By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is — finally, iTunes, about time, and thank you — Stan Rogers’ great live album Between the Breaks:

 

British firm Emax has announced the formation of a Global Loyalty Division. As its first project, company officials say, EmaxLoyalty will support the pan-global rollout of selektpoints, a new coalition program currently being launched in several Middle Eastern countries prior to a full global rollout in 2008.

 

The program, which recently won the award for best innovation in a loyalty program at the Cards International Global Conference in Berlin, provides regional and international banks and retailers with a loyalty program which is based on their debit or credit “chip and pin” card.

 

The scheme is billed as offering “significant benefits for consumers, banks and merchants,” company officials say: “Consumers can earn points automatically without the need for a loyalty card, simply by registering their payment card. Banks offer the scheme to their customers, while merchants award points only where, when and how they choose.”

 

Emax has developed a CRM platform, based on Microsoft Technology, which will enable selektpoints to manage relationships with both consumers and the multitude of merchant partners that participate in the new program.

 

The Emax CRM and Commerce Server platforms are integrated to provide dedicated portals for all the users, a scalable catalogue for all reward products and services along with campaign management and sales automation modules.

 

The CRM product also provides the platform for all membership services, as Emax is providing selektpoints with outsourced customer, technical and redemption management services.

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Salt Lake City-based KnowledgeBlue, a vendor of open source business applications, SaaS services, and Compiere Authorized Partner, has announced the availability of the openBLUE Data Import Service.

 

KnowledgeBlue’s openBLUE Data Import Service. consists of the conversion and import of non-standard data by KnowledgeBlue consultants into the Compiere ERP / CRM application with use of data conversion and import tools. The data import service imports data to Compiere’s main reference and transaction entities from XML, fixed length or comma separated files and customized formats.

 

The product provides adjustable import parameters, including source data formats for all the fields and destination data formats for the selected fields. This service supports the ability of organizations to decrease the effort and time for the data import process and improve data reliability and security for initial Compiere implementations and subsequent data updates.

 

“The Data Import Service is a direct response to customer and partner requests to support customer implementation and an example of KnowledgeBlue’s continual support and investment in the Compiere application,” stated Robert Kunz, president and CEO of KnowledgeBlue.

 

After loading data into Compiere, results are subjected to verification to establish that data was accurately imported, is complete, supports processes in the new customer system implementation and forestall erroneous data loss.

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LogicaCMG, am Australia-based international vendor of IT and business services, has announced the appointment of CRM veteran Sorin Toma as its Energy and Utilities Director based in Sydney.

 

The appointment comes at a time as the utilities market gears up for new challenges in IT infrastructure resulting from industry privatization, carbon emissions trading, renewable energy and the introduction of interval metering in Victoria and New South Wales.

 

Toma has held executive positions at EDS, Deloitte Consulting and Accenture focused on the development and implementation of corporate strategies and large-scale business transformation engagements.

 

At Deloitte Consulting, he successfully completed enterprise-wide transformation engagements in the energy, telecommunications and government sectors, including large systems ERP and CRM deployment, enterprise architecture, business process redesign, change management and business and technology strategic planning.

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Dealer Specialties, a division of Dominion Enterprises and vendor of data and photo collection, inventory management and data distribution services, has announced that it has partnered with Automobile.com to display dealer inventory.

 

Automotive dealers using Dealer Specialties expects to benefit from the growing free leads network by listing their vehicles on Automobile.com with a free basic listing. Automobile.com is a consumer site launched for consumers regardless of where they are in the buying cycle.

 

“The addition of Automobile.com to our partner list creates another touch point for consumers to reach our dealerships’ inventory,” said Brian Page, General Manager of Dealer Data Services at Dealer Specialties. “For our dealers, the additional exposure increases the chances of their vehicles being seen and ultimately resulting in more sales.”

 

Automobile.com will be launching a comprehensive search engine optimization program to drive traffic to the site.

 

“In the competitive world of auto advertising, dealers and manufacturers need to find ways to stay in the fore front of potential buyers,” said Adrian Lee of Automobile.com. “Advertising, in audience targeted verticals, is the only way to ensure that your message is being seen by the right people. Automobile.com offers competitive rates to meet the needs of our clientele.”

 

Inventory Manager offers a graphical interface that simplifies inventory management and marketing tasks. Inventory Manager provides dealers with a comprehensive suite of inventory management and marketing tools, along with one of the largest Internet distribution channels in the automotive industry.

 

Dealer Specialties, a division of Dominion Enterprises, sells vehicle data collection, image generation, window labeling services and inventory management.

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IDS Scheer, a vendor of Business Process Management, has announced that SAP will resell its ARIS software platform in Australia.

 

The announcement “builds on the strong relationship already in place between SAP and IDS Scheer,” IDS Scheer officials say. IDS Scheer is an SAP global services partner and SAP is a strategic partner of IDS Scheer. Both companies have previously offered the joint application, ARIS for SAP NetWeaver, a comprehensive business process analysis product that allows customers to model and align business processes for SAP apps.

 

“Efficient management and delivery of business processes is the foundation of a best-run business,” said Alan Hyde, CEO and Managing Director, SAP Australia and New Zealand. “This is especially significant for organizations looking to improve their flexibility.” SAP will now resell a set of IDS Scheer ARIS modules for managing business processes, marketed under the name SAP Enterprise Modeling application by IDS Scheer.

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Today in 1886 the Apache warrior Geronimo finally surrendered to U.S. forces. One of the most brilliant guerrilla fighters in world history, he had fought for five years, leading 37 warriors against 5,000 U.S. troops for the last five months, but was tired of living in the mountains on the run. He was the last major American Indian warrior to surrender, and was allowed to travel the country for the rest of his life, dying in 1909.