July 2007 Archives

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Elvis Costello's This Year's Model:

Technalign has announced the launch of Version 3.1 of its CRM/Supply Chain Management application, which is now available for download on a 30-day trial. The CRM provides on demand, real time statistics for the sales force, credit, and support teams, according to company officials.

The new release includes many new functions, including consignment orders, credit processing, and invoicing capabilities. Hiatlantis provides enterprise-wide resource planning using the Funnel/Pipeline reporting functionality, and a new support routing function has been added to allow support managers to better route support incidents to appropriate support personnel.

Hiatlantis, Technalign officials say, provides customers with "an inexpensive scalable product allowing a company to grow and not be held back." It uses a Web browser on the client side for interaction with the system regardless of platform, and is accessible anywhere an Internet connection is available.

Dianne Ursini, CEO of Technalign, said the company "needed to improve on the functionality of the system for management to get a clearer picture into future sales and provide the necessary tools to inform sales of any issues." The support incident system "provides companies supporting a product the ability to provide service based on service level agreements," she said.

Hiatlantis has the ability to import Zapdata for sales force leads. Sales teams may track sales calls and advancements, while management teams may drill down within the prospect lists, making certain the information is at their fingertips to make informed growth decisions.

The sales force effectively manages and shares leads while tracking opportunities through the complete sales cycle effectively.

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UK energy provider ScottishPower has been recognized for the excellence of its online service, and ScottishPower's IT Director Andrew Neilson, credits CRM vendor Graham Technology's Online Energy system for the success.

"We are delighted to have been recognized by USWITCH for the quality of our online service," Neilson said. "At the core of our success has been the process-based technology platform from Graham Technology."

ScottishPower has recently surpassed 500,000 online users and continues to grow. "Being able to reuse already defined business processes from one area of the business to the Online Energy system definitely helped," said Neilson. "We have also been impressed by the system's ability to scale -- we've gone from zero to over half a million online users with no problems."

Graham Technology has worked with ScottishPower on a variety of customer-facing technology projects and the value of using a business process platform as an underlying technology was realized during the Online Energy project.

A host of business benefits have been realized since the deployment of Online Energy, Neilson says from major reductions in inbound contact center queries to improved billing and customer service levels.

The Online Energy system allows customers to manage their accounts more efficiently and reduce paper bills by entering meter readings, and accessing, paying and amending bills online. It also allows new customers to register and apply, and generates quotes to calculate potential savings by switching supply to ScottishPower.

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Neocase Software, a vendor of CRM and other customer support software, has announced the availability of Neocase 10.5, the newest version of its customer support offering for the U.S. mid-market.

Neocase CRM, the combination of Neocase 10.5 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, delivers a CRM product for the full cycle of sales, marketing and customer service operations. Neocase officials say it provides "enhanced functionality that extends Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, creating a completely unified bundle."

Building on the software's seven core modules, key enhancements integrated into Neocase 10.5 include Improved Asset Management, whereby companies who sell and support products, or who use Neocase 10.5 for internal IT support, will benefit from the flexibility of using additional user-defined fields to describe the product's configuration and components.

From one core screen, customer service representatives are able to see all associated contracts, accounts, contacts, cases, and components and, as needed, a picture or illustration of the product.

There's also Enhanced Reporting Capabilities -- the product comes bundled with a variety of standard reports that can be further customized to create and publish general and customized reports. Because Neocase uses Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services as its reporting engine, companies using Neocase are able to create ad-hoc and company-standard reports that can be delivered to the screen, to the Web or on paper, as well as combine data elements from other systems and databases.

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Syntellect, a vendor Customer Interaction Management products, has announced that Great Eastern Life Assurance, Malaysia's insurance company, has selected Syntellect's Apropos suite of contact center interaction management software to support customer inquiries in their new Health Service Division.

As a company committed to the "people" business, Great Eastern continues to meet its customers' needs with regard to financial planning, protection and savings. Syntellect's product will be an integral component in Great Eastern's initiative to improve service levels, customer satisfaction, dynamically manage contact center resources, and automate the customer interaction process for more than 2.6 million policies and 17,000 agents.

"Syntellect's product was chosen over the incumbent's product and other competitors due to its scalability, speed of deployment, integrated components, and customer references," says Raymond Low, Country Manager at ITApps, a Syntellect Partner and major consulting and integration firm in Malaysia which specializes in contact center and CRM technology.

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Interactive Intelligence, a vendor of CRM and business communications software, has reported record revenues of $27.0 million for the second quarter, a 40 percent increase from $19.3 million in the same period last year. Product revenues were $14.4 million, an increase of 51 percent from the same quarter last year.

Net income was $2.3 million, with diluted earnings per share of $0.12, for the 2007 second quarter, up from $1.0 million and $0.05, respectively, in the 2006 second quarter. Net income includes expense for employee stock options for the second quarter of $806,000 in 2007 and $668,000 in 2006.

Dr. Donald E. Brown, Interactive Intelligence CEO, said there were three orders totaling over $1.0 million, among several significant customer orders, and "we're nearing the release of another significant version of our software."

For the six months ended June 30, 2007, revenues were $51.2 million, a 38 percent increase from $37.2 million in the same period in 2006. Net income for the six months ended June 30, 2007 was $3.9 million, with diluted earnings per share of $0.20, up from $2.0 million and $0.11, respectively, in the same period last year. Net income includes expense for employee stock options of $1.5 million in 2007, and $1.2 million in 2006.

As previously disclosed, during the second quarter of 2007 the company acquired certain intangible and other assets of the professional services division of Alliance Systems Ltd. and paid $853,000.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First Coffee accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, possibly the greatest rock album any American's ever recorded:

Austin, Texas-based Gila Corporation, through its two business units, MSB and Gila Group, recently converted its in-house customer relationship management product to a Web-based application provided by salesforce.com.

"We looked at a number of products and salesforce.com proved to be the most robust and scalable," commented Bruce Cummings, Gila Corporation's Chief Marketing Officer.

  

Gila has experienced rapid expansion since it restructured its internal operations, with "a total focus on the customer," Cummings said: "As part of the process redesign, we needed a better way to manage our relationships with all clients, large and small."

Cumming maintains "It really is about showing our customers the love and what I mean by that is effectively managing data to best serve their needs as they define them, which requires flexibility for each client."
  
Gila Corporation sells outsourced revenue recovery products and services in the country. The company provides specialized collections services for governmental entities and financial institutions nationwide.

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Mena Telecom has signed a contract with Motorola to plan, deploy and manage a nationwide 802.16e-based mobile WiMAX and IP Multimedia Subsystem network in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Under the terms of the contract, Motorola will also take responsibility for the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, as well as the technical operations of the project and management of the entire WiMAX/IMS network.

The 802.16e WiMAX standard delivers "significant advantages" over the fixed 802.16d standard that is being used by some operators, including advanced antenna technology to improve capacity and range performance, Motorola officials say.

This agreement will enable Mena Telecom to use Motorola's abilities in mobile WiMAX and deliver wireless broadband connectivity as well as advanced voice and nomadic broadband data services to both business and residential customers across the Kingdom of Bahrain.

With Motorola's WiMAX product, Mena Telecom's infrastructure will be compatible with technology to be embedded in numerous future devices, including laptops.

The end-to-end network, operating in the 3.5GHz frequency band, will comprise WiMAX infrastructure, IMS core, Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), voice and data applications, and operational and business support systems.

The Kingdom of Bahrain will be one of the first countries in the world to deploy a nationwide WiMAX 802.16e-based network, Motorola officials say.

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Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, a hub for high-tech industries, has announced the deployment of the Enterprise Resource Planning products from Oracle Systems.

The ERP in question is a single information system integrating different processes across DSO's business functions. The development of the new ERP system "was implemented in six months and has been rolled out to serve all DSO users, providing them with efficient business functionality across accounting, payroll, human resources, purchasing and inventory departments," according to DSOA officials.

Abdulsalam Rahma Bastaki, Director of Information Technology - Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, said: the deployment of ERP products "will help our objective to serve our customers through a healthy operational process."

The ERP system in its second phase of implementation will allow customers to view their current status with DSOA as well as carry out online transactions. These services, part of DSOA's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) measures, will become operational shortly.

As a promoter of modern technology-based industries, DSO seeks to promote a knowledge base economy in Dubai and the UAE. In addition to its efforts to attract investors, DSO also strives to offer global standard services such as the Oracle ERP systems. The objective is to create an environment conducive to generating economic wealth based on technology and innovation.

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Tectura, a vendor of Microsoft products to mid-market companies, larger enterprises and their divisions, has announced that it has achieved the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics standard for its Tectura Process Manufacturing product.

The recently launched Certified for Microsoft Dynamics program aims to extend the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem by building a strong portfolio of Certified for Microsoft Dynamics software products. Since early 2007, Tectura has participated in a pilot of this program.

The new Certified for Microsoft Dynamics software product test verifies compatibility of the partner's software product with the Microsoft Dynamics platform upon which it runs and that is supported by processes and documentation. In addition, Certified for Microsoft Dynamics products require that at least 10 clients have deployed the same version level of the software product and are willing to recommend it.

