August 2007 Archives

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Veggie Tales' Boyz In the Sink:

Advanced Communications a software development company, has announced the official final release of Advanced CRM.

Advanced CRM version 2.0 features an online sales product integrated with live chat and ticketing. Among its features are a customizable customer management product, built-in live chat and ticketing modules, "dozens of features that are essential for online sales tasks," Advanced officials say.

The company has released this new version after using and testing it internally for many months -- "over 8 years of development experience," company officials say.

"A low price makes it easy for our customers to budget and purchase our CRM product, says Syed Nauman Hashmi, CEO of Advanced Communications. In addition to this, he says, unlike other CRM providers that mainly target large enterprises "AdvCRM has tailored its offering to fulfill the sales force and customer management needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)."

AdvCRM is available both on monthly rental and one time fee. Customers may start with as low as $39.95/month for single domain license with unlimited users.

Advanced Communications, a software development company based in Los Angeles, specializes in hosting automation billing and VoIP products. The firm's products include AdvancedVoIP.com, BeyondPhone.com, MediaRoutes.com, ASPFusion.net, Advanced-CRM.com and the flagship product HostingController.com.

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Opera, which bills itself as "the only company that puts the Web on any device," has released the new beta of Opera Mini 4, what it calls "the world's most popular mobile Web browser."

The new beta version of Opera Mini 4 introduces several exclusive optimizations for BlackBerry devices, including a new user interface and menus for a more comfortable Opera Mini look and feel. For BlackBerry users worldwide, or anyone wanting a better, faster and free mobile Web browser, the new Opera Mini 4.0 beta is available from http://www.operamini.com/beta/.

For all users, the new beta adds what Opera officials say are "often-requested features" designed to improve usability and enjoyment. Opera Mini's new "Landscape mode" gives a wider view of the page, and a new multi-search Start Page is designed to make searching even easier while on the go.

There's also the ability to add a search engine to the Start Page, a feature pioneered in Opera's desktop browser, is now available in the latest beta of Opera Mini.

"We want to make Opera Mini available to even more users, so we've improved our support for BlackBerry," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera. "Now the world's most popular mobile Web browser and most popular handhelds can work together."

Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.

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Business IT Professionals, Inc. (Biz IT Pro), a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products vendor, has announced they will develop a CRM product, based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, for QRPS, Inc., an administrative consulting firm.

Biz IT Pro will use Scribe Insight, an end-to-end integration tool for converting data from ACT! to Microsoft Dynamics, to improve productivity and client experiences for QRPS.

"We had reached our limit of usability with the ACT! database. Moving to CRM will allow us to redesign how we store our proprietary information, while substantially improving our productivity," stated Forrest Knowles, President, QRPS.

QRPS provides customer service by using technology to streamline administrative processes, company officials say. Biz IT Pro will conduct data integration for the firm, to aid in their ability to maintain their "high-touch service philosophy and personal support."

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Internet-based call center and CRM vendor Promero has announced the deployment of its Disaster Recovery OnDemand software.

The product enables companies to maintain their local exchange numbers to the company's home office through public switch telephone network, receive calls, make, deliver the calls to remote employees at home or anywhere in the world over a voice over Internet protocol.

Calls can be sent via PSTN, DSL modems, IP phones, computers with soft phones or wireless.

Promero has architected the complete product with a number of hosted software applications. Disaster Recovery OnDemand includes the voice and data switching capability of Oracle's Contact Center Anywhere and Promero's preferred VoIP carriers that have worked together to create a simple, easy to use disaster recovery product for telecommunications.

The product provides for inbound and outbound call features with number portability.

"Disaster recovery, which was once complicated and expensive, is now simple and inexpensive," said Gregg Troyanowski, president of Promero. 'The Internet's ability to carry quality voice transmissions combined with hosted telephone products provides a viable, stable product for situations of catastrophic office failures."

Situations such as fire, wind, flood, earthquake, whether man-made or an act of God that cause global evacuation or destruction of an office, will not affect communications. Disaster Recovery OnDemand product provides communications almost instantaneously.

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Kintera Inc. has announced that EZ Prints, a private-label digital photofinishing, fulfillment and technology products firm, has joined the Kintera Connect Partner Program as a merchant partner.

EZ Prints is the latest partner to join the Kintera Connect Partner Program, which is comprised of partners in both the nonprofit and enterprise sectors integrating with Kintera's open technology platform.

The firm will enable nonprofits to offer digital photo sharing and print fulfillment services directly from their event Web site, providing branding for fundraising participants. With a wide range of relevant operational, technical, photofinishing and digital expertise, EZ Prints is able to offer a broad selection of photo merchandise.

"Kintera Connect will enable us to reach thousands of nonprofits across the country," said Jeff Gross, vice president of sales for EZ Prints. "Additionally, nonprofits will be able to sell EZ Prints items to their constituents, giving nonprofits another way to raise money to support their cause."

Kintera Connect, an open application integration technology platform, was announced by Kintera last month. Enabling the integration and extensibility of applications, the open Kintera Connect platform will feature applications provided by Kintera and its partner network.

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If you're looking for some music to fit the mood of an upbeat Friday, you could do a lot worse than Veggie Tales. Hang out with the yodeling veterinarian of the Alps, the pirates who don't do anything and Santa.

Just don't expect us to provide you with a water buffalo.

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 The Kinks' scorching double live album One For the Road. Anyone who doubted whether The Kinks had the sack of a true rock band, and there are those who, 1964's "You Really Got Me" notwithstanding, have made this charge, alleging that Ray and the lads were a bit, well, twee, need only clamp on the headphones and turn this baby up, especially where they rip "You Really Got Me" back from Van Halen. We're a long, long way from Village Green here, folks:

Deer Park, New York-based SLM Holdings, a Web-based software provider, has announced its acquisition of selected assets of VerticalFalls Software, Inc., a producer and distributor of desktop-based software.

Located in Reston, Virginia, VerticalFalls has developed a Contact Relationship Manager (CRM) product for brokers in the financial services industry. The software is targeted at Registered Representatives and financial organizations that desire to incorporate the niche-specific tools into their business.

Under the agreement, SLM purchased assets of VerticalFalls, including all trademarks, trade names and copyrights to the name VerticalFalls Software. The consideration for such purchase involved both stock in SLM Holdings, Inc. as well as the assumption by SLM of certain debt currently owed VerticalFalls.

Under the terms of the agreement between the parties, VerticalFall's Chief Executive Officer, Jon Finkelstein, has also agreed to serve as SLM's Chief Operating Officer upon the execution of the agreement.

The VerticalFalls product provides the broker with a "comprehensive business management and compliance assurance tool," company officials say. The software company has approximately 15,000 licenses in place with several well-known financial services organizations.

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Creative Manager has announced version 8.5 of its flagship product, Creative Manager Pro, to be released in early October.

Creative Manager Pro's complete set of financial reports are being completely rebuilt, company officials promise, saying "many of the new features have been rebuilt in Flash, giving the financial system improvements in speed unattainable otherwise."

