By capitalizing on Internet-enabled technology, organizations have increased visibility and interactivity with their customers through the implementation of CRM systems, which have helped organizations streamline transactions, learn about customer preferences, and boost relationships.

The face of marketing is changing, forever, and it's important for all marketers to be aware of the trends behind this change so that they are prepared to engage consumers in the future. Over the last few decades, both large and small companies throughout nearly all industries have learned to survive and thrive on the collection, aggregation, analysis, ownership, and use of consumer information in order to develop profiles of each and every individual they interact with or want to.

The face of marketing is changing, forever, and it's important for all marketers to be aware of the trends behind this change so that they are prepared to engage consumers in the future. Over the last few decades, both large and small companies throughout nearly all industries have learned to survive and thrive on the collection, aggregation, analysis, ownership, and use of consumer information in order to develop profiles of each and every individual they interact with or want to.

In this issue, we've turned our attention to a topic of perpetual importance: the relationship we have with our customers and the means by which we manage and derive value from our interactions with them. The new thing here is the emergence of customer-managed interactions (CMI), which is receiving substantial push and gaining momentum due to the increasing technology savvy of consumers. CMI is the revolutionary next step — and perhaps the future coexisting first cousin — to the well-established CRM.

In this issue, we've turned our attention to a topic of perpetual importance: the relationship we have with our customers and the means by which we manage and derive value from our interactions with them. The new thing here is the emergence of customer-managed interactions (CMI), which is receiving substantial push and gaining momentum due to the increasing technology savvy of consumers. CMI is the revolutionary next step — and perhaps the future coexisting first cousin — to the well-established CRM.

This survey examined how well organizations are equipped to work with the new reality in which consumers have some degree of control over the increasing amounts of personal information they provide online, including with whom they share that information. Nearly half (44%) of the 32 responding organizations are headquartered or based in North America, with 19% in Europe, 19% in Australia/Pacific, 9% in Africa, 6% in Asia, and 3% in the Middle East.

This survey examined how well organizations are equipped to work with the new reality in which consumers have some degree of control over the increasing amounts of personal information they provide online, including with whom they share that information. Nearly half (44%) of the 32 responding organizations are headquartered or based in North America, with 19% in Europe, 19% in Australia/Pacific, 9% in Africa, 6% in Asia, and 3% in the Middle East.

The value chain concept dates to 1985, so if it was able to ground business-IT discussions in a rational assessment of IT's contribution to value generation, we'd know it by now. The revival of this notion among architects is going to make IT sound as if they care about business concepts, but the only sure benefit will be to consulting firms' revenues.

The value chain concept dates to 1985, so if it was able to ground business-IT discussions in a rational assessment of IT's contribution to value generation, we'd know it by now. The revival of this notion among architects is going to make IT sound as if they care about business concepts, but the only sure benefit will be to consulting firms' revenues.

In the midst of seemingly endless debates about the various approaches and techniques for business improvement, the concept of value is often lost. While we all intuitively know what value means, the use of value-driven approaches remains woefully problematic. In the 25 years since the publication of Michael Porter's initial work on value chains,1 the way in which value has been used and defined has remained a source of confusion and ambiguity.

Numerous companies are considering as a strategic corporate initiative the adoption of an enterprise business architecture (EBA) built using James Martin's value streams. While researching and analyzing the EBA, some are rediscovering Michael Porter's value chain analysis, which is used to achieve a competitive advantage. Many find this reawakening quite logical, and as this article will explain, a natural extension of the EBA's value streams may indeed lead to competitive advantage.

Enterprises need increasingly sophisticated information systems in order to effectively deliver a growing number of products and services across multiple channels and markets. Leaders trying to cope with this complexity often find themselves with IT landscapes that have quickly spiraled out of control. Too many systems, mismatching technologies, tools poorly aligned with processes, and disarray among stakeholders are all symptoms of an application portfolio left to grow without a strong business architecture.

Capability analysis is an established approach to determining the needs for improvement in business operations. It focuses on a functional breakdown of an enterprise's capabilities. These capabilities are the means to do the work of the enterprise.

Enterprise agility can be defined as "a time measure between two significant changes in the environment and the time it takes for an organization to respond to that change."1 An agile enterprise is capable of responding quickly and effectively to a change in the environment.

Enterprise agility can be defined as "a time measure between two significant changes in the environment and the time it takes for an organization to respond to that change."1 An agile enterprise is capable of responding quickly and effectively to a change in the environment.

The subject of the September 2010 issue of the Cutter Benchmark Review (CBR) was Kanban adoption (see "Kanban for Project Management: Should We Buy In?" Vol. 10, No. 9).

Deciding the priority and funding for major IT initiatives, such as developing a new system or supporting a new technology, are among the most important functions of the IT governance process.

Deciding the priority and funding for major IT initiatives, such as developing a new system or supporting a new technology, are among the most important functions of the IT governance process.

For years, there has been a constant complaint in the project management community: the chief grief is that project managers "All this responsibility, and no authority." That's not exclusive to project management, either.

I attended a users' conference last week for an enterprise architecture tool. Keeping with Cutter's vendor-neutrality policy, I won't go into detail about the product, but I do want to report on my overall impressions and answer some of the common questions that I heard there.

Use of public cloud providers has become increasingly common, as companies embrace the considerable cost savings of software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS).

Use of public cloud providers has become increasingly common, as companies embrace the considerable cost savings of software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS).

Last month, I discussed some of the factors influencing the growing adoption of data mining and predictive analytics (see "The Slow, Steady Climb for Data Mining, Predictive Analytics," 1 February 2011).

What are the elements of a typical business technology strategy? The following lists the five key areas:

Business strategy -- overall market, product, production, distribution, service, etc., objectives

One of Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is to "begin with the end in mind."1 When developing software, this is a good rule. Even as teams embrace agile software development and practices that move testing earlier into the development process, the testing of delivery into production is often neglected.