium is to roll out later this month. Salesforce announced that the Interaction Studio will become generally available in the third quarter of 2020.

Salesforce has announced the debut of Salesforce Anywhere to help businesses navigate the new way of working.

With nearly 70% of people believing the coronavirus pandemic has forever changed the nature of work, and more than 50% claiming flexible work locations are extremely important to them, Salesforce Anywhere helps organizations as they navigate working during and after a global pandemic.

At a time when an all-digital, remote workforce is recognized as the new normal, Salesforce Anywhere enables organizations to achieve new levels of productivity and customer success no matter where team members are located.

By ​bringing together new technologies and services, Salesforce Anywhere users can collaborate and work from anywhere, while also having access to all of the data they need to be effective in their position.

“The COVID-19 crisis has taught us that companies must be able to sell, service, market and collaborate from anywhere, and that won’t change in a post-pandemic world,” said Bret Taylor, President and COO Salesforce.

“With Salesforce Anywhere we’re empowering customers of every size, location and industry to digitally transform with confidence in this all-digital, work-from-anywhere world.”

Features of Salesforce Anywhere include:

• By leveraging the power of the cloud, social, mobile and AI technologies, Salesforce Customer 360 provides the latest in sales, service, marketing, commerce and customer-related information.
• Salesforce Anywhere Users can subscribe to real-time mobile and desktop alerts for any changes or updates made within Salesforce.
• By integrating with Amazon Chime and Zoom, Salesforce Anywhere gives users the ability to chat with each other while simultaneously looking at the same page within Salesforce.
• By partnering with Tanium, Salesforce Anywhere gives IT teams control of all employee devices and services on their network, enabling them to deliver IT services from remotely.
• Using MuleSoft and Tableau, organizations can effectively act on data insights.
• Salesforce’s online learning platform, Trailhead, empowers users to learn today’s most in-demand skills.

While Salesforce Anywhere is expected to arrive in beta form in July, the full product is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2020.

e-commerce continues to boom. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show online sales accounted for 18.6% of all retail transactions in 2019. More startling is the growth of mobile channels: WorldPay predicts m-commerce spending will overtake e-commerce by 2023.

For retailers, evolving their business is the key to maintaining market share and nurturing customer loyalty. Research from Mintel published in 2019 is telling: 86% of Brits shop on Amazon, with nearly three-quarters (70%) of them buying something from the site at least once a month. 26% of them also have Prime accounts, giving them access to more and faster delivery options.

Speaking to IT Pro, Martin Willetts, technology consulting partner at Deloitte says: “The rate of evolution with consumer behaviours has been difficult for some brands to keep pace with. Those e-commerce organisations that are investing in the flexibility of systems, tools, and processes, are the ones turning the challenge into a real opportunity.

“The biggest trend is how e-commerce organisations are transforming their capabilities, so they can adapt to support consumer needs while also scaling operations as digital shopping habits continue to proliferate," Willetts continues. “Also, consumers are increasingly expecting full transparency from brands with regards to both the sustainability and ethical sourcing of products.”

Mobile retail channels will increasingly become the focus for consumers, as they consolidate their use of smartphones. The use of digital kiosks, self-service and cashless checkouts are expanding – all using smartphones as their payment mechanism.

According to a new State of Mobility in Retail Report from enterprise mobility management firm SOTI, 67% of consumers perceive mobile technology as the most effective way to provide a faster shopping experience. Additionally, more than three-quarters (76%) of consumers want in-store staff to use mobile devices to provide a better experience, and nearly one-third (32%) are unwilling to sacrifice personal data security to improve their in-store experience, revealing bold new insights about consumers in the modern retail landscape.

e-commerce is now a multi-channel, multi-touchpoint experience for consumers. They don't see separate channels, but simply want convenience and speed when they are ready to buy goods and services.

Channel agnostic

The question of whether e-commerce businesses should become 'mobile-first' is now moot. The omnichannel has cemented itself as the model e-commerce, and m-commerce is based upon. Indeed, the distinctions are disappearing.

Mobile channels will become increasingly important as a commercial space. Estimates from GSMA suggest over the short term, 1.4 billion people will start using the mobile internet for the first time, bringing the total number of mobile internet subscribers globally to 5 billion. By 2025, the estimated figure rises over 60% of the global population.

