For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Case Study: ConAgra Sales Operations And Inventory Planning

by George Lawrie, September 13, 2007

Mastering demand management requires forecasting improvements and the data and tools to determine how best to build inventory for future consumption. ConAgra Food's demand management process illustrates best practices in implementing an integrated sales . . .

For Consumer Market Research Professionals

How Consumers Use Manufacturers' Web Sites

by Sucharita Mulpuru, Elizabeth Davis, August 27, 2007

This Data Chart presents information about how consumers use manufacturers' Web sites, the results of a study by Channel Intelligence, conducted in conjunction with Forrester Research.

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Informal Learning Connects With Corporate Training Programs

by Claire Schooley, August 13, 2007

Informal learning continues to gain ground in the corporate training environment as instant messaging (IM), blogs, communities of practice, and expertise location find homes in lines of business. Today's workers enter the workforce expecting access to . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

The State Of Japanese Automotive Site Design, 2007

The Top Three Problems With Japanese Auto Web Sites

by Jonathan Browne, August 10, 2007

As part of a study that evaluated 12 major Japanese sites, Forrester recently used its Web Site Review methodology to evaluate the user experience at the Web sites of four major auto manufacturers: Honda, Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota. While Japanese automakers' . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

PC Manufacturers' Cross-Channel Experience, 2007

An Industry Look At Forrester's Best And Worst Of Cross-Channel Design

by Bruce D. Temkin, August 9, 2007

As part of an analysis of 16 firms, Forrester evaluated the customer experiences delivered by four large PC manufacturers — Apple, Dell, Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard. Overall, the PC manufacturers earned average scores compared with other industries. . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

WOM Marketing ROI: Dunkin' Donuts Case Study

Dunkin' Donuts Shows The Value Of A WOM Marketing Campaign

by Rebecca Jennings, August 6, 2007

Dunkin' Donuts engaged BzzAgent to spread the word about its new Latte Lite, resulting in measurable sales increases in the 12-week campaign period. Its experience showed that products with a simple, appealing message can very quickly generate word of . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

Does Online Word Of Mouth Sell Cars?

How Automakers Can Boost Their Online Word-Of-Mouth Marketing

by Chloe Stromberg, August 2, 2007

Word of mouth sells cars. And word of mouth on the Web travels farther and faster. Auto marketers want to fuel Web-based word of mouth by finding and harnessing online brand advocates. But to do so they must recognize that consumers who post user-generated . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Must-Haves For Manufacturer Web Sites

A Joint Study With Channel Intelligence Highlights A Critical Stop On The Customer Purchase Path

by Sucharita Mulpuru, July 26, 2007

Consumer-facing manufacturer Web sites play a significant role in online and offline transactions, and they influence or directly drive billions of dollars in sales. Forrester conducted a joint survey with Channel Intelligence to find out about consumer . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Best Practices: Server Operating System Security

Consistency Is The Key To Success

by Jennifer Albornoz Mulligan, July 12, 2007

Security managers are at their wits' ends trying to keep their servers secure from the deluge of new vulnerabilities across all operating systems. Why? Because as systems grow more complex, it becomes more difficult to maintain proper access controls . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Manufacturers Embark On The X Internet Voyage

Modest Value Will Increase As Shop-Floor Data Meets Enterprise Applications

by Roy C. Wildeman, July 3, 2007

The manufacturing sector is experiencing some early success with X Internet technologies — including radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, sensors, and actuators — as the implementation barriers in industrial environments continue to . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Best Practices: Getting The Most From Your CRM Deployment

Focus on Flawless Execution To Drive Higher ROI

by William Band, June 27, 2007

By 2010, enterprises will spend nearly $11 billion annually on customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to accelerate top-line growth, improve the customer experience, and boost the productivity of frontline workers. But success with CRM can be . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Case Study: A Diversified Chemicals Company Focuses On Improving Underlying CRM Business Processes

by William Band, Ian Schuler, June 27, 2007

Although customer relationships have always been important to a global diversified chemicals company, sharing processes and customer data was sometimes difficult across multiple lines of business (LOBs). To overcome this problem, the company assigned . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Case Study: A Global Manufacturer Tackles Server Operating System Security

by Jennifer Albornoz Mulligan, June 20, 2007

A large global manufacturer was struggling to maintain and improve the security of its server operating systems (OSes). The IT operations team was spending all of its time chasing down the consequences of insufficient server hygiene — poorly configured . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Case Study: Del Monte Listens With Customer-Centric Technology

by Peter Kim, June 19, 2007

An obvious, but often overlooked, tenet of customer centricity is listening to customers. Del Monte leverages technology to listen to a wider range of customers and uses customer input to influence product development and drive more customer-focused marketing . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Oracle Customers Will Benefit From Agile Acquisition

