In the UK, Maximizer is a proud sponsor of a series of prominent regional business expos and at the most recent one – on our doorstep here in Berkshire – I had the pleasure of holding a free workshop for delegates alongside my colleague Diego Lunardi, our Head of Sales.

Until recently, advisor-client relationships followed a stable template: each would meet once a year and catch up on portfolio performance. After, they might chat about buying a new product. And that was it.

Avid QuoteWerks users rejoice. We’re proud to announce a brand new integration with the market-leading sales quoting and proposal software. Now sales teams will be able to accelerate their productivity and close deals like never before.

Once again, Salesforce brings home the bacon. The company recently announced a whopping $3.01 billion for its FY2019 Q1 results. With anticipated 25% growth over last year’s numbers, Salesforce is on track to extend its multi-year winning streak deep into the black.

The radical shift to Software as a Service (SaaS) continues apace. Forrester Research expects cloud CRM will become the single most common deployment model for CRM within five years, with newer SaaS solutions replacing most on-premise installations.

Slated to go into full effect on May 25, GDPR brings sweeping changes to European Union anti-spam and privacy rules. And now many North American companies, with customers and employees in the EU, are racing to get up to speed.

Gut-instinct alone is not enough. Effective decision-making also requires hard factual intelligence. Which is why millions of businesses strive to become data-driven organizations.

According to 2017 research by TDWI, organizations are making real progress -- but there remain notable obstacles. A third of survey respondents still believe they’re not close to being data-driven. The biggest reported barriers? Leadership, technology and skills. And also bad data quality, which according to Gartner, causes 40% of business initiatives to fail to realize their targeted benefits.

Before you can maximize insights from Business Intelligence and Analytics, you need to ensure your teams have confidence in your customer data. And that demands ensuring consistent data capture management practices are in place.

EMCORE is a boutique asset management company based in Switzerland. It is a pioneer in asymmetric risk-return investment strategies, providing tailor-made and yield-orientated risk and asset management solutions to institutional investors on a long-term basis.

The company is very proud of the financial expertise, loyal client base and core values that it has fostered over the last twenty years.  However, EMCORE’s owners recognise the growing importance of embracing new ideas, techniques and technologies that will enable their business to flourish into the next decade. This is especially true in the area of relationship management.

The debate over the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of cloud vs. on –premise software choices is still a hot topic. Pundits debate the merits of renting vs. owning. But complicated questions like quantifying the long-term costs of IT management, plus the intangibles (uncertainties like downtime) – can make comparing the two a bit like apples to oranges.

We wanted to confirm for ourselves what the advantages of a Cloud CRM vs. an On-premise installation – and here’s what the experts had to say:

In the age of the customer, people demand personalized care and high quality digital experiences. Businesses that want to stay competitive thus look for ways to deliver outstanding service time and time again -- which requires getting their teams on the same page.

However, according to Forrester, that’s often easier said than done. Improvement requires strong alignment, which can be next to impossible with processes and data fragmented across multiple systems.

This week we launched enhancements to your Maximizer bound to make your experience even more personalized. Chief among those is the new Custom Tab for your Address Book.

With GDPR set to go into force next month, promising sweeping changes to Europe’s privacy laws, organizations are shifting their compliance efforts into top gear.

When it comes to strategies for acquiring new clients, expensive marketing and advertising might spring to mind. But before you start frantically plastering your name on the side of every bus in your neighbourhood, maybe step back and consider alternatives. Here are some sure-fire strategies bound to boost your bottom line without breaking your bank.

When buying and customizing CRM, clients often think they need the next best thing. They imagine spending massive amounts to achieve amazing results. They’re dazzled by the golden bells that jingle and miss the bigger picture -- and end up with disappointing results.

Indeed, a full 33 percent of CRM projects fall short. And often, the root cause is poor planning. Companies tackle mega-projects that end up taking years to complete – or that never come to fruition.

The acid observation, “garbage in, garbage out” is as true 20 years ago as it is today. Whether your database runs on your server, a third-party cloud service – or an immutable block chain ledger – your contact information is only as good as what you put in. And now with new innovations promising to supercharge CRM, getting rid of inaccurate, outdated and redundant data has never been more important to businesses who want to keep their competitive edge.