December 2007 Archives

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is First Coffee's Favorite Album from 2007, not necessarily an album released in 2007, but what First Coffee reckons was his most-played album of the year … envelope please …

Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me (1957). Nobody puts this album as among Sinatra's "greatest" works, that's reserved for the likes of In The Wee Small Hours or Only The Lonely, great albums to be sure, but rather despondent, and Frank can do despondent to the point where you're reaching for the bottle yourself. But he's always been at his best having fun, and on no album does he have more fun than Come Fly With Me. You can hear the smirks and behind-the-hand smiles all over this one, and unlike cotton-candy fun albums, you can listen to it over and over and over until your wife yells at you to put something else on.

And First Coffee's Favorite Book Read in 2007 is The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek (1944). You don't understand the reality of socialism or how socialist-leaning governments and politicians think until you read this, and after you read it you'll never vote for one again. Does for socialism what Upton Sinclair's The Jungle did for Chicago meatpacking plants and Ralph Nader's Unsafe At Any Speed did to the Chevy Corvair.

Wrapping up 2007, First Coffee would like to note that it was the only CRM blog on the Internet to use the word "paraskevidekatriaphobia."

Comments are always an interesting way to learn what sort of person's reading your blog. In January First Coffee received a comment saying " Linking Anna Nicole Smith and Terrell Owens ... sweet! Keep up the good referencing. Yours, Os." Glad to help.

As has been the case for the past couple years, the (vast) majority of comments were readers sharing Caiman.com horror stories. First Coffee's become something of a clearing house for Caiman.com complainers, as it's a company we use as an example of how not to do customer service. And boy, are there a lot of unhappy Camian customers out there.

Typical is the comment First Coffee received in February from George -- "What a terrible company. Had the same problem as Tim, was sent a Pal DVD, who buys that in North America? Didn't know it was PAL until I tried to play it, I was told since I opened it they would not take it back. I was hot and fired off three e-mails saying 'nowhere on your site does it say it is a PAL only product." I did hear from "Claire" and was e-mailed a mailing slip to return it. This was my first and last time dealing with them…"

One of the finest musical discoveries First Coffee made in 2007 was jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius' début album, titled Jaco Pastorius. There are only four bassists in the Jazz Hall of Fame, and only one electric bassist -- Jaco.

In April First Coffee found out a bit more about our readers when Ron posted a comment saying " 1692 and 1992 -- big years. And so I post this piece in memory of Robert Lowell and the year 1992 as well, an auspicious year in the Baha'i historical calendar," following that intro with a piece invoking literary critic Allen Tate, Sam Leith, Roger White and Lowell himself. Always nice to have a fish come flying out of nowhere to smack you upside the head like that.

More Caiman.com horror stories… On the Internet something you wrote last year can stay as current as today. In June I received a comment from Grace saying "Phenomenal post David. I found this while reading something at TMCNet and couldn't stop reading. You are of course right. Thanks for reminding me of this. It has refocused how I think about all projects I run in house for a very large transnational organization."

The article she referenced, CRM Soviet-Style, Comrade? Nyet., written October 31, 2006, began with "A research organization dealing with customer issues recently interviewed First Coffee, and the questions they asked got me thinking about how we can learn about CRM from nearly any field of human endeavor, but we learn the most through the most exciting, spectacular, idiotic ideas crashing and burning, like socialism."

Basically I said look, you can stick a whole lot of farmers on a Soviet collective and tell 'em they'll all be shot and their families banished to Siberia if they don't produce 100 bushels of beets and you'll get 100 bushels of beets -- exactly, and the sorriest tubers that ever qualified as a "beet." As the history of the Soviet Union proved.

Or you can show them how much money they'll make per bushel of beet, and that better quality beets will get better prices at market, and that they'll get to keep the rewards of their labor and sacrifice minus a reasonable tax and you'll get more beets than you know what to do with. As the history of capitalism proves every day.

Socialism failed because it failed to take this basic human nature into account, that working for the glory of Mother Russia wasn't enough of an incentive for people who weren't making any money to work harder, and data integration projects fail for the same reason -- people who aren't going to benefit from a project aren't going to work any more than the absolute keep-my-job minimum for it.

If companies take a Soviet-style mentality to customer data integration projects -- "Do it for the glory of Acme Anvils, comrades!" -- they'll get Soviet-style efficiency results. If they do it with a capitalistic mentality, recognizing the reality that people do well what they're incentivized to do well, they'll have a successful pogrom. Program, sorry.