“Looking at both commerce channels separately seems counter-intuitive to me,” says Ennis Al-Saiegh, CEO of Smarter Click. “The rise of mobile traffic and ultimately the improved conversion journeys that have had to be improved for this medium, has resulted in improved efficiencies if you treat both channels as a pure ‘commerce’ channel. Treating them as one commerce channel means your brand values, user experience efforts and marketing teams are all aligned to deliver an enhanced experience.”

Deloitte’s Willetts adds: “A ‘Unified Commerce’ approach across physical and digital channels that is modular, flexible and data-driven will be key to ensuring memorable shopping experiences. There is huge potential for retailers to achieve greater value from their marketing spend, seeking to drive customers to the business from any channel to any channel. Again, with a consistent marketing experience regardless of the medium.”

How businesses will construct their e-commerce storefronts is also changing. Headless commerce separates the design of a business’ e-commerce enabled website, with the IT infrastructure that supports it. The practical advantage is the deployment of an e-commerce business can easily be multi-channel.

Speaking to IT Pro, Chris Adriaensen, senior manager of solutions engineering at Auth0, explains: “Headless content is effectively the removal of the end-user interface from backend systems, providing e-commerce solutions as a set of flexible APIs. Front-end developers can take user data and content to create far more dynamic and personalised experiences across different devices and touchpoints.

“Headless e-commerce allows for more than ‘if you liked these teabags, buy this coffee’ and means content can be delivered in more effective ways, suited to the identity of the user. Power users might get a different experience than first-time buyers, for example. With new tech-driven experiences, such as Amazon Go-style smart stores and AR-powered dressing rooms for clothing still in their early stages, a ‘headless’ approach also facilitates a faster time to market allowing retailers to adapt to new channels, technologies and use cases.”

Consumers want integrated, cross-channel shopping experiences with their purchase journey beginning on one channel and often ending on another – increasingly, their smartphones. Supporting this level of integration is a significant challenge. Here, automation can help and will expand their influence as new services come onstream to help multi-channel retailers deliver their goods to diverse audiences.

New opportunities

According to Statista, 35% of American households have a smart speaker. What's more, over a quarter, 26% made a purchase using their speaker last year. This rapid expansion of voice commerce is set to continue.

Data has also become a vital component of successful e-commerce. With masses of information collected about the shopping preferences of individuals, the future of commerce is personal. Brands and retailers that can make personal connections with their customers and deliver new innovative experiences will maintain and expand their market share.

Finding patterns and value in the data being collected will become the province of AI. "Though most e-commerce companies today aren’t using AI in earnest today, we expect this to change rapidly over the next couple of years,” explains Michael Scharff, CEO of AI-powered conversion platform Evolv. “We see AI as a means to an end, not an end itself. e-commerce companies should look to adopt AI to differentiate themselves from the competition, create exceptional omnichannel experiences, and enhance their customer experiences.

Gartner predicts that, in 2020, 85% of customer interactions are managed without human involvement. It’s a trend that has moved at rapid speed. In connection with mobile devices and personal assistants, AI makes a powerful tool for shoppers. Finding products by visual search or making orders via voice assistants becomes hassle-free.

And no retail business can now ignore social media as a commercial channel. According to the most recent “Reimagining Commerce” report from Episerver: “On average, one-fifth of consumers have made purchases directly because of a social media influencer’s product post. Among younger consumers, that number is even higher, with 50% of Gen Z shoppers and 48% of millennials having purchased products either directly by clicking on a post or later on as a result of the influencer’s endorsement.”

Deloitte’s Willetts concludes: "A key technology trend, in response to evolving consumer behaviours, is the need for a flexible and adaptable Commerce platform – with 'cloud', 'headless' and 'microservice-based architecture' often being near the top of business's requirements list.

“These trends have led both to a resurgence in custom-built e-commerce platforms using smaller ‘lighter’ SaaS vendor’s offerings – as well as some of the larger e-commerce platform vendors re-architecting their platforms regularly to avoid being left behind.”

How consumers connect with the stores they want to buy from will also be transformed as the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G expand and mature. Using the smartphone as the conduit to reach individuals when environments become smart and connection speeds have low latency delivers massive opportunities to all businesses no matter their size.

e-commerce is changing once again. Customer-facing websites and portals will increasingly adopt the headless approach, with the smartphone now the key battleground for consumer spending. Integration is the key to successfully navigating the next stage of e-commerce evolution.

