For Customer Experience Professionals

Member Registration Plagues Health Plan Sites

Interviews Of 17 Health Plans Uncover The Need For Email Addresses

by Elizabeth Boehm, November 20, 2009

The Web is becoming a bigger part of health plans' member service and member communication strategies, but health plans struggle to drive adoption. Forrester recently interviewed customer experience professionals responsible for member service Web sites . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

How Dutch Consumers Use The Net To Research And Buy Financial Products

The Web's Role As A Sales Channel Is Growing Fast In The Netherlands

by Alexander Hesse, November 20, 2009

The Internet's role as a distribution channel for financial products is growing fast in the Netherlands. Nearly half of Dutch Net users researched at least one financial product online in the past year, compared with 40% in 2007, and one in five bought . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Marketing Dashboards Advance Strategic Thinking Across The Enterprise

by Julie M. Katz, November 20, 2009

Dashboards allow Customer Intelligence (CI) professionals to better influence marketing strategy and drive corporate activities beyond marketing. But many firms don't use them. Absent a culture of sharing, sufficient resources, and clean data, dashboard . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

Case Study: The UK's Channel 4 Decodes Customer Engagement

How To Measure Engagement To Drive Business Results

by Julie M. Katz, November 20, 2009

Despite Forrester's four-part engagement definition, many Customer Intelligence professionals struggle to find the best way to measure engagement. When Channel 4 (C4), a media outlet in the UK, shifted its teen programming from TV to online, it needed . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Online-Influenced Sales Exceed Direct Sales In Financial Services

How The Internet Influences Sales In Other Channels

by Brad Strothkamp, November 20, 2009

In 2008, the majority of US online adults who researched a financial product did so online, and the majority of those online researchers applied in a channel other than the Web. These cross-channel shoppers illustrate the importance of online-influenced . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Navigating The Twittersphere

How To Market On Twitter

by Nate Elliott, November 19, 2009

Successfully engaging with consumers on Twitter requires both the right overarching strategy and a series of small best practices. Interactive marketers must ensure that consumers can find their brands' accounts, confirm that they are legitimate, and . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Harnessing Social Networking To Drive Transformation

by Rob Koplowitz, November 19, 2009

When one of the world's largest defense contractors says, "We need to move from a culture of 'need to know' to a culture of 'need to share,'" you stop and listen. Competing in an industry driven by the mantra "loose lips sink ships," BAE Systems has identified . . .

For CIOs

Inquiry Spotlight: Retail Point-Of-Sale Systems, Q3 2009

by George Lawrie, November 19, 2009

Retail line-of-business executives know that technology plays a central role in helping to deliver improved customer service with increased margin. They look to CIOs to push what were once purely tactical point-of-sale (POS) systems to become solutions . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: Consumer Wireless Strategy, Q3 2009

by Julie A. Ask, Seth Fowler, November 19, 2009

Mobile is rapidly expanding as a medium for interacting with consumers, and it will only continue to do so. Many of Forrester's nontelecommunications clients — from the travel industry to consumer product goods to automotive companies to financial firms . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Status, Challenges, And Near-Term Tactics For Cloud Services In Enterprise Outsourcing Deals

by Paul Roehrig, Ph.D., November 18, 2009

The blab-o-sphere is full of warnings, proclamations, and sales pitches about cloud services and this is only making it tougher for IT decision-makers to sort the reality from the hype in the face of pressing technology challenges. Decision-makers are . . .

For CIOs

The State Of Point-Of-Sale Systems

Retail CIOs Around The World Expect POS To Become More Strategic

by George Lawrie, November 18, 2009

Retail IT is challenged to support new cross-channel offerings and the ability to sell services and merchandise not provided in the store itself. It also needs to support rapid innovation in point-of-sale (POS) peripherals and the promise of more direct-to-consumer . . .

