Data Management

Microsoft named Satya Nadella — the company’s EVP of Cloud and Enterprise — as its new CEO and member of the Board of Directors.

Since joining Microsoft in 1992, Nadella has played a major role in the company’s shift to the cloud and the evolution of one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructures. This move comes at a time when many B2B marketers are gravitating toward cloud computing as a way to provide employees with immediate and cost-effective access to corporate data from any location.

In today’s marketing world, content is the first step of customer engagement. However, obtaining contact information is a common pain point for many marketers, as more web site visitors wish to remain anonymous or resist filling out lengthy forms.

In a recent webinar, Scott Whitright, Senior Solution Marketing Manager at Rackspace, discussed how his company’s data collection efforts have benefitted from using social login through PaperShare.

Teradata announced the launch of its Customer Interaction Manager (CIM), a data-driven marketing application that is designed to enable real-time customer interaction across digital and traditional communication channels.

CIM allows users to integrate inbound and outbound messaging, which in turn can be used to plan and execute multi-step customer engagements, company officials noted.

CRM systems have long been the hub of sales activity, but they are becoming an increasingly important tool for marketers.

The evolution of CRM platforms has coincided with the integration of sales and marketing teams, in which marketers are playing a larger role throughout the sales cycle. In addition to generating leads, marketers are being tasked with ensuring those leads result in sales, and the CRM remains the central source of sales activity.

A new class of vendors is emerging to help marketers improve their customer databases, according to a new report from Raab Associates. The Guide to Customer Data Platforms describes systems that give marketers control of building customer databases to support cross-channel marketing programs.

Unlike traditional marketing automation systems, these products do not necessarily deliver marketing messages, according to David M. Raab, Principal of Raab Associates and author of the report. Instead, they provide shared data and analytics to coordinate and optimize messages delivered by multiple channel systems.