The coronavirus outbreak, which the World Health Organization recently classified as a pandemic, has created havoc for businesses worldwide. Whether it’s airlines seeing massive drops in reservations, movie theaters seeing fewer moviegoers or Uber drivers seeing fewer fares, virtually every business has seen some type of impact. Even IT is bracing for an impact, according to technology research firm International Data Corp.

IDC initially expected to see relatively strong growth of 4% in IT spending in 2020, but amid the coronavirus scare, IDC expects this to fall. The precise landing point remains uncertain, but IDC expects a 3-percentage-point drop to just 1% growth.

In the worst of situations, IDC expects IT spending estimates to fall from $2.5 trillion to $2.3 trillion.

One variable that could help maintain the projected growth is the sudden uptick in spending on tools necessary for remote work. This uptick is mostly due to companies preparing to go almost 100% remote to prevent the spread of the virus.

Stephen Minton, vice president of customer insights at IDC, is not so sure this uptick will help. He told The Wall Street Journal that “any upticks will be offset by the negative impact overall when this shakes out.”

So what’s causing this drop? A lot of it is due to contingency plans enacted by companies having supply and service issues related to the coronavirus. When they enact these plans, they generally hit IT’s pocketbook the hardest, as companies cut spending on tech projects and computing hardware and funnel the money toward keeping the business flowing.

The real question at hand is whether spending will return to normal, spike or continue to fall once the coronavirus scare has passed. John-David Lovelock, the chief forecaster for technology and service providers at Gartner Inc., expects post-coronavirus growth in communications and collaboration technology. He pointed toward the increase in communications software spending after the SARS outbreak in 2002 as a potential barometer.

There are a few key differences between technology today and in the days of SARS, particularly the proliferation of corporate cellphones in today’s world. But, just as those were a relative novelty in 2002, cloud computing is a similar novelty today.

And with some companies dealing with the pains of not being prepared for remote working ahead of this scare, many may choose to jump feet first into the cloud post-corona. Hopefully, this will give IT spending the quick boost it needs to get back on track.

Only time will tell.

The joint-Salesforce CEO Keith Block has stepped down from his leadership role after just 18 months in-post, leaving founder Marc Benioff as the sole CEO of the software company.

Block’s resignation has come as a surprise, given the former Oracle VP has come on leaps and bounds since joining Salesforce in 2013, and was widely considered to be a potential successor to Benioff in the future.

The co-CEO first joined the customer relationship management (CRM) company in 2013 as head of sales, before being promoted to COO.

He took up the co-CEO role from August 2018, meaning that he’d only been in the role for little more than 18 months before announcing his intent to step down.

The nature of his departure is also somewhat of a mystery, with no explicit reason offered by the company.

Block will stay on with the company for an extra year to serve as an advisor before moving on, and Benioff will now handle the duties the two had previously shared.

The company revealed Block’s decision on a conference call with analysts in which it shared financial results for the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Business Insider.

The firm’s executives, including Benioff, praised Block for his almost seven-year stint at the company, and wished him well for the future.

“I am his biggest supporter,” Benioff said, adding: “I’m his close friend. You’ll always be part of our Ohana [the Hawaiian word for family].”

On the call, the company reported a net loss of $248 million for the fourth quarter of last year, compared with a net income of $362 million for the same quarter in 2018. Moreover, its total revenues rose by 34.6% to $4.85 billion, which beat analyst estimates of $4.75 billion.

The CRM company has made a series of acquisitions over the last year, the most significant of which is its purchase of data management firm Tableau for approximately $16 billion. This was in addition to its purchase of ClickSoftware for $1.35 billion in August.

Already in 2020, the company has acquired data personalisation company Evergage, and industry-specific cloud provider Vlocity.

Microsoft has unveiled an operations-centric module for its Dynamics 365 suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications, on top of enhanced AI capabilities.

Customers are being promised smarter AI-powered business insights in 2020, with additional technology powering new features such as forecasting in Dynamics 365’s Sales and Finance Insights apps. A preview for these features is expected to be released in May.

This is included in a package of 400 new and updated features set to be rolled out over the course of this year as part of Microsoft’s 2020 release wave 1, which spans features touted to be released from April through September.