Also in June I wrote "How important is customer service, which is to CRM what playing a guitar is to a rock band, in a part of the world not exactly noted for its strong tradition of customer service? Evidently increasingly so: The diminishing level of customer service has caused almost half of Middle East consumers to switch service providers within the past two years."

Someone else with firsthand experience of this part of the world wrote to say "Great article... customer service and the Middle East don't really go hand in hand."

More, much more on how badly Caiman.com sucks and screws over customers… First Coffee really likes it when the side dishes served up here are to a reader's taste. I mentioned a particularly silly ad campaign I remembered from years ago -- "particularly silly" being quite effective for ad campaigns, after all -- and Laura wrote to say "I had been trying for years to remember what kind of car it was that was advertised as 'fiendishly seductive.' Thanks to Google.com and your site, I found out (it was the Dodge Diplomat). I was a teen when those ads came out and I always thought that was a strange way to describe a car! It's a CAR, for crying out loud!"

In early October First Coffee watched the United States - South Africa match of the Rugby World Cup in an Irish pub here in Istanbul. The crowd was overwhelmingly South African, I appeared to be the only American. Of course America lost -- badly, as expected -- but my South African friend was shocked at the American team’s courage and heart.

He couldn’t stop talking about how hard America fought in the waning stages of the game, losing 55-8 the Eagles, weekend players, amateurs with day jobs, were still giving everything they had for a meaningless try against the eventual World Cup winner -- which they got, and when they did, every single South African in the bar applauded. I’m proud to be an American as it is, but I left that pub just a little more proud.

See y'all in 2008.

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 First Coffee's Third Favorite Album from 2007, not necessarily an album released in 2007, but what First Coffee reckons was his third most-played album of the year… envelope please…

Miles Davis's Kind of Blue (1959). The jazz album you're most likely to hear in a restaurant or put on when a "friend" comes over for an evening. Its unobtrusiveness is frequently misunderstood, however. This is the furthest from elevator or background music jazz has ever produced, the fact that it gets so many repeated listens is due to how good it is, not how bland it is.

And First Coffee's Third Favorite Book Read in 2007 is Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power by John Steele Gordon (2004). Academics hate business because they're rarely any good at it, and they really hate successful businessmen because somebody making a roaring success out of something they're incompetent at, in their view, needs to be ignored if possible and denigrated when noticed. Therefore, the history of the stunning success of American business is rarely taught well in school, and when mentioned at all men like Carnegie, Vanderbilt or Rockefeller are presented as caricatured villains. This book is a good antidote to all that, presenting in lively prose the story of how American ingenuity, creativity and hard work built the greatest economic colossus and most affluent society in world history.

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Hey folks, we'll be honest: There ain't no CRM news now worth $2.95, and probably won't be until after New Year's. And we're not going to pretend there is. But we know you turn to this space for escape from your everyday lives, for guns blazin', girl-chasin' and roof-raisin' thrills, so we're going to sum up a bit of what we did in 2007, re-hit the highlights. One company First Coffee paid a bit of attention to in 2007 was Starbucks, and for good reason, as we see here in the Ghost of First Coffee past…

In February The Wall Street Journal printed the full text of a rather impressive memo Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz e-mailed to company executives on Valentine's Day. In it Schultz laments the fact that Starbucks' rapid expansion -- " from less [sic] than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond" in the past ten years, as he writes -- has necessarily included a dilution in the quality of "the Starbucks experience."

Amen, First Coffee wrote at the time. You simply can't have 13,000 stores, be shooting for 40,000 around the world, and expect everything to be the same as it was in your first store in Seattle. It will lead, as Schultz said, to "the watering down" and "commoditization" of the brand. My friend, if you're opening in airports and Barnes & Noble stores as fast as possible, you're not controlling quality too closely, you're keeping the profits rolling in.

Schultz pointed out that competitors are piecing off Starbucks customers -- "small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops." The strong implication in the memo is that if Starbucks simply gets back to the Starbucks way of doing things, such competitors will, in his term, be "eradicated."

Well, in point of fact, First Coffee wrote, Starbucks doesn't seem to be losing overall customers. Schultz knows this. What they very well might be losing, however, is a certain kind of customer near and dear to Schultz's heart -- the one who is drawn by the aroma of fresh-ground coffee, one who considers watching a barista prepare a coffee drink an "intimate experience," and who appreciated hand-pulled espresso shots. That guy doesn't feel much at home in a Starbucks anymore, and this nags Schultz. But you can't have it both ways, and Starbucks' shareholders will decide which way they go.

…

Then in April there was an excellent piece by industry observer Mary Hayes Weier on the tech weapons Dunkin' Donuts is using to try to combat Starbucks, including a system built by business intelligence vendor Oco, which Dunkin Donuts CIO Dan Sheehan told Weier is like "a CRM application with a scorecard built on top," in Weier's words.

