Multi-channel and Multi-direction CRM

As the world becomes more connected and mobile, creative CRM designers and analyst have a great opportunity to reach customers on multiple channels - desktop online and mobile online being the most far reaching but also the traditional channels of call centre.  The question of working with inbound versus outbound channels will soon become irrelevant as propositions will be delivered on the most appropriate channel based on relevance.  

With a wider canvas for an organisation or individual to relay their message coordination becomes a far more critical factor. For example if I have presented a proposition to a customer via Mobile would it be wise to relay the exact same proposition via direct mail? These question regarding contact frequency become more complex. As tools become easier to use, CRM practitioners of the future will need to focus on proposition co-ordination and relevance.

Companies, stocks and SWOT

I have been involved in investing at low level (money wise)  for few year now. The great crash of 2008 presented a good opportunity to get in - so I took it investing mainly in hardware based tech companies including ARM, IMG, Nvidia, AMD and later Rambus and a few others. I shall be offering my thoughts in the form of a SWOT analysis  on some of the companies I have invested in.


AMD

Strengths	Weaknesses
ATI graphics Currently the most well-rounded x86 integrated CPU solution	Management Software support Internal processes - which causes many product delays and missed cycles and generally poor execution
Opportunities	Threats
Trim management at all levels -  and streamline processes Integrate more functionality into CPU (Sound, Disk Controllers, Memory)  - further reducing system costs	Themselves ARM Intel Nvidia

APPLE

Strengths	Weaknesses
Brand Loyalty Solid Platforms Integrated platforms	Genuine Creativity Enterprise penetration Focus on the consumer - cool today gone tomorrow Development tools in comparison to Microsoft % of OS PC market in comparison to MS
Opportunities	Threats
Refocus on applying the ‘It just works’ philosophy to other areas instead of the iphone 100 Buy a big software player - i.e. Adobe Make PC more competitive - add more value through features Balance the style to substance ratio Get more platform developers on board - offer discounts and provide better tools to students.	Android MS Themselves

HTML form to XML in javascript

getFormXml = function(form, xmltablename) {
var rowsIndex;
var xmltable = '';
var xmlrow = '';

for (i = 0; i < form.length; i++) {
var cells = form[i];

if (cells.name != '')
{
//Additional checks could be entered here for check boxes and
//other form components
xmlrow = xmlrow + '<' + cells.name + '>'
+ cells.value + '</' + cells.name + '>';
}  
if (xmlrow != null)
{
xmltable = xmltable + xmlrow;
}
xmlrow = ''; 
}
if (xmltable != null)
xmltable = '<' + xmltablename + '>' + xmltable + '</'+ xmltablename + '>';
return (xmltable);
}


Return the XML representation of the form variable.

Preparation and Processes

Most (if not all) activities involve 2 stages - Preparation and then Execution. For any activity to be executed effectively and in a timely manner , preparation is key. Lets take the example of the activity of preparing to go work in the morning. If you need to iron your shirt or find your socks then you will be much slower than if you had those things prepared. You will also will be more frustrated. Cooking is another example where the preparation of your ingredients and tools before hand is vital for a satisfactory result. There many, many other such examples.

In a company setting preparation usually resolves around getting the right information and mobilizing the right people. From the information perspective data can be stored in many locations. The more spread out the information the longer it will take to prepare the data and the less accurate the information will be. It is therefore vital that data is organised and accessible to everyone to meet repeatable requirements. I highlight repeatable because one-off activities many require additional new preparation. But most activities in a given industry are repeatable. Skilled management are able to recognise those repeatable patterns and  define strategies to streamline and optimise Preparation.

JdbcXmlService - Context driven shopping cart demo

A second example of the flexibility and power of  the jdbxXmlservice API. This simple JavaScript based shopping-cart demo communicates with the JMS jdbcXmlservice via the activemq script adaptor. Each product has a xquery based rule associated with it, which determines the product to display and in what order - based on the product selected. In the example shown, selecting a computer would activate a rule to display all the complementary products.such as a monitor and sound card.

More details will be added later.

200 views and counting

Thank to all my readers

JdbcXmlService - Stock ticker demo

JdbcXmlService is a java based server framework which I have been developing part-time since 2006. I have decided to show it the light of day via a demo stock ticker web application. This is a stock ticker with a difference. It can be programmed to display messages based on the historical stock movement data.

The business logic works by :

1. Retrieving the stock ticker and rules data from remote stock database
2. Retrieving the stock data from external web source based on stock ticker
3. Store a subset of the attributes retrieved in (.2) into a remostock history database
4. Execute rules based on the stock history
5. Display results
6. Repeat every 5 minutes

The above steps were accomplished using a custom xml configuration file (The details of which will be explored later) which JdbcXmlService executes.

Please note the demo will be available for the Evening US market opening times. Post a message on twitter or on the Facebook site to let me know your interests or thoughts on it. 




Please note that the application is currently down at the moment. The above screen cast shows a very brief overview of the demo and the Xquery rules and the database interaction - unfortunately the explanation text appears to very small - another screen cast will be uploaded later (and use YouTube's annotation editor)