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Join SugarCRM at IBM Smarter Commerce in Nashville!

mschneidersugar —  May 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

Next week, SugarCRM will be sponsoring and exhibiting at the IBM Smarter Commerce event in Nashville May 21-23. The event is a great ibmsmartercommercegathering of business leaders from around the world, with a focus on improving customer-facing processes and technologies to enhance the buying experience.

SugarCRM supports the core Smarter Commerce business processes of Buy, Market, Sell, Service, including integrations with IBM’s Cross-channel campaign management solutions, Cognos and Connections, all of which enhance you organization’s effectiveness and improve your sales cycle.

SugarCRM and IBM have similar views on enabling customer centricity inside our clients’ organizations, as evidenced by our well-aligned messages during SugarCon in April.

To learn more about how SugarCRM supports IBM Smarter Commerce, or if you’re attending the event and would like to schedule time with SugarCRM executives on site, stop by Booth E-18 or visit HERE.

We hope to see you in Nashville!

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Two Innovative Views of Customer Centricity Took Center Stage at SugarCon

mschneidersugar —  April 15, 2013 — 1 Comment

I think most of us here at SugarCRM are still catching our breaths after an amazing week in NYC. SugarCon 2013 was an awesome four days of great keynotes, discussions, customer stories, training sessions, evening events…simply put – it was our best event to date, and we are already dreaming scon13up ways to make SugarCon 2014 even better.

While there were tons of highlights, great moments, sound bites, press coverage, etc. coming out of the event, one trend became clear. SugarCRM has aligned with some innovative and insightful partners – all of us with similar visions of helping create more customer-centric organizations. Perhaps one of the most profoundly aligned companies in our ecosystem is IBM.

Our aligned visions took center stage on Tuesday April 9, as Larry outlined our vision for “Every Customer, Every User, Every Time” and how our product and services are working towards making that a reality for every Sugar customer. Then, following behind Larry’s message, Steve Laughlin, Vice President for Smarter Commerce for IBM’s Global Business Services unit, talked about the empowered customer era and told the 1000+ attendees how IBM is helping to make enterprises more adept at personalizing interactions and the customer lifecycle in general.

And then, on Tuesday, Tamara Duncan, client advocacy executive at IBM, talked about the importance of customer centricity on a panel led by Terry Jones, founder and former CEO of Travelocity. In addition to the main stage, IBM executives also presented two standing-room only sessions: one on social selling by Christopher Lamb, IBM Program Direct, Social CRM, and another on modern marketing tips by Chris Benedetto, Product Marketing Leader, Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM). In addition, SugarCRM solutions architect Charles Hicks presented an integration overview between SugarCRM and IBM Cognos BI to a packed house. It was refreshing to see two seemingly different companies in strong agreement when it comes to creating great customer experiences.

That alignment in culture and vision is already paying off. During the event, SugarCRM announced a key customer win with Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG, a leading supplier of microphones, headphones and wireless transmission systems. Sennheiser made the decision to go with Sugar due to the usability of Sugar and product flexibility, but also due to Sugar’s deep integration with IBM technology and products.

Coming away from such an amazing event, we are reminded of how strong an ecosystem we have, anchored by some heavy hitters like IBM. What’s more, it is even more invigorating knowing our vision for our customers’ success are so well aligned.

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Stay Connected at the “Speed of Business” with Latest Sugar Mobile App

mschneidersugar —  April 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

SugarCRM has announced the availability of its next generation SugarCRM Mobile application for all iOS devices, and previewed the SugarCRM Mobile application for Android devices. The announcement was made at SugarCon 2013, the world’s largest open CRM technology conference, at the Waldorf Astoria, New York.

“At SugarCRM, we strive to build for employees on-the-go,” said Lila Tretikov, chief product officer of SugarCRM. “With the launch of the new SugarCRM Mobile application, we have delivered a solution that equips all customer-facing users with a fast, easy way to stay connected with their customers, and to stay on top of what matters, when it matters. With the new application, employees can collaborate and respond to their customers at the speed of today’s business.”

The new SugarCRM Mobile application, powered by HTML5, offers a faster, easier way for employees in the field to stay connected with their customers; track the latest updates on their campaigns, deals, and contacts; and update their CRM records, all in real time. The application delivers a completely integrated experience with Sugar’s browser application, and at the same time takes advantage of key native iOS capabilities. Users can upload photos, access contact directions and maps, and click-to-call, email, and text their contacts instantly. The interface is fully configurable and can be customized to meet the needs of each customer-facing professional.

“Customer service isn’t simply provided 9 to 5 – it can be a 24/7 challenge, and customers can’t wait for employees to get back to the office to start solving their problems,” said Clint Oram, chief technology officer for SugarCRM. “SugarCRM Mobile delivers the speed and agility needed for customer service that transcends location.”

A new study from enterprise resource planning (ERP) specialist ISF and market research firm IDC indicates that customer relationship management (CRM) applications for smartphones and tablets are a top priority for professionals on–the-go. In a survey of 450 C-suite executives worldwide, 31 percent of respondents identified CRM as the most-wanted mobile application.

Unlike most vendor solutions which charge extra for mobile CRM access, the SugarCRM Mobile application is free of charge and is a completely integrated part of the Sugar portfolio of CRM solutions.

Learn more about the new mobile application here or view the video demo.

