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CRM Industry Term
Glossary
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A
ActiveX
A set of
technologies that enables software components to interact with one another
in a networked environment, regardless of the language in which the
components were created. ActiveX is built on Microsoft's Component Object
Model (COM). Currently, ActiveX is used primarily to develop interactive
content for the World Wide Web, although it can be used in desktop applications
and other programs. ActiveX controls can be embedded in Web pages to
produce animation and other multimedia effects, interactive objects,
and sophisticated applications
AMPS
Acronym for Advanced Mobile Phone Service.
One of the original cellular phone services, relying on frequency-division
multiplexing.
ATM
Acronym for Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A network
technology capable of transmitting data, voice, video, and frame relay
traffic in real time.
Account
Management
The process by which
an agency or supplier manages the needs of a client.
Added Value
The
increase in worth of a product or service as a result of a
particular activity - in the context of marketing, the activity
might be packaging or branding.
Advocacy
Advertising
Advocacy advertising
expresses a viewpoint on a given issue, often on behalf an
institution. Examples are to be found in anti-Drink-Driving
campaigns.
Affiliate
Marketing
A form of marketing or advertising used on the internet. Companies
that sell products or services online link to relevant sites. The
advertising on the other or 'affiliate' sites is paid for according
to results.
Affinity
Marketing
Marketing targeted
at individuals sharing common interests that predispose them towards
a product, e.g. an auto accessories manufacturer targeting motoring
magazine readers. Also, a campaign jointly sponsored by a number of
disparate organizations that are non-competitive but have a
particular interest in common
B
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Back-end software
In
a client/server application, the part of the program that runs on the
server.
Back Office Solution
An
application designed to assist corporations with the management of their
“back office” tasks, such as financial accounting, human resources and
manufacturing.
Bandwidth
The data
transfer capacity of a digital communications system.
Barcode
The special
identification code printed as a set of vertical bars of differing widths
on products such as books. Used for rapid, error-free input, the coding
can include numbers, letters, or a combination of the two.
Brand Extension
Process by which a
company develops new products to be marketed under an existing brand
name.
Brand Management
The process by which
marketers attempt to optimise the 'Marketing mix' for a specific
brand.
Brand Value
The value which a brand would be given if represented on a company
balance sheet.
Business Plan
A strategic document showing cash flow, forecasts and direction of a
company.
Business Strategy
The means by which a business works towards achieving its stated
aims.
Business to
Business (B2B) Relating to the sale of a product for any use
other than personal consumption. The buyer may be a manufacturer, a
reseller, a government body, a non-profit-making institution, or any
organisation other than an ultimate consumer.
Business to
Consumer (B2C)
Relating to the sale
of product for personal consumption. The buyer may be an individual,
family or other group, buying to use the product themselves, or for
end use by another individual.
Buzz
Buzz marketing uses 'word-of-mouth' advertising: potential customers
pass round information about a product. See also 'viral marketing'
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Call center
The location or facility housing a telemarketing operation.
Callback
A user authentication scheme used by computers running dial-in services.
A user dials in to a computer and types a logon ID and password. The
computer breaks the connection and automatically calls the user back
at a preauthorized number.
CDMA
Acronym for Code
Division Multiple Access, a form of multiplexing in which the transmitter
encodes the signal, using a pseudo-random sequence that the receiver
also knows and can use to decode the received signal. Each different
random sequence corresponds to a different communication channel.
Client/server
An arrangement
used on local area networks that makes use of distributed intelligence
to treat both the server and the individual workstations as intelligent,
programmable devices, thus exploiting the full computing power of each.
This is done by splitting the processing of an application between two
distinct components: a "front-end" client and a "back-end" server. The
client and server machines work together to accomplish the processing
of the application. The client portion of the application is typically
optimized for user interaction, whereas the server portion provides
the centralized, multi-user functionality.
Configuration Tools
A
software tool that helps sales people sales people configure complex
product offerings, assuring all part number dependencies are met.
CPG
Acronym for Consumer
Packaged Goods, a vertical market solution offered by several SFA software
developers.
CRM
Acronym for Customer
Relationship Management. Generally refers to a program that provides
integrated functionality for marketing, sales, customer support and
call center requirements.
Competitive
Advantage
The product,
proposition or benefit that puts a company ahead of its competitors.
Comparative
Advertising
Advertising which
compares a company's product with that of competing brands. Must be
used with caution to avoid accusations of misrepresentation from
competitors.
Consumer
Individual who buys
and uses a product or service.
Customer Lifetime
Value (CLV)
The profitability of
customers during the lifetime of the relationship, as opposed to
profitability on one transaction.
Customer Loyalty
Feelings
or attitudes that incline a customer either to return to a company,
shop or outlet to purchase there again, or else to re-purchase a
particular product, service or brand.
