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April 2007

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Splendid CRM's Version 1.4, Allegiance's Allegris Funding, CRM and IT Spend in China to Hit $21 Billion, Vodafone CRM Limps Into Australasia

April 30, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t com

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Slim Dusty's "The Biggest Disappointment:"

Salt Lake City-based Allegiance Inc., a vendor of enterprise feedback management products, has announced that it has closed on a $5.7 million round of funding led by Allegis Capital, with participation from existing investor TPP Capital Advisors.

Nippon Venture Capital also participated in the round.

In conjunction with the funding, the company also announced that Spencer Tall, managing director at Allegis Capital; Nobutaka Mutaguchi, managing partner of TPP Capital Advisors; Todd Rowe, vice president of worldwide mid-market business at Business Objects; and Tyler Smith, former vice president with Altiris have joined the company's board of directors.

The Allegiance Active Listening System is a suite of six Web-based tools currently used by over 1,600 organizations, company officials say, to "collect, manage and respond to feedback from customers, employees, partners and other constituents."

The tools, which include CustomerVoice, EmployeeVoice and SilentWhistle, are described by company officials as able to "collect actionable, real-time feedback and provide organization's management with the information they need to make business decisions, support the needs of the people that support them, and improve loyalty from inside and outside the organization."

Tall called Allegiance "the clear leader in the rapidly growing feedback management category," saying the company's products "have a major impact on the profitability of businesses of every kind."

Adam Edmunds, president and chief executive officer of Allegiance, Inc., called the contributions of Allegis Capital, TPP Capital and NVCC "invaluable as we grow our market share."

Allegis Capital is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm with over $600 million under active management and an investment focus on enabling technologies and infrastructure in information technology and the Digital Economy.

SplendidCRM, which sells Microsoft-centric Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products for open-source use, has announced the launch of Version 1.4 of its flagship platform SplendidCRM.

The new version, incorporating key .NET 2.0 technologies, allows system integrators to add user-customizable features to applications.

CRM 5.0 From Infusion, Update Takes Orgaplan, Ryo CRM from blueMango, Amdocs Results, IBM Gameframe for CRM?

April 27, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Billie Holiday's Lady In Autumn.

Infusion Software, a vendor of what it calls "on-demand active CRM" and marketing automation software built primarily for small businesses, has announced Version 5.0, the latest release of its flagship product Infusion CRM.

Company officials say Version 5.0 offers an upgrade path for the company's entire customer base of software-as-a-service users.

The version includes conversion tracking, which allows users to insert a pay-per-click conversion code to the success page of e-commerce shopping carts inside Infusion CRM, "enabling small business to benefit from immediate ROI on specific pay-per-click advertising campaigns," company officials say.

There's also something called "Round Robin Sales Team Assignment Logic," which includes two distribution types available to use with Round Robin assignment -- One Record Per Round, or Random Based on Ratio.

SugarCRM Get-Together, Jacada Call Center, Virgin Mobile CRM, Kintera Social CRM, Endeavor's SmartCatalog

April 26, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Beethoven's late quartets, specifically Op. 127, 130, 133 and 135:

Sertel S.A., a Spanish provider of integrated customer support and services, has announced that they will deploy Jacada call center products to increase customer service efficiencies and "provide accessibility for visually impaired agents," Jacada officials have announced.

The agreement was developed through Jacada reseller, Datapoint Spain. Sertel S.A. is a customer management company that provides multi-channel service and support including telephone, fax, Internet, SMS, Web, and e-mail.

Genesys Gplus for SAP CRM, College CRM, Smart and SMBA, Soffront and Pavlov, MaxMobile CRM Smartphone, ANZAC Day

April 25, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Horace Silver Quintet's Songs For My Father:

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel-Lucent company, has announced the new Genesys Gplus Adapter for use with the analytics capabilities of the SAP Customer Relationship Management application.

Genesys is probably the first SAP Software Partner to integrate its customer service software with the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence component of the SAP NetWeaver platform. The compatibility of the Genesys Gplus customer service software, integrated with SAP CRM and SAP NetWeaver BI, was tested and verified by Genesys in cooperation with SAP Labs.

The Genesys Gplus Adapter basically lets the Genesys 7.5 suite work with complementary applications, such as SAP. By integrating the Genesys 7.5 suite with SAP NetWeaver BI, SAP's product for business intelligence and information management, companies should be able to use it to orchestrate customer interactions based on the appropriate business processes and "improve their ability to use analytics to understand customer needs," according to Genesys officials.

CRM From AT&T and Antenna, New Active CRM, Teradata CRM at Cortefiel, CANAL+ and Informatica

April 24, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jim White's Wrong-Eyed Jesus album followed by The Eels' Daisies of the Galaxy:

Antenna Software, a vendor of mobile enterprise technologies, has announced that it has aligned with AT&T Inc. to sell mobile customer relationship management (CRM) products, based on AT&T's wireless data network, to the enterprise market.

This relationship gives AT&T customers access to Antenna's mobile products for Oracle Siebel and Siebel CRM On Demand on a variety of wireless devices.

AT&T is also using AMP Studio, Antenna's mobile application development environment, part of the Antenna Mobility Platform, to enable Siebel CRM and deploy to its wireless business-to-business sales team on BlackBerry, Palm and Pocket PC devices.

"Our alliance with Antenna Software underscores how wireless data is exploding across the enterprise space," said Jeff Bradley, vice president, wireless business data services, for AT&T in explaining the move. "Companies are now moving beyond wireless e-mail and exploring other business processes that can be extended to a mobile environment using their existing wireless handheld."

Bradley characterized the offering from AT&T and Antenna Software as an example of "next-generation wireless data products."

Officials of both firms called the alliance between Antenna and AT&T a "significant next step" in the companies' five-year relationship, and an effort to make mobile CRM "truly enterprise-ready" using ATT's wireless data network and Antenna's mobile product.

Oracle in at Swisscom and out at MRF, SugarCRM in Ubuntu, CA's Enterprise IT Management, Autonomy and Convera

April 23, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bill Evans jazz:

Oracle has announced that current CRM client Swisscom, a communications provider in Switzerland, has implemented Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management to "deliver and bill for media and entertainment services including ringtone and movie downloads and IPTV."

Swisscom officials say the application is tasked with improving the time to market for new media and entertainment services from nine months to a few weeks.

Swisscom has been using Oracle's Siebel applications for its front-office and customer relationship management (CRM) application to its more than 4 million fixed line and 4 million mobile customers, as well as broadband and IPTV subscribers.

Ueli Hostettler, Planning and Strategy Manager, Swisscom, said Oracle's" vision for delivering media and entertainment services over communications channels" matches Swisscom's goals for technology architecture, allowing the communications provider to "increase customer satisfaction."

Oracle officials say Bebo, a social networking site in the United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand as well as the United States, has implemented the Oracle Database 10g to provide scalable infrastructure for its growing social network. The Web site has more than 31 million registered users and garners over 5 billion page views each month and 1.2 million photo uploads each day.

According to recent numbers from Gartner cited by CA officials, "on average $8 out of every $10 spent in IT is 'dead money,' not contributing directly to business change and growth," much of that spent on CRM, of course. Some enterprises spend 90 percent of their IT budgets "just to keep standing still."

Those comments come from Gartner, Inc.'s "The 2006 Gartner Symposium Keynote: IT Must Think Differently, Act Differently and Be Different to Drive Business Growth," by Mark Raskino, Daryl Plummer, Audrey Apfel, Richard Hunter, and Stephen Prentice, released October 2006.

Oracle Siebel CRM from Nucleus, ALA and Kintera CRM, Salesforce and Japan Post, CustomerThink, Innov8, MPOS

April 20, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything:"

If you're interested: Nucleus Research, a vendor of information technology research and advisory services, has released its Siebel CRM On Demand Guidebook.

Available at http://www.nucleusresearch.com/, the book "highlights the experiences of both recent and long-time customers" of Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand, prescribing "best practices for deployment, fine-tuning and missteps to avoid in maximizing value from Siebel CRM On Demand," according to Nucleus officials.

"In our analysis of Siebel customers we found that the most successful ones saw CRM not as an application to be deployed but as a framework for how their organizations interacted with customers," said Rebecca Wettemann, Vice President of Research, Nucleus Research.

Nucleus found many Siebel CRM On Demand customers were standardizing CRM across multiple geographies and offices without the need for IT resources at each site and providing on-demand CRM as needed for departments or workgroups that don't need access to full Siebel Enterprise functionality.

