A CRMKonvos fireworks - the crop of the year according to you

The other day, I had a look at my blog, checking the articles that resonated with you most in 2023.

Today, I'd like to do the same for my YouTube channel, CRMKonvos. Shameless plug - any new subscriber is cordially welcomed - it means a lot to us. "Us" means my colleagues Ralf Korb and Marshall Lager, and I. We run this channel as a joint endeavor.

CRMKonvos are all about fun and friendly one hour conversations with one or more live expert guest about a topic in the wider area of - you guessed correctly - CRM. Of course, this includes related topics, e.g., it is virtually impossible to talk CRM or CX without touching AI. They are streamed to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and X. In addition, we actively encourage our audience to engage with our guest and us. Again, any new subscriber is more than appreciated. If I am not totally off, you can subscribe by just clicking this link.

But now, what are the CRMKonvos that resonated most with you? Which ones received the most views?

Of course, we do not want to get the beans spilled immediately, so let's start with the fifth place.

Culture is the most enduring form of capital.

This is a conversation I had with Zoho's Chief Strategy Officer Vijay Sundaram about why a great corporate culture makes all the difference, how it contributes to success and why and how Zoho's culture is different from that of most other companies.

The fourth place is taken by an ISP's journey with Zoho One.

This is an interview with Amit Rai, Chief HR Officer of Tata Fiber. Amit has overseen the implementation of Zoho One at Tata Fiber right from its beginning. He relates the interesting journey the company had and also relays obstacles that he needed to overcome. Moving up the leaderboard, we reach the bronze medalist.

Ulaa, Zoho's new privacy oriented browser is about why a privacy oriented browser is important, especially for businesses.

Ulaa, Zoho's new privacy orientated browser

Tejas Gadhia of Zoho tells us about Ulaa and what sets this browser apart from the pack and gives us an idea of what lies ahead. Ulaa itself is a Chromium based browser that Zoho "de-Googled". If you want to venture a guess how long it took to remove all ET-like behavior ("calling home") from the Chromium engine, add a comment.

Moving on to the runner up. This video is different from the first three in two respects. First, it is a 2021 video. Second, it does not involve Zoho. We asked "What is customer journey orchestration"? Ray Gerber gave us a succinct answer.

This is an important question and who is in a better position to answer it than Ray Gerber, the mastermind behind Thunderhead (n.b., Thunderhead got acquired by Medallia in early 2022 and Ray moved on to Qualtrics).

Which leaves us with the CRMKonvo that caught your interest most in 2023. It is an atypical one. Atypical in the sense that it is not directly about business but about how and why a business set up a school in a very rural area in southern India. We spoke with Akshaya Sivaraman, the head of Kalaivani Kalvi Maiyam about why doing good is good for business.

Doing good is good for business - Zoho's Kalaivani Kalvi Maiyam

Kalaivani Kalvi Mayam is a school established by Zoho in a rural area near Tenkasi. Due to its wild success, it also serves Zoho as a template for further education centers.

This was a fascinating conversation with Akshaya Sivaraman, the head of Kalaivani Kalvi Mayam, diving into the school's origin, mission, future, and how it benefits the community as well as Zoho.

To close, let's briefly give a honorable mention to our videos that came up place six to ten:

Adi Mula, CEO of Foodhub relays his journey with Zoho during ZohoDay 2022. Yes, another video from an earlier year makes it into the top ten.

Prashanth V K talks about how Zoho steadily moves upmarket from the SMB- into the enterprise market and what their strategy is.

You think that AI companies are only founded in the USA (and India and China)? AI made in Germany, winning hedgehog style tells how a German company leverages AI to create a real-time predictive customer view.

In the state of SaaS adoption in the current economy, we discuss how SaaS companies can and do thrive in a post Covid economy that is also plagued by inflation with two SaaS executives.

Last but not least, we assembled a panel of AR pros to discuss how great analyst relations should look like. And by pros, I mean PROs. With Sarita Kincaid, Sandy Lo, Trish Harman and Ludovic Leforestier we got some of the best talking out of the book.

All in all, you guys seem to have a healthy interest in Zoho.

Thanks again for viewing our videos and let me know via the comments if there are other CRM/CX related topics that you would like us to cover.

All the best for 2024.

