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« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »

September 13, 2005

New directions in the CRM space

The CRM space has gone through an interesting cycle during the past 10 years.  In the mid-90’s, CRM was clearly in the Hype Cycle, with vendors promising almost instantaneous ROI.  As with ERP before it, once customers began to understand the ongoing commitment and workflow changes necessary for successful CRM, they began to see positive results.

In CRM sales suites, Siebel has clearly been the 800 lb gorilla.  While the large software players (Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft) and niche providers (Onyx, Pivotal, etc.) fought among themselves for a distant second place, Siebel took commanding market share.

More recently, the hosted (ASP) model players began to make inroads, particularly among SMBs.  Salesforce.com has shown strong and steady growth, while Siebel acquired its strongest competitor, UpShot.  Siebel has struggled a bit during the past two years, with founder Tom Siebel stepping down last year, and his replacement, Mike Lawrie being replaced by George Shaheen (ex-Webvan) a year later. 

Oracle’s acquisition of Siebel should put the CRM provider back in steady hands.  It will solidify Oracle’s position vs. SAP positioned Siebel to retain its status as the solution of choice for large-scale CRM implementations.  Leveraging the Oracle tools, Siebel will have very strong data integration capabilities along with a vast number of analytic solutions.  Following on the footsteps of Oracle’s acquisition of PeopleSoft, this will continue to round out the application stack which sits on top of the database platform.

In related news, SalesForce.com announced the release of AppExchange, which they hope will transform SalesForce into a development platform.  One of the initial AppExchange partners is OneSource, whose application will allow their Account Intelligence product to be integrated directly with SalesForce.com.  Through this integration, the OneSource content will become part of the user’s workflow, whether for prospecting, sales management, territory analysis or marketing.  More and more, we are beginning to see integrated solutions of content and technology, increasing the value of both the software and the information.

September 12, 2005

50 Content Companies that Matter: XM & Sirius Satellite Radio

OK, I’m cheating on this post, including two companies: Sirius Satellite and XM Satellite Radio.  Together, these two companies have signed up more than six million paid subscribers to satellite radio.  With 4.4 million subscribers, XM has about double that of Sirius, due in part to the fact that they arrived on the scene a year earlier.  Sirius has begun to close the gap by signing exclusive content including Howard Stern, the NFL and Martha Stewart.

During the past year, both companies have signed a number of key partnerships which should drive growth substantially in the next few years.  XM Satellite can be factory installed in GM vehicles and got a boost from the recent “employee pricing” drives by GM.  Sirius has signed an exclusive deal with Ford, but won’t be available until the 2006 models roll off the lots, so didn’t see the same pickup recently. 

Each company has now launched portable players and have signed partnerships with various industry players (XM with AOL, Audible and even Hyatt Hotels; Sirius with Sprint for delivery of music through Sprint’s phone network).

XM has recently launched a player with “Tivo-like” capabilities (MyFi), allowing users to record up to five hours of audio for later playback.  This can become a real differentiator and reason to purchase satellite radio.  Unlike traditional radio, which often is relegated to background noise, the ability to “time shift” means you can record Howard Stern, Jimmy Buffet, or whatever your preference may be, then listen to it at the gym or on the commute home.  I am sure that Sirius will provide a matching capability soon.

A year ago I thought that satellite radio was, at best, a niche product.  Now, by developing the sales channels through the automotive OEMs, these devices are beginning to become ubiquitous.  Wall Street estimates are for total satellite radio subscriptions in the 55-60 million range by 2015.  That's amazing growth, particularly when you compare it to cell phones, DVD players and other products that took much longer to take hold.

In a recent Institutional Investor interview, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin indicated his belief that customer demand will be fairly inelastic, so both these companies should be in position to raise their subscription rates when growth slows down.

Satellite radio seems to be here to stay.  I don’t know which of these two formats will win in the end (or whether they will end up merging), but in the near term, they both clearly belong in the 50 Content Companies that Matter.

The 50 Content Companies that Matter – Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports is a fantastic story of how an old-line, traditional publisher has transformed itself into one of the larger success stories in consumer publishing on the web.

