Brent's Social CRM Blog

Saved by the Bell - the CRM Years

Do any of you remember the popular teenie bopper show from the early 1990s, Saved By the Bell?  It was like a pre-teen version of Beverly Hills 90210.  The show was so popular they had to do Saved By the Bell - The College Years when the kids grew up.  Characters like Slater, Kelly Kapowski, Lisa Turtle and the lovable Screech made it must-see tv for adolescents everywhere.  But the leader of the pack was Zack, whose wise guy antics and sharp tongue always landed hin in Mr. Belding's (the principal) office. Miraculously by the end of each episode, Zack always found a way to charm Mr. Belding into letting him off with "a stern warning". 

Needless to say when I came accross a CNET interview of NetSuite's CEO Zach Nelson, I wondered if a new take on the show was starting up.  (Why not?  There are four Law & Order's and three CSIs.)  The title of the article is "NetSuite's CEO chides slow Microsoft", and although the names are spelled slightly different, it definitely seemed like Zach was channeling Zack.   In short, he doesn't seemed to be worried about competing with the world's largest software company, when it comes to CRM. He goes on to say Microsoft's money won't help them in this space because the leading On Demand vendors (NetSuite, Salesforce.com and Right Now) won't be inclined to sell to them.  And if Microsoft will have to build, Nelson says he will probably be retired before they will be able to compete with the "big three" of On Demand.

Zach doesn't stop there.  He goes on to compliment Siebel for "getting alot of things right", before giving them a back handed slap by saying they "built a giant hairball of a product."  Ouch!  But the funniest quip was saved for SAP, saying he heard "mumblings" of a product coming, before saying "it could just be a case of them putting lipstick on a pig".  Please Zach, don't hurt 'em! (No more MC Hammer references from this point forward...I promise)

Now I don't know Zach Nelson but I can just imagine how much fun it would have been sitting beside him in class.  I hear he's a good guy and I know NetSuite has a very good CRM offering.  And Netsuite was there at the beginning of the current On Demand movement and knows how long and hard the fight has been.  But he isn't pulling any punches.  I guess that's not too surprising considering he graduated from Oracle University, studying at the right hand of LE (if Terrell Owens can go by TO, why can't Larry Ellison be LE?).  Remember Larry did have a book written about him where he was compared to God.  All joking aside, the last time I remember somebody dismissing Microsoft so impudently was Marc Andressen and Netscape, and that didn't work to well for them.  Just when everyone thought Microsoft had missed the boat on the Internet they turned the tables with a speed no huge corporation had ever done.... before or since.  I wonder if Zach would get off with a stern warning this time if he gets called into Mr. Gates, uh, Mr. Belding's office this time?  It looks like the fun and intrigue is back in the CRM industry.

Stalking Small Business?

The cover story of this week's Red Herring reports on SAP's efforts to target small businesses.  An interesting article in general, but a few things stood out while reading this.  SAP is undergoing a restructuring of its entire sales process focusing on high volume, lower priced deals.  This means more work and less payoff per opportunity for account execs used to going after the white whale (don't call me Ishmael though). 

Another point made in the article centers around SAP's Business One package.  Business One is an operations management application that competes with Microsoft Business Solutions Navision.  Admittedly I don't know much about the product but what caught my attention was its description - a scaled-down system for small businesses that is cheaper and can be installed without the help of outside consultants.  I find it very difficult to believe the majority of small businesses can successfully implement an enterprise package without some outside help.  To quote a line from a fraternity pledge, "many have tried but few are chosen". 

But the big question is what does SAP consider to be small.  The article points out that two-thirds of SAP's 27,000 customers are SMBs with annual revenues of 500 million or less.  I really don't consider companies bringing in half a billion dollars to be small.  And the so-called SMB customer base seems to be heavily skewed to the M, as research from IDC points out 90% of SAP's customers employ more than 1000 employees.  As a comparison, check out the Small Business Administration's definition of what is a small business.  As you will see the SBA definitions are a little smaller (pun intended) then SAP's numbers.