The Dynamics 365 Project Operations tool, slated for an October 2020 release, is being launched to support project-oriented teams managing data across different data silos to stitch their systems together.

The application connects cross-functional project teams, with Microsoft claiming that it offers the visibility needed to reduce the barriers to efficient working that currently exist.

“The predictive forecasting capabilities enable the proactive decision-making needed to meet sales goals,” Microsoft’s president for business applications James Phillips said, of the suite’s enhanced AI capabilities.

“Dynamics 365 does this by extracting patterns from customer relationship management (CRM) data, current and historical leads, won or lost opportunities, contacts, accounts, customer interactions such as emails and calls, and more data sources, and then projecting these patterns into the future.”

Updates to Microsoft’s customer data platform, meanwhile, aim to help organisations struggling to give their customers a personalised experience. These struggles are largely attributable to disconnected systems and data silos that can’t join together to give a holistic view of the customer journey across websites, purchases, service calls, and app usage.

The company is introducing first and third-party data connections to enrich customer profiles, that can be updated in real-time. These will be laced with insights from third-party data sources, including demographics and personal interest, in order to generate a rich picture of organisations’ customers.

Microsoft is also expanding the availability of customer insights to government cloud computing environments in order to improve the ‘citizen experience’, meaning public sector customers can better interact with employees and citizens.

In today’s global economy, companies are digitising as quickly as possible in order to remain competitive and deliver the experiences customers expect. Crucial to this process is adopting electronic signatures to transact business digitally and get approvals, as paper-based processes and wet-ink signatures are inefficient, expensive, and time-consuming.

At the same time, business is becoming more global, so the digitisation process must comply with the vast array of international regulations and security requirements that govern the digitisation of traditionally paper-based processes.

This whitepaper explores the benefits and challenges of electronic and digital signatures, compliance considerations and finally, shows how businesses can combine the benefits of modern e-signatures with easy-to-use digital signatures to stay fully compliant.

Today’s leading sales organisations use innovative technologies to drive their processes. In particular, e-signatures are quickly becoming a key indicator of modernised sales and success. Businesses that are sales leaders are 90% more likely to use e-signature technologies, as they help organisations set themselves apart with robust, modern digital experiences that drive retention and save time across your organisation.

This whitepaper further explores how leading sales organisations are adopting next-level trends and technologies, allowing for both modernisation of their current sales capabilities and improved preparation for the future.

Download it now to discover the steps you can take to become a leading sales organisation.

CRM systems have been listed as the top technology budget priority for growing SMBs, the third edition of the Small & Medium Business Trends Report has revealed.

CRMs top the rankings because fulfilling this priority would tie together the roles cited by those SMBs surveyed in the report as most key to their success, namely sales and customer service.

SMBs have much to consider when deciding how exactly to allocate their typically tight technology budgets. This is a truth felt particularly among smaller firms and startups, where the repercussions of spending are felt most powerfully. One wrong move can be a catastrophic blow to their chances of survival.

In this way, technology often takes a back-seat for small firms, initially at least. This is because technology can be expensive, and represents a low-yield investment compared to the immediate returns of sales and customer service. This is clearly demonstrated in the report, with IT taking only a 5% slice of the crucial-role pie, compared to sales and customer service's one-fifth share.

However, paradoxically IT can be the key to serving these two roles.

CRM systems by definition place customers at the heart of the business, providing a sales management solution that gives teams clear visibility to existing customers, leads, and prospects, which are all accessible in one location. Existing customers will be retained, all while garnering new leads. CRMs are also scalable, able to increase or decrease size and services depending on the needs of the organisation.

To elevate themselves from their saturated marketplaces, SMBs focused on growth are planning for the future by accruing business-scaling technology - with CRM systems taking priority over financial software and hardware. The earlier SMBs construct customer-focused and scalable infrastructure, the better able they will be to create growth opportunities that they are subsequently ready to capitalise on.

In contrast, stagnant SMBs are more likely to channel their IT resources into hardware. Consequently, instead of providing the scalability and flexibility necessary in a fluid marketplace, firms are merely anchored to an outdated model, perhaps constricting the possibilities of future growth.

It's worth noting, however, that the top priorities for technology budgets do vary with company size. More established businesses within the SMB bracket are more likely to invest more into technology generally and into a CRM system specifically, than smaller businesses who typically prioritise the technological building blocks with a view to integrating a CRM system further down the line. In short, for the smallest of businesses CRM systems are an aspiration; for small-medium sized businesses, they are a necessity for growth.

