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Mike Watson

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EnterpiseWizard

80 points

May 9, 2012

Mike Watson and 7 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Navigating the Torturous Tension Between IT and the Business When Moving to the Cloud [4/30 @ 1 pm]

Is IT worried that the business side will use the cloud to cut them out of the picture?

It depends on the IT department. Some are excellent, most are good and a few are staffed by rigid idiots. Only the last category has cause to fear, but yes they will eventually be replaced.
Here is a true life example of why the business ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

July 18, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

What are the top 3 questions to ask before purchasing a CRM solution?

The three questions that you must ask are:
1) Can the vendor demonstrate the system executing YOUR processes (not just a generic sales demo). Of course this requires that you take the time to specify them in sufficient detail before the demo; but you will have ... more

Customer Service

July 18, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

What are the best CRM systems for a small B2B company?

If you are a B2B company, you will probably need sophisticated functionality like multi-level SLA support, customer satisfaction surveys, timer-based escalation rules that are driven by complex criteria, automated issue re-assignments, etc and these really stretch the limits of some CRM systems. So ask potential ... more

July 18, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

If a cloud service provider goes out of business, what happens to your data?

If a cloud provider fails, you are fine provided that:
1) You have your data backed up
AND
2) You have access to the application(s) that were running against that data.
Simply having access to the meta data and the export in some open format such as XML ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Cloud Service Providers

May 31, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

What is the best CRM software for small business?

If a hosted company goes bankrupt, provides flaky service or jacks up the rates, you will be in deep trouble. So I recommend looking for a solution that is available as a hosted solution and can also be installed on your own server, either inside ... more

May 13, 2011

Mike Watson answered this question

What CRM solutions offer built in social media monitoring functionality?

EnterpriseWizard offer the ability to monitor Twitter and Facebook. For example, you can create records from inbound tweets and execute automatic actions in response. Similarly, you can create tickets from postings made to the company "wall" in Facebook more

Social Media Monitoring

Feb. 22, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

What other CRM systems are available besides Salesforce.com for small companies?

Well established CRM companies are listed in this white paper, http://www.focus.com/briefs/crm/how-pick-right-crm-helpdesk-bpm-vendor:
NetSuite: http://www.netsuite.com
SalesForce: http://www.SalesForce.com
EnterpriseWizard: http://www.enterprisewizard.com
SugarCRM: http://www.sugarcrm.com
Microsoft: http://crm.dynamics.com
Siebel: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/siebel/index.htm
SAP: http://www.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/crm/index.epx
Since writing the paper, Zoho (http://www.zoho.com) has improved and should be included in your evaluation. SAP, Netsuite and Siebel tend to be expensive because they ... more

Customer Service

Feb. 1, 2011

Mike Watson and 11 other people answered this question

What are good CRM systems for a one person company?

EnterpriseWizard is 100 web based and is available on premise or hosted.
It is FREE in either case. Not just for one person, but for the first 10 users - 5 staff + 5 end-users so it will grow with your company. more

Jan. 20, 2011

Mike Watson and 9 other people answered this question

Can anyone recommend a good CRM other than Sales force for someone working from a home office?

EnterpriseWizard is one of the most robust and flexible CRM systems and it is absolutely free for 10 users (5 staff users + 5 end-users) more

Jan. 20, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

What are the top CRM solutions for seamlessly integrating with disparate legacy systems?

Pretty much any system that provides Web Services and/or REST API's can integrate with existing systems and http://www.focus.com/ugr/research/crm/how-pick-right-crm-helpdesk-bpm-vendor/ includes the following list of well established systems:
NetSuite: http://www.netsuite.com
SalesForce: http://www.SalesForce.com
EnterpriseWizard: http://www.enterprisewizard.com
SugarCRM: http://www.sugarcrm.com
Microsoft: http://crm.dynamics.com
Siebel: http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/siebel/index.htm
Right Now Technologies: http://www.rightnow.com
SAP: http://www.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/crm/index.epx
They all have adequate API's, so in principal any ... more

Jan. 18, 2011

Mike Watson and 4 other people answered this question

What are some good B2B customer service tips?

Aidan is absolutely correct, B2B service is not the same as B2C.
For example, many B2B relationships involve Service Level Agreements (SLA's) that have legal force. In reality, it is rare that anyone gets sued, but it is not at all uncommon for the customer ... more

Customer Service

Customer Experience

Jan. 11, 2011

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

Who are the true thought leaders in CRM space?

The vendors with the clearest differentiators are listed below. This is not quite the same as thought leadership, but it is closely related and easier to define:
NetSuite: Most tightly integrated accounting functionality. Broad functionality.
SalesForce: Most extensive SFA functionality. Huge mind share
EnterpriseWizard: Most deeply configurable without ... more

Customer Service

Customer Relationship Management Strategy

Oct. 25, 2010

Mike Watson and 12 other people answered this question

Is it worth it to implement a free CRM?

EnterpriseWizard is free for the first 10 users (5 staff + 5 end users) and it is not an unproven product. In fact, it is displaced MS CRM at some customers. See http://www.enterprisewizard.com/hot-topic-media-case-study.pdf more

Contact Management

Oct. 21, 2010

Mike Watson recommends this answer by Simon Gantley

Which vendors will survive in the CRM market?

The vendors who survive will be those with a really clear value proposition/differentiator. I would include the following in this list:
NetSuite: Most tightly integrated accounting functionality
SalesForce: Most extensive SFA functionality and huge mind share
EnterpriseWizard: Most deeply configurable without programming
SugarCRM: Greatest mind share among open-source ... more

Customer Service

Crm Consulting and Sales

Oct. 18, 2010

Mike Watson asked a question

Which CRM systems have the best integration with Twitter and Facebook?

Facebook Marketing

March 16, 2010

Mike Watson and 2 other people answered this question

Metrics for Help Desk Staff

Hi Marion
Here is one of the topics covered in at white paper on "Seven Secrets for Effectively Managing a Support Operation" at http://www.enterprisewizard.com/white-papers.htm
Here is an extract, I am sorry that I cannot provide the entire page, but it includes a table whose formatting is lost ... more

Information Technology

Dec. 8, 2009

Mike Watson and 2 other people answered this question

Security Consultant?

I strongly recommend Security Management Partners. We used them to analyze our firewall, hosting infrastructure and software and they were thorough, professional and very reasonably priced for the quality of service. They are used by about 100 banks, so their word actually carries some weight. ... more

Information Technology

Nov. 19, 2009

Mike Watson and 1 other person answered this question

What is the SFA that best handles the Lead process?

I agree with most of what Rob says, but would like to add that EnterpriseWizard and SalesForce can also satisfy the above requirements. Both are available as SaaS applictions and EnterpriseWizard can also be purchased and deployed behing the firewall. more

Nov. 4, 2009

Mike Watson and 9 other people answered this question

According to Salesforce.com, 73% of CRM users do not use 50% of the functionality available to them in their CRM systems. What do you think is the reason for this?

I would like to second Will Noble's point and recommendation that customers include the three key points that he raises. Most CRM systems were not designed to help sales people, but to help their management make them easily replacable.
What's worse is that most of ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Oct. 26, 2009

Mike Watson and 1 other person answered this question

Does web-based CRM work for larger organizations?

Yes. I work for EnterpriseWizard and as the name implies, we designed it to serve the needs of the enterprise with support for fully configurable business processes, granular access permissions, full auditability and thousands of concurrent users. For an example, see http://www.enterprisewizard.com/carestream-case-study.pdf
If you ever ... more

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