Tectura Process Manufacturing has been validated in this program as a certified packaged software product, having both passed Microsoft's toughest compatibility tests in relation to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and having been recommended by clients based on its ability to support key business process manufacturing processes.

"Tectura is committed to continue the Certified for Microsoft Dynamics testing process for our global industry products, illustrating our deep integration with Microsoft's ERP products in support of our clients' business environments," said Tom Galambos, corporate vice president of Tectura Global and Industry Solutions.

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StayinFront, a vendor of enterprise-wide customer relationship management (CRM) applications, decision support tools, data services, and eBusiness systems, has announced that Software of Excellence has signed a contract to use StayinFront Analytics to manage sales and operational reporting as well as to provide key performance indicator (KPI) support.

Software of Excellence sells practice management products to dentists in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

The company selected StayinFront Analytics because of the product's "superior architecture as well as its robust data analysis and decision support," according to company officials.

"We will use the product at an enterprise level to enhance our business-critical sales and operational reporting," stated Ben Flewett, Head of Support for Software of Excellence.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is an iTunes playlist of obscure but good Rolling Stones songs -- just finished "100 Years Ago," the current track is "Crackin' Up," next up's "Child Of The Moon."

Theikos, a consulting firm focused on the SaaS marketplace, is now offering On-Demand Professional Services for organizations using salesforce.com's on-demand CRM applications and platform.

Theikos is announcing the availability of on-demand consulting services which include business process consulting, set-up and configuration of Salesforce applications, reporting, Apex development, and more. Service selection, purchase, and work order requests can be completed online.

"Theikos On-Demand Professional Services gives salesforce.com customers a quick and easy way to engage expert resources for their on-demand projects and ad-hoc requests," said Bobby Napiltonia, senior vice president, Worldwide Alliances, Salesforce.com.

With the salesforce.com community exceeding 32,000 customers, the market for on-demand applications has grown to the point where some clients need On-Demand Professional Services -- purchasing expert consulting services via the Web to execute on tasks and projects that need to be done for the client's Salesforce application.

This generally replaces the traditional consulting services contracting process with an online purchase and work order submission path. Introductory pricing is available through the end of August, and is posted at http://www.theikos.com/odps.

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Interactive marketing strategy and services firm MEA Digital has announced that John Hartman has been named Vice President of Strategy. In this role, Hartman will lead the agency's strategic planning and measurement and analytics disciplines.

Most recently, John was the Vice President of Professional Services at Kintera, a CRM provider to the non-profit sector. Prior to Kintera, John was a manager at Accenture, working in their change management practice with such clients as Merrill Lynch and State Farm Insurance.

MEA Digital is based in San Diego, and works with clients such as Oakley, Nickelodeon, Callaway and Mitsubishi.

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Happy birthday, Bugs Bunny, from all of us here at First Coffee headquarters.

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The acquisition and deployment of CRM and other open source software is now a strategic imperative for UK business, according to research released by Ingres Corporation, "The Managing 21st Century Business Information" survey.

The study questioned IT professionals from the UK's largest public sector and enterprise organizations on a host of open source and information management issues.

The report found that the versatility and adaptability of the open source model is allowing companies to eliminate historic vendor lock-in, reduce database management costs and rapidly develop critical business applications, including Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing and CRM products.

And open source is gaining in popularity. 77 percent of businesses were either planning to deploy, or had already deployed, open source software in their core business systems, shattering outdated preconceptions of the inappropriateness of such technology in a mission-critical enterprise environment.

The top three issues keeping IT Directors awake at night are "reducing cost'," "adding value to the business" and "keeping the IT lights on" -- while the drive to achieve real business benefit through rapid application delivery was a strong theme running through the findings.

The survey also found that two out of three IT professionals believe that security is no more or less of an issue for open source software as it is in the closed source world, seven out of ten respondents agreed that open source will deliver the cost savings that are now demanded from today's IT departments and 69 percent of respondents believe closed source software vendors cannot justify the high licence fees they typically charge.

Despite the relative immaturity of the open source database market, respondents believe developing and deploying applications is more straightforward on open source, than in the proprietary world

Commenting on the survey results, Brian Mort, Senior Vice President, Northern Europe, Ingres Corp., said open source "had to grow up and offer the highest levels of service, support, security and enterprise-grade reliance, on top of the well documented business model flexibility and collaborative nature of product development."

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NetSuite, a vendor of on-demand business management application suites including ERP, CRM and e-commerce functionality for small and medium-sized businesses, would like you to know that they're still picking off midsized Microsoft GP users.

Evidently companies that recently switched from Great Plains to NetSuite span a spectrum of industries including manufacturing, wholesale/distribution, and computer software, according to NetSuite officials.

Companies switched for "a variety of reasons," NetSuite officials say, including "ease of use, reduced cost due to NetSuite's software on-demand delivery model, and NetSuite's one-system, financial management approach which integrates ERP, CRM, and e-commerce."

The software applications used by most midsized companies do not allow business data to move easily across departments, since most mid-size companies manage their business on separate, unintegrated software packages-one for accounting, one for warehousing, one for sales force management and one for customer support.

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Open Text Corporation, a vendor of enterprise content management software and products, has announced the latest version of Livelink ECM - Contract Lifecycle Management, a product for contract creation, negotiation, contract fulfillment and renewals.

When building contracts, users can pull information from a clause library maintained within Livelink ECM and can also interact with line-of-business systems, such as CRM and ERP applications, in particular SAP solutions.

With ongoing legal and regulatory concerns, including eDiscovery challenges, corporate and auditing scandals, and new internal governance rules, organizations now place a greater focus on the effective management of contracts.

Livelink ECM - Contract Lifecycle Management, according to company officials, offers organizations a product to "automate and manage contract processes from creation of individual clauses to secure collaboration during the negotiation process; proactive alerts for contracts that require review and tracking of clauses, renewal dates and terms; and retention, archival and disposition of contracts to satisfy compliance, legal and business policy requirements."

The product also integrates with a variety of enterprises systems so that contract content can be made available in other environments.

The newest version of the product features a reusable template driven approach to enable companies to create contracts and construct complex agreements within pre-planned and pre-approved parameters. By automating repetitive tasks associated with contract creation, organizations minimize errors and streamline the approval processes.

This enables resource-constrained groups, such as Legal and Procurement, to focus on the creation of approved contract templates and best practices.

A second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is, well, it has to be U2. Read on:

Today we'd like to thank Infusion CRM's President Clate Mask for taking the time for an interview with First Coffee:

FC: You bump into a woman at a cocktail party who says "Oh, you're the president of a CRM company. We'd like to get rolling with that, we're a high-tech services and consulting vendor operating internationally, with about 200 employees, where do we start?"

CM: Get very, very clear about why you're looking for a CRM software product in the first place -- before you start shopping. The truth is, CRM products are designed for different purposes, but ironically, they're all called CRM software.

Some products work well for customer support, others are great for the sales department, while others are a better fit for the marketing folks or the accounting group. Likewise, some products are better for employees and others are better for managers. The worst thing you can do is go into the shopping process asking vendors to tell you why you need a CRM software program. You've got to come up with the "why" on your own, before you go looking for a product.

Ask questions like Who wants the software internally? What is driving them crazy right now? What are they currently using to fill the gap? What do they expect to be able to do once the software is implemented? Who all will access the system, for what purposes and from what location? Do you need integration with other systems? Do we need installed or Web-based? Do you need a static database or are you looking for serious automation?

The list can go on and on, but the point is for you to get very clear on what you need and why you need it. So, to start, designate a data gatherer and a decision maker who can enforce the decision once you purchase and implement the system.

Then, unleash the data gatherer. Finally, go out and find the product that fits your needs -- a simple Google search will turn up plenty of options for you.

FC: What is Infusion Software's product line?

CM: Infusion CRM is a Web-based software program available on demand. The application represents a new breed of CRM software that helps small businesses grow quickly and profitably by enabling them to centralize, organize, and automate their marketing, sales, and customer management. You'll hear us using these terms a lot -- centralize, organize and automate. That's because it's at the heart of what Infusion CRM does.

Our flagship CRM product has a heavy dose of marketing automation and additional tools to manage customer service and sales force automation. Infusion CRM replaces disparate, incompatible systems currently in place and leaves you with more time to strategically grow your business instead of managing fire after fire.

FC: So it's a Web-based model? Talk about why that resonates.

CM: Within the past few years, technology and the Internet have given way to greater ability for the small business to maximize revenue through the use of web-based CRM software. Traditionally, companies set up their CRM products buying shrink-wrapped software. But now with Web-based CRM software companies access their software through an Internet browser and pay subscription fees based on the computing power and capacity they need. Infusion resides in this space.

Most companies would find great value in SaaS as solving their pains, if given the chance. Technology is a tool, but in the small business world, technology too often becomes the underlying problem. It's unwieldy, time-consuming and distracting. Rather than focusing on core business objectives, many small businesses find they've become slaves to technology. Of course, this happens in large enterprises too, but they have large IT staffs. Small businesses don't.

Most small businesses turn to SaaS for one of two reasons: Either budgets are tight and they can't afford to purchase the software outright or they don't have the IT infrastructure in place to support it. Those are perfectly legitimate reasons. But even more important is that SaaS helps a small or mid-sized organization receive the efficiencies of scale common to a large enterprise.

Another misconception about SaaS is that it's not secure. The truth is SaaS is far more secure than your typical enterprise network. It's a trust issue. People trust those within their organization but are leery of outsourcing key information.

FC: How is Infusion CRM different from other CRM products on the market?

CM: People ask, "Why can't I get a list of all the people who've purchased product X and haven't purchased product Y, and who have only been with us for six months or less?" They'll ask their IT guy, and he will say, "That'll take me a day and a half. We have to pull out this information and mix it with this, and get these orders from the file drawer, etc." All this decentralization means that follow-up doesn't happen consistently and things slip through the cracks right and left. We seek to centralize all that.

To understand how our CRM is different, it's important for you to understand why we do what we do. From a 10,000 foot view, we aim to transform the way small businesses drive and manage their growth. We intend to become the leading provider of CRM software for small businesses.

Most CRM systems are passive data warehouses that require heavy user interaction to retrieve any meaningful value. Infusion CRM enables the customer to automate substantial amounts of workflow and business processes, such as automatic sub-listing and sequential follow up to a prospect or customer, automated collections, snail mail, fax, voice to prospects automatic recurring billing, automatic execution of upsell and cross sell campaigns.

FC: What are the two or three considerations you think companies should pay particular attention to when selecting a CRM vendor?

CM: Whether hosted or licensed, look for an Application Programming Interface. This allows the CRM product to link with other systems, eliminating the need to enter information multiple times. A billing system, an e-commerce engine, order management, e-mail marketing, affiliate management and workflow automation are all nice, and when added to the traditional CRM system -- contact management, SFA, marketing automation, help desk -- you have a comprehensive product.

Look for a system that allows the company to automate all workflow and business processes, from transactions to marketing lead generation campaigns. And ask "Is it designed with me in mind, or is it for larger, mid to enterprise size?" Because many products say they are SMB-friendly when in fact they are not.

FC: Who are your users and what's your market focus?

CM: Our software is for marketers, entrepreneurs and small businesses tired of piecing together a bunch of incompatible software programs.

Millions of businesses need the software, but we are not yet prepared to deliver the software to the masses, nor can we attack the fragmented small business opportunity in one fell swoop. We have to take baby steps toward our strategic intent, gradually expanding the target market until we are prepared to service the general mass of small businesses that need our software. In general, we target those types of businesses that have from two to 100 employees, but most of our customers have between 2 and 25 employees. Not a newbie entrepreneur with an idea and a day job, generally a business which has been running for at least a few years with some level of success.

FC: What features do your customers say they appreciate the most?

CM: At the top of the list would be the ability to automate marketing campaigns. One guy said he liked the database for both tracking leads sending follow-up messages and tracking and recording all of the information that his company gets from leads. Generally they appreciate the database capabilities and automated tasks.

FC: What's the best music to listen to at work?

CM: U2, without a doubt.

FC: Thank you for your time.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Creedence Clearwater Revival's last great album, Cosmo's Factory -- and what a great one it was:

The Long Reach Corporation has announced the next generation of its flagship product, info@hand, a Customer Relationship and Business Management (CRBM) System for small and medium-sized businesses.

The application blends Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features with extended business management capabilities for Order Management, Project & Resource tracking, Customer Service, and Human Resources, company officials claim.

Info@hand differs from conventional CRM products in that it offers key features that enable small and medium businesses to "capitalize on their ability to be nimble -- and outmaneuver larger companies," company officials say, adding that info@hand does this by "eliminating common small-business bottlenecks in finance and administrative areas."

It allows users to create quotes or invoices quickly for clients, and then synchronize them later into a familiar accounting system for tracking by administrative staff.

The product also offers comprehensive project management capabilities such as timesheets, project costing and invoicing; fully integrated customer service management with an automatic assignment mode that pairs cases with the most qualified technicians; and strong international support.

Info@hand is sold for a one-time customer fee of $250 per user, which includes specific software for mobile access (info@hand Mobile) and the Joomla-based info@hand Customer Portal (which allows clients to interact with a controlled subset of their account data within the CRM). Many other CRM products charge additional fees per customer linked via the portal.

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Callidus Software and Salesforce.com have announced the availability of the Callidus TrueComp Suite for AppExchange.

The Callidus TrueComp Suite for AppExchange is designed to "help companies of all sizes to align their sales objectives with business strategy," company officials say. Integrated into salesforce.com's on-demand platform, the TrueComp Suite for AppExchange is available for deployment on the AppExchange.

"The AppExchange is becoming an increasingly important platform for on-demand application integration," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal of the Beagle Research Group, LLC a CRM market research firm and consultancy.

The Callidus SPM product uses hard business data instead of sales forecasts. The TrueComp Suite for AppExchange puts aspects of the SPM process -- real-time sales performance management, analytics, quota and territory planning, incentive management and execution -- together in a single product.

The product's claimed benefits include planning of sales and incentive strategies, execution of sales incentive plans to ensure sales incentives are in line with latest corporate objectives, that they are spent accurately and wisely, and that less time is spent on administration and more on driving business performance.

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Sage Software has announced that Coverall Cleaning Concepts, a commercial cleaning franchise company, has selected the Sage SalesLogix CRM product to manage its sales processes.

SyncSite, a Sage CRM Solutions Business partner, was selected by Coverall to implement Sage SalesLogix at its 23 regional support centers, including wireless laptop synchronization support for 110 field sales representatives. Coverall has 200 Sage SalesLogix users in all.

"We compared different CRM packages and found that Sage SalesLogix delivered the best fit for our industry and sales model," said Ivan Sosa, IT Director for Coverall Cleaning Concepts. The company next plans to have SyncSite integrate Sage SalesLogix with its in-house billing and customer service systems.

"Investments in technology have become a significant differentiator for us, which is not the norm for franchisors in the commercial office cleaning industry," explained Sosa.

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Cloud9 Analytics, a vendor of on-demand analytic applications for Salesforce.com customers, has announced that it closed a $5 million round of Series A funding. InterWest Partners led the round, with participation from Leapfrog Ventures.

The financing will enable the company to bring to market a family of on-demand applications in the burgeoning Sales Performance Management (SPM) category, company officials say.

The idea behind Cloud9 is for sales teams to learn from the past and predict the future to accelerate sales cycles, uncover new revenue opportunities, promote team selling, and improve revenue predictability -- "all without IT involvement," company officials say.

The company also announced that industry heavyweight Bruce Cleveland, a partner at InterWest Partners, has joined its board of directors. Directly prior to joining InterWest Partners, Cleveland held senior executive positions at CRM leader Siebel Systems.

At InterWest, Cleveland concentrates on investments in the software and services sector with a focus on analytic applications and software as a service (SaaS). "This company will do for analytics what Salesforce has done for CRM" Cleveland said.

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Dow Jones & Company has announced today a new platform capability that offers a range of flexible integration options for Factiva SalesWorks, their collection of company, industry and executive news and information designed specifically to help salespeople increase productivity.

The integration options are currently available in beta to Factiva SalesWorks customers. Organizations can use the platform to configure business information to deploy to a portal, intranet or CRM, or as a widget, to meet their specific business requirements.

The simplified integration capability uses Web 2.0 technologies, which allow organizations to focus less on complex Web services development and more on implementing sales intelligence.

Additionally, developers will be able to use JavaScript Object Notation and a Representational State Transfer-like model, a simple, lightweight data format better suited to Web development. By supporting JavaScript more natively, company officials believe, integration of rich business information and sales intelligence is "more accessible via client-side browser development as opposed to complex server-side development."

According to industry analyst firm, IDC, most business professionals spend upwards of 25 percent of their work week looking for internal and external information.

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As part of a new pricing strategy, Zultys Technologies has announced a new U.S. price list and quotation tool covering its entire family of award-winning VoIP solutions.

Effective August 1, a new, simplified 2007 U.S. price list will combine all MX systems, phones and peripherals into one four-page document. Along with the new Z-Figurator quotation tool, these new sales tools will offer the promotional bundles and quantity discounts designed to give channel partners "flexibility and agility," according to Zultys officials. All necessary software enabling licenses are now automatically included with all interface cards and hard drives.

With the new Zultys sales tools, resellers have the ability to configure systems by identifying the number of users, CO circuits, and optional applications. This tool includes a discount and margin manager, as well as a capacity calculator that details the total port and user licenses enabled. This eliminates the possibility of under- or over-selling a Zultys product.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Beach Boys’ Surf’s Up:

Intelliworks, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) products for higher education, has announces that New England College, an independent liberal arts college located in Henniker, New Hampshire, has selected Orion to manage and streamline the marketing and communications functions of its undergraduate admissions department.

"We see the Orion product as a vehicle to accomplish more with less," said Diane Raymond, director of admission for New England College.