Most of Dunkin' Donuts' 5,000 or so franchises are in the Northeast, as First Coffee noted at the time: "You give directions in Boston by how many Dunkin' Donuts to pass before turning left. Starbucks would like a piece of that action." And as it turns out, the private equity group that bought Dunkin' Donuts last year, Weier said, would like a piece of Starbucks' global action: They're planning for "15,000 franchises worldwide," whereas Starbucks has 12,000 stores worldwide, "including 8,800 in the U.S., and plans to add another 2,400 globally this year."

Dunkin' Donuts is wheeling out a system to streamline the process of awarding franchises, on the theory that if they're the first to occupy ground they can fend off Starbucks later. "Salespeople and managers use the system to manage information about these [franchise] customers, including the stage of each potential deal and how financing is going for them," Weier explained.

And this is key, First Coffee wrote: "Since Starbucks doesn't franchise they can parachute in anywhere whenever they want, no mucking around with franchisee approval and funding and royalties and all that." And the Dunkin' Donuts system gives company managers "a dashboard-type software application to identify any problem areas so they can keep deals on track," Weier explained:

"They can get a geographic view of regions where deals are stalling, and then drill down into a specific account to determine what's slowing down the process. They can identify potential deals in locales that are too close in proximity. They also can identify high-performing areas, and gather best practices from those regions' salespeople to share with other areas."

Of course the best of all possible worlds would be Dunkin' Donuts doughnuts with Starbucks' coffee. Here in Istanbul we buy pastries at a Turkish-French café along Istiklal Caddesi, walk three doors down and get coffee at Starbucks. Fortunately neither establishment minds the arrangement.

…

In June First Coffee received an e-mail from an independent coffee shop owner complaining that Starbucks' coffee was overrated, that there is better coffee to be had, so why aren't Starbucks customers going to the places serving better coffee?

First Coffee would agree that Starbucks rarely has the best coffee in any sizeable city. But "what Starbucks gets right," I wrote at the time, is "what any successful franchise -- Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, the Church of England -- gets right: they always hit the customer's minimum standards." Always. And that's the key.

Because what Starbucks grasps is that it's all about the customer experience. "Walk into a Starbucks you know it's not going to have lumpy, uncomfortable furniture, it'll have good lighting, the music won't be terribly good or bad but sufficient background. The service will be competent and the coffee drinkable. If you want a relaxing afternoon, meeting friends or working on a laptop, that's all you're ask for," I wrote.

Yes there is better coffee than Starbucks to be had. Yes there are better bookstores than Barnes & Noble, yes there is better preaching than that generally offered by the Church of England, but when a customer walks into one of those places, she can count on what she's going to get. Competing coffee shops, bookstores and churches around one of those outlets needs to be at least that good. If they're not, well, they probably don't deserve to be in business in the first place and aren't going to last long.

Because a coffee shop isn't selling coffee, it's selling a pleasant customer experience. If you're just selling coffee all your orders are to go, right? Customers want good coffee, but they want to enjoy, or at least not be turned off by, the tables, artwork, music, staff, temperature -- more than once I've had to walk out of coffee shops here in Istanbul which are so hot I'm uncomfortable. I'm after the customer experience as much as anyone.

…

And in August First Coffee received the following e-mail:

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," I wrote. "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."

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

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is… you know, there were a lot of good albums released in 1966 that still hold up today, weren't there? Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde, The Beatles' Revolver, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, The Byrds' Fifth Dimension, The Medical Mission Sisters' Joy Is Like the Rain, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton, The Kinks' Face to -- huh? Hold on, go back a couple. The Medical Sister what?

The Medical Mission Sisters, a group of nuns singing songs composed by Sr. Theresa Winter which stand up today alongside anything else coming from that time. About on a par with Peter, Paul and Mary for rock chops, the record's packed with strong harmonies, interesting musicianship and arrangements, thoughtful and witty lyrics and the kind of passion in performance you get from people as sold out to something as nuns.

Joy Is Like The Rain fits on the First Coffee CD rack for 1966 comfortably between Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme and Sunshine Superman, and if you haven't heard you're welcome to keep your uselessly prejudiced opinion to yourself until you do.

…

Redknee Solutions has said it will acquire the assets of Kiwi billing company and CRM platform vendor Argent Networks for up to $8 million. Redknee will make an initial payment of $4 million and then up the total if certain revenue goals are met, the company said. The deal is expected to close Jan. 31.

Argent is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and has operations in Australia, Middle East and the United States. Following the acquisition, Argent will be integrated into Redknee's existing business.

Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redknee, called the transaction "exciting for Redknee," as it "expands our operator footprint with 18 new operators in the emerging markets and five in North America, while increasing our product portfolio to include interconnect billing, and converged billing for IPTV and broadband operators."

You might know Argent for its ArgentEclipse Interconnect, a revenue assurance, interconnect and content settlement software product, and ArgentEclipse, a convergent billing and customer care CRM platform for fixed line, wireless and broadband operators.

…

AMC Technology, a contact center products vendor, has re-launched its free Webinar series, with topics centering on integrating contact centers with CRM applications.

"Many companies today are looking for ways to get the most out of their CRM application in order to work more effectively and deliver higher levels of customer service," AMC officials say -- you are, after all, right? Well okay then.

These Webinars are designed to provide real-world contact center experience and CRM integration information. They'll discuss how customer centric organizations can "improve the customer service experience, improve agent productivity and reduce the total cost of ownership associated with all contact center integration projects," the AMCians say.

Many of the shows focus on a particular CRM vendor or contact center vendor, the idea being, company officials say, to let the audience "stay focused on their particular situation." Within each of these kinds of Webinars, attendees will learn about the particular vagaries of pair-wise integration -- such as integrating a CRM from a specific vendor with a contact center product from another specific vendor, say -- which will provide "valuable down to earth information about their particular situation."

Some recently-added dates and topics include: January 2, 15, and 31 "Integrating SAP into the Contact Center," January 9 "Integrating Oracle PeopleSoft CRM into the Contact Center" and January 23 "Integrating Oracle Siebel CRM into the Contact Center."

"These Webinars will provide valuable information to contact center managers who want to learn how to get the most out of systems and applications they are currently using," said Larry Smothers, Global Partner Sales Manager at Richmond, Virginia-based AMC and a guy who never, ever has anybody ask him "So where are your two brothers?"

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Salon Seudun Puhelin Oy has chosen NETadmin to provision and manage its network, SSP officials say.

The system will be delivered via Netadmin's partner K&K Active Oy. "Using NETadmin gives the network customers control over the services they want to use. This deal will enable Salon Seudun Puhelin to continue delivering open networks," says Kari Vuorinen, Business Manager of Network Development at SSP.

K&K Active Oy's sales manager Tapio Venäläinen says the deal will let SSP "improve its broadband services and increase sales of services to both new and old customers." NETadmin integrates with other systems, such as invoicing and CRM systems.

…

CCID Consulting, a Chinese research, consulting and IT outsourcing service provider, the first Chinese consulting firm listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has issued some forecasts for trends it expects in China' ICT market in 2008.

As elsewhere in the world, hardware, software, consumer electronics and telecom are projected to be more service-oriented.

"SAAS will change the business model of the traditional software industry," company officials find:

"On one hand, SAAS will expand to total product on the basis of renting CRM. Functions such as OA, CRM, financial management, HR management, security management and mobile business are converged into a total product," the report says. "Because of its briefness, moderate price and flexibility, the product is popular among SMEs."

On the other hand, the report finds, the extension of SAAS servers "will expand. In addition to professional CRM servers and traditional software manufacturers, telecom operators and ISPs also join the competition."

CCID sees hardware becoming a service in the future in China. Volkswagen has begun to ask hardware providers to repurchase related products and offer services according to global readiness, the report finds adding "hardware is not only a kind of product, but also a tool of providing related services to users' production and management. The SAAS era is near."

The 2008 Olympic Games are expected to speed up developments in mobile communications, NGN, wireless access, digital TV, semiconductor lighting and RFID as well.

A "high-tech Olympic Games" will provide great opportunities for Mobile, NGN, wireless access, digital TV, semiconductor lighting and RFID, the CCID reports finds: "These opportunities would include the use of mobile communications based on 3.5G; NGN based on IPv6; WLAN/WiMAX that realizes seamless and wireless network; bidirectional wired digital TVs; LEDs with energy-saving, environmental protection and long service life characteristics; and RFID, which is widely applied in electronic ticketing, IDs, safety tracing systems, food safety monitoring and assets management."

Yet the report predicts it will be "difficult" for China's future IC market to present a growth rate over 30 percent, as less international electronics production is transferred to China. The report foresees "the output of China's units will become saturated after a rapid growth for years, even if they have a certain growth rate, and the fall of IC price will also influence the future IC market."

The IC industry is less mature than traditional industries in China, to be sure, but it isn't a new industry and market, so growth will be slow compared to the electronic industry.

