I was pointed to a post today on the topic of customer service (Another Day, Another Customer-Service Nightmare on the EconoWhiner) that pointed out that companies
need to provide quality service and quality customer service if they’re going to survive an economic downturn as severe as this one?
Now I am not going to pick on AOL [...]

Darren Koch presented on Hotwire.com’s use of ILOG business rules in revenue management. Summary:

Ongoing segmentation and optimization help businesses serve customers
Smart testing + flexibility = better service = higher profits
Continues to show ROI that is increasing over time

Hotwire.com was founded in 1999 to help travel partners (who invested) sell excess inventory without driving down prices [...]

Today Chordiant announced their new Visual Business Director (CxVBD). I saw an early prototype of this some months back and got a more detailed look at the finished product at their recent Customer Advisory Board. I really like CxVBD as I think it shows the critical business value of externalizing decisions. I have yet to [...]

An old colleague of mine, Vaughn Merlin, had a really interesting post this week When Strategy Becomes Continuous. It’s a great post and he makes three key points:

IT strategy is not the point - it’s all about business strategy.
Much ’strategy’ effort is not very strategic.
Strategy formulation and execution are too loosely coupled.

He then quotes [...]

My friend Kurt Schlegel at Gartner has just released a new report - Deliver Business Value With a BICC (BI Competency Center) Focused on Decision Making. In it he “identifies the steps required to evolve business intelligence (BI) beyond reporting measures, to making great decisions”. Like Kurt I believe that “Tying BI to the decision [...]

Patrick Joseph Gauthier wrote a great post this week called “Business Process Reengineering: The Right Skills And Roles For The Task Will Save You Money” and I loved the question he suggests (that gave me the title for this post):
“what if someone with a lower pay grade were to do this?”
He goes on to make me [...]

The Conference Board recently announced strong growth in online content or content-on-demand. The press release can be summarized by this comment:
Fundamentally, consumers expect content to be available when they want it, and on the screen of their choice
This, of course, creates both a challenge and an opportunity for those providing content. The challenge is that [...]

My second set of thoughts were prompted by notes on a presentation by the CMO of Walmart.com, Cathy Halligan. She began by noting that they no longer see a digital divide  - there is a big percentage overlap between their online and offline shoppers.In addition, online activities are increasingly influencing offline purchase patterns and [...]

Elana Anderson had a great post on direct marketing while I was on vacation -Next Generation Campaign Management.
She starts off with three great principles:

Listen to all information provided by customers and prospects — both explicit and implied.
Understand past and present information to determine the best possible marketing action.
Communicate in a compelling, timely, and relevant manner.

All of [...]

A reader asked me to blog about GRC - governance, risk and compliance - this week and, in particular, the difference between IT governance and true business governance or what is broadly known as GRC. I have been thinking about this and will write some more posts when I get back from vacation but, for [...]