If the customer is "at the center of everything," so, too, should be a company's system for managing customer relationships. In other words, customer relationship management software needs to be more than just a way to handle queries about products or fielding feedback from clients.

RFID technology company eAgile is marketing a solution known as eSeal that aims to enable the automatic tracking of containers of medication from the point of manufacture to the drugstore counter or a patient's hospital bedside.

The term "Web 2.0" refers to the current state of online technology as it compares to the early days of the Web, and is characterized by greater user interactivity and collaboration, more pervasive network connectivity and enhanced communication channels.

Turtle Wax drove 1.3 million page views with its content when it added consumer-generated content to its website. The goal for Turtle Wax was to transform a static website into a dynamic place where showcasing its products was a priority.

Emerging markets have driven growth for many multinational corporations (MNCs) for years, and they will continue to do so. But these are turbulent times as commodity prices plunge, currencies are devalued, and equity markets gyrate. The profitability of many MNCs' operations is already under attack, and future performance will be challenged by slower macroeconomic growth, increasing costs, and heightened competition from local companies, which are rapidly gaining scale, experience, and capability. To reduce these pressures, companies will have to focus much more on improving their competitiveness through constant productivity gains.