Archive
Category: Enterprise
Zendesk’s New Developer Platform Lets Brands Incorporate Customer Chat Support Into Apps
“If you don’t reach them on channels where they communicate, you’ll lose them,” Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane told me in an interview three years ago. It was at that time when the company head detailed how the customer service and support landscape was changing. “You have to embrace all the platforms, but you have to […]
Square Banks on Developer Platform to Woo Larger Sellers in March Upmarket
“The journey is one of peaks and valleys,” Carl Perry remarked, describing in a cautiously optimistic tone the progress made with the developer program he manages at Square. For more than six years, the commerce company has gradually opened more of itself up to third-party developers in a bid to bring its experience to more […]
The Secret to Innovation Rests With Knowing Thy Customers
As brands continue their quest to leverage the latest shiny object tech affords them, the question remains how adept companies are in really knowing how to best reach their customers. It turns out that less than half of all businesses are really mapping out their customer’s journey and understanding how to connect with them, but […]
Salesforce’s $750 Million Bet to Reimagine Productivity in the Modern Workforce
Five years ago, it started as something many people equated to being a word-processing app. Quip, started by former Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor and ex-Googler Kevin Gibbs, was initially yet another standalone service that created documents in the cloud, joining a crowded marketplace filled with the likes of iA Writer, Google Docs, and […]
User-Generated Marketing Service Chute Acquired by Private Equity Firm ESW Capital
A few years ago, companies clamored for solutions to help them capitalize on free media, the content people were producing on social media and voicing their support or displeasure about a particular product or brand. Companies created tools to facilitate communication from marketing managers and customer service agents to these influencers. Several, including Buddy Media […]
For Intercom, All Your Customer Relationships Are Belong to You
When I started working for Intercom a year ago, the initial reactions I received were people asking: “The live chat company?” While that’s primarily the solution it’s known for, the reality is in this age where businesses flock to Facebook, Google, Slack, Kik, WeChat, and other third-party messaging services, Intercom wants to provide the same […]
Begin Shuttering Slack-Based Task Management Tool To Pursue The Serverless Stack
Nearly two months ago, Ryan Block launched a Slack bot called Begin with a goal of improving our workplace productivity. But on Thursday, his company announced a major change: The bot is being shuttered in favor of pivoting to become a “continuous delivery platform.” For some, the termination of Begin’s current incarnation might be stunning, […]
Managing Your Healthcare Data Through the Blockchain
Editor’s Note: This post about healthcare’s blockchain usage was originally published on the now-defunct Samsung NEXT blog in April 2018. Data is one of the most valuable commodities in the healthcare industry. It’s so important that there are a host of regulations dictating how it’s protected. But as technology progresses, new threats and workflows have emerged […]
Why Salesforce’s Quest For $20 Billion Rests With AppExchange and Trailhead
Last November, Marc Benioff declared his company would generate $20 billion in revenue by 2022. The declaration by Salesforce’s chief executive came after the company successfully beat analyst expectations in its Q4 earnings, where it revealed it had also passed a revenue milestone of $10 billion for the fiscal year. The growth was attributed to more […]
Begin Tries To Solve Slack Overload With Its Task Management App
Slack has more than 6 million users on its team communication platform, but for many people, something that’s increasingly gaining attention is this concept of “Slack overload”. It’s information overload — people have so much flexibility when it comes to chatting with colleagues, be they remote or right next to them, that they are prone […]