The Top CRM Influencers of 2007
InsideCRM has published an interesting piece that offers short snippets on the top movers and shakers in the CRM domain for the year 2007. Chris Bucholz who has written the piece has accurately picked up the trends and the trendsetters. The list is an eclectic mix of company heads, bloggers, analysts, and technologists who saw the trends coming and those whose ideas will drive the CRM industry in 2008.
Heading the list is Marc Benioff, Salesforce Chairman, CEO, and Founder, who is credited with turning Salesforce.com into an 800-pound gorilla, albeit an intelligent one. Salesforce is credited with raising the profile of on-demand CRM and piquing consumer interest in SaaS as a delivery model for CRM. The company also gained its millionth license in December 2007.
Ed Abbo Oracle Corp. Senior Vice President of Applications Development makes the list at number two on the strength of his efforts to bring out the Fusion application middleware which will bring together multiple Oracle platforms such as Siebel, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise and Demantra.
At number three is Greg Gianforte RightNow Technologies Inc. CEO and Founder because of his customer-centric philosophies that drive his business. For example the November 2007 edition of RightNow CRM introduced a knowledge-syndication widget that allows companies to distribute dynamic content across multiple sites.
From that list, Salesboom.com was the only company that practiced what they breached by analyzing thier customer behaviour and how they use CRM!
Also they were the only on-demand crm vendor to help other customers with data migration tools