Customer
Relationship Management (CRM)
The coherent
management of contacts and interactions with customers. (This term
is often used as if it related purely to the use of IT, but IT
should in fact be regarded as a facilitator of CRM.)
Customer
Satisfaction
The provision of
goods or services which fulfill the customer 's
expectations in terms of quality and service, in relation to price
paid.
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Database
A file composed
of records, each containing fields together with a set of operations
for searching, sorting, recombining, and other functions.
Database Marketing
The
process of building, maintaining and using customer databases for the
purpose of contacting and transacting business.
Data Warehouse
A
database, frequently very large, that can access all of a company's
information. While the warehouse can be distributed over several computers
and may contain several databases and information from numerous sources
in a variety of formats, it should be accessible through a server. Thus,
access to the warehouse is transparent to the user, who can use simple
commands to retrieve and analyze all the information. The data warehouse
also contains data about how the warehouse is organized, where the information
can be found, and any connections between data. Frequently used for
decision support within an organization, the data warehouse also allows
the organization to organize its data, coordinate updates, and see relationships
between information gathered from different parts of the organization.
Direct Marketing
An
interactive marketing system that uses one or more advertising media
to effect a measurable response or transaction at any location.
Demographic Data
Information
describing and segmenting a population in terms of age, sex, income
and so on, which can be used to target marketing campaigns.
Differentiation Ensuring that products and services have a
unique element to allow them to stand out from the rest
Direct Mail
Delivery of an advertising or promotional message to customers or
potential customers by mail.
Direct Marketing
All
activities which make it possible to offer goods or services or to
transmit other messages to a segment of the population by post,
telephone, e-mail or other direct means.
Direct Response Advertising (DRA)
Advertising incorporating a contact method such as a phone number,
address and enquiry form, web site identifier or e-mail address,
with the intention of encouraging the recipient to respond directly
to the advertiser by requesting more information, placing an order
and so on.
E
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EDI
Acronym for electronic
data interchange. A set of standards for controlling the
transfer of business documents, such as purchase orders and invoices,
between computers.
Electronic Commerce
Commercial
activity that takes place by means of connected computers. Electronic
commerce can occur between a user and a vendor through an online information
service or the Internet.
Encryption
The process
of encoding data to prevent unauthorized access.
ERP
Acronym for Enterprise
Resource Planning, a suite of software tools designed to assist corporations
with all facets of operational planning.
Extranet
An extension
of a corporate Intranet using World Wide Web technology to facilitate
communication with the corporation's suppliers and customers. An extranet
allows customers and suppliers to gain limited access to a company's
Intranet in order to enhance the speed and efficiency of their business
relationship. See also Intranet.
E-commerce or
E-marketing
Marketing conducted
electronically, usually over the Internet.
Emotional Selling
Preposition (ESP)
The unique associations established by consumers with particular
products. For example, the emotional response to certain car marques
ensures their continual success, even though other makers may offer
superior performance at the same price.
Ethical Marketing
Marketing that takes
account of the moral aspects of decisions.
Experience Curve
The plotted
relationship between the amount of products produced and the cost
per unit over time from launch. As more units are produced, the cost
per unit usually declines, an effect that is partially attributable
to the accumulation of experience.
Export Marketing
The
marketing of goods or services to overseas customers.
External Analysis
Study of the external marketing environment, including factors such
as customers, competition, and social change.
F
Firewall
A security
system intended to protect an organization's network against external
threats, such as hackers, coming from another network, such as the Internet.
A firewall prevents computers in the organization's network from communicating
directly with computers external to the network and vice versa. Instead,
all communication is routed through a proxy server outside of the organization's
network, and the proxy server decides whether it is safe to let a particular
message or file pass through to the organization's network.
Front Office Solution
An
application designed to assist corporations with the management of their
“fron office” tasks, such as sales, marketing and customer support.
Guerrilla Marketing
The strategy of
targeting small and specialized customer groups in such a way that
bigger companies will not find it worthwhile to retaliate.
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Geocode
The process
of adding geographic coordinates to a database file so that data records
may be displayed on a map.
GPS
Acronym for global
positioning system, which allows you to calculate a precise position
(latitude and longitude) for any location on the Earth’s surface.
Originally developed for military purposes, the satellite-based system
now helps lost sales people find their way.
GroupWare
Software
intended to enable a group of users on a network to collaborate on a
particular project.
H
Handheld Computer
A
computer small enough to be held in one hand while being operated by
the other hand.
Help desk
A software
application for tracking problems with hardware and software and their
solutions, usually serving "internal" customers.
HPC:
handheld PC , see above
HTML
Acronym for Hypertext
Markup Language. The markup language used for documents
on the World Wide Web.