New England College's undergraduate admissions office is responsible for managing relationships with a variety of constituents including prospective students both in the United States and around the world, guidance counselors, independent college admissions consultants, and officials at a number of two-year schools.

Orion's centralized contact database enables constituent interactions and follow-up for all members of the department, as well as a single historical record of all communication.

Dev Ganesan, chairman and co-founder of Intelliworks, said Intelliworks provides "a CRM product for NEC's undergraduate admissions team that is easy to use and requires no time investment from the college's information technology team."

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Autonomy Corporation, a vendor of CRM and other infrastructure software, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Zantaz, a vendor of content archiving and electronic discovery products.

Michael Lynch, group CEO of Autonomy, said: with the acquisition "we'll expand the addressable market, distribution and reach for Autonomy's Aungate IDOL-based products further into markets driven by recent regulatory changes."

On 3 July 2007, Autonomy and Zantaz announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement for Autonomy to acquire Zantaz for a purchase price of approximately $375 million in cash after certain deductions.

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According to a recent report issued by Springboard Research, "The SaaS Market in Asia Pacific, 2006 to 2009: Expanding the Reach & Appeal of Software," the regional market is still dominated by five vendors -- Salesforce.com, WebEx, RightNow Technologies, Oracle and NetSuite.

The report found awareness and adoption of SaaS across the region (excepting Japan), with the market increasing 92.5 percent in 2006 to a the market size at $154 million. The SaaS market in Asia will reach $1.16 billion by 2010, the report found, with a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent, to comprise 15 percent of the enterprise software application market.

"Although customer relationship management accounts for the largest chunk of the market in Asia, representing 45 percent of revenue in 2006, organizations are aware of and use many different types of SaaS applications," the report's author found.

After small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for vendors, now large enterprises are also looking at SaaS for non-critical applications, said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, Research Manager for Springboard Research.

"SaaS is definitely going beyond CRM, which is the area it has been associated with in the past," said Pandey. "With all segments of SaaS growing, we are seeing applications across the board being adopted by enterprises in the region and more importantly, we are seeing enterprises being very happy with the SaaS applications they are using. This bodes well for the market, not only the small to medium businesses that have been the mainstay for SaaS vendors, but also those large enterprises looking at SaaS for non-critical application."

…

Maximizer Software has announced that the South Carolina Department of Commerce has used Maximizer CRM to "blow out its annual job creation targets by more than 40 percent," in less than 6 months using the system, according to Maximizer officials.

Representatives of the agency believe the new, customized system gives the state agency a major competitive advantage over neighboring regions.

After six complete months using Maximizer CRM software, SCDOC officials say the department benefits from complete investment project management in a single system, 100 percent integration of Microsoft Outlook e-mail, 100 percent project manager adoption of the new system and standardized process for attracting and closing new investment to the region -- "very rare in state governments," officials note.

SCDOC's Director of Administration Mandy Kibler said "we feel we've increased our competitiveness by focusing on delivering customer experience to the companies investing in our region. As we pass through our first six months of Maximizer use, the biggest gain is providing confident reporting with hard numbers."

…

EStara, a vendor of conversion products for enhancing online sales and support initiatives, has announced that IdeaForest, which owns and operates Joann.com, has selected eStara Click to Call to round out its online customer service offerings.

Already a customer of eStara's parent company, ATG IdeaForest's selection of eStara "demonstrates the synergies and customer centricity between the companies' products," eStara officials say.

Joann.com will use eStara's rules-based click to call capability to engage consumers interested in high-value purchases. This allows customers to access an expert over the phone to handle complex sales without burdening IdeaForest's contact center with calls about lower ticket items.

Juan Gonzalez, IT director, IdeaForest, said the company wanted to "find ways to capture online browsers during the buying process." eStara's Click to Call offers online retailers the ability to engage browsers either when they are likely to abandon a Web site or during key points in the sales cycle where up-sell or cross-sell opportunities exist.

EStara is used by Continental Airlines, DaimlerChrysler, Dell Financial Services and Superpages.com, among other companies.

…

Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, continues to hold the No. 1 position in the data warehousing server space, based on the Gartner Server Evaluation Model (SEM) report just released.

The Teradata Warehouse platform was recently expanded and is used for analytical intelligence and customer relationship management (CRM).

The evaluation model assesses data warehouse database management system server performance across multiple dimensions, and Gartner's latest SEM is used to develop acquisition strategies for data warehouse DBMS servers. The evaluation document, "Server Evaluation Model Summary: Data Warehouse DBMS Servers, 1H07," examines database servers from all major vendors.

As Teradata approaches its independence from NCR, it believes the No. 1 ranking will serve it well in computing hardware as well as software and enterprise-class business intelligence consulting and support.

"In our business speed is a critical competitive advantage, and provides powerful economic benefits, from real-time decision support to personalized customer interaction, to serving our customers when and where they have a need," said Sam Peterson, senior vice president, technology, for Overstock.com.

"When Teradata becomes an independent company later this quarter it will be the only business on the planet with a core focus on enterprise data warehousing from platform, to applications, to consulting and support," said Randy Lea, vice president, product and services marketing for Teradata.

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Hank Mobley’s underrated Soul Station album:

Well, all I have to say is that while J.K. Rowling did a pretty good job at the end of Deathly Hallows — don’t worry, no spoilers here — much of the earlier part of the book was slow reading. And while she claims this is the last one, she certainly left herself ample dangling plotlines for a sequel.

But overall well done, thanks for the terrific novels, and First Coffee’s amazed to pause to consider, again, the entire Harry Potter phenomenon, what a wonderful surprise Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was and how admirable a job Rowling did with the series. A tip of the coffee pot is in order.

…

The Turkish elections are over, and here’s wondering if anybody else sees it as an ominous sign that the AK Party got 47 percent of the vote?

The party, more Islamist in public image than actual practice, actually returns to Parliament with ten fewer seats than they had before. Turkey’s not turning into Iran any time soon, if you want to get worried about "creeping Islamization" in Turkey you can, but if you want to think secularism’s pretty well-established here you can do that too.

One reason why a pro-Islamic party like AK Party keeps winning is the other secularist parties are so spectacularly incompetent and glaringly corrupt, so much more interested on petty bickering and penny-ante spoils than actually governing well, is that there’s really no competition. The AKP takes care of the pothole issues and is as competent and honest as you’d reasonably expect a government in this part of the world to be.

If the secularist politicians here would stop acting so childish and selfish and cooperate they could easily put AKP out of business, but they don’t, they just figure the army’ll step in and hand them power if AKP goes too far with the Islamist routine. If you want to blame someone for the AKP winning here in Turkey blame the secular politicians who prefer selfishness and spite to the greater good of Turkey’s stable secular future.

…

InvisibleCRM, a vendor of technology provider of tools engineered to "bridge the gap between enterprise and personal productivity applications," according to company officials, has announced that Nucleus Research has selected InvisibleCRM customer deCarta as a 2007 Technology ROI Award winner.

DeCarta achieved a 5,653 percent return on investment — not a bad number to bandy about at cocktail parties: "Well, Smithers, we’re pleased with the return, I believe the bean counters peg it at 5,653 percent. How’s your system shaping up" — Nucleus Research determined, by implementing InvisibleCRM’s SalesDesktop, a MS Outlook integration for Salesforce, which paid for itself in first 0.02 years.

DeCarta implemented InvisibleCRM in response to the challenge they experienced getting users to adopt their CRM system instead of staying with their desktop systems. By "invisibly" synchronizing the MS Outlook and desktop with the Web-based CRM, InvisibleCRM effectively bridged that gap.

As a result, deCarta increased user productivity and adoption, improved data quality and raised the visibility of their sales operations, company officials say.

"It was important that the CRM we chose was tightly integrated with MS Outlook, a workplace our sales reps spend a great deal of time using to organize their productivity efforts," said Christopher Yates, senior business development director, deCarta. "By driving more Salesforce usage, SalesDesktop helped our sales people dramatically increase their efficiency, and also improve data quality and visibility in the Salesforce CRM."

DeCarta is a geospatial software platform powering Location-Based Services applications such as those deployed at Google Maps, Ask.com, Verizon and Sprint.

InvisibleCRM is a technology provider of tools engineered to increase user adoption and ROI of enterprise applications. It was launched in 2005, and has designed and delivered products for salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Webex, EMC Documentum and Amdocs.

…

Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and provider of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, recently won the East Region U.S. Partner Award for Teamwork at the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference held in Denver.

The Teamwork award reflects Customer Effective’s "continued commitment to partnering with Microsoft and other members of the partner community" to provide "business products centered on deployment of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and complementary application technologies," according to company officials.

This teamwork approach was recently demonstrated through the "Integrated Innovation" series of seminars conducted with Microsoft partners OmniVue and ThoughtBridge. During these product seminars, role-based customer service, marketing and sales management scenarios were demonstrated through an integration of Microsoft technologies including SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Outlook, Excel and Performance Point Server.

Microsoft East Region Dynamics Director Jamie Tozzi said partners like Customer Effective "play a critical role in delivering customer success with Microsoft CRM."

