India...Indiana, What's the Difference?

by Jon Panker, Senior Editorial Director, TechTarget International Media

India and Indiana are vastly different places. That’s some geography lesson, huh!  But there’s another lesson here that’s best illustrated through a story.

I live in Los Angeles, meaning I’m about as far from India as is geographically possible – nearly 9,000 miles as the crow flies (though the last time I checked, the crow doesn’t fly commercial airlines). My job calls for me to make several trips to India each year. And, there’s really no easy way to get there that doesn’t require about 20 hours on a plane. So, I’ll typically fly east, overnight at our headquarters near Boston and then catch a connecting flight the next day.

On a recent trip, I arrived at Logan Airport but my suitcase did not. When I filed a claim with the baggage department, the agent asked me my final destination. Here’s how the conversation went from there:

Me: I’m going to Mumbai…in India.
Her: What state is that in?
Me: Uh....I’m not sure I understand. It’s India.
Her: I need the state.
Me: It’s in India.
Her: Well, then let’s just put down ‘Indiana.’ It sounds closest.

Yes, that seems like the height of bureaucratic ineptitude. But my point here isn’t to rip on airline baggage systems or their employees. (I am, after all, limited to just a few hundred words in this article.). Instead, I hope I’m highlighting the fact that many of our businesses’ systems and processes were designed from a distinctly U.S. perspective. In order to save my claim electronically, the agent had to specify the state I was traveling to. She had no choice. Unfortunately, “Maharashtra” (the state in India that Mumbai is capital of) isn’t on most drop-down menus here. And, in many cases, Mumbai, the economic hub of the second most populous country in the world, hasn’t really permeated our distinctly American commercial consciousness.

I tell you this because if you have designs on expanding globally, you need to understand the markets you’re preparing to enter, and then create systems, processes, and metrics for success geared distinctly for them. How can you do this without spending your life on a plane or earning a Masters in international business? Here are three quick tips:

1. Think globally, but partner locally: One of the best ways to enter a new market is to identify strong local players who know their country best because it’s their home. You may never be an expert on German labor laws, but you can bet that someone who runs a business there is. At TechTarget, we have more than a dozen international partners. We don’t have to be experts on each of their markets. We’re experts on IT media. It’s their job to know what will work in their own region; it’s our job to choose good partners and help them succeed.
2. Keep an eye on the tie: Sometimes we give off clues that we don’t know a market too well. I recently read about a failed print campaign in the UK. The ad featured a photo of workers sitting in front of their computers. Apparently, the company didn’t think twice about reusing a snapshot taken for their US marketing campaign – after all, workers are workers, right? Apparently not. Savvy consumers who were part of a focus group in the UK noticed something was amiss. The workers’ neckties were knotted in a distinctly American fashion and not in the popular full Windsor worn in England. The campaign might have bombed -- likely because it conveyed the notion (albeit very subtly) that the company wasn’t in touch with the market.
3. Talk really is cheap: Language barriers aside, there’s really no excuse not to communicate regularly with your overseas customers. The price of a long-distance phone call on the traditional carriers is now pennies per minute. Using some of the Internet telephony services like Skype, it’s free. Sure, face-to-face contact is always preferable. But if you can’t get on a plane, pick up the phone. The world has gotten a whole lot smaller. Check in regularly; it’s the next best thing to being there.

By the way, my luggage eventually found me in Mumbai – 3 days later. As a consolation, the airline gave me a small stipend in local currency (about $50 worth of rupees). Unfortunately, all the hotel shops charged US prices. It seems some Indian businesses have a pretty good idea of how to cater to the American consumer.

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Web 2.0: CRM's Big Ticket

by Kerry C. Glance, Editorial Director, TechTarget Enterprise Applications Media

There are a lot of good reasons to be optimistic about the future of CRM. The massive and costly failures of the early days of CRM seem to be over, as companies realize incremental returns on their investments.

That’s great news, but what’s far more compelling is what lies ahead for this market. I’m talking about a radical shift in how the world defines and uses CRM technology -- and it all starts with Web 2.0.

Web 2.0, the next generation of the World Wide Web that leverages social networking and user-generated content, has seized the attention of the public and the investment community, thanks to the popularity of sites like MySpace, Craigslist and YouTube. It empowers the end user and facilitates participation in a community.

So far, however, Web 2.0 has primarily been for the consumer industry, propelled by a younger, more tech-savvy generation of Internet users. The question is, how can slow-moving enterprises with an older user base adopt and adapt? And they need to. Consider this: Gartner advises that all revenue-generating lines of business should have a Web 2.0 architecture in place by 2008. Without a doubt, CRM is the smartest place to start.

The collaborative nature of Web 2.0 is a marketer's dream, with people sharing thoughts and advice on practically every topic, it is ideal for advertising products and services to targeted demographics. An estimated one out of three Internet users consults a site containing user-generated content to make a buying decision.

Web 2.0 communities are also a logical place for collecting candid customer feedback to develop improved products and services. After all, many experts believe that in an age when products become commoditized virtually overnight, today’s buyers aren’t looking for the best products so much as the best overall customer experiences. Web 2.0 is enabling that trend, letting the customer drive the interaction.

All this aligns with research released earlier this year from the Economist Intelligence Unit. A survey of 406 senior executives worldwide revealed that 79% see the collaborative Web as a way to increase revenue and cut costs. The most frequently cited effect of Web 2.0 is a transformation of the way companies interact with their customers.

Communities of pet owners discussing products and pet care on the Petco Web site or do-it-yourselfers discussing home improvement at Home Depot's site is one thing. How B2B companies can leverage the phenomenon and where they will turn for help is more of a challenge.

Some of CRM’s thought leaders have grand visions. Paul Greenberg, author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light, launched a wiki to catalyze the “CRM 2.0” movement. Contributors from around the world are participating in the creation of a new vision for CRM, they believe in leveraging Web 2.0 technology to enable CRM to "continue to improve human interactions in the current business environment -- one in which the customer dominates the ecosystem.”

Bravo. Looks like CRM is about to get reinvented.

Where there is opportunity, the market will follow, both veterans and rookie start-ups. The newbies who tout Web 2.0 capabilities as their competitive differentiator, like 24SevenOffice, Pushcrm and Zohocrm, face stiff competition from established CRM vendors who have already invested significant time and money incorporating Web 2.0 functionality into their next releases. For example, Salesforce.com acquired Web 2.0 content collaboration startup Koral earlier this year, and SAP is expected to launch A1S, its Software as a Service (SaaS) offering for small and midsized companies with a variety of Web 2.0 features including widgets and mash-ups, later this month.

Of course, in the near term, Enterprise Web 2.0 will face obstacles, for example, establishing security strategies for internal users as well as for external applications. But let’s face it, Web 2.0 technology is here to stay, and this is CRM’s big ticket to a brighter future.

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