The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the musical theme for today is Good Stuff I Don’t Listen To Nearly As Much As I Should, so we have Donovan’s Troubadour, kicking off with “London Town:”

SSA Global, a vendor of enterprise business software and services, has announced the general availability of SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0, what company officials call “a major enhancement to the company’s suite of customer relationship management products, SSA CRM, powered by E.piphany.”

The enhanced product provides companies with a tactical and strategic solution to improve current and future sales, service and marketing technology deployments, according to company officials, providing “a comprehensive 360 degree view of each customer by providing a shared customer and product list that streamlines the sales quotation, order creation and service processes.”

“SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0 were developed in direct response to our customers’ demands for enhanced technology that helps improve their ability to measure, predict and increase sales and service performance,” according to Cory A. Eaves, chief technology officer, SSA Global. “SSA Sales 7.0 and SSA Service 7.0 leverage SSA Open Architecture, the SSA Global services-oriented architecture to enable integration with existing and future systems.”

Chicago-based CRM consultants West Monroe Partners, a full-service business and technology consultancy, has been named one of Chicago’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For by the National Association of Business Resources. The award was presented June 9th at the NABR’s symposium and awards luncheon at the Chicago Marriott Oak Brook, an event to which, inexplicably, First Coffee was not invited, despite having gone to college near Chicago and spent a great amount of time in Chicago blues clubs, as well as having eaten at both Gino’s and Giordano’s. One would think that sort of dedication would be appropriately rewarded.

The award is presented to Chicago-area companies that “demonstrate excellence in human resources practices within a variety of categories,” according to the official citation. Maybe they could’ve had a few guys from accounting departments in on the process, as only 60 companies were selected this year.

Criteria included commitment to diversity and multiculturalism, work-life balance, communication, compensation and benefits, employee education and development, recruitment and selection, recognition and retention, employee engagement, and community initiatives.

According to Carolina Newswire, Think Mortgage has hired Customer Connect Associates to implement a Customer Relationship Management technology for them, namely salesforce.com:

“Customer Connect will assist them to develop and automate their business processes for delivering wholesale lending services to brokers across the country. Think Mortgage is a wholesale mortgage lender based in southern California.”

“Our unique understanding of Salesforce.com software will help Think Mortgage to implement faster processes and highly competitive products to significantly improve the experience of retail loan brokers,” Geoff Ables, president of Customer Connect, tells Carolina Newswire.

Jagged Peak officials say the firm will employ its flagship software application platform EDGE (Enterprise Dynamic Global Engine) to deploy www.77.tv.

More than simply a website, according to company officials, the programming featured on ReacTV delivers “reactive prize-driven content” and “patented ads” to consumers over the Internet and on cable television, reaching over 50 million consumers, starting August 1, 2006.

Paul Demirdjian, Jagged Peak’s Chief Executive Officer and not one given to understatement, said his company’s engagement with ReacTV is “to provide the technology framework and overall business services. Together we will integrate a platform that will change the way marketers and consumers view advertising consumption. We look forward to assisting them in their business plan, which will build not only a new company, but a new industry.”

ReacTV fuses advertising with active, interacting consumers, who compete from their homes for millions of dollars in prizes while sophisticated data collection techniques assure advertisers exact viewing numbers. In other words, no Seinfeld reruns.

PacificNet Inc., a vendor of CRM and telemarketing services, call center, ecommerce and Value-Added Services in China, has announced that its PacificNet Epro subsidiary has been selected by China Telecom’s Hunan Branch to provide CRM consulting and call center training .

Under the project service agreement, PacificNet Epro is engaged to enhance the CRM service level and telemarketing management capability of Hunan Telecom’s customer service center called the “10000 Information Hotline.”

This consulting project consists of the following deliverables: Development of Outsourcing Telemarketing Program, Call Center Workflow Design, Business Management, Project Return On Investment, Critical Success Factors on Customer Affinity, Five Steps of Customer Service and Telemarketing, How to Design Effective Telemarketing Script, and Customer Service Agent Role Playing Sessions.

Hitachi Consulting, the business and IT consulting company of Hitachi, Ltd., has announced its support for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.

Earlier this year, Microsoft awarded Hitachi Consulting Gold Certified status in the Microsoft Partner Program by demonstrating competencies in Advanced Infrastructure, Business Intelligence, Business Process and Integration, Custom Development and Information Worker Solutions.

“We view Microsoft as a strategic partner in the marketplace and are pleased to announce our support and services for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 product,” said Brian Biglin, Microsoft alliance director for Hitachi Consulting.

Hitachi Consulting has more than 100 trained Microsoft professionals and is certified in eight offices nationally – Dallas, Houston, Denver, Chicago, Seattle, Orange, Boston and Atlanta.

“Orange?”
…

RightNow Technologies has hired former Oracle and Siebel executive Scott Creighton as vice president of business development. Creighton will lead the growth and management of RightNow’s global alliances and partnerships.

Prior to joining RightNow, Creighton was Oracle’s vice president of global CRM marketing, where he was responsible for overall CRM go-to-market strategy, business development and global marketing. He has also held several senior positions at Siebel.

I’ve been listening to Donovan for the past couple hours, this Troubadour collection, double CD, about forty songs, hits pretty much all the high points from 1964 to 1976, and I’m feeling so… mellow. Life is so beautiful, colors are brighter, I’m catching the wind with the universal soldier here, we’re exploring Atlantis with Barabajagal amidst wafting patchouli and the season of the witch, listening to the flowers in the garden as Riki-tiki-tavi kills all our snakes for us and flowers give presents to gardens as Sunshine Superman smokes electrical banana and I… I feel… like… like I need to get Let It Bleed on – fast.

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