Listening Platform – ready for Enterprise Information Management Landscape?

Forrester recently released their report on  ”Listening Platform” landscape for2011.  Here is the link to Forrester’s  Zach Hofer-Shall’s Blog who tracks Customer Intelligence Industry. Also more details at destinationCRM’s Koa Beck’s posting.

We at INFOVANTAGES work with our clients to identify the source of information for their enterprise-wide customer base as well as manage the information to make it available for various business processes.

Listening Platform in simple terms is listening to the customer input. The origin of this information  could be internal or external  sources i.e. traditional business processes  such as customer services as well as web/social media sources.

Listening platforms help the business to understand the customer opinion, feedback and concerns about the product & services they buy and take appropriate business actions.

What are the different options?

According to Forrester, there are three categories of listening platforms available for business and professionals:

1. Social dashboards
2. Multichannel analytics providers
3. Listening service partners

Social Dashboards:

These are web-based tools that focus primarily on managing and analyzing social media data.  Some of the major players in this category are:

• Crimson Hexagon
• Brandwatch
• NetBase
• Radian6
• Trackur

Multichannel analytics providers

These are analytics infrastructures that mine social media data along with other structured and unstructured data sources. Following are the key players in the market.

• Attensity;
• Autonomy;
• Analytics infrastructures;
• Clarabridge
• Overtone
• SAS Institute

Listening service partners

These are service providers who with proprietary social analytics tools and professional consulting teams provide custom research reports based on social media data.

• Converseon
• Cymfony
• EmPower Research
• NM Incite
• Synthesio
• Visible Technologies

From this list, Autonomy and SAS are the only two players who have the advantages of being part of the enterprise’s information management environment. Business process platforms like EMC Documentum xCP can be leveraged to manage the customer feedback and make available at the decision as well as interaction points.  It would be interesting to see how Listening Platform take the shape in enterprise information management landscape.

Does enterprise need a sustainability nervous system?

Global enterprises are adopting processes and systems to manage the information related to sustainability measures across the organization. Sustainability programs touches  every aspect  of the organization strategy & processes as well as real assets, people, customers and suppliers. In order to meet the sustainability goals,  it is necessary for all the stakeholders to have the access to the sustainability related information as well as being able to collaborate and update the enterprise knowledge base. All the stakeholders should be able to take quick actions to both internal and external changes  and maintain the sustainability programs on track.  Can this achieved by an information system which acts as the nervous system of the enterprise ?

What makes a great website ???

Do you plan for these to make your website standout ?

•Accessibility

•Personalization

•Community

•Knowledge

•Information

•Decision Support Tools

•Analytics

•Affiliate

•Monetization

Site Personalization

Does your website require customer to register to access various products and services of the site? If yes, you must be capturing the profile of the user in your site.

Now, once user has registered to your website, do you provide any personalization feature for the customer ? The personalization features could be based on his/her area of interest, age group, location and other factors that will help the user to access the information meeting his or her needs.

What are the tools available to implement and manage this ?

What is your policy to manage this personal information?

Also, do you provide a feature like “My Website” which allows her to see all her activity in the site at one place, e.g. information he or she added as her favorite, or blogs she has written, searches she has saved. These features will help the user to access relevant information at one place so that the user feels engaged to the site.

I will be posting more information – strategy and operational aspects in the future posts.

7 areas of focus for developing Web Product Requirement

7 areas that requires a Web Product Manager  focus while developing the requirement for a web product are:

1.  core information and tools

2.  accessibility

3. monetization

4. navigation and site structure

5. utility tools

6. content management and operational Requirements

7. performance and quality assurance

Do you have a program plan for your Web Platform?

Every organization is involved has some level of web presence one way or the other . This could be in the area of customer relationship , vendor management or investor services.  If you are a in the business of information publishing, web publishing platform could be your business engine.  Hence, it is important that organizations have a comprehensive plan for their web presence.  This plan not only provides guidelines for managing the web platform but also would be instrumental in improving / changing the internal business practices which can leverage the internet based concepts as well as technologies.

Typically, this plan will be owned by a dedicated web business and web platform team which works with various business, operation and technology stakeholders to give an internet face of the organization. This plan should be based on the  strategic goals of the organization and outline how various components of the web strategy be executed.

Here is a typical list of items the plan should include:

1. Target audience

2. Goals towards the targeted audience

3.  Metrics to be tracked

4. Business Functions and processes affected

5. Enabling web platform and its technology options

6. Operational process and policies

7. Short term and Long terms project milestones

8. Organizational structure and people

A Web Strategy should be a living plan as your business plan. Hence, it is necessary to learn from your current web operation and align both business and web strategies.

Open Text’s Vigentte Content Management 8 aims for marketing advantages

Open Text released Vignette Content Management 8 recently. The new release of the software focuses on the market  need for web presence as critical element  for the revenue generation for the organization. The new release focus on three areas:

1. Market Promotions:  it has enhanced features which help the marketers to effectively carry out campaigns, promotions and events.
2. Content Presentation:  these feature enhancements are aimed at faster development of web pages with an emphasis on personalization .
3. Content Authoring : these are features  aimed at content authors  for ease in authoring and publishing.

It would be interesting  to analyze how the new version meets the need of rich media e.g. video and audio as well as enabling social and web 2.0 features on the websites.