CRM Briefs

Although corporate spending on CRM has risen rapidly over the past five years, with forecasts for 2002 global spending ranging from $20 billion to $45 billion, many senior executives are expressing frustration about the returns on CRM investments, reports a study by Booz-Allen Hamilton (New York). "Our clients are telling us that the customer management challenge is the single most important CEO agenda item—acquiring them, retaining them, and capturing fair value from them," according to Booz-Allen Vice President Mitch Rosenbleeth. However, adds VP Chris Dallas-Feeney, "Many business leaders, under pressure for fast results, attempt to use technology as a shortcut to better customer management. We believe that is the wrong approach. The technology is more than adequate. The right question is, how does a company craft a customer strategy that is specific to their situation and one they can grow with?"

Frontstep, Inc. (Chicago), has released Frontstep CRM, a business process-driven CRM solution. The product is a Web-based application and will provide companies with an integrated view of prospect, customer, product and service information, claims Frontstep.

Answerthink, Inc. (Miami), and CentrPort Inc. (Westport, CT) have formed an alliance to provide interactive marketing and quantitative analysis solutions to help businesses measure, evaluate and execute online marketing campaigns with increased accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness.