CDP Institute Releases Vendor Report, Appirio CEO Steps Down

Media Inquiries: Contact Karen Budell, CMO

Media Inquiries: Contact Karen Budell, CMO

The Customer Data Platform Institute has released its vendor comparison report. David Raab, principal for Raab & Associates and CEO of the Customer Data Platform Institute, said in a blog post Monday his organization conceives of three very broad CDP system types: those that focus on building the database, those that offer database plus analytics and those that offer database plus customer engagement (with analytics usually included, as well).  It's worth noting that the report only covers sponsors of the CDP Institute. Raab said the sponsor list includes almost all the major industry vendors, “so we’ve only left out a couple I would have otherwise included.”

In other customer experience software news ...  

Totango Closes Funding Round

Totango, which provides enterprise customer success solutions, has announced it closed a round of funding of $9 million. Participants in this new round include existing investors BGV, Canvas, Pitango and Interwest as well as a new investor Grayhawk Capital. Totango added new clients in 2017 that included Dimension Data, Citrix and Computer Associates. The company also added executives, including Jamie Bertasi, COO, Bill Hobbs, SVP of sales, and Jill Rubin, chief marketing officer.

Totango is holding its annual Customer Success Summit in San Francisco, March 5-6.

Crafter Releases Crafter 3.0

Crafter Software has released Crafter CMS Enterprise Version 3.0. It includes a Git-based repository that company officials said improves the content production and development process for content authors, developers and operations.

The Crafter CMS Enterprise V3.0 release also includes more than 1,000 updates, including an upgrade to the embedded Apache Solr search engine, automatic core provisioning, Git-based content and code deployment, improved content management interoperability services (CMIS) interfaces for DAM and ECM integration, YAML-based configuration, Gradle-based build harness and packaging and enhanced documentation.

Springbox Acquires nFusion

Springbox, a digital partner for mid-market companies, has announced it has acquired nFusion, an Austin-based demand generation agency. Springbox is a 14-year-old firm. Founded in 2001, nFusion is a 17-year-old firm that provides demand generation services to clients such as Lytics, NEC Displays, Q2 Software and Securelink. John Ellett, nFusion CEO and author of The CMO Manifesto, will join Springbox as its chief marketing officer.

Each firms’ clients will continue to work with their existing account teams. Operations will be consolidated at the Springbox office in downtown Austin.

Monetate Provides Support for React

Monetate, a personalization platform, has announced support for React, a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. Monetate’s new React capabilities enhance the Monetate Intelligent Personalization Engine with support for the React framework.

Officials said React’s open-source framework makes it possible to create single-page applications on web and native mobile applications on iOS and Android. Monetate’s React support, which will be commercially available starting in the middle of this month, layers directly on top of The Engine’s API and can be combined with a server-side integration.

Smartling Partners with Contentful

Translation provider Smartling has announced a translation management integration for Contentful, a content infrastructure company. The Smartling Connector provides localization for content, meaning they centralize content for translation.

Using Smartling’s Connector, Contentful users can choose the content to submit for translation, and manage the content across multiple languages. The Smartling translation solution provides a pre-built integration into an API-driven content platform.

Appirio Sees Changes at Top

Chris Barbin, co-founder of Appirio, a 71-year old company, with 180,000 employees, is stepping down after 12 years as CEO to take on a new, broader role as Wipro’s global culture officer. Wipro is an Indian company that acquired Appirio in 2016. Barbin will work with the company’s executive team and board of directors in worker experience at Wipro. Effective April 1, Erik Duffield, global general manager of CRM at Appirio, will become global head of Appirio.

DialogTech Names Kofoid CEO

DialogTech, a marketing analytics platform for inbound calls, has announced that Chief Operating Officer Doug Kofoid has been appointed CEO. Kofoid’s appointment follows founder Irv Shapiro’s decision to transition from CEO to executive chairman. “I handpicked Doug for the COO role 13 months ago with this very promotion in mind. To continue our exceptional growth, having an expert in MarTech/AdTech at the helm of the organization is imperative. And that’s what we get with Doug,” Shapiro said in a statement.

Kofoid joined DialogTech as COO in 2017 from Publicis Groupe, where he was president of global solutions, responsible for strategy, innovation and development of digital marketing product portfolio, including the data and technology operations. Prior to Publicis, he was director of search operations for Google/DoubleClick. He has over 20 years of executive experience in digital marketing.

Canto Names Kevin Gavin as Chief Marketing Officer

Canto, a provider of Digital Asset Management (DAM) software, has appointed Kevin Gavin as chief marketing officer. Based in San Francisco, Gavin will lead all aspects of Canto’s global marketing program including marketing communications, demand generation, product marketing and partner marketing. He will report directly to Canto CEO Jack McGannon, who said in a statement, “We’re very pleased to welcome Kevin to Canto and leverage his marketing leadership and experience as we accelerate the next phase of our growth in the DAM category.”

Gavin’s executive experience includes CMO at Five9, ShoreTel, Talari and Softnet Systems, and VP of marketing and product development at Nextel. He is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

AdRoll Announces Expansion

AdRoll has announced a new corporate structure and unveiled a new division, RollWorks, in response to the growing demands of B2B marketers. AdRoll Inc. will now operate as AdRoll Group and will oversee the two business units.

In conjunction with this announcement, Toby Gabriner will remain as CEO of AdRoll Group and will serve as RollWorks president; Aaron Bell, co-founder and CPO of AdRoll, will lead innovation and product development for AdRoll Group; and Scott Gifis will be promoted from his post of VP and managing director, North America, to president of AdRoll.

Officials promised the RollWorks will help B2B marketers engage with the right people within targeted accounts and it integrates with CRM and marketing automation systems, including Salesforce, Marketo and HubSpot.

Originally published at https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/dx-newsbyte-cdp-institute-releases-vendor-report-appirio-ceo-steps-down-and-other-dx-news/