The Guidebook also provides analysis on how to prevent common CRM pitfalls such as identifying internal "CRM skeptics" and removing the "old school" CRM mindset.

CRM for nonprofits vendor Kintera has announced that the American Lung Association has renewed their Kintera Sphere software as a service, for use in the organization's fundraising efforts.

The American Lung Association wants Kintera's social CRM platform, including a content management system, constituent relationship management (CRM), e-mail and communications, Web sites, events technology, and advocacy tools.

Todd Whitley, vice president of online services for the American Lung Association, said they've been using the Kintera social CRM system for years, and it has "enabled us to offer a robust Web site that provides an abundance of targeted information on lung diseases from asthma to cancer," as well as "a comprehensive view of constituent interactions and relationships.”

As the oldest voluntary health organization in the United States, the American Lung Association has over 200 chapters across the country. In 2003, the organization’s online donations skyrocketed to $960,000 from $320,000.

Microsoft CRM for SABC, CDC Buys Saratoga CRM, CallMiner and SPSS, Oracle and Blue Skies, Optegra CRM

April 19, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Neil Young's "When You Dance, I Can Really Love:"

The South African Broadcasting Corporation and Microsoft Corp. have announced the deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM across SABC's sales and marketing organization.

The product, which was implemented within eight months, will hopefully "improve work-force productivity by automating the entire sales process and providing employees with easy access to real-time information," according to SABC officials.

Phase one of the project was rolled out to 250 employees in the company's head office and is currently being deployed to its network of regional offices.

Over 24 million adults tune in to the SABC's network of 18 radio stations every day, and 19 million adults watch the three free-to-air television channels. SABC Commercial Enterprises, comprising commercial airtime sales across radio and television, program, sport and education sponsorships, and interactive media sales, currently accounts for 76 percent of the SABC's revenue.

Oracle Siebel OnDemand CRM 14, inBusiness CRM for ICBA, Creative Manager 8.4.2, RegOnline and Salesforce, Tableau v3.0, CGI and Telstra

April 18, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bob Dylan's "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again." Once in high school, during a particularly boring class, First Coffee wrote out all the lyrics to this song, one of the truly great songs of the rock era, on his desk. It was a true, although unappreciated, work of art:

Oracle has announced that it will preview the latest version of Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand, which'll count as its 14 release in three and a half years. The product is engineered to help users "simplify user tasks, reduce clicks and page refreshes, and provide page customization features to personalize work environments," company officials say.

Siebel CRM On Demand also plans to enable integration capabilities so that customers and partners can establish integration between Siebel CRM On Demand and other applications.

CRM Rave from Entellium, Satuit Hires Gillette, Astonish Mortgage CRM, SugarCRM Blackberry, Questra IDM, StayinFront CRM

April 17, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Reckless Kelly's double live album Reckless Kelly Was Here:

CRM vendor Entellium has announced the full availability of a new version of Rave, its CRM software product sold mostly to small sales organizations.

Rave is marketed on what company officials call "time-saving, efficiency-enhancing features," such as an intuitive user interface, workflow and automation capabilities and a "smart client" architecture that lets sales reps work both online and offline.

Rave was developed using Gamer Influenced Design, an Entellium-grown concept that incorporates many of the elements found in video games. GID gives traditional (read: boring) business software a makeover by integrating gaming design techniques. 

"Rave is CRM re-mastered for sales people," declared Paul Johnston, President and CEO of Entellium, calling it a "fun-to-use package that pure play-on-demand services can't achieve." 

In developing Rave, Johnston said, the company sought "a sales productivity tool that embraced many key features found in today's leading video game designs," because "after doing a great deal of research, we found that gamers and sales professionals are remarkably similar.

Stratauture's EDM, Microsoft's CRM Server Farm, Adobe and Salesforce, Zilliant and SAP, Starbucks vs. Dunkin

April 16, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Boz Scaggs's Hits!:

Stratature, a vendor of master data management software, has announced the general availability of +EDM Version 4.0, the latest release of Stratature's +EDM platform for dimension, hierarchy and master data management.

Stratature officials bill the product as a "comprehensive MDM security model," bolstering support for Product Information Management applications.

Customers use +EDM for operational and analytical MDM, to support data governance and data quality initiatives across ERP, GL, CRM, data warehouse, business intelligence and financial applications.

Val Lovicz, VP of Research and Development for Stratature, said "although simple in concept, the practicalities of allowing security assignments to any combination of dimension members, across any number of hierarchies, with unlimited master data supported by unlimited business rules, are a challenge."

Company officials say the product's file object management, was developed in conjunction with several customers interested in "tackling enterprise-scale product information management initiatives."

The functionality is being highlighted in the company's marketing for "CPG and pharmaceutical companies storing product images, documents and presentations, this functionality is proving equally useful outside of the product dimension -- such as in the location dimension for storing maps of a store location, or the employee dimension for storing pictures of employees -- anywhere that external documents and images can benefit from being treated as master data," officials say.

Interesting bit from Reuters this morning, reporting that Microsoft is flipping the switch on its "largest server farm to date -- big enough to house seven soccer fields" today, an installation in Quincy, Washington comprising tens of thousands of computer servers in what Reuters calls "a physical manifestation of the company's giant ambitions to be a force in the world of Web services."

Well, that and the $550 million data center in San Antonio. Hey when you take on Google you need such infrastructure.

The data centers "provide the base infrastructure upon which Microsoft can create a range of web services such as its Xbox Live online video game system to its upcoming CRM Live business software," Reuters observes.

The article quoted Morningstar analyst Toan Tran saying that since data centers are "the basic infrastructure that enable Web services," if Microsoft wants to compete in services "this is the price of admission. The software industry is headed toward Web services, so this is what Microsoft has to do."

Adobe Systems and salesforce.com have announced the availability of the Adobe Flex Toolkit for Apex, described by Adobe officials as "a set of programming tools that combines the capabilities of Flex and salesforce.com's Apex platform" to enable new Internet business applications.

Oracle Siebel BlackBerry CRM, Reynolds Auto CRM, Cetova, Inmersa, Affinitiv, Lagan, Lexis

April 13, 2007

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, this Friday the 13th -- don't spill your coffee all over your laptop or drop it out of a fifth-story building -- and the music is Aimee Mann. First Coffee listens to quite a lot of Aimee. I'd heard the 'Til Tuesday singles, of course, but hadn't paid much attention to her solo career. It was hearing her sing a duet with Jim White on "Static On The Radio" that really hooked me on her voice, and the Live At St. Ann's Warehouse album that sold me on her songs:

Oracle has announced Oracle Siebel Wireless support for Blackberry from Research In Motion, bringing Oracle's CRM applications and capabilities to BlackBerry users.

With Siebel Wireless on the BlackBerry platform, users can access real-time CRM data via mobiles.

CRM From StayinFront, TimeXtender's Quick Cubes, Byte's Mortgage CRM, Sage MAS 4.2, ClearPeaks BO Consulting, DWRI and Microsoft

April 12, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the grossly underrated Tommy James & The Shondells on an iTunes mix:

Vendor TimeXtender has introduced Quick Cubes, described by company officials as "pre-configured data cubes" for use with the company's flagship business intelligence product, timeXtender 2.0.

Heine Krog Iversen, timeXtender founder and CEO, called the product "business intelligence out of the box." It automates the extraction, validation and transformation of data from virtually any source into Online Analytical Processing data cubes, thereby "eliminating the need for custom computer coding."

Quick Cubes are built for specific ERP systems and industries and can be used right out of the box or as a foundation for a customized product.

Designed for use with Microsoft's business intelligence platform, the premier release of Quick Cubes includes 12 pre-configured data cubes for users of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Dynamics AX, Dynamics XAL and Dynamics GP. The product promises out-of-the-box analysis for 12 common business areas including CRM.

Microsoft Security as Humor, Salesforce.com's ContentExchange from Korel Buy, Customer Connect, Creston

April 10, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Aimee Mann's Whatever:

Our friends from Redmond, the good folks at Microsoft, are addressing widespread customer frustration with the complexity of security products in a new integrated marketing campaign launched today called "Easy, Easier."

The Microsoft Forefront line of business security products is featured in a campaign that combines print and online advertising, a creative Web experience, integrated customer relationship marketing (CRM) and public relations.

The campaign uses humorous metaphors to illustrate how defending against security threats with Forefront is easier than defending against virtually anything else -- including far-fetched threats from aliens, ninjas and zombies.

Hey easy's great, but users would probably be really impressed by a Microsoft security product improving on the company's dismal effectiveness record. In early March industry observer Mark Hachman noted that AV-Comparatives.org, "a group of IT graduate students who have published formal analyses of antivirus tools since February 2004," tested the current batch of products and "placed Microsoft's OneCare anti-virus solution squarely at the bottom of the list."

"In each of three categories," viruses, macros, worms and scripts, Hachman wrote, backdoors, Trojans and other malware, and a third category, combining the results of the first two, "OneCare received the worst score out of 17 products tested." In fact, it did so poorly that, as industry observer Paul Thurrott noted, "OneCare Live 1.5 was the only security product not to be certified by the Web site." But hey, the humorous metaphors had 'em rolling.

The goal of this campaign, created by McCann Worldgroup San Francisco, is to emphasize Microsoft's competitive differentiation in making security products easier to deploy, implement and manage.

"We wanted to connect with the customer in a new and different way," said Rob Bagot, executive vice president and executive creative director at McCann Worldgroup San Francisco. "By using humor in a relevant fashion, we can engage and inform IT professionals at the same time."

Humor is also revered among advertisers for its ability to make people sort of, well, forget about a lot of things.

SugarCRM, ARX and Top Image, HitachiSoft and Salesforce CRM, Software Projects and UltraCart, Compact Solutions, DealerCentric

April 9, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama's There Will Be A Light:

Tel Aviv-based Algorithmic Research, which sells standards-based electronic signatures (digital signatures) and data security products, and Top Image Systems Ltd., which sells data capture products, have announced what ARX officials call "an extended worldwide technology and sales alliance that will help customers manage information more efficiently."

Through this partnership, the companies hope to sell products for customers to "expedite data capture processes, improve internal controls and enhance compliance with regulations," ARX officials say.



Top Image Systems' eFLOW is a single end-to-end product designed to process information from different sources and through a business's applications, including document and content management applications, ERP or CRM.

The product can handle invoices, checks, purchase orders and other information. EFLOW allows access to financial information at any time, thus facilitating compliance reporting for regulations governing business and financial information.

ARX’s CoSign is described by company officials as "a non-forgeable, standards-based electronic-signature solution" integrated with eFLOW.

CRM's Verticals onDemand and TerrAlign, Aberdeen's HCM, Net@Work and Sage, NetSuite and IT247, Open Solutions and Fincentric

April 6, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, a blessed Good Friday to you, and the music is -- still -- Aimee Mann's Live At St. Ann's Warehouse:

Verticals onDemand, a vendor of industry-specific on-demand CRM delivered on the Salesforce Platform, and TerrAlign, a vendor of Sales Resource Optimization, have announced that the two companies are partnering to provide life sciences companies with a product for the "creation, optimization, implementation, and maintenance of territory alignments."

Verticals onDemand sells on-demand CRM applications designed specifically for the global biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and medical device industries. The company's flagship products, VBioPharma and VMedical, will be integrated with TerrAlign's sales resource optimization software, TerrAlign 4 and TerrAlign eMap.

The TerrAlign Group sells products that enable organizations to optimize and manage the deployment of sales resources. TerrAlign already provides sales resource optimization tools to several pharmaceutical and medical products companies.

"Managing territory alignments is a key requirement for CRM success in the life sciences industry," explained Matt Wallach, vice president of sales & marketing at Verticals onDemand.

With TerrAlign's mapping, optimization, and realignment features, users can visualize and analyze data to design profitable territories.

Kintera's Christian CRM Clients, Seagull and Rocket, ASI's iMIS 15, StraightThrough and AppEx, TeleDirect and Wygant Merge, Copper Project

April 5, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Aimee Mann's Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, which just keeps getting better and better, as great albums do:

Alexandria, Virginia-based Advanced Solutions International, a vendor of software for non-profits, has announced the release of iMIS 15, which company officials are touting as a "complete, upgradeable, Web-based, not-for-profit and association business software system."

The iMIS 15 product suite provides customer relationship management (CRM), Web site management, marketing communications, fundraising program control, events and education planning, order and inventory processing, billing and financial functions, and business intelligence capabilities.