CCID is directly affiliated with the China Center for Information Industry Development. Headquartered in Beijing, CCID Consulting has set up branch offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Harbin. The company's business covers over 200 large and medium-sized cities in China.

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 First Coffee's Fourth Favorite Album from 2007, not necessarily an album released in 2007, but what First Coffee reckons was his fourth most-played album of the year… envelope please…

Lou Reed's Live In Italy (1984). I admit, I was skeptical at first that any Lou Reed live album could top Rock 'n' Roll Animal, Reed's classic live album from the Druggy 70s. Live In Italy doesn't have guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter's blazing pyrotechnics, but it does have punk/jazz veteran Robert Quine, probably the most interesting guitarist Reed's worked with. Throw in bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Fred Maher and it's Reed's best backing band ever. They tear through an eclectic song list -- is that really "Betrayed?" "Kill Your Sons?" -- ending with Reed's definitive "Rock 'n' Roll." Is it better than Animal? Nothing tops Animal's version of "Heroin," but for the rest, well, I think so.

And First Coffee's Fourth Favorite Book Read in 2007 is "12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the Byzantine Empire" by Lars Brownworth (2007). Which isn't technically a book, it's a series of free iTunes podcasts by a Stony Brook School teacher which was so popular that Brownworth was given a contract to turn the series into a book. Living here in Istanbul you'd think First Coffee would be up on his Byzantine history, but there was so much packed into Brownworth's absorbing presentations that I had to listen to each one two or three times. A nod here to John Julius Norwich's 1998 three-volume history Byzantium, a work as enjoyably readable as Brownworth's lectures are enjoyably listenable, and one to which Brownworth, as any Byzantine buff, is heavily indebted.

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German Business Intelligence software company Axle Studio GmbH has entered the North American market with a $1,095 per seat product called Axle Studio 2007 offering what the Axlians call "real-time synchronization across multiple vendors' databases and ERP, CRM and SFA systems."

Axle Studio also configures for end-user reports, dashboards and ad hoc multi-dimensional cube analysis.

"Axle Studio 2007 is a multifunctional BI platform," suitable for end user applications using multiple databases for trending, performance monitoring, and business reporting requirements, according to Bruce Ringrose, President of Axle Studio Canada. "Unlike many BI platforms," he adds, "no server software or dedicated hardware is required, so Axle Studio really opens up BI to a much larger SMB market."

Controller and CMA Stephen Clark of Rochester, New York-based metal components fabricator Firth Rixson said the company's ERP vendor offered proprietary report-writing software, but "it was expensive and very hard to master. I didn't have the time or money to implement something like Cognos or Business Objects," since they "demanded a huge data warehouse project." With Axle, "I spend 10 to 15 percent of my time working with data as opposed to 60 to 70 percent," says Clark.

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StayinFront, a CRM vendor, has been rated "Positive" in Gartner's recent report "MarketScope for Sales Force Automation in the Consumer Goods Industry, 2H07."

The criterion for inclusion is at least $5 million in consumer goods sales force automation revenue specific to five key sales processes. The sales processes are category management, customer planning and TPM, volume planning, retail execution and monitoring and settlement.

StayinFront Consumer Goods Version 10 was noted for sales force automation, marketing automation and customer service applications. StayinFront officials say the product can be configured for use with existing business structures.

Thomas R. Buckley, StayinFront's CEO, said the vendor has enjoyed a strong presence in the pharmaceutical industry, but "have strategically intensified our presence in the consumer goods market."

StayinFront CRM can be delivered as a hosted application or installed on a corporate network. It supports a wide variety of mobile devices, such as tablet PCs, laptops and Pocket PCs. Headquartered in Fairfield, New Jersey, StayinFront has offices in Illinois, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Ireland, India, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand.

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Shoptech Software has announced the release of Webview 7.1, a product the Shoptechies describe as "a CRM complement to the E2 Shop System." The product lets customers and vendors of E2 users access information via the Internet.

Manufacturing software like E2 is used as an alternative to ERP software. It's sometimes called "shop management software" or "job shop software."

Phil Hutchinson, President and CEO of Shoptech Software, said "we like to think of our software as the most powerful tool in our customer's shop."

"The name Webview is a little bit of a misnomer," added Paul Ventura, Senior VP of Marketing for Shoptech. "Users can actually send information back and forth through the customer and vendor portals, and documents can be attached on both the customer and vendor side. Customers are able to submit RFP's and place orders on-line."

Established in 1984, headquartered in Glastonbury, Connecticut, Shoptech sells ERP business products for small to mid-market custom and make to order manufacturers.

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From the industry journal VietNamNet Bridge comes the news that Genting International, an Asian entertainment group, has announced the selection of a local firm as the reseller and licensee of their customer loyalty program WorldCard in Vietnam.

"WorldCard is specialized in the business of operating and managing customer loyalty programs. WorldCard is also engaged in the business activities of providing technical platform and technical resolutions in relation to Customer Relationship Management (CRM)," said Genting International PLC executive manager Justin Tan.

Through its member company Worldcard Overseas Holdings Limited, the contract between Genting and Tai Ngan was signed in Ho Chi Minh City.

According to Genting officials, WOHL introduced the technical product which would be applied for the use of WorldCard services. Tai Ngan kicked off a business partnership with Gloria Jeans and Medicare, adopters of the WorldCard products in Vietnam.

Tan said the customers of the participating merchants who are holders of the Loyalty Cards would be granted rewards in the form of points to be accumulated and kept in the Loyalty Accounts whenever the customers frequent the participating outlets. The points accumulated could be redeemed with goods or services among the participating merchants' outlets at real-time, online and on site.

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USOnyx, a Singaporean vendor of Web hosting services, has introduced a new range of Web-based communication products, offered in cooperation with LiveChat Software.

LiveChat Contact Center uses Web technology such as Macromedia Flash to provide a customer contact tool. The Contact Center suite has conferencing capabilities, file sharing, live demonstrations and remote desktop functions, and can spit out reports based on the number of chat sessions, invitations and time spent with each specific operator. Customers can choose to leave operators a message Web forms.

The LiveChat Communicator is billed by the company as offering "a greater level of protection against online threats with its 128 bit SSL protocol. In addition," company officials say, the Communicator suite lets users reach people who use other instant messengers, such as MSN or ICQ, while "its customizable contact list minimizes distractions caused by unnecessary conversations."

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 second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is an album just barely nosed out of First Coffee Top Five of 2007, Louis Jordan’s Let The Good Times Roll: The Anthology 1938-1953.

 

EMC Corporation, a vendor of information infrastructure products, and Document Sciences Corporation have announced that they have signed a definitive agreement whereby EMC will acquire publicly-held Document Sciences Corporation in a cash transaction valued at approximately $85 million.

 

Document Sciences Corporation sells document output management software for communications to customers, partners and suppliers. The acquisition “complements and extends EMC’s position in the transactional content management marketplace,” a segment of enterprise content management, according to the DSCers.

 

The board of directors of Document Sciences Corporation approved the transaction with EMC based, in part, upon the recommendation of a special committee of the Document Sciences board of directors. Under the terms of the agreement, Document Sciences Corporation stockholders will receive $14.75 in cash for each share of Document Sciences Corporation common stock.

 

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of calendar year 2008. It’s not expected to have a material impact on EMC financial results in 2008.

 

Document Sciences’ xPression suite of document output management and customer communications products lets organizations automate the creation and delivery of communications, from contracts, policies and relationship statements to marketing collateral and correspondence. It integrates with enterprise CRM, ECM and ERP systems.

 

. . . .

 

Ah, December, the time of year when tech firms predict next year. For the fourth year running, Technology Futures is offering a list of what is sees as the trends for the coming year. “These predictions differ from our normal activities where TFI traditionally looks further out into the future,” company officials note.

 

Commenting on the list, author David Smith, Vice President TFI, says 2008 will be “a dynamic year impacted by possible actions such as the potential financial instability including the threat of recession, changes in the geopolitical environment, and further changes to the landscape of business.”

 

The company is proffering its Top 19 Technology Trends for 2008, a refreshing number for such a list, and obviously it’s too long to incorporate here but it’s available on their Web site. What concerns us here is… well, okay, their #1 is “Green, Green, Green.” During 2008, “every thing turns green. The greening of information technology started in 2007, but will pick up speed and spread to all parts of both the corporate and consumer domains. This includes efforts at conserving power, more efficient procedures, less travel, and many other activities to save resources.”

 

And #2 is “Peer-to-peer rebrands itself and becomes an ad-supported connection between consumers, business, and content producers.” But what really concerns us is their #3 prediction, that the IT industry’s key players “dramatically increase the migration of core offerings.”

 

CRM, other applications, business intelligence, storage, imaging and the like “will migrate to online delivery models as a key method for profitably serving high-growth markets, particularly small and medium-sized businesses,” firm officials think. “Web mashups that combine data from more than one source into one integrated tool will be the dominant model for the creation of composite enterprise applications and will peak around 2012.”

 

They also say “Mashup technologies will evolve significantly over the next five years, and application leaders must take this evolution into account when evaluating the impact of mashups and in formulating an enterprise mashup strategy.”