I
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Intelligent agent software
A
program that performs a background task for a user and reports to the
user when the task is done or some expected event has taken place.
Internet
The worldwide
collection of networks and gateways that use the TCP/IP suite of protocols
to communicate with one another.
Intranet
A network
designed for information processing within a company.
ISDN
Acronym for Integrated
Services Digital Network. A worldwide digital communications
network evolving from existing telephone services. ISDN is built on
two main types of communications channels: a B channel, which carries
data at a rate of 64 KBPS (kilobits per second), and a D channel, which
carries control information at either 16 or 64 KBPS.
ISP
Acronym for Internet
service provider. A business that supplies Internet connectivity
services to individuals, businesses, and other organizations.
J
K
Java
An object-oriented
programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems. Similar to C++,
Java is smaller, more portable, and easier to use than C++ because it
is more robust and it manages memory on its own. Java was also designed
to be secure and platform-neutral (meaning that it can be run on any
platform) through the fact that Java programs are compiled into bytecodes,
which are similar to machine code and are not specific to any platform.
L
LAN
Acronym for local
area network. A group of computers and other devices dispersed
over a relatively limited area and connected by a communications link
that enables any device to interact with any other on the network.
Lithium Ion Battery
An
energy storage device based on the conversion of chemical to electrical
energy in "dry" chemical cells. The laptop industry is quickly adopting
lithium ion batteries because of their increased storage capacity over
both nickel cadmium and nickel metal hydride batteries.
M
Marketing Automation
An
emerging category of software tools that focus on applying software
technology to aid in marketing. Specific tasks tackled by some
of these programs include: Lead Management, Campaign Management, Data
Mining, Intelligent Marketing Assistance.
Marketing Encyclopedia
An
application that stores, in a conveniently accessible format, any piece
of information a sales person might need to help their customers make
a purchase decision.
Middleware
Software
that sits between two or more types of software and translates information
between them. Middleware can simplify integration of SFA and ERP systems.
MPEG
Acronym for Moving
Pictures Experts Group. A set of standards for
audio and video compression established by the Joint ISO/IEC Technical
Committee on Information Technology. The MPEG standard has different
types that have been designed to work in different situations.
Multimedia
The combination of sound, graphics, animation, and video.
Multitasking
A mode of
operation offered by an operating system in which a computer works on
more than one task at a time.
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Netcasting
To send data
or a program from a server to a client at the instigation of the server.
O
Offline
In reference
to one or more computers, being disconnected from a network.
OLAP Database
Short for
online analytical processing database.
A relational database system capable of handling queries more complex
than those handled by standard relational databases, through multidimensional
access to data (viewing the data by several different criteria), intensive
calculation capability, and specialized indexing techniques.
OLE
Acronym for object
linking and embedding. A technology for transferring and
sharing information among applications. When an object is embedded in
a compound document, the document contains a copy of the object; any
changes made to the contents of the original object will not be seen
in the compound document unless the embedded object is updated.
OMS
Acronym for opportunity
management system, a software tool to help manage sales opportunities
as they flow through your structured selling methodology. Most
often associated with big-ticket, long sales cycle sales processes.
Online
In reference
to one or more computers, connected to a network.
P
Palmtop
A portable
personal computer whose size enables it to be held in one hand while
it is operated with the other hand.
PC Card
(PCMCIA card) A trademark of the Personal Computer Memory Card International
Association (PCMCIA) that is used to describe add-in cards that conform
to the PCMCIA specification. A PC Card is a removable device, approximately
the same size as a credit card, which is designed to plug into a PCMCIA
slot.
PDA
Acronym for Personal Digital Assistant. A lightweight
palmtop computer designed to provide specific functions like personal
organization (calendar, note taking, database, calculator, and so on)
as well as communications.
PIM
Acronym for personal information manager. An application
that usually includes an address book and organizes unrelated information,
such as notes, appointments, and names, in a useful way.
POTS
Acronym for Plain
Old Telephone Service. Basic dial telephone
connections to the public switched network, without any added features
or functions. A POTS line is nothing but a phone line connected to a
simple desktop telephone.
Proposal
A sales document
designed to help a customer make a purchase decision by providing all
relevant information, such as a price quotation and terms & conditions.
The sales proposal artfully summarizes your sales message and guides
your prospect to a final decision.
Q
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Quotation
A sales document
designed to provide detailed pricing information on an itemized list
of products.
R
Relationship Marketing
The
ongoing process of identifying and creating new value with individual
customers over the lifetime of the relationship.
Replication
In a distributed
database management system, the process of copying an object (file,
data, doc. Etc.) to the other parts of the network. Not to be
confused with database synchronization.