I think it will very difficult for SAP to cultivate a culture that will truly compete with Microsoft and others if they are truly serious about the S in SMBs.  In addition to the internal changes that will be needed, changes to the channel program will be required as well in order to increase the pool of partners who truly know the needs of small businesses.  I still don't know how low SAP is willing to go into the realm of small businesses.  Small business is portrayed as 1849 California with all the major vendors throwing their tin pans into river.  But this is a completely different ballgame from what they are used to - harder work for smaller reward on individual deals.  It will be interesting to see how bad SAP wants it.

By the way check out last month's issue of Fortune Small Business.  The cover story is about how Microsoft has hired anthropologists to study small businesses to better understand their issues, challenges and work habits.  Now that's a pretty serious commitment.  It's a good read.  Even if it wasn't it would be worth a look just to see the graphic of Bill Gates wearing a Dr. Livingston anthropologist hat.

Findings from the Interland

No I did not just get back from Germany or Australia, but I did find some pretty interesting stuff in the Interland Spring 2005 Business Barometer of small business activities.  Interland is a big internet service provider headquartered right here in Atlanta. Surveyed were over 1000 small businesses focused in a few industries like business services, retail, personal services and not-for-profits.

According to the survey, the number one strength of US small businesses is a technological lead and strong productivity.  I find this funny because many of the small business owners I know are afraid of technology due to their lack of understanding for what it can do to increase productivity.  Of course these are the same folks who complain their employees aren't generating enough sales, aren't responsive enough to customer requests, and take too long putting together reports - in other words they aren't very productive.  Pretty ironic, huh?  I know there are plenty small businesses realizing productivity and profitability gains from technology investments but there are huge numbers of businesses who are not.  In fact, a Micrsoft sponsored study finds an additional $200 billion (with a "B") in annual revenues can be gained if minority and women owned businesses implemented technology at a higher rate.  And just think how much more of a competitive advantage the US would have when CRM adoptions rates in small businesses goes beyond the 10-20% mark.

With all that said, guess where email campaigns ranked on the list of the most critical marketing tactics?  How about behind advertising in the yellow pages and tied with newspaper ads.  Yup, it really sounds like we're putting that technological advantage to work.  With 94% of the people surveyed having internet access and over 70% seeing email communications as critical to their business it does make you scratch your head.  Now I totally expect it won't be long before email marketing will be one of the top tools, but still below the yellow pages?  That's not good.

I won't even get into the glazed donut looks greeting me when I did a CRM presentation for a small business audience last month.  I'll save that one for a rainy day.   By the way on the email front, you may want to check out email expert Peggy Duncan's Email Pet Peeves. Pretty funny stuff.

Later.

Hello World!

Just what the world needed at this point and time - another blog.  Oh well one more won't hurt anybody too much.  I'm Brent Leary and thanks for putting up with my take on things related to small business, customer relationship management and other non-related subjects whenever the spirit moves me.  I can't promise anything but I will try real hard to keep my rants to a minimum while expressing my opinions on subjects I have some knowledge of.

Any programmers reading this probably know I have a coding background from the title of this post.  Most people learn coding by writing a program that displays "Hello World!".  With this being my first entry I thought it would be appropriate.  Although I spent over twelve years writing applications in various development environments,  I have spent the last several years splitting time between the functional and technical aspects of customer relationship management tools and strategies.  My business partner Michael Thomas and I started CRM Essentials a few years ago to focus on the CRM needs of small and mid-size businesses (SMB).  We received CRM Magazine's 2004 Most Influential Leaders award for our efforts in raising CRM awareness in the minority business community.  We also sit on the national board of the CRM Association and write a business solutions column for a few magazines.  My latest articles being in July's issue of the Atlanta Tribune and June's The Network Journal.

My goal with this blog is to share information I think will be helpful to those interested in learning more about how CRM can positively affect the SMB space while having some fun.  I'm a sports nut, a history buff, a music lover, a fan of classic television and have been known to watch my share of old movies.  So you'll see a whole lot of references to any of these topics in my writing.  I'm like the guy in the HBO show "Dream On", but i relate stuff to music, movies and television.

Thanks and let me know if I'm totally off base.  It's been known to happen....alot.  By the way Tiger is still the man!