Comments

Last Year's Top 5 Popular Posts

SAP CRM and SAP Jam - News from CRM evolution

During CRM Evolution 2017 I had the chance of talking with Volker Hildebrand and Anthony Leaper from SAP. Volker is SAP’s Global Vice President SAP Hybris and Anthony is Senior Vice President and Sales GM - Enterprise Social Software at SAP. Topics that we covered were things CRM and collaboration, how and where SAP’s solutions are moving and, of course, the impact that the recent reshuffling in the executive board has. Starting with the latter, there is common agreement, that if at all it is positive as likely to streamline reporting lines and hence decision processes. First things first – after all I am a CRM guy. Having the distinct impression that the SAP Hybris set of solutions is going a good way I was most interested in learning from Volker about how there is going to be a CRM for S4/HANA. SAP’s new generation ERP system is growing at a good clip, and according to the Q1/2017 earnings call, now has 5,800 customers with 400 new customers in the last quarter alone. Many...

How to play the long game Zoho style

The news On February 7 and 8 2024, Zoho held its annual ZohoDay conference, along with a pre-conference get together and an optional visit to SpacX’s not-too-far-away Starbase. Our guide, who went by Chief, and is probably best described as a SpaceX-paparazzi was full of facts and anecdotes, which made the visit very interesting although we couldn’t enter Starbase itself. The event was jam-packed with 125 analysts, 17 customer speakers, and of course Zoho staff for us analysts to talk to. This was a chance we took up eagerly. This time, the event took place in MacAllen, TX, instead of Austin, TX. The reason behind this is once more Zoho’s ruralization strategy, transnational localism. Which gives also one of the main themes of the event. It was more about understanding Zoho than about individual products, although Zoho disclosed some roadmaps. More about understanding Zoho in a second. The second main theme was customer success and testimonials. Instead of bombarding us with...

Reflecting on 2023 with gratitude - What caught your interest

A very happy, healthy and prosperous new year to all of you. This is also the time to review my blog and to have a look what your favourite posts of 2023 have been. With 23 posts, I admittedly have been somewhat lazy in 2023. Looking at the top ten read posts in 2023, there is a clear clustering about a few topics, none of them really surprising. There is a genuine interest in CX, ChatGPT, and vendors. Again, this is not a surprise. Still, there are a few surprises in the list! So, without further adoo, let’s hear the drumroll for your top five favourite posts on my blog – in ascending order. After all, some suspense cannot harm. The fifth place gets claimed by my review of ZohoDay 2022 – “ Don’t mess with Zoho – A Zohoday 2022 recap ”. Yes, you read that right. This is a 2022 post. The fourth place got claimed by another article on Zoho, almost one year younger: Zoho, how a technology company reimagines business software . It is a reflection on the Zoholics 2023 conference ...

Salesforce stock tanks after earnings report - a snap analysis

The news On May 29, 2024, Salesforce reported its results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2025. Highlights are a total quarterly revenue of $9.133bn US, resembling a year-over-year growth of 11 percent a current remaining performance obligation of $26.4bn US a remaining performance obligation of $53.9B US an operating margin of 18.7 percent. diluted earnings per share of $1.56 The company reported a revenue guidance of $9.2bn - $9.25bn US for the next quarter and a full year guidance of $37.7bn - $38.0bn US, resembling growth rates of 7 – 8 percent and 8 – 9 percent, respectively. With these numbers, Salesforce ended up at the lower end of last quarter’s guidance on the revenue growth side while exceeding the earnings per share projection and slightly lowered the guidance for the fiscal year 2025. The result: The company’s share price dropped from $272 to bottom out at $212. The bigger picture Salesforce is the big gorilla in the CRM and CX industry. The company has surpassed ...

Zoho - A True Unicorn

End of January Zoho held its 2020 Zoho Days, an analyst summit, which I was happy to attend, along with more than 60 colleagues, as the only analyst from Germany, as it seems. Sadly, it took me quite a while to complete this – Zoho deserves a faster commentare. But hey, let’s look forward and get rolling. Zoho is a privately owned enterprise software company that has quietly evolved from a small software company in 1996 to an ambitious global player that serves the SMB- and enterprise CRM market with cloud applications. The company has a set of 45+ business apps with more than 50 million users, 10 data centres and counting, and is available in 180 countries. The company is profitable and maintained a CAGR of more than 30 percent over the past five years. But why quietly? Because Zoho managed its growth pretty unusually (almost) fully organically with only very minor acquisitions. Crunchbase lists one. Following this unique approach, which defies the tradit...

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