In this way, the figures of the report don't tell the entire story. As long as an SMB considers investment into a CRM system as a desirable goal for the future, even if they do not currently prioritise such investment, then they are likely to fulfil the two key success roles of sales and customer service and experience growth.

While data is the new currency of business, it’s worthless without ensuring individuals and organisations can rely on and trust in the integrity of that data.

So suggested Salesforce co-founder and co-CEO, Marc Benioff, during his opening keynote at the company’s annual Dreamforce conference.

“It’s a trust revolution. Everything is changing in our industry. Everything is changing in our work. It’s an intelligence revolution. AI is becoming such a pervasive part of our world,” he said, setting the scene to announce the launch of Customer 360 Truth, a set of services designed to aid firms in authenticating, connecting and governing customer data and identity.

“Revolutions are not easy and there are gaps. Those gaps are also between us and our customers. We’re able to heal these gaps and bring these things together. That is also why we are building our Customer 360 platform. We have done this together. We are building this together.”

By better understanding customers, he claimed, organisations will be able to more easily and comprehensively deliver more personalised and exceptional customer experiences.

“We love data. Data is an important part of everything we are doing and everything that you are doing,” Benioff added.

“We have moved from systems of record to systems of engagement. We then moved from systems of engagement to systems of intelligence. Now we have moved from systems of intelligence to a single source of truth.

“As we pursue the truth, it requires us at Salesforce to transform. That is why we have also enhanced Customer 360.”

Customer 360 Truth provides a single source of the truth by uniting previously disparate data from commerce, marketing, sales, service, and more, to create one, universal Salesforce ID for every customer. This ID brings together behavioural historical data that can come into play during a customer engagement - whether that’s marketing, problem solving, sales or something else.

During his keynote address, Benioff used financial services firm State Farm as case in point of what can be achieved through better and easier access to customer data.

“We want to be about the customer and the customer experience is absolutely dominant in that," said Fawad Ahmad. State Farm’s chief digital officer (CDO).

“I’m proud to say I work for an organisation that has always focused on the customer. We will always be guided by their needs, their dreams, and aspirations. C360 Truth becomes a single, reliable place we can go -regardless of where in the company - to be able to look at, and then leverage, the intelligence that comes from the platform.’

If your organisation depends on its Salesforce data, it’s time to get to know your options for keeping that data safe from loss.

Although Salesforce, like many other SaaS providers, are able to protect your data in the cloud from problems on their side, they won’t be able to help if ransomware locks up shared folders, if critical data is deleted or changed, or other issues when the problem is on your side.

This whitepaper provides an overview of why you need backup for Salesforce, how you can keep your data and metadata safe, and what to look for in a cloud-to-cloud backup solution.

The way businesses conduct their day-to-day operations has drastically evolved over the past few years, in light of both Brexit and COVID-19, with companies more and more dependent on digital services. Not only have such systems been crucial to remaining afloat, but they’ve also been key to expanding and evolving as customer behaviour has changed.

One of the most popular approaches to growth is client diversification, where businesses are expanding their customer base. This, however, makes it harder to maintain the same quality of personal relationships. It’s a challenge, therefore, to both maximise potential sales and manage an expanding client base.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is one of the tools many businesses use to keep track of and interact with their customers and offers a variety of benefits including data analytics capabilities. Such systems gather data from a host of communications channels, including a company’s website, email address, telephone number and other promotional materials like social media. CRM packages brief businesses on all the information they need to understand to maintain a high-quality customer relationship, so they can retain their client base while focusing on growth.

Why have CRM documentation?

Long-time users of CRM tools might have noticed a significant evolution in the nature of the software over the last few years. At first, these platforms were aesthetically unappealing and inefficient, although the user interface has developed and become much more intuitive in recent years. Various providers, like Salesforce, have also expanded the range of services to include marketing and data processing features. Many businesses have been able to use these tools to grow their sales operations, with the software rendering the various tasks involved highly accessible.

Understanding how to use CRM software, however, might yet be challenging for those unfamiliar with how these systems work. This is especially true when you account for the sheer variety of CRM tools available, which can have the undesired effect of overwhelming the uninitiated. This is why anyone – not only new users – could benefit from extra guidance on the system’s best practices and how to get the most out of it.