Report Generator
An
application, commonly part of a database management program, that uses
a report "form" created by the user to lay out and print the contents
of a database. A report generator is used to select specific record
fields or ranges of records, to make the output attractive, and to specify
such features as headings, running heads, page numbers, and fonts.
Reengineering
With regard
to corporate management, using information technology principles to
address the challenges posed by a global economy and to consolidate
management of a rapidly expanding work force.
ROI
Acronym for return
on investment, a method to assist management decision making by evaluating
the return on various investment alternatives.
S
Sales Forecasting
A measure
of the sales volume, both revenue dollars and product unit sales projections,
a sales team expects to realize during a designated future time period.
Sales Metrics
A process
to rigorously measure and critically analyze the flow of customers through
your structured selling methodology.
Sales Impact
The ability
of a SFA program to automatically take proactive steps, throughout the
sales cycle, to help sales people take better care of their customers.
Sales Cycle
A sequence
of steps, from the customer’s perspective, that a typical customer follows
on their way to a purchase decision.
Seats
Industry jargon for
the total number of users for your CRM project.
SFA
Acronym for Sales
Force Automation that generally refers to all software solutions that
might help sales people take better care of their customers.
SOHO
Acronym for Small Office/Home Office, referring here to very small sales
workgroups.
Structured Selling Methodology
A sequence
of steps, from the sellers perspective, sales people should follow to
help their customers reach a purchase decision in a timely manner.
Ideally, these steps should complement the customer’s own sales cycle.
Synchronization, database
Managing
changes in multiple database files to assure that changes made in one
file are distributed to all files in a structured manner.
The synchronization process must also detect and resolve collisions,
multiple changes to the same data field, in a structured manner.
T
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T1
A high-bandwidth
telephone line that can handle 1.544 MBPS or 24 voice channels.
T1 lines are commonly used by larger organizations for Internet connectivity.
TDM
Acronym for time-division
multiplexing, a form of multiplexing in which transmission time is broken
into segments, each of which carries one element of one signal.
Telecommuting
To work in
one location (often at home) and communicate with a main office at a
different location through a personal computer equipped with a modem
and communications software.
Telesales
Selling over
the telephone, primarily outbound in a business-to-business environment.
Telemarketing
Selling over
the telephone using a scripted sales message, primarily to consumers,
both inbound and outbound.
Territory Management
A methodology
for placing sales people in the field to call on customers and prospects
that optimizes market coverage while balancing workloads.
TES
Acronym for Technology
Enabled Selling, a concept promoted by east coast, gas bag consulting
firms.
Throughput
A measure
of the data transfer rate through a typically complex communications
system or of the data-processing rate in a computer system.
U
Uplink
The transmission
link from an earth station to a communications satellite.
Upload
In communications,
the process of transferring a copy of a file from a local computer to
a remote computer by means of a modem or network.
W
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WAN
Acronym for wide area network, a communications
network that connects geographically separated systems.
Web Browser
A client application that enables a user
to view HTML documents on the World Wide Web, another network, or the
user's computer; follow the hyperlinks among them; and transfer files.
Web server
Server software that uses HTTP to serve
up HTML documents and any associated files and scripts when requested
by a client, such as a Web browser. Web servers are used on Web and
Intranet sites.
Windows
CE
A scaled-down version of the Microsoft
Windows platform designed for use with handheld PCs.
Windows
NT
An operating system released by Microsoft
Corporation in 1993. The Windows NT operating system, sometimes referred
to as simply NT, is the high-end member of a family of operating systems
from Microsoft. It is a completely self-contained operating system with
a built-in graphical user interface. Windows NT is a 32-bit, preemptive
multitasking operating system that features networking, symmetric multiprocessing,
multithreading, and security.
Workflow
A set of programs that aids in the tracking
and management of all the activities in a project from start to finish.
Workgroup
A group of users working on a common project
and sharing computer files, often over a local area network.
World
Wide Web
The total set of interlinked hypertext
documents residing on HTTP servers all around the world. Documents on
the World Wide Web, called pages or Web pages, are written in HTML (Hypertext
Markup Language), identified by URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that
specify the particular machine and pathname by which a file can be accessed,
and transmitted from node to node to the end user under HTTP (Hypertext
Transfer Protocol). Codes, called tags, embedded in an HTML document
associate particular words and images in the document with URLs so that
a user can access another file, which may be halfway around the world,
at the press of a key or the click of a mouse. These files may contain
text (in a variety of fonts and styles), graphics images, movie files,
and sounds as well as Java applets, ActiveX controls, or other small
embedded software programs that execute when the user activates them
by clicking on a link. The World Wide Web was developed by Timothy Berners-Lee
in 1989 for the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN).
Acronym: WWW.
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