Recently, Consumer Reports announced its two millionth active paid subscriber to their online service.  That’s two and one-half times that of WSJ Online.  And, they have gotten there while maintaining the core principles that led to their offline success.

A large part of their growth has been attributed to affiliate partnerships they have signed with sites like Yahoo, AOL, BabyCenter.com and others.  MarketingSherpa provides a great interview with Jerry Steinbrink, General Manager Information Products at Consumer Reports on this subject.

Consumer Reports is a great online product.  As I’ve previously written, rating sites are big winners on the web.  With e-commerce continuing to grow, and product research (even when the purchase is made offline) growing even faster, rating sites are thriving.  Consumer Reports can take this one step further in that they are a rating service backed by a trusted brand.  While community-based rating sites such as Trip Advisor, Amazon, eBags and others are valuable, they are also subject to manipulation (just look at the ratings for books by Al Franken or Ann Coulter to see examples where most of the ratings are authored by those who’d never even read their books).  With Consumer Reports, you get the benefit of ratings backed by a well-defined (and clearly communicated) methodology.  There are very few companies on the web that can offer that – perhaps S&P and the recently acquired (also by McGraw Hill) J.D. Power carry similar quality cache. 

Of Consumer Reports’ online subscribers, roughly 25% are existing print subscribers, meaning that 75% of their online audience are subscribers they would not otherwise reach.  I count myself in that group.  I signed up initially when purchasing a new car a few years ago, but continue the service “just in case”.  While I may go months or even a year between visits, it’s nice to know that it’s there when I need it.  I am sure that many others feel the same.

Going forward, I would like to see if Consumer Reports can bring in some level of user opinions in conjunction with their “official” ratings.  Even though they are (relatively) anonymous opinions, I love the ratings and comments on Amazon and Trip Advisor.  If there were a way for Consumer Reports to capture and expose feedback from its readers without negatively impacting their “official” ratings it would be the best of both worlds.  I think that there are ways to do this effectively without damaging the brand; after all, Consumer Reports’ used vehicle repair records are based upon the input of their users. In addition, they’ve introduced some moderated message boards to their site.  They key will be to bring these two together without letting reader reviews overwhelm the Consumer Reports ratings.

Consumer Reports has done an effective job of bridging the gap between the demographics of their traditional subscribers and their new online subscribers.  And that assures them of continued growth for years to come.  And, it assures them of a spot on my "50 Content Companies that Matter" list.

September 09, 2005

eBay and Skype?

I love Skype.  I think it's got a great interface and a lot of enthusiastic users (more than 52 million registered users and  more than 2 million paying customers).  Most of all, I like the fact that it actually works as promised.  It handles more than a third of internet-based phone calls in the U.S. today.

What I don't understand is the fit with eBay.  I see Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are battling it out in the IM world and will each start to move more aggressively into telecom over the web.  I could see one of them acquiring Skype to gain market share.  Any of those three could figure out how to better monetize those 50 million-plus users.  I could also see Verizon or another telecom or cable company acquiring Skype, rather than sitting on the sidelines watching their core business erode further.

I could also see Skype remaining independent.  They could fund their growth either through strategic partnerships or through an IPO. 

eBay certainly has a lot of cash.  And Skype has a lot of active users.  But I don't see any synergy between eBay and Skype.  And trying to bring these two companies together will probably just distract each from their core focus.  These two companies are great at what they do, and should keep that focus. 

And so, I hope Skype remains independent for a little while longer.

September 05, 2005

Author's note regarding 8/29 posting

With the tragedy of Katrina continuing to unfold, my August 29 posting commending wiki technology for keeping up with the storm now seems somewhat inappropriate.  Obviously, at the time of the post, it appeared that New Orleans had avoided the brunt of the storm.  Of course, 12 hours after the posting, the situation dramatically changed.

As all Americans, my thoughts are with those who struggle to regain a semblance of normalcy in their lives and to those who've suffered immeasurable losses.

Please continue to support the American Red Cross and other relief agencies who are helping those who need our help.  I urge you to give whatever you can afford to, then go back and give some more.

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