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This week on Funnel Frontier: Jingle Bells & AI Spells: Tech Trends, Emplifi's Claim To Fame & Monday's Money Moves

This week on Funnel Frontier:

• American firms got good at automation—AI is next! 

• Emplifi app is officially “notable”

• Monday.com partner programs bear fruit

Stat of the Week 

3:1 — that’s the ratio of sales reps who met their quotas using mobile CRM compared to those who didn’t use one. (CRM.org & Agile CRM)

American firms eye AI for next big automation wave

What if I told you that US firms are turning to AI not just for the clout but with the pragmatic goal of seriously boosting their automation game?

That’s what a new report offered by Information Services Group (ISG) finds—enterprise companies are hungry for GenAI and machine learning because they want to turn burgeoning data sets into something resembling actionable insights.

As Chip Wagner of ISG Automation notes, American companies generally have the automation thing down pretty well. Now, they’re ready to embrace fancier, AI-driven tricks. 

The report highlights areas like conversational AI, where chatbots are evolving to handle everything from text to medical images, as well as intelligent document processing.

One key application is in process discovery and process mining, i.e., using AI to uncover hidden business patterns in real-time and vary strategy accordingly. 

ISG also finds that intelligent automation requires compatibility with ERP and CRM systems to thrive.

The big names in this AI scrum? There’s plenty, but ABBYY, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath are early front runners.

The Week @ CRM.org

Free Drawing Software.  When your budget reads 'starving artist,’ these tools might suit. 

Google Sheets CRM Templates. Sometimes the most expedient business solutions are hiding in your browser tabs

Best CRM for Startups. Because your fledgling business deserves more than just good vibes.

Weekly Bloom

History of Computing: Part I. How did we get here? In the first of our seven part series, we find out 18th century clothing might be the start.

Emplifi is officially “notable” 

Emplifi has been trying hard not to be just another face in the customer engagement / social media marketing crowd. Now they’ve caught the eye of market research firm Forrester…  

That’s right; they’ve just been dubbed a “notable vendor” in Forrester's “Social Suite Landscape, Q4 2023”—an independent report. It’s a fancy way of saying they’re thriving in the social media jungle.

Emplifi’s claim to fame? Their one-stop-shop approach to social commerce, influencer marketing, and the art of handling online reviews like a pro. And yes, that includes social-CRM integration. 

The report’s findings are a shout-out to the power of social suites in boosting team productivity, speeding up customer responses, and measuring the ever-elusive ROI of social media.

Emplifi plans to ramp up their AI automation game in 2024, hoping to go beyond being “notable.” 

Monday partners “to the moon,” says report

Having been told they’re “just another day of the week” for the umpteenth time, monday.com has finally snapped. They’ve teamed with Forrester Consulting to prove their worth in cold, hard numbers. 

The study mined data from participants in monday.com’s partner program, specifically 6 representatives from 4 orgs. They aggregated this into a composite B2B organization with 200 customers and $3 million in annual revenue. 

Some key findings: 

• monday.com's partners are looking at a net present value of $3.15 million and an ROI of 65%.

• 80% of partner revenue was attributable to monday.com practice.

• Reselling revenue was $5.27 million, while packaged and custom services pulled in $2.4 million (about 100% YoY).

• Custom apps built by partners reached $104,800 in App Marketplace sales. 

• Other revenue streams added a tidy sum of $195,300.

But hold on, it's not all smiles and rainbows. There are costs involved—$2.2 million in resource costs and another $525,800 in marketing and operations. 

Still, not too shabby for a platform named after Garfield’s most hated 24 hours. 

Check out the report here.

Tasty Tidbits

CRM blips from around the web

Verint wins big at TMCnet Customer Engagement Awards. The Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) vendor won in 7 categories, including “CRM excellence.” 

nCino and Salesforce further strategic partnership. The cloud banking / financial services provider will deepen app connectivity with Salesforce CRM and Financial Services Cloud. 

Freshworks fuels CX overhaul of MisterFly travel site. The European company, which handles about 750K trips a year, is also beta-testing Freshworks’ Freddy AI for interaction summaries. 

Stocks of the Week

Significant Moves (12/18-12/22)

^{DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets. Please be careful and do your own research.}

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