November 09, 2011

By Susan J. Campbell

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

While they didn't make Gartner's (News - Alert) list, social collaboration and customer relationship management are two knowledge management tools certain to take center stage in 2012. As consumers are getting more educated about companies and their products, corporate leaders need to do the same. 

According to this Business Cloud News piece, SugarCRM will be responsible for a key application in IBM's (News - Alert) SmartCloud solution. The two recently teamed up to take IBM’s knowledge management to the next level. This global concept has grown in popularity as it connects social networking and business knowledge management.

SugarCRM's (News - Alert) chief technology officer, Clint Oram, believes a new business wave is coming, similar to the impact Internet had in the 1990's. Adapting social collaboration tools while forging business relationships could be revolutionary, gaining new momentum for knowledge management in the enterprise.

Customer Service Management is not a new concept but the application of developing it into a 2nd generation SaaS (News - Alert) is a new approach in a cloud computing world. There are three key components in global business trends that blend with knowledge management: cloud computing, mobility and social collaboration.As knowledge management applications become easier than ever to deploy, business technology can be improved upon as more and more companies integrate into cloud computing. With that, more and more executives are leaning toward the elimination of desktops. 

Mobility means smart phones and tablets for all employees with readily accessible applications.It's the sole priority of CRM, to create those person-to-person communications. It is the notable success of CRM companies that led to Oracle's recent purchase of RightNow for $1.5 billion. As SugarCRM's main competitor, Oracle now has a substantial knowledge management solution in a public cloud solution. 

SugarCRM considers itself open source, however, which makes it more appealing to customers that need deployment variety. SugarCRM can be used on many platforms, from Amazon and IBM or RedHat and Oracle. SugarCRM and Oracle are on the same page when it comes to 2nd generation SaaS versus 1st generation SaaS with Salesforce. SugarCRM contends that a 2nd generation format gives businesses more knowledge management options and the freedom to grow as their company does. The 1st generation SaaS really keeps companies under the heel of integration into other platforms and solutions.

Even in the CRM world, companies are poised for expansion. There are currently only about 15 million users relying on CRM tools and Oram feels there is a potential to have 750 million users in the future. CRM has only chipped at the surface and social collaboration has got to be a part of that knowledge management growth. The Facebook (News - Alert) generation has a lot of expectation when they clock in.

SugarCRM's new partnership with IBM and SmartCloud is taking the company to new heights. Social development is here and many businesses, regardless of size or requirements, are entertaining the idea of social development as it pertains to knowledge management to capture that competitive edge.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Juliana Kenny