This is where CRM documentation steps in. Whether your team is experienced in the nuances of software, or is looking for new ways to maximise its benefits, CRM documentation is a helpful accompaniment to the system itself.

Moreover, apart from being a useful companion tool, CRM documentation provides additional guidance in educating staff about regulatory compliance – and making sure that it’s met. These may include the most basic data protection regulations, which are crucial for the functioning of every modern business, such as the UK’s Data Protection Act 2018 or the more EU-focused GDPR.

CRM documentation makes it easier for businesses to collate their best practices and guidelines in one place, reducing the strain on support agents and managers, who are usually the first point of contact when employees seek advice regarding CRM. It also reduces the risk that employees will seek answers online, where information can be inaccurate, inappropriate for the task, or simply inconsistent with what other employees are doing across the company.

Ultimately, having accompanying documentation with a CRM system is a reliable way of empowering employees to troubleshoot their own problems, making them more self-sufficient and reducing the strain on the wider company, particularly those in the IT support side.

Robust CRM documentation should provide a form of cheat sheet for newer employees, and a safe reference point for those more experienced with a system. If a company consistently hears of employees struggling with a CRM system, it’s very likely the documentation is poorly developed.

How to create effective CRM documentation

The trick to creating effective CRM documentation is to imagine how you would explain the use of the business’ CRM setup in the most simple way while providing enough detail to avoid any potential mistakes.

Although creating such documentation might seem like a daunting task, the best approach is to look at it from the point of view of the reader and try not to overwhelm them with too much detail. For example, avoid elaborating on the CRM features which are not necessary to the company's customer relationship activity.

On the other hand, you also need to make sure that the documentation includes enough information to keep the user from misinterpreting the details of a specific task – with potentially dire consequences for the business. When it comes to the most complex functions, it’s especially crucial to take the time to explain them step-by-step instead of just rushing through and confusing the reader.

What is more, writing the documentation doesn’t have to be a one-person task. In fact, it can be especially useful to involve other departments with the CRM system, such as IT, to contribute their opinion. You could also consider sourcing the talents of an external tech writer who would be able to use their skills to explain the technicalities in the most accessible and comprehensible language possible.

Overall, when creating effective CRM documentation, collaboration is key and all feedback is invaluable. After all, this could be the deciding factor in creating a documentation which is informative, but also doesn’t alienate those who aren’t fluent in nuanced technical jargon.

As such, collaboration will need to be an ongoing process. As many CRM systems are cloud-based, they are often updated with new features and functionality that often gets pushed out automatically to the user base. This means that a set of instructions and user guidance in the responding documentation could be rendered moot or outdated.

By regularly reviewing the documentation and being aware of recent or upcoming updates to a CRM suite, a business can ensure its employees are not surprised when a user interface undergoes a redesign, for example, or a suite of new capabilities are added into their system of choice.

Keeping a digital copy of the documentation in a cloud-based service is one way to ensure a business can widely distribute up-to-date CRM documentation. A cloud-based collaboration system could also allow other people in the business to add their thoughts to a document, helping ensure it serves as many people as need it across an organisation.

Taking time out of a busy schedule to create an explanatory and guidelines document might seem like something IT workers might want to ignore.

But the potential benefits, such as everyone working in the CRM system to the same standard and understanding, could not only help bolster the development of customer relationships but also reduce the strain on the IT department and encourage users to take ownership of their own CRM development and troubleshooting.

All of this has the scope of benefiting a business overall, ensuring everyone is productive and effective without the need to overwhelm them with work.

Once you’ve invented something, come up with a new service, or built a product, your next task is selling it. One of the best ways to do this is through a GTM strategy.

A GTM, or “go-to-market” strategy, is a specific type of marketing that aims to raise awareness and create interest in your service or product. Firstly, it identifies your intended target - the demographic you are looking to appeal and sell to - and it then outlines the best method to do this. The strategy will be a uniformed operation where each member of your business knows what they’re doing so everyone is working towards the same goal.

Bigger organisations could have a standardised GTM that’s put in place for all product launches, as it may be a successful formula that works and has delivered results in the past, after undergoing testing. On the other hand, if it is a company with interests in various markets, it may have a number of setups, or whole new strategies put together for innovative and new products.

