Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a critical component of any sales or marketing team's lead generation, nurturing, and converting strategies. It automates tedious processes, like creating groups of leads to email, which removes some of the manual work from marketers. CRM software also allows teams to design their own workflows, customized for their team's operations. It helps them to store and view information that would otherwise be scattered between programs and papers. A navigable CRM platform with plenty of features for any customer-facing teams should be a priority for all businesses.

Technology is evolving at warp speed, with an estimated 5 billion connected devices creating a gargantuan network of data. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is certainly the next big thing. Further, the ability to store huge volumes of data on cloud along with easier access to intelligent algorithms is set to make AI the next big wave in business innovation. AI for CRM is crafted to help businesses become smarter and more predictive about their customers. Everyone and almost everything is connected, a never before phenomenon in the history of mankind! As Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts the estimated market for AI powered CRM solutions to be $153 billion by 2020.

Personalization, automation and digitalization have redefined the fundamentals of business across nearly every industry, yet as Deloitte explains, the utility industry is transforming on a great scale. Utilities are investing in information technology (IT) to not just accommodate evolving customer needs and expectations but also improve operational workflows throughout the organization, including in marketing. Advanced IT solutions in the utility industry aim to reduce redundancies and unify technology systems. But in order to justify the increase in spending on vertically-aligned cloud software, utility leaders should maximize ROI by optimizing and extending their existing IT stack to ensure it enhances efficiency utility-wide rather than in siloed units. As the CMO of a company that offers AI-powered solutions for utilities, I've found that one of the simplest ways for utility CMOs to expand the efficiency of IT resources is by working with a CRM partner to integrate existing customer data and energy insights into a singular platform.

By Rishi Mehra Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are the buzzwords in today's technology and business landscape. Both AI and ML are touted to give businesses the edge they need, improve efficiencies, make sales and marketing better and even help in critical HR functions. However, the general thought is that both these technologies are meant for larger companies and it makes little sense for smaller ones to embrace it. That may not be entirely true as technologies like AI & ML become ubiquitous. In fact, in some cases one may not even know the presence of such technologies in our everyday life.

With what Google calls it the biggest upgrade for its globally popular email service'Gmail', the grass definitely looks a lot green for businesses when it comes to email marketing. Yes, the new upgrade aims to make the service more secure, user-friendly and clever with AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology. This certainly puts email marketing in for a huge transformation. As a matter of fact, AI technology is helping to bridge the void spaces between traditional and online shopping by offering more room for personalization. Simply put, artificial intelligence opens the doors for personalized email marketing, which eventually leads to more conversions and improved brand loyalty.

In today's digital age, most of us have instant access to the World Wide Web. Be it checking consumer feedbacks, price comparisons or product descriptions, everything is available at fingertips. Customers today are very much empowered than they were a few decades back. Thus, as a rule of thumb, businesses ought to gain a comprehensive understanding of their consumers to stand out. Read also: Customer Intelligence – Do You Really Know Your Customers?

Debates on AI (Artificial Intelligence) have been making quite a few rounds of late. From whether robots will take over human jobs to the mere assumption of a virtual computer simulation, there has been a lot of hullaballoo surrounding AI, virtual reality and augmented reality and its possible applications. Adding to the debate comes an intriguing statement from Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, wherein he stated: "there is only "one in billions" odds that we're not living in a computer simulation." But before letting our imaginations run wild, let us actually look how artificial intelligence is transforming the way salespersons are interacting and connecting with prospective customers and closing deals successfully. By identifying patterns in emails utilising natural language processing, AI powered CRM solutions can very well predict your responses and will even draft e-mails for you accordingly. Further, these CRM tools over time can learn to pay heed to contact names, addresses, dates, key phrases and can shoot off responses for simple stuffs such as availability eventually helping in complex business tasks like finding out resolutions to specific queries or helping you select appropriate e-mail attachments.

Technology is evolving at warp speed, with an estimated 5 billion connected devices creating a gargantuan network of data. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is certainly the next big thing. Further, the ability to store huge volumes of data on cloud along with easier access to intelligent algorithms is set to make AI the next big wave in business innovation. AI for CRM is crafted to help businesses become smarter and more predictive about their customers. Everyone and almost everything is connected, a never before phenomenon in the history of mankind!

Technology is evolving at warp speed, with an estimated 5 billion connected devices creating a gargantuan network of data. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is certainly the next big thing. Further, the ability to store huge volumes of data on cloud along with easier access to intelligent algorithms is set to make AI the next big wave in business innovation. AI for CRM is crafted to help businesses become smarter and more predictive about their customers. Everyone and almost everything is connected, a never before phenomenon in the history of mankind!

SugarCon 2016 – SAN FRANCISCO – June 15, 2016 - SugarCRM Inc., the company that enables businesses to create extraordinary customer relationships with the most empowering, adaptable and affordable CRM solution on the market, today demonstrated its vision for intelligent CRM at SugarCon, its annual conference for customers and partners. SugarCRM's vision for Intelligent CRM begins with Sugar Intelligence Service . The new service, currently in development by SugarCRM, is designed to combine data from best-in-class external sources with company CRM data to provide a comprehensive view of the customer. Further, the Sugar Intelligence Service adds predictive analytics capabilities to make intelligent recommendations for next best actions in customer interactions. The Sugar Intelligence Service represents the next step in the evolution of CRM.