…

Aprimo, a vendor of Enterprise Marketing Management products, has announced planned integrations with Salesforce CRM applications for the Aprimo Enterprise EMM suite, and Aprimo Professional, an on-demand version tailored to departmental and mid-market Marketing Resource Management needs.

Aprimo Enterprise’s integration with Salesforce will provide a connection between the campaign planning and execution capabilities of Aprimo to the sales prospecting and account management functionality within Salesforce SFA. This integration will allow Salesforce customers to develop and execute communication plans that generate leads to Salesforce without marketing effort.

The Aprimo Salesforce Adaptor will synchronize campaign, lead, contact, account, and opportunity data across systems.

…

Group 1 Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes, has introduced what company officials call the new Customer Communication Management (CCM) Editions. The CCM Editions are unique products which allow for specific enterprise and industry-specific requirements in customer communications. This powerful and flexible set of software products helps empower enterprises to productively and efficiently optimize and simplify intelligent communications across all customer touch points.

The CCM editions are available in two different specifications — Business Value Editions and Vertical Editions. The Business Value Editions address the business requirements in enterprises, and has a few different editions.

Among other editions, The Production Edition is to create "high-volume output for print/digital communications and integration of intelligent customer information," the On-Demand Edition "helps you produce real-time communications for in-person interactions" and the Customer Service Edition "is a complete product for customer service reps, agents, and brokers to view documents and outbound communications sent to a customer, plus manage accounts and payments."

The Vertical Editions are to "address business problems in vertical markets, such as financial services, telecommunications, insurance, utilities, government or any organization interested in establishing an effective CCM strategy."

…

By the way a friend of mine, a certain lawyer in New Hampshire, must be feeling rather smug. He called the location of the seventh horcrux correctly soon after finishing The Half-Blood Prince. Look at the top line of page 551 of the Deathly Hallows, to see his correct prediction for where it would be.

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Lou Reed’s Live In Italy:

 

Infusion Software, a CRM vendor focusing on sales and marketing automation software for small businesses, has announced that Pat Sullivan, founder and former CEO of ACT! CRM software and SalesLogix has joined the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately.

 

“Infusion Software’s CRM program is built specifically for small businesses — which is really the last great opportunity in the CRM software market,” said Sullivan.

 

Sullivan is considered a pioneer and visionary in the sales automation industry and is attributed with creating the contact management software category. Sullivan most recently took public and sold ACT! and SalesLogix to Sage Software.

 

He was named one of the 80 Most Influential People in Sales and Marketing History by Sales and Marketing Management magazine, twice awarded the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and recognized as one of the 10 most influential people in the CRM industry by Sales and Marketing Management.

 

“Of all the software companies in the market, Sullivan chooses Infusion to be aligned with,” an Infusion official said. “Sure validates their Web-based CRM application as an emerging player in the small business software space.”

…

 

What Verticals onDemand officials are calling “the pharmaceutical industry’s first Software as a Service CRM application for managed markets” has been selected by Publicis Managed Markets, part of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group.

 

This marks Verticals onDemand’s first sale of VBioPharma and the first time an industry-specific CRM product has been applied to such a specialized area of pharmaceuticals as managed markets, vendor officials maintain. PMM, a comprehensive services provider for managed markets, goes live with Verticals onDemand’s VBioPharma Managed Markets Edition at the end of July.

 

New VBioPharma replaces home-grown systems and generic call reporting software with a complete CRM product integrated with primary and specialty care sales forces and marketing teams. VBioPharma Managed Markets Edition includes detailed contact, account, and activity management modules as well as business planning functionality.

 

Larry Green, President of Publicis Managed Markets Account Teams, said with VBioPharma’s” business planning functionality and automated data transfer, we expect a significant increase in our National and Regional Account Directors’ productivity.”

 

SaaS makes the development of highly specialized products, for equally specialized areas like managed markets, affordable. Because users can access VBioPharma through any Web browser, users benefit from the functionality of advanced software without some common technical challenges since all updates are handled remotely without the intervention of IT.

…

 

ETelecare Global Solutions, a business process outsourcing vendor, has announced the construction of a new service delivery center, to be named eTelecare Center, in Makati City, located in the SM Cyberzone on Buendia Avenue.

 

With a total floor area of 18,000 square meters, the center will be one of the largest facilities in the Philippines dedicated solely to business process outsourcing.

 

ETelecare expects to employ at least 3,000 employees at the new facility, along with another 3,000 new employees at its previously announced Annex@Shaw facility in the Mandaluyong City center, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2007.

 

Once the facilities are operational, the company’s headcount in the Philippines will be 13,000. The company also has over 2,600 employees in the United States, spread among seven call centers in Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota.

 

ETelecare won the 2005 Employer of the Year award from the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines. It provides services including technical support, customer service, sales and customer retention from both onshore and offshore locations.

…

 

Cambridge Technology Enterprises, a vendor of SOA based products and Enterprise Transformation applications, has entered into a definitive agreement with of Reilly & Associates, a privately-held company based in Michigan, to consummate the acquisition.

 

Reilly & Associates would give CTE the expertise in Oracle Financials, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), Oracle Process Manufacturing (OPM) and Oracle Accelerators, which benefits CTE’s customers, it also opens up avenues of providing value added SOA migration & global delivery services to the Reilly’s existing customer base. This agreement is subject to the approval by the shareholders of the company in the ensuing AGM in September 2007.

 

Reilly Associates is an established Subject Matter Expert for Oracle Process Manufacturing implementations for Big 4, Medium and smaller consulting firms with experience working with mid-sized companies and has a client base of over 60.

 

This acquisition would potentially bring in additional revenue in the ERP segment to CTE for the current financial year FY 2008, Cambridge officials say, and augment CTE’s SOA migration services portfolio and bring the combined entity closer to CTE’s vision of being a “go-to IT partner for mid-sized enterprises.”

…

 

Oracle has announced that the Principal Financial Group, a vendor of retirement savings, investment, banking and insurance products, is using Oracle Identity Management to integrate its auditing functions to more effectively manage operational risks.

 

Faced with a growing list of compliance requirements that required significant time and resources, The Principal needed a scalable security offering capable of managing and auditing account creations, updates and assigned access rights across its enterprise. The Principal can generate reports regarding who has access to CRM or financial applications for the purposes of attestation.

 

As part of an 18-month development and implementation process, The Principal incorporated Oracle Identity Manager into its comprehensive security platform that supports all account provisioning processes. Today, the overall product provides end users and application owners with workflows for managing approval and provisioning processes across more than 100 systems and applications.

 

“Given the increasing complexity of regulatory requirements we face as a financial services provider, we needed to implement a system that could help automate our employee provisioning and deprovisioning process,” said Kevin Kelley, assistant director, IT, the Principal Financial Group.

…

 

Canadian tourism gets the CRM treatment: “We are asking e-marketing experts to consider lessons from the past, to challenge the present, to debate the future, and to share their vision of what we can achieve together with the best and brightest in tourism marketing and online travel,” says Jens Thraenhart, Chair of Canada-e-Connect and Executive Director of Marketing Strategy and CRM at the CTC.

 

The Canadian Tourism Commission has announced “Canada-e-Connect,” the first ever Canadian e-Tourism Strategy Conference. Canada-e-Connect will bring together more than 300 travel and tourism industry leaders to “determine the impact that the internet and other emerging technologies are making on Canada’s ability to compete globally as a premiere, four-season tourism destination.”

 

The main elements of the travel distribution life cycle — Consumer Acquisition, Consumer Experience, and Customer Intelligence — will be addressed in order to tackle the bigger question: How to effectively market Canadian travel experiences to the world.

 

Hosted in Vancouver from November 7–9, the event will feature some of the best speakers in the industry, including Anthony D. Williams, co-author of the bestselling book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Eels' “Daisies of the Galaxy:”

Talisma Corporation, a vendor of what the company likes to call "Customer Interaction Management" products, has announced "record revenue in the first two quarters of 2007," while recording "greater than 25 percent global bookings growth."

Q2 saw Talisma release CIM 8.0, the latest version of their customer service, sales, and support suite.  The product incorporates "numerous enhancements," company officials said upon release, including "expanded proactive capabilities in Talisma Chat and in two newly released products, Talisma Campaign and Talisma VoIP."

Also Talisma won the Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine 2006 Product of the Year, CRM Magazine Service Leader Award and was an American Business Award (Stevie) finalist. The vendor also opened offices in Germany and Hong Kong. Dan Vetras, President & CEO of Talisma, pronounced himself "satisfied with our results."

Redstone Federal Credit Union has announced it has selected Open Solutions's The Complete Credit Union Solution, a relational core data processing platform for credit unions, to address its enterprise-wide data processing needs.

In addition to The Complete Credit Union Solution data processing platform, Redstone Federal Credit Union is implementing other Open Solutions products, including cView for CRM and business intelligence, a safe deposit box module, channel management center, interaction management center, speech telephony services, premium overdraft protection, positive pay and collections applications.

Based in Huntsville, Alabama, Redstone has assets of more than $2 billion, 18 branches and serves more than 280,000 members. "We are a large credit union in a relatively small market," said Stephen White, vice president of technology for Redstone Federal Credit Union. "I've been in the industry for more than 37 years and have been through a number of core conversions."

The Complete Credit Union Solution is built on an Oracle relational database designed to be an open architecture application, helping credit unions streamline both front and back office processes and create a centralized view of members, employees and business partners.

…

Clear Choice Financial has announced it has acquired BrokerLogix, which sells products designed for use with CRM. Currently used by mortgage brokers and bankers, BrokerLogix provides a paperless loan origination and processing platform using Web 2.0 technologies, allowing users to reduce closing times and costs.

"BrokerLogix creates the technology foundation for the new Clear Choice", said Chad Mooney, Clear Choice's Chairman and CEO. "By having this tool in our portfolio, we can focus on growing our business."

The BrokerLogix suite of products is billed as being able to deliver greater compliance, more granular control and increased cost savings to Clear Choice and its customers by combining all of the IT, imaging and telecommunications systems on a single platform taking advantage of the latest technologies, including e-faxing, VoIP and CRM components.

BrokerLogix is delivered entirely over the Web as a native .NET application.

…

John Deere, a provider of products and services for lawn and turf care, landscaping and irrigation, has announced it has named Dallas-based Targetbase as the direct marketing agency of record for its Worldwide Commercial & Consumer Equipment Division.

Targetbase will service the John Deere account through their Greensboro, North Carolina office and will lead the venerable farm equipment manufacturer's CRM efforts as well.

John Deere officials said the firm "illustrated a strategic fit with John Deere," and "demonstrated strong abilities in several key areas such as account service, analytics, and production."

"We are confident that Targetbase and John Deere will form a strong team," said David Niederkorn, manager of marketing communications for John Deere C&CE. "They have all of the competencies that we looked for in a direct marketing agency. However, it's the way they brought these skills together into a highly collaborative and integrated CRM approach that made Targetbase a good choice for John Deere."

Targetbase is part of the Omnicom Group.

…

Convergent billing specialist Cerillion Technologies has implemented a customer relations management and billing product for Mauritano-Tunisienne de Telecommunication (Mattel), a GSM network operator in Mauritania.

Not the, you know, toy manufacturer.

Based on the CRM Plus, Revenue Manager, Mediator, Output Streamer and Information Manager products in the Cerillion suite, the new system provides a complete end-to-end product for Mattel’s business support systems needs.

Cerillion also implemented its Interconnect Manager system to support billing, settlement and least cost routing for all Mattel’s interconnect agreements.

Mattel, owned by Tunisie Telecom, is the second largest mobile operator by subscribers in Mauritania, behind Maroc Telecom-owned Mauritel Mobiles and ahead of Hasbro.

…

SugarCRM, a vendor of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, has announced the first annual Best of SugarCRM Award program, designed to recognize best-in-class SugarCRM implementations.

SugarCRM is now accepting nominations for the award through Monday, August 6, 2007. Finalists will be publicly announced on Wednesday, August 8, 2007 at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco. The awards ceremony dinner will be held in conjunction with the CRM Acceleration Summit in New York City on Monday, August 20, 2007.

SugarCRM customers and users can submit candidates for the 2007 Best of SugarCRM Awards at http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/crm-acceleration/NY/awards.html. Any deployment type and Sugar edition is eligible for the awards.

The categories are Sales Excellence, for companies seeing significant improvements in sales processes and sales performance; Marketing Performance, for recognizing companies seeing significant improvements in lead conversion, campaign effectiveness, lead nurturing and target acquisition and Customer Support and Satisfaction, for companies realizing significant improvement in call-time reduction, customer satisfaction, and servicing of cases.

There's also Most Creative CRM Implementation, recognizing an implementation instance that challenges the normal scope of a CRM implementation and broadens the impact that a CRM system can have on a business. User Adoption is for companies achieving a smooth implementation with high end-user adoption, SugarCRM Advocate for the individual who has been the most outspoken proponent of SugarCRM and its importance in growing and sustaining a business and SugarCRM Administrator.

Finalists in each category will receive two passes to the CRM Acceleration Summit in New York City on August 20, and passes to the Best of SugarCRM Awards banquet hosted that evening. The category winners will be announced at the banquet.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Rod Stewart's stone cold classic album, Every Picture Tells A Story. Just never gets old.

Leicester, U.K.-based WorkSmart.net has released ready-to-use products templates for its subscription-based hosted digital workplace. The business functions include project and customer management, HR management, marketing management and support services.

The service also features what company officials call "substantially enhanced" WorkSmart Web Databases, providing an way to design, build and deploy further custom products for their business processes and information sharing.

WorkSmart.net was designed to minimize costs and deployment issues with a functional, ready-to-use digital workplace aimed at distributed teams.

With this release, WorkSmart.net provides a tool delivering "unlimited sites with user defined structures, complex user access permissions, and multiple Web databases," company officials say. Each database and its multiple views can be populated and modified on the fly through the front end using a spreadsheet-like interface.

The data can be imported and exported from and to standard formats. The expense and effort of installing desktop-based boxed applications is eliminated, together with the whirlwind of e-mails which accompanies the chaotic upload and download of multiple versions of spreadsheets, databases and other documents.

Jacques Fade, Head of Communications at Designlinks International, the developers of WorkSmart.net, says the product's SAAS model "provides the benefits of an integrated digital workplace in a zero up-front investment context for as little as $7 per user per month." A 21 day free trial of the service is available at www.worksmart.net.

…

Pegasystems Inc., a Business Process Management vendor, has announced the latest version of its SmartBPM Suite for organizations to improve customer service.

This release marks "a new standard" for speeding BPM initiatives across lines of business, company officials say, and comes on the heels of a survey released last month, cited by Pegasystems officials, showing "productivity gains of five times or more for organizations using SmartBPM compared to traditional Java development approaches."

This latest version, the Pegasystems' SmartBPM Suite version 5.3, includes more than 40 changes. New localization capabilities and encryption-based security are geared towards multi-national organizations, while "rule-driven research, fine-grained versioning, automated testing and rapid deployment enhancements" are being pitched for customers to capitalize on opportunities in real-time.

The new version includes Fast Localization with a new wizard-based accelerator, to let businesses localize their SmartBPM application for different language locales -- all without coding or language resource kits. There's also a Unit Test Manager, permitting "easier and more frequent regression testing of SmartBPM applications." It lets business architects and solution designers automatically collect and manage test case data to confirm the ongoing integrity of their application, for instance.

Other notable new features include a new library of process flow notation stencils, including BPMN; support of the new Predictive Execution Optimizer for advanced predictive analytics; support of the IDS Scheer ARIS modeling environment; and support of extensions and plug-ins available on Pega Exchange.

…

SalesLogistix, an implementer of Salesforce.com CRM applications, has announced the availability of its ChangeControl application on salesforce.com's AppExchange. Built on the Salesforce Platform, the ChangeControl application lets users submit and track system change requests and helps system administrators in multiple locations coordinate their effort through workflows and approval cycles.

ChangeControl requires no external code or hardware. It can be installed in minutes, and stores all its data within the customer's Salesforce application.

"We're happy to see innovators large and small create plug-ins and applications on the Salesforce Platform and make them available on the AppExchange," said George Hu, Chief Marketing Officer, salesforce.com.

…

Consona CRM, a vendor of customer management products, has announced that Charleston-based South Carolina Federal Credit Union, one of the largest credit unions in the United States, has selected Onyx CRM to be its go-forward "member relationship management" product across 23 branches.

As a community-chartered credit union with more than $1 billion in assets, South Carolina Federal supports more than 148,000 members, who own and belong to the nonprofit financial cooperative. According to Bonnie Ciuffo, CIO for South Carolina Federal, "the Onyx team 'had us at hello.'"

"The financial services industry has always been a key competency for Onyx CRM, with nearly 25 percent of our user base falling within this industry," said Tim Hines, vice president of product management for Consona CRM.

South Carolina Federal plans to implement the sales, service and marketing functionality within Onyx CRM v6.0. As part of the implementation, South Carolina Federal will build integrations between Onyx CRM, and several of the organization's existing business systems, including the company's Nortel telephony system.

South Carolina Federal's use of Onyx will center around a comprehensive member profile, which will capture, record and synthesize critical member data, including financial accounts, personal relationships, service cases, and sale opportunities.

…

RIM has announced the BlackBerry 8820 smartphone. Company officials say the BlackBerry wireless platform gives customers the capability to deploy a variety of applications, including CRM, sales force automation, field services, business intelligence and supply chain management.

Featuring RIM's thinnest smartphone design with a full and highly tactile QWERTY keyboard, large and bright display (320 x 240), user-friendly trackball navigation system and good voice and data functionality, the BlackBerry 8820 also includes built-in GPS, RIM's latest media player enhancements, and a microSD / microSDHC (microSD High Capacity) expandable memory slot that can support current and future generations of microSD memory cards up to 32GB.

The BlackBerry 8820 can operate with BlackBerry Internet Service, giving users the ability to manage up to 10 supported personal and corporate e-mail accounts, as well as BlackBerry Enterprise Server, enabling advanced security and IT administration features within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise.

…

Xactly Corporation has announced that WageWorks, a vendor of spending accounts for health and dependent care and commuting, has implemented Xactly Incent to automate sales compensation management for its direct sales force. Replacing a manual system reliant on spreadsheets, Xactly Incent lets WageWorks manage its compensation plans and drive more effective and profitable sales behaviors.

"Xactly Incent gives us the sales data visibility, payout accuracy and compensation plan modeling capabilities we lacked in the past, and has enabled us to establish a fast, repeatable and scalable compensation management process," said Morgan Norman, WageWorks vice president of sales. "We selected Xactly for its deep domain expertise, flexible on-demand model and integration with salesforce.com's CRM application."

The company recently expanded from 250 to over 750 employees serving more than 1,500 customers. With Xactly Incent, WageWorks' sales representatives and managers now see at a glance where they stand versus plan at any point, how payouts are calculated, and where best to focus their sales efforts for maximum return.

WageWorks has integrated its Xactly Incent and existing salesforce.com CRM implementations for complete visibility into sales-related information.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Marshall Tucker Band’s eponymous debut album:

 

Mail2World, a vendor of hosted e-mail and collaboration products, has announced the launch of 28 new contacts management features in the company’s enterprise-class hosting platform.

 

The updated, on-demand contacts application joins Mail2World’s lineup of hosted products, including e-mail, calendar, file cabinet, notes, tasks, RSS reader, favorites, SMS and more. Company officials say the new feature release “completes Mail2World’s design objectives for contacts and tightens integration of contacts with the company’s e-mail, calendar, notes and tasks applications.”

 

With integration of new contacts features with other applications within its e-mail service, Mail2World has created a system which, company officials say, lets users organize and access their company and personal contacts online and wirelessly, share them with colleagues or publish them for global sharing -- all from a single place.

 

To help keep contacts current, users can request contact information updates directly from their contacts via e-mail, and the new information is automatically inserted into the users’ contacts list for future reference.

 

Mail2World Executive Vice President and COO Youssef Abed said he believes the upgrade is going to be “especially well received by our target market of entrepreneurs, sales people and employees in small businesses who want to enhance their CRM capabilities without the commitment to expensive CRM software.”

…

 

Oracle has announced plans to launch the new Oracle 11g database during the September 2007 GITEX information technology trade show in Dubai, according to Middle East news sources.

 

In addition to the launch of Oracle Database 11g, GITEX visitors will also learn more about the latest trends in customer relationship management (CRM) products as part of Oracle’s acquisition of Siebel, and get a closer look at the Oracle E-Business Suite as well as the most recent enhancements to Oracle’s business intelligence and software development products.

 

From now until GITEX, a number of businesses across the Middle East will be taking part in the beta testing phase of the Oracle 11g rollout, and from September 8-12, decision-makers from both the government and private sectors will get their first public look at the latest release.

 

Dana Murugan, senior marketing director for Oracle Middle East and Africa, said the Oracle Database 11g is suited for “changes with the industry’s highest degree of automation and system availability.”

 

According to Gartner’s latest report, Oracle leads the worldwide relational database management systems software market with 47.1 per cent of the market share.

 

Oracle offers a wide range of options to extend the power of Oracle Database 11g to meet specific requirements in the areas of performance and availability, security and compliance, data warehousing, manageability and integration of unstructured data. The vendor is a popular CRM, supply chain management, and human capital management applications vendor in the Middle East.

…

 

Interested in free CRM? DataForceCRM, an on-demand CRM vendor, has released their newest CRM version, loaded with sales force automation powered by Ajax CRM software technology.

 

Jim Romano, DataForce CRM CEO, said with CRM Version 2, “our new partnership with Zimbra inside has taken our CRM product to a new level of collaboration and communication.”

 

DataForce CRM has 2 versions: Silver Electronics Edition for electronics components and semiconductor companies and a Bronze CRM version, described by Romano as “highly functional for all companies from mortgage, insurance, financial and manufacturing.”

 

DataForce CRM is offering five free users of the new CRM version 2 to all comers. This free offer is for one year and includes set up, support and training. Register at http://www.dataforcecrm.com/free-sales-tool.

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Intelliworks, a vendor of customer relationship management (CRM) products for higher education, has announced the appointment of Todd Gibby as its new chief executive officer. Gibby brings more than fifteen years of management experience, including seven years as a senior executive at Blackboard Inc., and active Intelliworks board participation to this role.

 

Dev Ganesan, the former president and CEO, will assume the role of company chairman.

 

Gibby takes on the CEO role when the company has launched, Orion, an on-demand CRM product for higher education institutions. During the past two years, Intelliworks doubled the company’s customer base, opened markets in Europe and Asia, and developed the infrastructure to support a multi-tenant SaaS model.

 

Gibby will work with Ganesan and the management team to scale operations, introduce new products to market, and build meaningful relationships with clients and partners.

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A study by PMP Research into customer relationship management systems, commissioned by the U.K.’s Evaluation Centre, shows that many companies are still struggling to extract the full benefits from their investments.

 

The largest number of companies, 42 percent, have only been “partially successful” with their CRM systems and have achieved “limited benefits for the business.” A further 11 percent have seen “no major benefits” and four percent say their implementations have been “very unsuccessful.”

 

But on the flip side, 37 percent think the business has seen “some clear benefits” and four percent view their CRM system as being “very successful” and delivering “all the benefits sought.”

 

The high level of dissatisfaction is exacerbated by the fact that the respondents believe having an effective customer relationship strategy is now more essential than three years ago. It is seen as “much more important” by 44 percent of companies and “slightly more important” by 39 percent. No respondent thought it “less important.”

 

However, only 30 percent of companies interviewed regularly measure their CRM system against agreed criteria to determine if the expected benefits are being achieved. A further 33 percent say they are planning to measure, 11 percent have only measured once after the initial implementation and 13 percent have never tried to measure the benefits.

 

This suggests, as the study authors say, that “judgment as to the degree of success of a CRM system is often made on subjective grounds rather than quantitative information.”

 

For those companies who do regularly measure the effectiveness of their CRM implementation, the major criteria are mainly customer-centric with increased customer satisfaction levels (69 percent) and an increased number of retained customers (69 percent) being the key metrics. Not far behind is the amount of new business generated (63 percent) while cost savings is seen as significant by 50 percent of respondents.

 

But companies are certainly not giving up on CRM, according to PMP’s findings. Over three-quarters (78 percent) report that they are currently making changes and additions to their implementations in order to realise more of the benefits they originally sought, or say they plan to do so shortly. Just 11 percent have ruled out further improvements completely.

 

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Frank Sinatra’s album In The Wee Small Hours:

 

For anyone in Britain who’s interested: The good folks at Concentrix are offering assessments to identify how individual businesses could be improved using modern CRM technologies.

 

Company officials say they will “outline the key stages in CRM system implementation and, if appropriate, recommend suitable products from the CRM products currently on the market.”

 

“The CRM market has seen some considerable changes in the past few years,” company officials say, adding “each CRM package has its own features and characteristics, making a business assessment an essential starting point for any CRM project.

 

They say a good CRM system effectively integrates marketing, sales and customer service functions, streamlines internal business processes and makes it easier for everyone inside a company to work together and share critical information: “It doesn’t matter if a business has two, ten, or five-hundred marketing or customer facing staff, a modern, professionally implemented CRM system can bring benefits throughout a company, whatever its size.”

 

For more information, or to apply for the free strategic-level assessment of your business and IT infrastructure, visit www.concentrix.co.uk. Available to UK-based companies only.

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CRM vendor IFS Defence, a joint venture between BAE Systems and IFS AB, has acquired the British software company Information Science Consultants Ltd, headquartered in Cirencester, UK.

 

The acquisition strengthens IFS Defence’s position in the Aerospace & Defense sector, according to IFS officials, and enhances its capability to sell naval enterprise products and adds leading expertise in Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) processes and toolsets to the IFS Application suite.

 

IFS Defence can now offer improved lifecycle management functionality for Engineering & Asset Management, MRO and SCM in the naval support sector. ISC sells maintenance management software and services, with particular strength in the implementation of RCM methodologies.

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Industry observer Jason Hiner has a good discussion of the features and advantages of Zoho’s online office suite — good screen shots and summaries of the functionalities of the privately-held David talking smack to Goliaths Google and Microsoft in the office apps arena.

 

“While the idea of Zoho dethroning Microsoft in office apps seems laughable when you consider the fact that the graveyard of failed challengers to Microsoft’s office apps crown includes IBM, Sun, Apple (remember ClarisWorks?), and the open source crowd,” Hiner writes, “Zoho’s challenge has one important advantage — it’s got the products to back it up.”