Some highlights of the new release include capability to view every report on screen with options to send the report to Excel format or to PDF format. And like its smaller single-user cousins, Creative Manager Pro will enable the user to drill down from every number in the financials to the transaction list below it, with a further drill down to the actual transaction (PO, Vendor invoice, client invoice, whatever) "This is no small feat for enterprise level software," company officials assert.

There's also complete support for multi-company and multi project financial statement formats, and the ability to cut financial reports by company, office, department, AE, project and such will be greatly simplified.

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Endeavor Commerce, publishers of SmartCatalog, a guided selling and configuration product for CRM and eCommerce, announced today its SmartCatalog product has been selected by Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc.

Barry-Wehmiller is a worldwide manufacturing and a consulting services company focused on four primary business areas: packaging automation equipment, IT & engineering consulting services, corrugating, sheeting and finished equipment and paper converting equipment.

Given their diverse global offering, Barry-Wehmiller sought to centralize the management of business rules governing product and pricing enabling management to rapidly deploy rules adapting to market dynamics and customer needs. Furthermore Barry-Wehmiller sought to deploy these rules via "smart catalogs" directly into their newly implemented CRM environment.

Company officials wanted to place product and pricing expertise, coupled with up-sell and cross-sell recommendations, directly into the hands of sales representatives. SmartCatalog was selected for an enterprise agreement, and currently has been implemented in two of the Barry-Wehmiller global divisions.

SmartCatalog is a sales configuration product that has integrated to multiple market leading CRM systems since 1993 and has an administrative Rule Manager that enables business users to deploy product and pricing rules instantaneously in just four steps.

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A new service delivered to Egypt's Ministry of State for Administrative Development by Link Development, the software services subsidiary of LinkdotNet, is making life easier for thousands of Egyptian high school students.

At the end of last year, Link Development completed, in just four months, the implementation of a Microsoft Citizen Relationship Management (CiRM) product for MSAD that involved call center automation and integration with the Egyptian e-government gateway -- Bawaba -- as well as other ministries' portals.

The project improved the service offered to citizens and businesses, among them the university placement programme, Thanwaya Ama Tansik (Tansik). "Prior to the CiRM product, the call center was largely dependent on paperwork. Its automation has enabled it to integrate its processes with the government Bawaba gateway and to become the engine room for Tansik", explains Hanan Abdel Meguid, CEO, Link Development.

Abdel Meguid said automation decreased turnaround time of case handling by up to 30 per cent in general, while "the convenience of the product has led to higher use of the call center by the public, with a doubling of overall call volume."

Tansik was the first real and extreme test for the system involving a high level of activity over a short time period.

"We are delighted with the results," says Abdel Meguid. "It handled 63,000 inquiries during a ten-day period last month. These included enquiries not just from Cairo but from 26 Governates across the country."

Over the past years an ever-increasing number of students in Egypt are requiring information regarding their university applications and placement at the same time, putting mounting pressure on the manual process.

Ahmed Darwish, Minister of State for Administrative Development, said the call center and portal were used to manage and simplify this process, meaning "students no longer had to pay personal, time-consuming visits to Tansik offices. Instead they have been able to check their grades, apply for universities and check on their acceptance on-line with the call center on hand for troubleshooting enquiries."

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Okay SugarFans, you can get your hands on SugarCRM's beta of Sugar Community Edition 5.0, available for download and testing by the Sugar community. Sugar Community Edition 5.0 is being released under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3), a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation.

The Sugar community -- and hey, you know who you are -- is comprised of over 10,000 developers located in five continents who have already contributed more than 400 CRM extensions based on the core Sugar code on www.sugarforge.org.

The adoption of GPLv3 has been "welcomed by the Sugar community," SugarCRM officials say, and "will enable faster development cycles, more code contributions and additional beta testing feedback, which ultimately increases the quality of CRM."

"We have worked closely with SugarCRM to ensure that their Sugar Community Edition applies GPLv3 correctly," said Richard M. Stallman, president of the Free Software Foundation. "We believe it sets the standard for how enterprise applications can take advantage of the benefits the license provides."

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First Coffee 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 Steve Taylor’s Meltdown:

 

The St. Louis-based small and mid-sized business technology vendor Axis Integrated Solutions, a Sage Software Premier Business Partner focusing on CRM and ERP for small and medium-sized businesses, has added a new office in Tulsa.

 

The firm was formed by the merger of three powerhouse regional independent Sage Premier Business Partners two years ago. According to one of Axis’s founding partners, St. Louis-based Kelly Hummel, Axis has just created a Tulsa-based joint venture technology products service company in cooperation with the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based CPA firm, Howerton, Morris, Simpson and Smith, PLLC.

 

Both Axis and HMS&S are Sage Business Partners. Under the direction of Ed Simpson, Axis’s new Tulsa office will continue to work closely with Sage Software’s portfolio of small and mid-sized business software products, with a special focus on Sage’s Accpac line of mid-market ERP software packages.

 

“This joint venture is a coming together of allies,” Hummel said. “This joint venture is also a visible outgrowth of Sage Software’s strategic commitment to create an alliance between its business partners and independent CPA firms — the Sage Software Accountants’ Network.”

 

Hummel said the firm has “major operations” in Chicago, Miami, St. Louis and Kansas City, and serves clients ranging from Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean These services include core accounting, customer relationship management (CRM), human resources, warehouse management and business intelligence products.

…

 

BearingPoint, a management and technology consultancy, has been selected by the Costa Rican Ministry of Finance to develop and implement a new tax system interoperable with CRM for the country. The contract is valued at $20 million over two years.

 

Costa Rica will use an SAP product specialized for the Public Sector for its new tax system, which will be able to interoperate with the country’s legacy system, and will also be one of the first such systems to combine both customer relationship management (CRM) and financial management functionalities.

 

The new system is anticipated to allow the Ministry of Finance to improve revenue flow through more efficient collection of taxes, help reduce the amount of tax fraud and allow Costa Rican citizens to access their tax records electronically.

 

“BearingPoint is proud to have been chosen by the nation of Costa Rica to implement a new collection and disbursement product for the country,” said James Horner, senior vice president of BearingPoint’s Emerging Markets practice. “This project will improve the financial position and capabilities of the country, while also enabling e-government services such as electronic filing and records access for its citizens.”

 

BearingPoint’s Emerging Markets practice is active in approximately 50 nations worldwide, providing management, economic and technology consulting services to developed and developing economies.

…

 

Systime Computer Systems Ltd., a CRM vendor and 100 percent subsidiary of the CMS group and one of the largest Oracle’s JD Edwards consulting and implementation practices in the Asia Pacific region, has unveiled its Oracle Accelerate for products and components manufacturing industries in India, according to company officials.

 

Systime, one of the early participants in Oracle Accelerate — Oracle’s global initiative for small and medium businesses which was launched in the Asia Pacific region in early 2007 — has developed a JD Edwards based product with pre-configured industry specific business flows for the products and components manufacturing industries.

 

This product from Systime for the products and components manufacturing industries in India will “help customers in these industries access an industry-specific IT product at low cost, low-risk and with faster time-to-value,” company officials say.

