thomas.wieberneit@aheadcrm.co.nz
How to do marketing from a strategic point of view

How to do marketing from a strategic point of view

The CRMKonvos gang had the immense pleasure to chat with Ginger Conlon, CRM Playaz alumna and freshly minted Thought Leadership Director at Genesys. Throughout her career, Ginger has seen and and gained more than a little marketing experience, looking more at the strategic angle than tactical execution. How to build brands and messaging around brands etc. Some fascinating questions around these topics are: Who does own customer experience (besides everyone)? Or how to create win-win situations? Listen to Ginger who opens up her in-depth experience for us. This was good for a lively and insightful conversation, hopefully not only for us but also for our audience. And it is not only talk, Ginger also has the...
Work from anywhere done right

Work from anywhere done right

Work from Anywhere needs the right culture and the right tools The pandemic has taught us through the past year that it becomes urgent for businesses to adequately deal with the need for new working models that help employees to become as productive when working from any place as when working from an office. This is all the more important as research indicates that the change that we are undergoing now is going to stay at least to some extent. And that is reasonable, as with all the investments made by businesses it is possible to combine the best of both worlds. Many, if not most of us, will be able to truly work from anywhere. After all, some activities are better done in office spaces, others work better in a remote setting. And then there is a good chance that travel will increase again. Travel time often is unproductive time. And with all the infrastructure that is now in place, travel time can get brought to more productive use – if not driving a car, that is. But what does it take to be able to work efficiently from anywhere? The answer is: More than just technology. It is equally, if not more, important to have a corporate culture in place and to credibly send the message to employees that makes them truly believe that it is their choice from where they work. A good part of this is that managers rather look at results than monitoring time spent. While the latter cannot be ignored, at the end of the day it is about achieving results. This is...
CRM for SMB. The way it needs to be

CRM for SMB. The way it needs to be

Now this title is not a case of do a rhyme or get bitten but actually summarizes the topic pretty well. The CRMKonvos team had a long and good discussion with John Paterson, CEO of Really Simple Systems about the needs and wants of a CRM for SMBs. Are the requirements that an SMB has really different from the ones that an enterprise has? At the end of the day the original challenges seem to be fairly similar. Especially on the sales side, people avoid the system, just like Denis Pombriant found in a study that we talked about earlier this year in our CRMKonvo about why salesreps hate their CRM. Here a short version that just answers this very question. The parallels in thinking and observations between Denis and John are striking! But then, there are a few differences. Listen to John explaining them. But then this isn’t all. Talking about value of the systems we couldn’t not also talk about the value of AI. Is there any? Where? Spoiler alert: There is, but one needs to know what one is doing. What? The discussion reveals it in the last 15 or so minutes. Enjoy the conversation. We learned a lot. You can,...
Ecosystems are about the customer! Are they? Think again!

Ecosystems are about the customer! Are they? Think again!

Ecosystems is all I say – was his post in Linkedin. And as you can imagine, this sparked quite a discussion. Why? Because “he” is SAP’s venerable Chief CX Evangelist Esteban Kolsky. Not that it needs a reason to invite Esteban to a CRMKonvo (because he is always good for a well founded opinion) but this discussion and the topic itself certainly made it highly interesting to cover some ground and Esteban is always good for a lively discussion. What is an ecosystem – and how does it relate to the word “symbiosis” – if at all? How does one get an ecosystem viable? What is fairness in that context? Is trust a factor? Fairness? Or is that all too fuzzy? And – spoiler alert – as you can imagine by the title: They do not revolve around the customer. I will not tell you what it is though and leave that to Esteban himself. Best of all: Some highly interesting insight in the comments as well. Enjoy the CRMKonvo. We certainly...
The “New Normal” and Data Driven Experiences

The “New Normal” and Data Driven Experiences

As a consequence of an organizational stuff up we had a CRMKonvo that was even better than could be expected in our wildest dreams. Our guests Sheryl Kingstone of 451 Research and Laurie McCabe of the SMB Group have a lot of data and insight to share about data driven experiences and what the digital maturity of companies small and large actually is. Do we talk digital transformation or just digitalization – even only digitization? Will, whatever changes towards digital communication and collaboration stay? Will it change back to what it was? Something in between? Sheryl and Laurie have some very interesting data points and observations on these topics. Two strong and renowned analysts – leading experts in their field – with different company focus and different approaches offer significant insight for us. Great stuff....