 

Prediction #19? “2008 will be the toughest year ever for CIOs.” We’ll see.

 

. . . .

 

SWK Technologies, a Sage Software tech provider for small to mid-size businesses in New York and New Jersey, has announced the addition of 225 new customers during 2007 via organic growth and addition.

 

The firm, opening new locations in New York State as well, was also named to both the Sage Software President’s Circle and the Sage Million Dollar Club in 2007.

 

Jeffrey D. Roth, CEO at SWK Technologies, said SWK is increasing its infrastructure with “more staff, more locations” and more tech products: “Much like Sage, we’re putting a lot of effort into getting closer to our customers and finding out exactly what they require to keep growing. It’s working.”

 

Over the past year, SWK upgraded existing customers to versions of Sage Software products, including the addition of applications that address areas such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Human Resources, and Payroll.

 

. . . .

 

Wanna work for SAP? Now there’s an easier way to find and apply for SAP employment. SophLogic Global, an SAP consulting and professional services firm, has launched a SAP jobs portal that allows SAP job seekers to search current openings and register to apply and receive updates.

 

The SAP employment portal contains current SAP job opportunities and searchable SAP job locations in Florida, New York, Atlanta, California and throughout the U.S., as well as in Germany, Canada and other countries.

 

The SAP jobs portal allows SAP job seekers to search for current openings according to criteria such as amount of travel, location, start date, whether temporary or permanent, salary range or whatever.

 

Candidates are advised to create an SAP employment profile and sign up for notifications to make application easy and quick.

 

. . . .

 

Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and reseller of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has announced the opening of a new office in New York City.

 

“Our expansion into the Northeast supports our initiative to offer CRM technology to organizations nationwide,” said Scott Millwood, president of South Carolina-based Customer Effective.

 

Customer Effective sells CRM products to mid-market and enterprise organizations across a wide variety of industries. With its Capital Effective CRM Suite, the company provides front office products for financial services in commercial banking, private equity, investment banks, hedge funds and wealth management.

 

. . . .

 

CDC Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a provider of industry-specific enterprise software applications and business services, has announced it has joined the Open Applications Group Inc., an open standards group in the enterprise application industry.

 

Nigel Davies, vice president, Supply Chain Solutions for CDC Software, will continue to serve as chairman of the board of directors of OAGi until his term ends in early 2008 when he joins the five-member Executive Committee of the OAGi. Davies has served as chairman of the OAGi board for the past three years when he was an executive with Catalyst International, which was later acquired by CDC Software in September 2007.

 

OAGi, which oversees the Open Applications Group Integration Specification standard, is a non-profit development organization focused on building business language standards for enterprise application interoperability. The group is committed to driving down integration costs by removing the barriers to interoperability.

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is First Coffee’s Fifth Favorite Album from 2007, not necessarily an album released in 2007, but what First Coffee reckons was his fifth most-played album of the year… envelope please…

 

Aimee Mann’s Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse (2004). Besides the nugget that warehouses evidently have patron saints, and one wonders what Ann did to earn such an honor, this album showed us that Mann can, in fact, perform all those terrific songs she’s been writing with sinewy, passionate abandon. There’s not a track here that’s not an improvement over its studio counterpart, and muscular renditions of “Long Shot,” “The Moth,” “Deathly” and “That’s Just What You Are” stand out. We always knew Mann could write great songs, with this set she shows us she — with a crack backup band — can put her heart into them as well.

 

And First Coffee’s Fifth Favorite Book Read in 2007 is The Mystery of Capital: Why Capital Triumphs In the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto (2000). After discarding cultural, religious or historical red herring arguments for why capitalism succeeds in the West and nowhere else, de Soto, a Peruvian economist who richly deserves the Nobel Prize, studies widely in functioning capitalist societies today and arrives at the empirical conclusion that it’s simply the West’s belief in — and strong legal protection of — titled private property, safe from state confiscation and leverageable in the form of loans and mortgages, that is probably the single most important factor separating successful capitalist societies from failed ones. Clearly written and engaging, it’s cogent, jargon-free and accessible to economics neophytes.

 

. . . .

 

Great Plains service consultants Alba Spectrum Group found that Microsoft Dynamics GP reporting is “an essential part of GP implementation and post production ERP support,” but add that you need to “do your homework” to find the one for you.

 

As for typical mid-size MRP application, the Great Plainers say, “you should expect multiple reporting tools, especially if you think about reports genre,” such as “financial reporting, business processes specific reports.”

 

When Microsoft incorporated MS SQL Server Reporting Services or SRS “and kind of recommended it over former tool of the choice, Crystal Reports,” GP officials say, “you should do your homework on selecting the reporting tool which will do proposed and expected job.”

