Social CRM: Category-Buster or Big Bust May 27, 2010

Is social the salvation of CRM or is it lipstick on a pig? According to some estimates, CRM has been the biggest waste of enterprise IT dollars in the history of the industry, with half or more of all installations failing or at least failing to meet (lofty) expectations. While social CRM is still in its infancy, many of those same critics are already writing it off as a failed extension of a disappointing category.

At one level, the challenge is daunting. Traditional CRM systems have been operational, internally-facing and transactional while social CRM is outward-facing, customer conversations with multi-way interactions. Yet perhaps it is precisely these social elements whose absence led to the failure of CRM implementations and whose successful incorporation will reinvigorate the category and redefine the company/customer landscape.

It is way too early to write off social CRM. As is so often the case with technology, the technology has moved faster than the ability of business to exploit it. We've mashed together two disparate technologies and have only begun to think about how this transforms the way we engage with our customers and beyond that drive business value.

We'll look at how social technologies are not only transforming the CRM category but are in fact redefining the relationship between companies and their customers. This is an inexorable (r)evolution which forward-thinking companies need to understand and embrace.

Speaker: Jonathan Yarmis has been a leading voice in the technology industry for over 30 years, with a variety of experience in industry analysis, end-user computing, and public and analyst relations.

Jonathan is currently Research Fellow at Ovum. Most recently, he was VP of Disruptive Technologies at AMR Research and spent 10 years at Gartner, heading up all end-user computing research. He produced and served as content chairperson for a variety of conferences and tradeshows at eMarketWorld, including ad:tech.

Official Website: http://www.meetup.com/BayAreaExecutives/calendar/13370883/