Despite this, most GTMs need a degree of flexibility as market conditions are prone to changing and can at times be unpredictable. A high degree of foresight is required to be able to transform the GTM for the relevant market.

Large organisations also implement GTMs to acquire other businesses or change their brand’s focus, not only using them for new launches. This could be part of a broader strategy on how a company manages its operations to deliver existing services or products. Different GTM strategies could be put together to complement a wider approach for new services, products, or geographic expansion. Existing GTM strategies may need to be combined, or a completely new one put together, in specific circumstances, like if a company acquires another or if there is some kind of merger.

Many companies struggle to take a step back from day-to-day operations to identify problems in their existing GTM strategy or to create one from scratch. As such, some often look to their party organisations for support.

Global management consulting firm L.E.K Consulting is just one such example of that third-party assistant. "Businesses need to adjust or diversify their go-to-market strategy to protect their economics and ensure sustainable distribution in the future. New digital and logistic capabilities allow businesses to directly serve end customers (consumers or businesses), reducing or eliminating the need for intermediaries, thereby both improving the service they provide to their customers and improving their margin economics," it states on its website.

The firm continues: "In addition, customer expectations for both product and service quality are increasing, putting more pressure on sales teams and supporting functions. Meeting (or exceeding) end-customer service requirements can be a means for a business to differentiate its position and ensure its long-term success. This may require increased investment in new capabilities to either serve end customers directly or complement or support the channels in doing so."

What are the key components of a GTM strategy?

At the heart of a GTM strategy is value. Providing value to the customers through relevant products and services, making money from those products and services and ensuring the business gets value back. This value could be monetary, it could offer other value, but it's important there is some measurable impact.

Another major part of a GTM strategy is ensuring the products and services that you're releasing form part of your business's vision and contribute to your company's overall end goal. It should reflect what you perceive success to be and fit in with your wider business objectives.

You should also make sure any strategy reflects your USP and sets you apart from your competitors. There's no point just releasing something that every other company has done. Make sure you highlight why your company, product or service is different, what benefits it will bring to the end user, how you solve a problem your rivals don't.

Once you've reeled your customers or clients in, it's vital you continue to nurture them and build their loyalty, upselling and cross-selling while also providing the highest levels of satisfaction.

Getting recommendations and referrals should also form part of your GTM strategy. After all, the majority of customers make purchasing decisions based upon colleague and friend recommendations. This builds trust.

Communication is key at all levels. How will you connect key stakeholders involved in your GTM and, as importantly, how will you reach out to customers and listen as well as talk to them?

Fundamentally, it's about delivering. Delivering on all of the above but, essentially, delivering on customers' expectations and ensuring that any claims or assurances around quality have been fully met?

Ultimately, it's all about the customer. You can have the best products and services on the planet, but if no-one is using them, what's the point?

Experts concur on this point, with McKinsey framing it customer success'. Morphing from a world where customer success was all about reducing churn, the consultancy firm, suggests that customer success 2.0' is, instead, about changing lifecycle management and using client satisfaction as a growth engine.

"Many vendors still fail to consider how early decisions about product management, marketing, sales, and services delivery can have lasting implications on the customer experience," it said in its research paper Introducing customer success 2.0: The new growth engine.

"To combat this mindset, companies need to take a different view of customer success one in which it is viewed as a shared philosophy for which every function is responsible. Although this may sound easy, it represents a major cultural shift. In addition to creating clear accountability and customer-success metrics for teams at each stage of the journey, companies must define the desired outcomes, implement processes to support cross-functional collaboration, and empower leaders to oversee end-to-end customer-success efforts."

What are the technology considerations of a GTM strategy?

There are many tools and technologies that can help shape your GTM strategy, particularly those focused on planning, management, delivery, execution and bridging traditional barriers to collaboration. CRM and ERP systems will act as the heartbeat as well as connecting with internal processes to ensure end-to-end efficiency and success of your GTM strategy.

Access and security also need to be front of mind to ensure your valuable trade plans don't fall into the wrong hands.

Data and insight must be foundational you need to know what your customers want and need now in the future and any gaps that need to be filled in your current proposition. Importantly, this cannot be a one-off endeavour you need to continuously benchmark what you're doing against changing industry trends and demand and, critically, be open and responsiveness to customer feedback.