 

Systime has already developed 14 pre-configured reports and accounting definitions for the products and components manufacturing industry. The product uses Oracle’s JD Edwards 8.12 and has India-specific localizations pre-built into it. It comes with pre-configured Business Scenarios and Business Data, Task Views, Roles and Security to ensure faster and smoother implementation at the customer site.

 

This product has a wide applications footprint and built-in functionality; it uses Oracle’s information architecture with industry best practices. It brings comprehensive, easy-to-own industry focused products to small and medium businesses, company officials say.

…

 

Pervasive Software, a vendor of embeddable data management and integration software, has announced the release of Pervasive DataSynch for Use with QuickBooks and Salesforce.com, a product to give users “on-demand access to reliable synchronization of data between Salesforce.com’s on-demand CRM applications and QuickBooks’ on-premises software,” Pervasive officials say.

 

The product, company officials say, offers a “compelling combination of a low price point, embeddable light footprint and robust integration on demand, backed by Pervasive’s 20 years’ experience in the integration industry.” It’s designed to give customers reliable, immediate access to specific application integration products that meet the needs of both small businesses and departments within larger organizations that have no IT staff.

 

Pervasive DataSynch bills itself as delivering “complex, bi-directional integration at a low price, allowing customers to be up and running in less than one hour with no technology learning curve.”

 

Pervasive DataSynch for Use with QuickBooks and Salesforce automatically synchronizes customer, product and order information between Salesforce and QuickBooks, company officials explain, “eliminating the time delays and errors caused by duplicate data entry or incomplete customer, product or service status information.”

…

 

Bidvest Bank, a vendor of specialized foreign exchange and banking services in southern Africa, through its retail brand, Rennies Foreign Exchange, has implemented Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to improve services to clients.

 

Microsoft Gold Certified partner, IS Partners, was responsible for the implementation.

Bidvest Bank officials say the bank is “unique,” in that its “niche success includes foreign exchange, trade finance and related activities.”

 

The CRM product encompasses contact management, sales force automation and basic case management components to address the bank’s key objectives of improving customer retention and profitability, as well as customer growth and efficiencies.

 

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 has provided a central repository of client-based information to be used by staff and executive management. Sales and marketing staff, for example, are primarily responsible for capturing client contact and related information into the CRM system,” says Heath Turner, CRM director at IS Partners.

 

Bidvest Bank’s product sales stages include client contact, credit evaluation and facility documentation. The processes involved in the various sales stages have been automated for each product category, such as credit and non-credit, for example.

 

Basic case management has further ensured that any queries and service-related issues can be captured against a client and assigned to the staff member responsible. Excel templates have also been provided for data take-on, and have been populated from the bank’s source systems.

 

“All Bidvest Bank’s transactional data resides in two core systems. These include the treasury, derivatives and capital markets system and the debtors and collections management system,” explains Turner. “The CRM system is fully integrated to ensure new or updated customer information, which resides in the CRM system, can be directly uploaded to the operational systems.”

 

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner," in honor of our opening e-mail…

We start the column this morning with a question which came in yesterday from "Andy:"

I have purchased and used a Starbucks' coffee mug for over six months...Usually, I am charged the grande price, less the 10 cents saving. However, sometimes I am charged the tall price for coffee, also less the 10 percent discount.

Now my question is how much should I be charged. The bottom of this steel Starbucks container claims it is 16 ounces. However, I have carefully measured its contents and only if you fill to the overflowing brim can you get 16 ounces into it.

It truly is handed to me with 13 ounces each morning by the wonderful employees who dispense it. Anyway, how much should one pay for coffee when using your mug?

Excellent question, if a bit misguided on the fact that First Coffee, alas, is not in charge of Starbucks -- were it up to me, my friend, you'd get 17 ounces. But as the self-appointed arbiter of issues arising from the confluence of coffee and customer service, I'd say Starbucks needs to cough up an honest mug that contains 16 comfortable ounces.

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CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese-owned CDC Corporation, has announced "broad customer adoption of its industry-specific Pivotal CRM and Saratoga CRM" products for the financial services industries.

Specifically, company officials say, second quarter sales for Pivotal CRM for Financial Services increased 71 percent from the same period a year earlier and Saratoga CRM saw a 566 percent increase in the second quarter from the year earlier period.

Across commercial and private banking, capital markets, institutional asset management and retail asset management industries, a growing number of customers are looking for products that allow financial services companies to develop insight into their customers' needs and preferences, CDC officials believe.

"Firms that provide their account executives and their entire client-facing workforce with the right data at the right time will be more likely to win deals and generate revenues," said Kathleen Khirallah, managing director and practice leader, Banking Research, TowerGroup. "The benefits of internal integration will also be felt by senior managers, who will have data they need to assign their people according to potential opportunities."

"Our comprehensive, integrated, industry-specific solutions are gaining momentum in the industry as financial services providers realize that generic CRM solutions do not address their unique business requirements," said Eric Musser, CEO, CDC Software.

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SystemLink, a vendor specializing in implementing ERP and CRM software, has announced the creation of a new office in Tampa, Florida to serve the American Southeast, Caribbean and Central America markets. The group has four offices in America, as well as Dublin, Johannesburg and London.

Bill Williams, president and CEO, emphasized the firm's "deep rooted industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record." He said their expansion into Florida was "strategic in order to service better clients and prospects in the Southeast and offer us a base for future growth both in the Caribbean and Central America."

Williams said other new office locations are expected in America and "other parts of the world during the next 12 months."

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Zantaz, an Autonomy company and vendor working the archiving, e-Discovery and Proactive Information Risk Management markets, today announced that Northcliffe Media, a regional newspaper publisher in the UK, has chosen the Zantaz Enterprise Archive Solution to consolidate its 17 e-mail data centers into two, while migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003.

The Zantaz product will also be used by Northcliffe Media for search and retrieval for electronic information and e-mails. The company also hopes to be able to clean up and reduce the size of its approximately 7,500 Microsoft Exchange mailboxes across the company for its 4,500 full-time staff in 32 centers.

After the migration, Northcliffe Media will use EAS to "increase the efficiency of the company's knowledge management, document retention and electronic disclosure processes," company officials say, as well as optimize its data storage capacity by removing duplicated e-mails and compressing them into a consolidated near-line archive store, "thereby reducing the company's e-mail storage requirements by up to 50 per cent."

In addition, Zantaz EAS will allow Northcliffe Media to retrieve e-mail messages quickly, easing "the cost and time penalties associated with litigation," Zantaz officials say: "Efficient knowledge management and e-disclosure processes will help Northcliffe Media, should it be necessary to provide information as part of the legal process."

Kieran Head, project manager at Northcliffe Media, said there are "three main reasons why we needed to implement an e-mail archiving product. Firstly, it is paramount that the migration and consolidation process will not disrupt the overall operation of the company -- the clean-up of our 7,500 mailboxes will enable us to continue business as usual. Secondly, we'll be able to reduce our initial investment because we believe our storage requirements for Exchange will decrease by approximately 50 percent. Finally, we want to be prepared to be able to disclose any electronic information as efficiently as possible in the event of any regulatory compliance requirements."

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Transcom WorldWide S.A., self-described as a "European CRM and debt collections specialist," has announced that it has acquired 100 percent of NuComm International, a Canadian provider of contact center products.

A maximum cash consideration of $86 million will be paid in three installments, with an initial payment of $47 million and the remainder subject to a two tier earn-out ending in December 2008. The earn-out is calculated as the balance due based on a complete deal valuation multiple of 9 times the forecasted 2008 EBIT, but is capped at $37.5 million.

NuComm had revenues of $115 million for the twelve months ended 31st July 2007. Réal Bergevin, the founder and CEO of NuComm, has signed a contract to remain with the business under the new ownership.

NuComm, headquartered in St. Catharines, Ontario, is a supplier of contact center services and has been named one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies for six years running. Established in 1991 as a consulting organization, the company ventured into the call center market in 1995.

The ISO registered company now employs over 3,000 people across 14 centers, with 10 centers based in Canada, 2 in the United States and 2 in the Philippines. In addition to NuComm’s existing 480 seats in the Philippines, the company is currently investing in the opening of a third site, which will add up to a further 1,500 seats.

Keith Russell, President and CEO of Transcom, said with NuComm, "we are firmly established in North America, the largest CRM and CMS market in the world, with significant development potential both in North America as well as the Far East, where NuComm has a significant offshore operation to provide service for customers."

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New research commissioned by Unisys Corporation reveals that the increasing "consumerization" of information technology used by today's mobile workforce is what report authors call "the key factor shaping the IT support services that enterprises provide their employees."

As those workers become more dispersed, mobile applications and technologies such as CRM applications for customer service, laptops and PDAs are emerging as the new foundations for employee productivity and company growth and profitability.

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First Coffee 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 Mahalia Jackson’s Take My Hand, Precious Lord:

 

Niche CRM vendor Chicago Business Intelligence Group has announced that it is teaming up with Transforming Solutions, Inc., to launch a partnership to go after the higher education market.

 

The partnership will initially focus on assisting higher education institutions with “solving the challenges in the critical advancement and development functions,” CBIG officials say.

 

Both firms have experience in working within higher education and the Fortune 1000 in defining, building and implementing best practice business process and technology products. The partnership of CBIG and TSI provides a full range of services to the higher education market, including strategic planning, business and technology assessment, business analysis, requirements definition, process re-engineering, technology selection, project management, design, build and implementation.

 

Citing the “current state of declining higher education funding,” Dan Feely, President of TSI, said “changes in the multi-dimensional interactions between institutions and their constituents are having a significant impact on the people, process and technology needs of advancement and development programs.”

 

With TSI’s focus on the business strategy, organizational definition and process improvement and CBIG’s expertise in the technology architectures, data integration and delivery, the partnership is designed to sell an “independent and experienced team of senior level consultants who know the culture and needs of higher education,” according to CBIG officials, while “complementing this with equal experience within the for-profit sector at such corporations as Merrill Lynch, Dell, Motorola, Abbott Labs, Toyota Motors, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Kraft and P&G.”

 

During the partnership’s recent engagement with a Big 10 University, CBIG and TSI partnered to assess and define an advancement and development business and technology product set. The project addressed all campuses, colleges and units of the university.

 

CBIG specializes in “the full continuum of services related to the planning through implementation of CRM, data warehouse and business intelligence applications,” company officials say.

 

. . . .

 

This is a bit out of First Coffee’s usual bailiwick but a) it’s pretty cool, and b) nobody else called it, so… Extricom, a designer and manufacturer of Wireless LAN (WLAN) infrastructure products, has announced the formation of the Uni-Fi Alliance, a program that furthers the collaboration of the WiFi ecosystem and maximizes business value through validated product combinations.

 

Together with Extricom, the members of the Uni-Fi Alliance are AeroScout, AirTight Networks, Ascom, and Kineto Wireless.

 

“The multi-application era in WLAN is no longer a promise but a reality,” stated David Confalonieri, vice president of marketing at Extricom. “A smart WLAN infrastructure investment can power many uses — voice, data, video, locationing, and much more.” He added that the Uni-Fi Alliance is designed so “enterprises and providers will benefit from validated product combinations that streamline deployment and lower project risks.”

 

Uni-Fi Alliance members span a wide range of devices, PBXs, location services, security appliances, and mobile-to-mobile convergence products. The alliance “enables leading technology innovators to verify interoperability between products that contribute to a converged, multi-application WLAN,” alliance officials said.

 

“Convergence of services and devices over WLAN offers significant operational and economic opportunity for businesses of all kinds,” commented Gabi Daniely, vice-president of marketing and product strategy at AeroScout. “Location-based services and other added-value applications are contributing to the rapid growth of Wi-Fi deployments, so interoperability across a broad range of applications is critical for the emerging generation of Wi-Fi networks.”

 

“While there are established certifications for verifying basic 802.11 component interoperability, there are few industry-standard APIs for linking wireless LANs to upstream applications,” observed Joanie Wexler, an independent analyst and editor at Joanie M. Wexler & Associates.

 

. . . .

 

CDC Corporation has announced that it plans to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission a registration statement for an initial public offering of up to $225 million aggregate principal amount of Class A Common Shares of CDC Software, its business unit that develops enterprise software.

 

The purpose of the offering, company officials say, is to “allow CDC Software to more clearly differentiate its line of business from CDC Corporation and provide a more targeted investment vehicle for investors seeking to invest only in enterprise software portion of CDC Corporation’s diverse businesses.”

 

The offering is currently expected to commence during the fourth quarter of 2007, subject to the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring the registration statement effective.

 

. . . .

 

The Mole Clinic, the British skin cancer screening center, has begun expanding its reach nationwide by rolling out a network of clinics across the UK in partnership with Superdrug. To capture patient records and share skin images with trained experts in different locations, The Mole Clinic has implemented a hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM system developed by Increase, to provide access to patient records regardless of location.

 

The service, which has been operating from a single central London location for four years, was becoming vastly overstretched and had a waiting list of over four weeks. To meet the growing demand because of heightened awareness over skin cancer, The MOLE Clinic has begun placing trained skin cancer screening nurses in Superdrug stores with dermatologists able to assess digital images of suspect moles from remote locations.

 

Iain Mack, CEO at The Mole Clinic, said the Microsoft CRM offering was “everything we needed — robust, highly customizable and with an easy to use and the familiar interface of Microsoft Office. However, what was imperative was to be able to access the system via the Web and this is where the hosted approach really paid dividends.”

 

Using this system, the company’s nurses perform an initial patient assessment, take a series of detailed electronic images of a suspect mole and can quickly provide an accurate diagnosis from an expert dermatologist, often within an hour.

 

“Quite simply we wouldn’t have been able to offer our service nationwide in the way we wanted without using this system,” Mack said. “Skin cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK and we have a higher death rate than Australia.”

 

. . . .

 

Forrester Research has published a best practices framework for CRM, available immediately, and written by respected CRM analyst William Band.