This latest version of iMIS, company officials say, provides "an easy upgrade path for more than 2,500 companies using iMIS, representing 30,000 staff users and millions of Web users." ASI is also marketing itself as providing "an easy transition from legacy systems to the iMIS 15."

"Massive conversions from old to new systems force associations to grind to a halt and waste money," said Bob Alves, Chairman and CEO of ASI. "The ability to upgrade existing software allows associations to stay current with technology and lower the total cost of owning and maintaining software."

Saying most of ASI's customers need "software with more than just fundraising management capabilities," Alves said iMIS 15 is being billed as a product with "the functionality non-profits need in one database with a single location for name, address, and historical customer information."

The product uses Microsoft's .NET development platform. New features in the initial release of iMIS 15 include browser-based views of iMIS for staff, casual, and public users, improved installation and log-in functionality; and the iMIS System Architect, described by company officials as "a set of administrative and development tools that provide improved product flexibility."

IMIS 15 can be delivered via a hosted model from ASI's facilities or delivered from an alternative location chosen by the customer.

StraightThrough and salesforce.com have announced the availability of StraightThrough ACE for Hedge Funds for salesforce.com's AppExchange.

CRM with Xactly for Oracle Siebel, iMagicLabs, Pharma CRM, Access Data, iCongo, salesforce.com, REACH3

April 4, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Ornette Coleman's Change Of the Century:

A new study released by Cutting Edge Information found that many pharmaceutical CRM initiatives suffer from the lack of a firm definition. The report "focuses on the inner-workings and best practices of CRM initiatives at top pharmaceutical companies," according to company officials.

"CRM tends to mean different things to various companies. CRM initiatives would greatly benefit if companies better defined CRM and educated internal parties on its applications and objectives," said Amanda Zuniga, senior research analyst and lead author of the report. "Internal buy-in and cross- functional support is absolutely crucial to CRM success.

Customer Connect CRM, Sage and van Toor, CIQ/Voisys and AFS, Selektpoints in Dubai, Astea Results

April 3, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a sturdy classic, the eponymous San Francisco acid rock masterpiece It's A Beautiful Day:

From the CRM cutting-edge hotbed of Cornelius, North Carolina comes the announcement from Customer Connect Associates of their partnership with Profit Technologies for what Customer Connect says is an "improved implementation of their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system."

A longtime salesforce.com user, Profit Technologies has evidently "engaged Customer Connect to help them maximize their value and optimize their CRM processes." Customer Connect will "help them develop a new approach for account and prospect management," says Customer Connect president Geoff Ables.

Founded in 2000, Customer Connect Associates markets their LUCK process for "creating more profitable relationships." Clients include Travelocity, SAS, LandAmerica, AMF and BB&T.

Sage Software, the North American operations of the Sage Group, plc , have announced that David van Toor has been named General Manager for Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM operations in North America.

In his new role, van Toor will work closely with Joe Bergera, GM of Global CRM, on the company's plans for selling Sage SalesLogix and Sage CRM both as standalone systems and as elements for business systems for the North American market.

"We've been successful building a strong standalone CRM business in North America," said Jim Foster, Sage Executive Vice President of Mid-Market Business Units.

Network Ten and ICLP's CRM, Dyne Buys LGI, Kore and Seamless for CRM, al Batha and SAP Mobile CRM

April 2, 2007

By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Randy Newman's Sail Away album:

Network Ten has appointed the Sydney office of global loyalty marketing agency ICLP to help develop its customer relationship management (CRM) strategy and to provide implementation support as part of its digital marketing plans, Network Ten officials say.

The first stage of ICLP's work for Ten is being delivered as part of Ten's launch of Ten.com.au. After that ICLP will support Ten's "customer identity management objectives" by providing database marketing services including analytics, segmentation, marcomms planning, and execution of digital communications to drive advertising revenue for Ten.

ICLP will work with Ten's digital agency to supply CRM expertise and provide a platform for the complete digital offering. Network Ten officials say they hope this will give their customers a "seamless experience" across the network's digital properties, including ten.com.au and program sites such as Australian Idol and Big Brother.

Damian Smith, General Manager Digital Media, Network Ten said ICLP won the business because it offered what Ten officials considered the "strongest" CRM product. "ICLP impressed us with their sophisticated proprietary CRM system, and their strategic, data driven approach to digital marketing," he said.



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