For Consumer Market Research Professionals

A Deep Dive Into Asia Pacific Consumers' Online Behavior

by Olesia Klevchuk, November 18, 2009

For the past four years, Forrester has been tracking consumers' online and offline behavior in Asia Pacific. This is a dedicated report about Asia Pacific consumers' online behavior aimed at understanding the changes in this emerging medium. This year's . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Market Overview: The Advent Of Enterprise Carbon And Energy Management Systems

Sketching The New Opportunities For IT Vendor Strategists

by Christopher Mines, November 17, 2009

A new liability is coming onto the collective balance sheet of companies around the world: carbon. In the context of increasing awareness of the business and societal risks of climate change, corporate carbon emissions (and the energy consumption that . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

The Psychology Of Early Adopters

Three Concepts From Academic Psychology Can Help Sell Newer Products

by Abe Garon, James L. McQuivey, Ph.D., November 17, 2009

Understanding how and why consumers experience the drive to adopt new products can help consumer product strategists trying to sell newer products. Concepts from academic psychology can be wedded to Forrester's Technographics segmentation to demonstrate . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

B2B eBusiness: Preparing For Online Liftoff

by Carrie Johnson, Elizabeth Davis, November 17, 2009

As more and more traditionally nonconsumer brands begin to move online, questions abound: How do we sell online? What do we sell to — or how do we service — our customers online? How do we organize to optimize the channel? The good news is that B2B companies . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Travelers Are Cashing In On Loyalty Programs

How US Online Travelers Redeem Travel Loyalty Points And Rewards

by Henry H. Harteveldt, Elizabeth Stark, November 16, 2009

Travel loyalty programs may be old news, but that old news pays the bills and generates revenue in the billions of dollars every year for travel companies. Forrester data shows that half — 52% — of all US online travelers actively use travel loyalty programs, . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

eBusiness Professionals: Plan Your Customer Intelligence Strategy Now

How To Develop A Focused Customer-Centric Approach

by Brian K. Walker, November 16, 2009

The importance of eBusiness professionals to the customer intelligence (CI) effort is clear. As owners of the online profit and loss (P&L), they must align with the CI command center to drive a true multichannel, multipronged approach, which Dave . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Case Study: Hunter Douglas Europe Grows Via Distributed Content Management Platform

ChannelNet Solution Improves Network Of Web Sites For Local Dealers

by Chad Mitchell, November 16, 2009

Hunter Douglas, a leading manufacturer of window coverings and architectural products, distributes its products through thousands of local dealers. Hunter Douglas saw an expanding online consumer retail market in Europe and wanted to use eBusiness to . . .

For Customer Intelligence Professionals

The Privacy Exchange Disconnect

Marketers Must Show Value For Consumer Information

by Dave Frankland, November 16, 2009

Consumers and marketers have contradictory impressions of the value marketers provide in exchange for the consumer data they collect. Marketers claim they deliver more relevant products, services, and ads based on the consumer information they capture. . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Case Study: Baker Tilly Virchow Krause Builds Trust With Strong Authentication

Customer Data Is Accessible Yet Safe Whether Users Are Connected Or Not

by Bill Nagel, November 16, 2009

Matt Jennings at Baker Tilly Virchow Krause needed to overhaul the accounting and advisory firm's security processes and technologies to ensure ongoing regulatory compliance and customer confidence. Replacing the company's use of a single password as . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Favorite Online Brands Succeed On Traditional Brand Values

How Marketers Can Position Their Brands With Online-Friendly Attributes

by David Card, November 16, 2009

Google remains consumers' favorite online brand, with Yahoo! and Amazon not far behind. In the minds of their fans, the top online brands exhibit very traditional attributes such as trustworthiness, helpfulness, and relevance, all at the expense of more-predictable . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

US Pay-TV Forecast, 2009 To 2014

by Bobby Tulsiani, November 16, 2009

The pay-TV category is a nearly fully penetrated market, reaching 82% of US households today. With little room to increase the market, cable, satellite, and telecom TV providers are fighting an intense battle for market share. Forrester expects telecom . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Learn More About Your 2009 Business Analysts  (694 KB PPT)

by Mary Gerush, November 13, 2009

These data charts highlight more data from the Forrester Research/IIBA Q2 2009 Global Business Analyst Online Survey, first reviewed in the July 23, 2009, "Your 2009 Business Analysts: Know Them To Grow Them" report.

For CIOs

Benchmarking ANZ IT Budgets

Despite A Resilient Economy, IT Spending Plans Remain Conservative

by Tim Sheedy, November 13, 2009

Since the credit crunch began to bite, Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) IT leaders have faced more positive market conditions than their peers in many other countries around the world — particularly those in North America and Europe. This is reflected . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Adaptive Brand Marketing: An eBusiness Perspective

by Sucharita Mulpuru, November 13, 2009

Adaptive Brand Marketing is a flexible approach in which marketers respond quickly to their environment to align consumer and brand goals and maximize return on brand equity. We expect marketing professionals to embrace this new approach in order to keep . . .