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Have Your Voice Heard: Take the “Future of Open Source” Survey

mschneidersugar —  March 13, 2013 — Leave a comment

Do you have an opinion on where you see open source software going in the next year and beyond? Then share your thoughts and predictions with SugarCRM and the rest of the collaborators in our annual “Future of Open Source” survey.

Analyst firm (and my former employer) 451 Research is a collaborator again this year, along with Revolution Analytics, Red Hat, Hortonworks, and several other open-source software firms. If you work for an open source provider, or are a decision-maker deploying open source – take the survey today.

The survey is open until March 28th; results will be announced during a live webinar on April 17.

Here’s a slideshare preso around last year’s findings:

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Don’t Miss the SugarCon Sugar App Throwdown!

mschneidersugar —  March 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

scon13We are thrilled to announce the participants for this year’s Sugar App Throwdown, taking place at SugarCon 2013 in New York on April 10th. We had dozens of submissions come in across our VAR and ISV partner network, along with several coming from many third party developers and longtime community members. Narrowing it down to 6 contestants in the end wasn’t easy, but we think the final list is definitely an impressive one.

Without further ado, here’s this year’s participants:

We are really excited to see such a diverse group of contestants this year. Look to hear more about them in the coming weeks leading up to SugarCon, as we will be publishing interviews we are doing with them. And if you haven’t signed up for SugarCon 2013 yet, do so now to see this along with some of the best and brightest minds in CRM and technology alongside top vendors and partners.

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OpenSocial Foundation Launches New Social Standards Effort

mschneidersugar —  March 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

Today at CeBIT in Hannover, germany, the members of the OpenSocial Foundation announced a new initiative to define, design and releas

opensocial

e a new social applications toolkit. SugarCRM is a member of the foundation, established in 2008, which also includes IBM, Jive Software and consultancy the DachisGroup.

The Foundation’s initiative is aimed at “streamlining and simplifying the approach to tightly integrated collaboration across social applications for both enterprises and consumers.” As more and more business and consumer applications become more collaborative, and touch social media in more diverse and innovative ways – the Foundation is taking a leading position in building an open toolkit to help organizations and developers of all types to embrace and create modern socially enabled solutions.

SugarCRM CTO and co-founder Clint Oram remarked on the initiative:

“There is no better implementation of an open standard than through an open source project. By committing to both an evolution of the specification and the surrounding open source projects incorporating the latest developments in HTML5, modern browser technologies and JavaScript libraries like node.js and jQuery, the OpenSocial Foundation is responding to the demands of its community.”

To learn more about the OpenSocial Foundation or to participate in the definition of the next generation of open social technology standards, please contact the foundation at president@opensocial.org.
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SugarCon ’13 Agenda Announced!

mschneidersugar —  March 5, 2013 — Leave a comment

We have just published the agenda and speakers list for SugarCon ’13 - and it is literally PACKED with sessions and keynotes from CRM thought leaders, awesome customer stories, and lots of Sugar tips and tricks.

With seven tracks covering everything from sales, marketing and support excellence – to the tech trends affecting CRM and your business in general – SugarCon 13 offers something for everyone.

Highlights of the agenda include:

  • More than six hours of keynote presentations from leaders in CRM, including Larry Augustin, CEO of SugarCRM, Terry Jones, founder and former CEO of Travelocity.com, author of CRM at the Speed of Light Paul Greenberg of The 56 Group, LLC, and partners IBM, Pardot, and VMware.
  • Top research findings and best practices in CRM from industry analysts representing leading research firms. Subject matter experts include Gartner Research Director Patrick Stakenas; Forrester Research Vice President Bill Band; Esteban Kolsky, principal and founder of ThinkJar; Brent Leary, partner, CRM Essentials; Jesus Hoyos of Solvis Consulting and JesusHoyos.com, LLC; and Jim Dickie, managing partner, CSO Insights.
  • More than 70 customer and solution innovation breakout sessions highlighting CRM implementation best practices and detailed case studies. Key customers from the United States, Europe, and Latin America include EMIS, uShip, Harper, Inc., Cogburn Law, Bray International, Hillel, the Lindner Group, Tollpost Globe AS, Mitsubishi Brazil, Despegar.com, MacAllister (CAT) Rentals, the Irish Local Gov’t Management Agency, and USAFact.
  • Live solution demonstrations of Sugar Mobile and Sugar 7 – SugarCRM’s next generation CRM platform.
  • Expert-led best practices discussions, innovative platform case studies, and hands-on workshops on the latest SugarCRM platform.
  • App Throwdown, which is an event on April 10th to showcase the most innovative solutions across the Sugar ecosystem live on stage, where the audience can choose their favorite. This year’s contestants include: Nepo Systems, W-Systems Corp., Epicom, Colosa, and Altertus Technologies.
  • Hands-on customer training at a discounted price.
  • More than 30 leading companies will be exhibiting in the SugarCon 2013 Expo Hall. Major sponsors include IBM, Pardot, VMware, Riva, NextPrinciples and DocuSign.
  • Nightly networking events across New York, including the Tuesday, April 9 Evening Gala to be held at the 230 Fifth Ave Rooftop Garden and Penthouse Lounge.
SugarCon’s theme this year is “CRM for Everyone.” Join us to see and hear first-hand how to leverage the latest cloud, social, and mobile technologies so they can make individual users enterprise-wide more effective at engaging 1:1 with customers or prospects.
Register for SugarCon 13 HERE.
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