 

“By 2010,” the executive summary reads, “organizations around the world will spend $11 billion annually on customer relationship management (CRM)… Forrester developed a framework that includes 150 best practice CRM capabilities, organized into four categories: strategy, process, technology, and people.”

 

The framework is based on interviews with more than 100 user companies, analysis of 33 vendor products, and discussions with 29 CRM professional services providers.

 

And “to help understand how your organization stacks up against these best practices and to identify where you can best achieve quick wins, we created the Forrester FastForward self-assessment for CRM,” the summary notes: “Use the framework and self-assessment to improve your current CRM initiative or to jump-start new projects.”

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Jim White’s Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me What You See:

 

BCG Systems has implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP for 5C Image Services, a division of Rentwear, Inc., a business uniform and apparel rental company.

 

5C Image Services provide both regional and national companies with apparel rental for their locations. 5C Image Services staff members do the research needed to partner with local apparel rental companies in each location to service the client. The company then provides centralized billing for every location’s rental needs.

 

5C Image Services decided on Microsoft Dynamics GP, based on a recommendation from business associates.

 

In order to quickly capture invoices coming from dozens of local rental services nationwide with minimal handling, and bill those amounts back out to the customer, 5C implemented a customized version of the Microsoft Dynamics GP Business Portal.

 

The rental service organizations access the Business Portal through a secure login to upload a spreadsheet with their billing amounts. They are also able to attach PDF images of their original invoices, for the national customer to review.

 

Royalties and fees are deducted from the amounts collected from customers and the balance paid to the local supplier. In order to track these complex calculations 5C is using Ethotech, a commission tracking add-on available for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

 

With the fully-integrated system up and running, one person is able to manage the process of billing clients, collecting remittances, and paying commissions, making the service economical to provide.

 

. . . .

 

Sage Software has announced that its Sage SalesLogix v7.2 and SageCRM v6 products have each received Info-Tech Research Group’s Decision Diamond Award for CRM market leadership.

 

Info-Tech Research Group’s Decision Diamond assessments position Sage SalesLogix as a Mid-Market CRM category leader and SageCRM as a Small Enterprise CRM category leader based on evaluation criteria including “ease-of-use, features, architecture, support and pricing, and vendor viability and strategy,” Info-Tech officials say.

 

Info-Tech assesses vendors in the technology marketplace, ranking them by the strength of their offering and their strategy for the enterprise. The firm cited intuitive interfaces and dashboards, codeless customizations and a full range of mobile and disconnected deployment options among strengths of the Sage CRM Solutions family.

 

“We are impressed with the investment Sage Software continues to make in its entire CRM product portfolio, and by the consolidation of their CRM products and strategy under a single general manager,” noted Timothy Hickernell, Associate Senior Research Analyst with Info-Tech Research Group.

 

In June Sage announced an enhanced organizational structure for its Global CRM Group, led by Joe Bergera, Executive Vice President and Global General Manager for Sage CRM Solutions. The new structure brings together global product management and technology strategy functions that overlay product delivery teams based in North America and Europe.

 

The structure is designed to increase scale of operations, accelerate time-to-market and create strategic synergies across Sage CRM Solution product lines, Sage officials say.

 

. . . .

 

CRM vendor Infusion Software has announced that it has been ranked in Inc. magazine’s list of 500 fastest growing private companies in America. The Phoenix-based provider of Infusion CRM software posted a 917.8 percent three-year growth rate, earning it a ranking of 258 on the list based on its rapid growth and increasing revenue.

 

Inc., geared towards small and medium-sized businesses, releases an annual Inc. 500 ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. Infusion is the only small business CRM software provider on the Inc. 500, which can be found in the September issue.

 

“We are truly honored to be recognized by Inc. magazine among such great companies,” said Clate Mask, president of Infusion Software. “Our growth is fueled by the increasing demand for Infusion CRM, a business software program that represents a new breed of CRM designed specifically for the underserved small business market.”

 

To be eligible for the list, a company must be headquartered in the U.S., independent and privately held through its fiscal year 2006, and have had at least $200,000 in net sales in the base year of 2003, with 2006 exceeding 2005 sales.

 

Companies are ranked on cumulative three-year sales growth from 2003 to 2007.

For a complete list of the Inc. 500 Award winners, please go to: http://www.inc.com/resources/inc500.

 

. . . .

 

British Telecom, in partnership with Tierlinear Ltd. has announced the beta launch of BT BizBox, a set of free, simple to use, Web-based business productivity tools for small businesses.

 

Designed to streamline inefficient and time-consuming tasks, BT BizBox is a Web-based software product designed to “improve a small business’s efficiency by providing managers and employees with one effective system to track customer contacts and perform essential business functions,” according to company officials.

 

BT BizBox provides a user-friendly dashboard, giving small businesses the ability to manage a contact list, create invoices and provide fully detailed quotes for customers. BT BizBox also allows for the management of documents, calendars and employee information and keeps detailed records of meetings.

 

BT BizBox also includes integrated communications capabilities such as “Click to Call” and “Click to SMS” functionality based on BT’s Web21C Web services.

 

Built to open standards using open source technologies, BT BizBox is integrated with best of breed web services from BT and other third parties. BT BizBox is hosted on highly scalable servers with a carrier class network providing 99.99 percent uptime and availability. All BT BizBox data is encrypted and backed up daily.

 

During the beta period, BT BizBox is provided as a free service on www.bt.com/beta.

 

. . . .

 

Two years ago First Coffee wrote a column about the customer service practices of Caiman, and has since received more e-mails about that one column than all the rest put together. Another comment came in today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

 

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 Come Fly With Me album, the cover of which ol’ Frankie always hated because, as he said, it “looks like a United Airlines ad:”

 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and CRM4Legal by Client Profiles Inc. have been chosen by Reed Smith LLP, one of the 20 largest law firms in the world, to provide CRM technologies and consultancy services.

 

The technology and services from Microsoft and Client Profiles are designed to “complement and enhance the firm’s ongoing commitment to advancing its reputation as a global leader in client service among law firms,” according to company officials.

 

Reed Smith has more than 1,500 lawyers in 21 offices in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. In 2007, Reed Smith was named to the BTI Client Service A-Team, ranking fourth among law firms in the United States for developing and maintaining superior client relationships, according to company officials.

 

Gregory Jordan, firmwide managing partner at Reed Smith and chairman of the senior management team and executive committee, said the firm is partnering with Microsoft and Client Profiles “on a firmwide, global CRM initiative to use technology to help us identify new opportunities for strengthening, broadening and deepening our existing client relationships. The technology will also enable the firm to streamline our methodology for integrating new attorneys that join laterally or through combinations with other firms.”

 

CRM4Legal for Microsoft Dynamics CRM is designed to provide the firm with a global, firmwide database that combines contact data, relationship information, client-matter specifics, practice group specialties, lawyer experience and competencies, opportunity management, client plans and analysis, as well as key financial information.

 

. . . .

 

CRM and ERP vendor NetSuite and CyberSource, a vendor of electronic payment and risk management products, has announced that CyberSource has become NetSuite’s global payment strategic partner.

 

NetSuite officials say they have “integrated support for CyberSource’s global payment acceptance services, risk management products, and payment security services,” which they contend gives NetSuite customers “a strong set of payment tools.”

 

CyberSource eCommerce payment management services available to NetSuite’s customers worldwide include support for credit cards, debit cards and electronic checks, fraud prevention services and token-based, secure storage service, which NetSuite officials say “helps keep sensitive payment data out of merchants’ daily business operations.”

 

“NetSuite has long been in on-demand ERP, CRM and eCommerce applications,” said Carolyn Brackett, vice president, channels and alliances at CyberSource. “As their customers seek to grow their businesses, CyberSource will provide payment products to help NetSuite customers capture and keep more of that revenue.”

 

. . . .

 

Salesforce.com has announced that Cort Software, a provider of human capital management products, has selected the full suite of Salesforce on-demand CRM applications and the AppExchange.

 

Cort officials say they were looking for help to “improve customer service and produced immediate cost-saving benefits, allowing the company to shorten customer response time with less staff dedicated to taking service calls.”

 

Mike Grigsby, director of marketing at Cort Software, said the vendor needed “a way to share information across our sales, marketing and service organizations so everyone could easily access customer data and react to opportunities. We have centralized all of our information for our customer facing staff as well as for our finance.”

 

Cort Software selected the Salesforce Platform to tailor its Salesforce SFA, Salesforce Marketing and Salesforce Service & Support applications. In addition, Cort Software downloaded a number of applications from the AppExchange including Account Intelligence, an AppExchange application from OneSource Information Services that delivers ready-to-use information on more than 16.5 million public and private companies and 18 million executives worldwide.

 

The Salesforce Platform also enabled Cort Software to integrate with Intuit Quickbooks and other legacy systems so that Cort Software’s sales representatives can determine a customer’s contract status and renewal dates.

 

. . . .

 

Contact center firm Convergys has donated $20,000 to Gawad Kalinga to support that organization’s programs and further its mission to eliminate poverty in the Philippines.

 

According to the Manila Sun-Star, Convergys “supports Gawad Kalinga’s vision for the Philippines: for the country to be a slum-free, squatter-free nation. By providing land for the landless, homes for the homeless, and food for the hungry, the organization hopes to ultimately provide dignity and peace for every Filipino.”

 

“Corporate citizenship is a core value at Convergys Corporation. As a company and as individuals, we work to improve lives and build stronger communities. This investment in the betterment of our community is an important step toward creating a strong, healthy environment for our children, families, friends, and neighbors,” Marife Zamora, Convergys vice president and country manager, told the newspaper.

 

The Sun-Star reported that Zamora, along with other Convergys executives Clint Streit, Ivic Mueco, and Stephen Slade, presented the Convergys check to Danilo “Danny” Lagahid, Cebu Provincial Coordinator for Gawad Kalinga, at the opening of Convergys’ newest contact center in Cebu.

 

To date, “Gawad Kalinga has changed lives in over 900 communities throughout the Philippines. Through programs including, Shelter and Site Development, Child and Youth Development, Health, Productivity, Community Empowerment, Environment and Community Values Formation, Gawad Kalinga is working every day to make the Philippines a better place to live.”

 

Convergys’ six state-of-the-art customer care facilities in Metro Manila and two in Cebu City employ approximately 11,000 men and women.

 

. . . .

 

 

 

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a Rolling Stones iTunes shuffle:

 

Independent market analyst Datamonitor has released a report titled Decision Matrix: Selecting a CRM Vendor, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of leading CRM vendors. The report, estimating that global enterprise spend on CRM application licenses will hit $6.6 billion by 2013, finds that Oracle and SAP will continue to rule the roost… and that of the two, Oracle is the market leader.

 

“Although the CRM applications market is very competitive and there are plenty of players who can challenge the current leaders in specific circumstances, only two vendors, Oracle and SAP, can be considered as market leaders,” says Vuk Trifkovi, technology analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report.

Datamonitor has developed a methodology they call “Decision Matrix,” billed as “helping businesses select vendors based on their technology strength, reputation among customers, and impact in the market,” according to company officials. Conclusions are “based on a quantitative assessment of end user sentiment, the capabilities of the business intelligence products on offer and technology features.”

According to Datamonitor, both Oracle and SAP provide complete products replete with functionality, integrate CRM with new communication technologies and offer full flexibility of deployment options, from conventional on-premise, through to variations of hosted and on-demand products.

Having augmented its CRM product line through the acquisition of Siebel and PeopleSoft, Datamonitor notes, Oracle now commands an “incredible” portfolio of CRM products. The report finds that, “if executed well, Oracle’s ambitious maintenance and development roadmap should ensure a market leadership position.”

 

Oracle’s CRM offering will be “improved both through incremental best-of-breed feature cross-fertilization and its ambitious project of re-engineering completely new product based on its Fusion platform,” says Trifkovi.

The report finds that Chordiant, Infor, and Salesforce.com all offer good products, but lack certain elements to compete consistently with the leading duo. It says this group of the market will become more competitive if Microsoft’s forthcoming Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 release is a success, or if vendors such as RightNow Technologies and Consona improve their standing.

“CRM vendors whose products can support a long-term strategic approach to customer relationship strategies based on nurturing relationships with the customer instead on focusing on the transaction itself, will be in a strong position” concludes Trifkovi.

…

 

Promero has announced successful completion of beta testing and the production enhancement of ProStar CRM’s power dialer feature.

 

ProStar CRM users will have the ability to load prospect lists or create prospect lists based on filters within the CRM. Once the Call Project is created, CRM users use the power dialer’s Click-To-Talk feature to process calls more rapidly. Sales agents that call B2B prospects can make more calls in less time, company officials say.

 

Different than a Predictive Dialer, traditionally used for B2C (Business to Consumer) applications where the dialer is making hundreds of calls searching for a live person, power dialing is used to contact businesses that have high contact rates.

 

Promero’s introductory rate for the hosted system is $29 per user per month plus long distance.

…

 

Here’s a story that obviously needs more personal research, so we’ll petition the First Coffee travel department for the necessary vouchers: EWinery Solutions, a vendor of direct-to-consumer products for the wine industry, has reached an agreement with Australia-based interactive marketing agency Joss Media where Joss will be the Australia and New Zealand licensing agent for eWinery’s Content Management System (CMS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), eCommerce, and Wine Club Management tools.

 

EWinery’s clientele includes a diverse selection of wineries, from small boutique brands to some of the largest wine companies in the world. The company also provides commercial services to a number of third-party wine retailers, including publications, gourmet retailers and non-profits.

 

Richard Kline, President and CEO of eWinery, said the appointment of Joss Media is a step towards “building our brand presence throughout Australia and New Zealand. The economics of the direct-to-consumer model are extremely compelling.”

 

Kline expects the Internet to play “a strategic role” in the growth of the Australian wine industry through 2025, citing information from the Winemakers Federation of Australia and the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation.

 

Jason Neave, a partner at Joss, said before they licensed the platform, they had planned for their developers to build a product from scratch, but “eWinery offers five times the functionality at a fifth of the cost of that development. It’s an old cliché, but we just decided there was no point in trying to reinvent the wheel.”

 

Joss is already working with a number of Australian wineries. According to Sam Jeffries, a partner at Joss, the technology itself is “only part of the equation. It’s about helping wineries use the Web as a cost-effective medium that gets back to marketing basics.”

 

Josephine Rozman, CEO of Blue Pyrenees Estate and a Joss Media client, explains the CRM benefits of the eWinery product by saying “the benefit goes far beyond being able to sell our wine online. Customers usually want to hear from us — our e-mails remind them of a nice experience, and the online cellar door gives them the chance to replenish their stocks on impulse. Wine tourism is a big growth area and I think direct sales will follow — we expect our new site to play a large part in capitalizing on that growth.”

 

EWinery Solutions V3.0 offers a direct-to-consumer product for the wine industry. The company’s SaaS platform features a Content Management System, e-mail communication and tracking tools, wine club management, and an e-commerce platform designed to help wineries sell more wine online. Promotional tools and a CRM package are included.

…

 

SpeechCycle, a vendor of on-demand, voice self-service products, has announced LevelOne Foundation for automating customer care calls. Company officials call it “an extension of SpeechCycle’s LevelOne on-demand product suite of natural language-based speech recognition products for Internet, video and digital phone subscribers.”

 

LevelOne Foundation extends SpeechCycle’s dialog experience to wireless and satellite companies, vendors of Internet-enabled consumer electronics and gaming devices, as well as hardware and software manufacturers that provide phone-based technical support.

 

The product can be used for troubleshooting complex issues. Call paths are similar to call center agent diagnostics once a symptom is recognized. Callers proceed at their own paces, with an ability to reach a call center agent at any time. LevelOne products typically consider the full scope of the caller’s environment, troubleshooting a specific device or service as well as related equipment or issues that may be at the root cause of the problem.

 

LevelOne Foundation is built on SpeechCycle’s Speech 3.0 technology and is deployed as an on-demand service.

…

 

Epicor Software has announced enhanced bi-directional integration with the newest release of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution, an end-to-end collaborative project and portfolio management environment.

The integration lets Epicor customers use the extended project and portfolio capabilities of the Office EPM family of products. This includes Project Portfolio Management through Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007.

 

Both the Epicor and Microsoft products are built on the Microsoft .NET platform and make use of Microsoft SharePoint technologies

 

 

By David Sims

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is the bagpipe-and-guitars Scotrock of The Crofters. How can you not love an album named Hold My Beer While I Kiss Your Girlfriend?

 

Okay, so when does the “one year wiser” part kick in?

…

 

CentricCRM, a vendor of open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Content Management, and Enterprise 2.0 technologies, and LoopFuse, an enterprise-grade open source product for demand generation and closed-loop marketing, have integrated their software to provide users with the ability to track customers across digital channels, score sales leads, and measure ROI on corporate marketing initiatives.

 

LoopFuse was launched by two former JBoss and Red Hat developers in Spring 2007. The company has an open source product that allows organizations to track customer activity on Web sites and via e-mails, score sales leads based on detailed data about customer behavior and integrate marketing processes with major CRM products, including CentricCRM.

 

This, company officials say, enables LoopFuse to “provide the capability to score prospects for the sales team and measure ROI within marketing and sales activities.”

 

The integration of LoopFuse with CentricCRM is intended to allow corporate marketing departments to consolidate customer relationship history with online activity. For example the type of customer, role, buying behavior, and the type and frequency of contact with the organization, can be linked with behavioral activity in the sales process including marketing e-mails opened, links clicked, Web site pages accessed and products viewed.

 

By joining up marketing and sales criteria and scoring each aspect, a cumulative score can be given, which marks the sales potential of each contact. Sales representatives can prioritize their time and efforts on those customers and prospects that will provide the greatest return. Once promising prospects have been identified, they can be placed into a typical CRM-based workflow including pipeline management, quoting, and customer care.

 

Updated versions of both CentricCRM and LoopFuse that will deliver the integration will be available for download from the companies’ Web sites within 45 days.

…

 

CRM vendor IFS has announced that K&L Microwave, a subsidiary of Dover Corporation, has gone live on the IFS Sales and Marketing customer relationship management (CRM) product.

 

K&L Microwave had been running IFS Applications for enterprise resources planning (ERP) since 2002, but in November of 2006 decided they needed a system that would integrate sales, engineering and quality department activities involved in quoting. As an engineer-to-order (ETO) company, K&L Microwave had more demanding requirements that many CRM products could not meet.

 

According to Global Customer Service Manager Yvonne Downie, the company hoped to better facilitate engineering tasks and projects involved with quoting, and also link part numbers by government programs. “We want to turn quotes around within 48 hours when we can,” she said.

 

Because K&L Microwave performs a significant amount of work for customers working on Department of Defense contracts, the ability to tie part numbers, estimates and opportunities to specific government programs is critical. The IFS product can be set to track government programs and relate them to part numbers, sales opportunities and other activities.

 

“At IFS, we believe that back-office CRM — CRM that ties sales functionality into other information from throughout the company — is going to be attractive to many companies in the 21st Century,” IFS CRM Senior Product Advisor Jorge Defreitas said. “It used to be that you did business with people you know. In the 21st Century, you do business with people who know you and use that knowledge to serve you better.”

 

“Let’s say a territory manager is working with a customer in Arizona, and we get information that suggests a different company in Massachusetts is working on the same program,” said K&L Microwave Sales Territory Manager Jeff Burkett. “They likely will need something similar to what we are working on for the company out west. We can use engineering time we have already invested to pursue that business. If we are supplying parts to one of our customers and the program they are working on moves to another prime contractor, our new CRM will help us make decisions about how to handle it.”

…

 

EntryPoint Consulting, LLC has announced the addition of David M. Johnson to its executive team. Dave joins EntryPoint Consulting as Vice President of the firm’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Practice.

 

Prior to joining EntryPoint, Johnson was a Partner with Peppers & Rogers Group, an authority on one-to-one marketing and customer-based strategies for sales, service, and business performance measurement. He has also held national and international roles with management consulting organizations over the past 15 years, including BearingPoint and Deloitte Consulting.

 

Johnson focuses on achieving measurable returns from CRM initiatives including the business, organizational and technological strategies instrumental to driving improved profitability and top-line growth across all customer-facing processes. Johnson’s team will provide customer segmentation, customer life-time value modeling, touch point analysis, deployment of SAP CRM systems and business case modeling.

 

EntryPoint Consulting, based in Independence, Ohio, calls itself a “pay-for-performance business integration consulting firm serving middle-market companies in the United States.”

…

 

Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and implementer of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has announced the release of Capital Effective, a front office relationship management solution designed exclusively for the financial services market.

 

Capital Effective is being pitched to organizations in commercial banking, private equity, investment banking, hedge funds and wealth management. The product’s users are “able to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM to address the highly specific requirements of their unique business models,” company officials say.