 

In the past 18 months since Zoho Writer was released, Hiner says, “Zoho has released 14 more online applications/services. It now boasts one of the broadest and most mature sets of online applications available in the cloud.” It’s even pushing Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show as your word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation alternatives to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

 

Gotta cheer for a company like that. Hiner likes the company’s feisty attitude and products — “Zoho has created a broad fleet of full-featured online apps in a short period of time, but just as significant is the fact that it has done it without sacrificing simplicity and usability” — and notes that “almost all of the Zoho products are available for free,” charging only for advanced use of its CRM and project management apps.

 

He wonders, however, if Zoho’s business model of “offering the same level of features as Microsoft Office while charging the same kind of fee that Google does for its Premium Apps” is “enough to make Zoho profitable and to keep funding the rapid development of the Zoho office suite.” And Hiner notes that Zoho has yet to give its online apps full offline capability with an identical interface and local caching of files.

 

Still, it’s exciting to find someone not only willing to take on Microsoft and Google, but to be able to walk the walk when it comes to the actual products. “Zoho sees itself in the same mold as Microsoft taking on IBM in PCs in the early 1980s and Google taking on Microsoft and Yahoo! in search in the past decade,” and judging by “the quality of what Zoho has created so far, I wouldn’t count it out,” he concludes.

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CRM support vendor Cegedim Dendrite, which works with the pharmaceutical industry, finds that the industry is “embracing online media to build relationships with consumers and is cutting back on traditional broadcast and print media to promote drugs,” according to their latest DTC Industry Check-Up Survey.

 

“The U.S. pharmaceutical industry is using technology to build a better and more proactive dialogue with consumers,” says Carl Cohen, President of Marketing Solutions for Cegedim Dendrite, which provides technology products and services to the global pharmaceutical industry.

 

According to the annual survey, pharmaceutical companies in 2007 will increase their spending on online activities, such as Web sites, search engine marketing, and e-mail. Also, to encourage patients to take their medicines — both initially and for the long term — companies are relying more on educational programs at pharmacies and physician offices, newsletters and refill reminders.

 

Meanwhile, national TV, spot TV, radio and direct mail will top the list for decreased spending.

 

“The continuing growth of online media and technology to build and sustain consumer relationships, coupled with the decline in traditional mass marketing advertising,” Cohen says, “confirms that pharmaceutical companies can use alternative media to match the impact of general advertising more cost effectively and with quicker results.”

 

The biggest challenge in DTC marketing continues to be government regulations, which were cited by 61 percent of respondents, up from 50 percent last year. Meanwhile, adverse consumer reaction to DTC marketing was mentioned as a problem by only 31 percent of respondents, down from 44 percent last year.

 

The 2007 Cegedim Dendrite DTC Industry Check-Up is published in the form of a white paper that is available at www.dendrite.com.

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Companies are increasingly using sophisticated CRM tools on their third-generation Web sites, a new study finds.

 

The latest online survey of communication professionals from Charet & Associates, a New York-metro based recruiter of senior and mid-level executive talent in the marketing, communication and PR fields, finds that the human resources necessary to support organizations’ Web-based communications need more money, and as a result, real-time communication is suffering.

 

Roughly two-thirds (66 percent) of 119 participants in the survey on Web-based communication trends indicated their organization had developed at least its third-generation Web site, and feature more sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM) systems and sections dedicated to providing visitors with information about the business, and the products or services they offer.

 

Impetus for Web-based communications has been provided by a need to make current products and services visible to new markets (rated a highly important factor by 89 percent of respondents) as well as by a need to make new products and services visible to existing markets (rated highly important by 94 percent of respondents).

 

 

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, a crazy, loopy mess of an album that rather grows on one:

 

Hydro Tech Environmental Corp., a full service, integrated environmental consulting firm, has selected Infusion Direct Marketing, a direct marketing consultancy, as its marketing agency of record to coordinate all direct marketing, advertising, public relations, and customer relationship management (CRM) programs for the firm.

 

Infusion will manage all trade shows, events and sponsorships for the company. Mostafa El Sehamy, Hydro Tech’s President, said the firm is “confident that Infusion Direct Marketing will help us inform customers and prospects about our wide scope of services we provide, including GeoProbe Services, Site Assessments, and Tank Removals.”

 

Infusion Direct Marketing is a boutique direct marketing consultancy offering comprehensive consulting services including lead generation, direct mail, e-mail, public relations and others.

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Dubai-based Bahman group of companies, an established Middle East presence, has announced that it has selected CRM implementation firm Columbus IT, a Microsoft Dynamics Partner, to implement the ERP suite Microsoft Dynamics NAV, as well as “enhance operational efficiency and productivity at all user levels across the organization,” according to Bahman officials.

 

The Bahman group of companies represents various international brands for small electrical domestic appliances for its wholesale and distribution division and high end tableware and decorative items sold through its retail outlets in the U.A.E.

 

The group will be replacing its existing legacy system with Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Columbus IT will implement the various modules of Microsoft Dynamics NAV to cover the functionalities of Finance, Inventory, Sales and Service Management.

 

Ms. Manal Bahman, Executive Director of Bahman group of companies, said as the firm “values customer satisfaction above all other parameters,” we have made it an integral part of our philosophy to deliver superior value to our customers.” The current system was “neither flexible nor scalable enough to keep up with the growth of our organization” Bahman said, adding they “needed to incorporate a new ERP product that would support our mission.”

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CRM and other technologies vendor Autonomy Corporation has announced that it has been selected as the preferred partner for enterprise search and meaning-based technologies by Aktive Reply, part of the Reply Group.

 

The move is designed to “underpin a new initiative focusing on products for the Italian financial services market,” Autonomy officials say. As part of the agreement a products center specifically dedicated to developing these products will be created in Italy.

 

Aktive Reply is an Italian systems integrator and consultancy for information management products, with particular expertise in the areas of knowledge management and enterprise information portals. Autonomy and Aktive Reply have a partnership already in place, and have worked together on several projects in the government, manufacturing and telecommunications spaces.

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Story time: Once upon a time, small business software developer Tower Systems reached 50 percent market penetration of newsagents using computer systems in Australia.

 

With over 1,400 Australian newsagents using the Tower Systems retail newsagency and newspaper home delivery software, the company had more active customers than all of its competitors combined. Management correctly recognized this as a “mixed blessing.”

 

Tower CEO Mark Fletcher said on the one hand “this is a wonderful achievement — a testament to our software developers and our support team. On the other hand it is a challenge for us to demonstrate… that we can continue to serve businesses well.”

 

So to support the customer surge, Tower decided to… use additional customer service personnel in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and install a new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) product. Smart move: A foolish company would have said something like “This success validates our operating model, and we look forward to gaining more customers.” Tower said “Help!”

 

The company has kept grounded in more ways than one — “a turning point for us came in 1996,” Fletcher said. “I bought a newsagency to provide me and my team with a live test site. We still own this business today. Every one of our staff members trains there. We also train some of our customers there (!). Owning this newsagency allows us to walk in the shoes of our customers.”

 

And they all lived happily ever after.

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Altitude Software, a leading independent contact center solutions vendor, has announced today that Technology Marketing Corporation’s Customer Interaction Solutions magazine (www.cismag.com) has named the Altitude IP Contact Center solution as a recipient of a 2007 IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Award.

 

Customer Interaction Solutions has been published for the CRM, call center and teleservices industries since 1982.

 

Altitude IP Contact Center is a native IP solution that streamlines IT investments and optimizes human resources, providing businesses with a SIP-based multimedia contact center solution and a wealth of advanced features, including unified desktops, routing, reporting, dialing, voice portal, management and open integration via Web services and/or Altitude connectors.

 

“Altitude Software has always prided itself on enabling IP-enabled next-generation customer service for its customers,” said Riadh Boukhris, Altitude Software vice President Middle East and North Africa. “This award is another proof of the recognition our solutions get, specifically in the Middle East and North Africa market, and the quick ROI they provide.’

 

The 2007 IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Award recognizes companies that have created “a groundbreaking, successful IP contact center product or service,” according to TMC officials.

 

“TMC is proud to recognize Altitude Software with an IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Award. Altitude Software has proven to the editors of Customer Interaction Solutions that its solution Altitude IP Contact Center has been designed with the needs of the contact center market in mind and the potential of IP behind it,” said Nadji Tehrani, Executive Group Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Customer Interaction Solutions.

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Were you aware that when customers stand in line, they perceive the time they spend there to be anywhere from 20 to 50 percent greater than it actually is? Or that if they use self-service technology they perceive the wait times to be about 25 percent less than it actually is?

 

Australian industry observer Jo Best has reported that “US banking group First Citizens Bank has implemented self-service ‘intelligent’ kiosks from vendor NCR in two of its branches and plans to deploy them across 40 before the end of next year.”

 

It’s also a golden opportunity for you to present some quick CRM — your customers already think you’re doing them a favor with the self-serve machines, they’re in a good mood, hit ‘em with a pitch or two.

 

“Nationwide, a UK building society with over 11 million customers,” Best reports, “has also deployed self service technology to cut queues. In future, the organization hopes to deploy more CRM and personalization around the kiosks, which can display advertising during ‘idle’ moments in transactions.” Things like pre-scored products, loans or overdrafts that are already offered, Jason Cockrem, service development manager for Nationwide, told Best.