Oracle Gains Strong Foothold In PLM Market But Must Reassure Agile Customers

by Roy C. Wildeman, May 25, 2007

Oracle's announcement that it would acquire Agile Software, a product life cycle management (PLM) vendor, closes a major gap in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) titan's functional application portfolio and strategically positions it in the PLM game. . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

Design For Manufacturability Becomes A Reality

by Roy C. Wildeman, March 22, 2007

Design for manufacturability is a decades-old concept that continues to resonate with current manufacturing challenges. Although companies largely recognize the benefits of DFM decision-making, most face a formidable challenge in putting it into practice. . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Targeting Online Food Lovers

Identifying Segments and Online Advertising Opportunities

by Monique Levy, March 19, 2007

Food- and lifestyle-related advertisers and publishers are leveraging the Internet with increasing aggressiveness. In 2006, Yahoo! Food launched, and Epicurious announced record traffic during Thanksgiving. Also, a relaunch of Marthastewart.com is planned . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Renault F1 Team Uses BPM To See Its Faults

Best Practices In Using BPMS To Gain Process Visibility

by Colin Teubner, January 12, 2007

The Renault F1 Team competes on race times rather than new products or markets, but its business process management (BPM) implementation has lessons to impart that are useful to all kinds of organizations. In installing an event fault tracking process, . . .

The State Of Manufacturer And Retailer Collaboration 2006

A Shared Strategy Study Conducted With Consumer Goods Technology And RIS News

by Nikki Baird, December 19, 2006

Increasingly, manufacturers and retailers must compete in a dynamic collaborative environment in which today's collaborator is tomorrow's competitor. To benchmark the state of industry collaboration, Forrester partnered with Consumer Goods Technology . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Manufacturer Uses Content To Differentiate A Commodity Product

by Kyle McNabb, December 13, 2006

A European manufacturer of home decoration products, facing increasing commoditization of its core products, drove differentiation through its use of persuasive content — such as selection guides, usage information, color schemes, and safety guidelines . . .

Profile — John Deere Credit's EA Program

JDC Excels At Delivering Strategic Intent From Tactical Plans

by Gene Leganza, December 4, 2006

John Deere Credit's (JDC) enterprise architecture (EA) initiative is a solid program providing recognized value. The EA team gets high marks for credibility from its business stakeholders due to its deep business knowledge and its close relationships . . .

iGrafx: The Business Process Modeling Tool For Manufacturing Companies

The Forrester Wave™: Vendor Summary, Q3 2006

by Henry Peyret, Colin Teubner, Daniel Krauss, September 29, 2006

With its strong simulation and life-cycle management capabilities and dedicated versions for quality improvement, iGrafx fits particularly well for manufacturing companies. The vendor's large indirect sales approach (which reaches beyond the common reseller . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

How To Build The Foundation For Profitable Global Trade

Ensuring Companies' Long-Term Success In International Expansion

by Noha Tohamy, Patrick M. Connaughton, September 1, 2006

As globalization becomes a reality for any manufacturer or retailer looking to expand internationally, firms struggle to quantify the costs associated with a highly distributed global supply network. Costs can range from direct setup and ongoing management . . .

Making B2B Marketing Work

by Elana Anderson, August 17, 2006

Interviews with business-to-business (B2B) marketing executives reveal that the marketing organization is ineffective when it is siloed, tactical, and not accountable for results that tie to meaningful metrics. As one marketer said, "Marketing has a credibility . . .

For Business Process & Applications Professionals

IBM's MRO Acquisition: Good News For EAM Implementations

by Patrick M. Connaughton, Peter O'Neill, August 11, 2006

On August 3, 2006, IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire MRO Software for approximately $740 million. What motivated IBM to pay a price that is almost four times MRO's annual revenues? It's likely that the push by C-level executives to maximize . . .