The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a complete library iTunes shuffle, current song “I Can’t Get Started” by Frank Sinatra:
Picis, a vendor of information systems for surgery, and intensive care units across the hospital enterprise, has announced implementation of ClearPeaks’ FastTrack Business Intelligence for Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
FastTrack BI is an end-user reporting environment based on the Business Objects platform, which allows Picis to tap customer information stored in their CRM system from Siebel.
“We have recently implemented a best-of-class CRM system allowing us to track all customer interactions with the objective to better serve our customers with an even more focused approach,” says Kevin Pettet, executive vice president of client operations, Picis.
Pettet said that ClearPeaks’ FastTrack BI lets Picis “better analyze our data, segment our customers, measure the ROI of our marketing initiatives and provide an automated and rolled-up sales forecast.”
ClearPeaks touts FastTrack BI as being “easy to deploy, flexible, user-friendly” and allowing business users to “report and analyze Siebel Systems CRM data in a language they can easily understand in real-time and without the need for a costly data warehouse.”
CRM systems can be a source of fertile information, but frequently this dimension of CRM systems is overlooked in most companies.
(Current iTunes selection: Todd Snider’s “The Ballad of the Devil’s Backbone Tavern.”)
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SmartCode Corp., a vendor of low cost RFID hardware products, has announced that it will offer the world's first 5 cent RFID tags, available in quantities of 100 million.
SmartCode officials claim to be the “first ever company in the world to reach the 5 cent tag.” Since the formation of the EPC standard in 1999, the target tag price for a sustainable, ROI driven RFID market was greatly depended on the availability of the 5 cent RFID tags.
(Current iTunes selection: Johnny Cash’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry.”)
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GlobeTel Communications finally threw in its hand on its highly self-hyped Russian Wi-Max deal, issuing a press release yesterday saying that “on Tuesday, April 25, it instructed its lawyers in Moscow, Cleary, Gottleib, Steen & Hamiliton [sic], to prepare and subsequently to deliver to LLC Internafta a formal Default Notice relating to the Agreement signed between GlobeTel and Internafta on December 29, 2005.”
In accordance with the terms of that Agreement, GlobeTel says, “Interafta [sic] was obligated to pay to GlobeTel, in January 2006, the first $150 million installment as called for in the Agreement. No payment was forthcoming from Internafta, at which point Internafta requested additional time to deliver funds and GlobeTel granted an extension.”
And here’s the interesting part: “Internafta subsequently delivered to GlobeTel terms of a $300 million Letter-of-Credit on Banco do Brazil letterhead. It was thereafter determined by GlobeTel that the terms were not acceptable to any of GlobeTel’s bankers.”
As Motley Fool says, “It was thereafter determined that the terms were not acceptable? Why not? Are we talking about funny money here? Fake credit? Insufficient funds? What? Or, more to the point, why release all the sunny PR beforehand if the financing – as well as the detailed business plan, according to this latest release – was still up in the air?”
(Current iTunes selection: Bessie Smith’s “Boweavil Blues.”)
First Coffee has spent a lot of time on this company and their too-good-to-be-true claims (see yesterday’s edition for a rundown), and is now officially glad to be done with the whole thing. Evidently Wall Street is as well; the company’s share price was bucketing along at $4 upon the announcement of the Russian “deal.” It closed yesterday at $1.47.
Sorry, investors, but hey, know that GlobeTel management appreciates you: As Motley Fool notes, the company declared gross earnings last year of $413,729 and management compensation of $12 million.
First Coffee does not want to pile on to anyone’s distress, it’s bad enough the deal fell through, but there were many voices along the way saying that it’s already hard enough attracting honest investment in Russian Wi-Max, which needs it desperately, and even the perception that a company like GlobeTel might be playing fast and loose hurts the overall credibility of such investments, which is the real shame here.
(Current iTunes selection: Bob Dylan’s “Pressing On.”)
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Advent Software, Inc., a vendor of software and services to the investment management industry, has announced that Tower Asset Management, a Beverly Hills-based asset management firm, implemented Advent Portfolio Exchange for enhanced reporting, client service and global contact management capabilities.
Advent Portfolio Exchange is a browser-based end-to-end portfolio management platform that integrates portfolio management with front-office marketing and CRM functions, as well as back-office portfolio accounting and reporting operations.
“With Advent Portfolio Exchange, the big advantage lies in having open access to all our data. We can now view and extract data anytime we want,” said Anton Pereiaslavtsev, Vice President, Information Systems at Tower Asset Management. “The migration from Axys to Advent Portfolio Exchange included an analysis of our portfolio history and opportunities to improve existing workflows.”
Pereiaslavtsev (aren’t “Copy” and “Paste” wonderful features?) says after implementing Advent Portfolio Exchange, “our daily processing is 20 to 25 percent more efficient.”
“Tower Asset Management’s goal for the future is to be able to create a mobile and geographically diverse sales force without expanding our office space,” said Pereiaslavtsev. “The best way to achieve that goal is through using a browser-based platform that can be accessed from any place in the world through a secure VPN.”
(Current iTunes selection: Bob Marley’s “One Love/People Get Ready.”)
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Soffront Software, Inc. (http://www.soffront.com/), a vendor specializing in the mid-market CRM field, has announced that Worldlink Integration Group, Inc. has selected on-demand Soffront CRM to improve productivity and data integration.
“We wanted to improve productivity in all aspects of our business and integrate all customer, prospect, and project data into one system,” said David R. Clarke, president and CFO of Worldlink Integration Group. “We also wanted to increase our customer’s ability to securely communicate with us and access collateral material through the web.”
Clarke said “as a mid-market organization, we needed a product that was customizable and flexible, but not too large.” And with the Soffront package, “all relevant information, such as contracts, proposals, and prospect data, is easily accessible in one secure location. Having one central location for all of our data ensures that our business processes are more streamlined and efficient.”
(Current iTunes selection: Johnny Cash’s “Let The Train Blow the Whistle.”)
Worldlink is also using Soffront CRM portals. The portals act as the doorway to Soffront CRM applications and other applications such as accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP). “All of the accounting, project management, and contact applications we use are integrated with Soffront CRM, which also improves our productivity,” noted Clarke.
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