 

Powered by Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SharePoint and Office, Capital Effective will be deployed by Customer Effective to address marketing, sales and customer service performance for financial services customers.

 

To support this strategic direction, Customer Effective has opened a northeastern regional headquarters in New York City, located near the hub of the financial district at 33 West 19th Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York.

…

 

Software vendor for large-enterprise lumber dealers and building component manufacturers Deacom, Inc. has announced that Carter Lumber has selected the Deacom Integrated Accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software System to refine and manage its manufacturing business processes.

 

Carter Lumber has over 200 stores in 10 states, retailing building materials, and manufacturing trusses, custom moldings, millwork, engineered lumber, and prefabricated wall panels.

 

Carter Lumber will use the Deacom ERP System to consolidate and streamline its labor tracking, production scheduling, inventory, sales order entry, and purchasing functions in real-time, as well as link to its Mitek design software for integrated ties between the engineering and business process.

 

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Grass Roots album Temptation Eyes:

 

Sage Software has announced availability of the new ACT! by Sage 2008 product family including ACT! by Sage 2008 (10.0), ACT! by Sage Premium 2008 (10.0), and ACT! by Sage Premium for Web 2008 (10.0).

 

“New customizable dashboards anchor this year’s product releases,” company officials say, and “allow individuals and workgroups to access priority sales opportunity and activity details in a comprehensive graphical view.”

 

Additional ACT! 2008 enhancements include editable list views2, multiple contact assignments per opportunity, and expanded workgroup security, among others.

 

Today’s ACT! 2008 product announcements coincide with the 20th anniversary of ACT!. Sage officials like to say that ACT! “established the contact management software category” with its introduction in 1987. Whatever the history, there’s certainly no denying that today ACT! is the number-one selling contact and customer management product with more than 2.7 million registered users and upwards of 41,000 additional corporate customers.

 

Joe Bergera, executive vice president and global general manager for Sage CRM Solutions, said the new dashboards “deliver rich visual analysis capabilities that were once only found in enterprise CRM systems. Now, with ACT!, they are available and affordable for small and mid-size business use.”

 

The new dashboard features include a comprehensive visual overview of key activities and opportunities on a single screen. Users can set an ACT! dashboard as their startup view to begin each day with a snapshot of activities that require attention, and track their progress against company goals and key performance indicators. The dashboard allows users to track their individual activities and opportunities, and allows team members to track their individual activities and opportunities, while managers can also track group performance.

 

Each ACT! dashboard includes six customizable components: Schedule At-a-Glance, My Activities, My Opportunities, Opportunity Pipeline by Stage, Top 10 Opportunities, and Closed Opportunities. Users can also create new calls, meetings, to-dos, or add additional details to existing opportunities directly from the dashboard. The entire dashboard, or components, can be copied into any application including Microsoft Office applications for use in e-mails, reports, etc.

. . . .

 

Glasgow-based CRM vendor Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, announced that it has been selected by Friends Provident to provide the product to “drive the company’s 6 Star Customer Service vision,” Graham officials say.

 

Friends Provident is a British financial services group and a member of the FTSE100 Index. As part of the deal, caboodle (Graham Technology’s flagship customer interaction software) will be used across the firm’s entire customer facing operation, including the contact center, sales teams, independent financial advisers and partners.

 

“With 6 Star Customer Service, we intend to ensure that Friends Provident sets the standard for customer service in our industry,” said Richard Crouch, Director of Customer Services at Friends Provident.

 

The engagement will see Graham Technology assist Friends Provident in delivering centralized customer service processes to all of the firm’s customer groups, across all channels (contact center and self-service), in all of its geographies. The project will support 2,000 concurrent internal users and unlimited external users.

 

Graham Technology will begin the project with the delivery of a contact center desktop application, with additional elements to be rolled out subsequently.

 

. . . .

 

Eloqua Corporation, a vendor of automated demand generation applications and expertise for business-to-business marketers, has announced that Kofax, an information capture vendor, has selected Eloqua via salesforce.com’s AppExchange to “improve the quantity and quality of its channel sales leads, streamline marketing processes and accelerate sales cycles.”

 

Kofax has integrated Eloqua with on-demand CRM applications from salesforce.com to “generate and prioritize channel-ready leads as well as rapidly convert these leads to closed sales,” Eloqua officials say.

 

“Salesforce.com delivers an amazing product and does a great job with sales’ needs, however, we also needed to add a dedicated demand generation product,” said Richard Bosworth, vice president of Americas Sales & Marketing, at Kofax.

 

“Prior to the Eloqua implementation at Kofax, we did not have 360 degree visibility into the interest level and activities of channel leads,” said Doug Ford, sales manager, at BRT Incorporated, a Kofax channel partner. “The difference has been dramatic.”

 

Kofax officials say they wanted to identify where new customers originated in order to allocate budget based on partner expertise and success rates. They also wanted to segment content type and frequency of communication by industry and other demographic data in the database.

 

The company also wanted to score leads by behavior and share 360 degree visibility into the prospect’s activity with its sales team and channel partners. With thousands of global partners and nearly 100 percent of its sales through the channel, company officials termed this effort “critical” to the company’s revenue goals.

 

Eloqua has enabled Kofax to set up a channel marketing program that uses relevant, one-to-one conversations with individual prospects to nurture those leads throughout the sales cycle. The product’s campaign management capabilities have reduced the time to deploy campaigns, increasing the flow of leads into the program. Automated lead qualification and scoring programs help Kofax and its partners determine which leads are ready to engage with sales teams.

 

. . . .

 

Billing it as “the easiest CRM Connector on the market,” VisionPeople Channel Sales, distributor of Add-Ons for Dynamics NAV, Dynamics CRM, and Dynamics AX, has announced the North American release of its VisionCRM Connector product.

 

Company officials describe the product as “real time integration between Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.” The VisionCRM Connector exchanges data and functionality between the well-known Microsoft user interface and the accounting system -- “without interrupting the user,” company officials explain”

 

“By integrating the two systems, companies can avoid the expensive and resource-intensive processes of maintaining and updating information in both systems, not to mention the likelihood of making errors due to manually typing.”

 

The product is not just synchronizing the two databases, company officials stress. By the use of the best integration tools for both systems, and by using Web services, the user has access to both data and functionality in both systems and a full real time integrated environment.

 

. . . .

 

Blackbaud has announced that Heifer International has adopted its recently released products, Blackbaud Enterprise CRM and Blackbaud Direct Marketing. The $100 million global organization, which raises most of its money through individual donations, works with communities to end hunger and poverty.

 

Heifer will partner with Blackbaud to develop a constituent-centric model that integrates fundraising and various other activities across organizational boundaries.

 

Since 1944, Heifer has helped 8.5 million families in more than 125 countries move toward greater self reliance through the gift of livestock and through training in environmentally sound agriculture. In 2006, with 726 active projects in 57 countries and 29 U.S. states, Heifer received private contributions of more than $89 million.

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Israel Kamakwiwo’ole’s Facing Future:

 

Integrated Tech