 

Great Plains says the ReportWriter, or RW, is incorporated into GP Dexterity environment, “meaning that it works from the GP user interface and within Great Plains security realm. RW is the tools you should look at first when you are customizing something which you call from GP interface: Sales Order Processing invoice form, for example.” Do not expect too much from Report Writer, though, as “it has numerous restrictions.”

 

And as far as Crystal Reports and SRS goes, these two report design tools compete on the market and are in some features similar. “The advantage of SRS and CR is that you can create really cross-modules and all-nightly report,” GP officials say. “However, if you are looking in the creation of pure financial reports such as Profit & Loss Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow,” keep moving, pilgrim.

 

. . . .

 

According to the trade journal Economic Times, data warehousing company Teradata will be ramping up its operations in India by increasing headcount and expanding its business footprint.

 

Scott Gnau, chief development officer at Teradata, said the idea “is to create intellectual property. Cost advantage is achieved not only through paying lower salaries or cutting down on infrastructure cost, but through integration with the international team and through best cross-pollination methods. This has helped us develop some unique technologies.”

 

Gnau said 30 percent of Teradata’s employees are based out of its Indian R&D centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad, and have been “the key contributors” to Teradata 12 version. The company also has a consulting center in Mumbai and plans to open another in Pune.

 

In October 2007 Teradata was spun off from NCR Corporation and listed on New York Stock Exchange. The company said that it continues to be a strategic partner of the parent company to provide CRM to customers.

 

. . . .

 

According to news service FinancialWire, the underwriters of an initial public offering for NetSuite were given a $12.3 million bonus by exercising their option to buy extra shares of the Internet provider’s stock.

 

Shares of NetSuite, which is owned in part by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, shot up 36.5 percent after its IPO and it ended Wednesday at $36.20. Underwriters bought an additional 930,000 shares at $26 each.

 

The purchase increased the total public offering size to $185.4 million prior to the deduction of expenses paid by NetSuite. The company plans to us its IPO proceeds to retire a loan from Tako Ventures.

 

. . . .

 

Jesta, a vendor of business products for the consumer products, soft goods, and specialty industries, has announced that it will launch its new point-of-sale product at the upcoming NRF 97th Annual Convention and Expo in New York from January 13–16.

 

“The small to midsize market does not have a complete end-to-end products provider,” the Jestacians say. The company is therefore launching Vision Store. “Small to mid-sized retailers will greatly benefit by now being able to choose from a full suite of retail products from a single source,” company officials say.

 

Vision Store offers retailers visibility into inventory across the chain and captures customer information. With Vision Merchandising, Vision Planning, and Vision Financials, retailers can “gain greater control over cost management, markdowns, shrinkage and allocation of merchandise per store, further supporting the next seasons planning and OTB dollars,” company officials contend.

 

Vision Store’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) functionality allows retailers to capture “not only customer purchase information but also information about the customer’s shopping experience and item level details,” company officials say.

 

“Our suite now spans the supply chain from concept all the way through to checkout,” said Leslie Belcher, President of Jesta I.S.

 

. . . .

 

Salesforce.com gets some love from Zacks Equity Research, which highlights Salesforce.com as the Bull of the Day. “Our Bull of the Day recommendation is for salesforce.com,” the Zackers say. “Salesforce.com is the market leader in the on-demand CRM space and continues to see substantial subscriber and customer growth.”

 

Although the stock has been “volatile,” as the report notes, Zacks officials “believe over the long-term, CRM is the leader in a potentially huge market for on-demand software. Moreover, the company has had excellent traction into larger customers with thousands of subscribers, reflecting greater acceptance, and should continue to displace Siebel/Oracle.”

 

The research firm therefore reiterated their “buy” recommendation on CRM shares with a six-month price target of $83.00.

 

. . . .

 

Congratulations to Nazli Ekim of SS PR, named one of the top technology communicators of the year by the PRSourceCode second annual Top Tech Communicators study. This year’s study surveyed more than 300 IT journalists.

 

Nazli was born and raised here in Istanbul, moving to Chicago at 14. First Coffee enjoyed an afternoon with her and a couple of friends here along Istiklal Caddesi before Christmas. Aferin sana, Nazli.

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger’s ragged duet Walk and Don’t Look Back, from Tosh’s Bush Doctor album. One thing you can say for ol’ Mick, he’s done more good duets than most prima donna rock singers — witness this track, and his pairing with Peter Wolf on Nothin’ But The Wheel, from Wolf’s stellar Sleepless album:

 

Datacap gets coverage in First Coffee for two reasons — well, three: One, they’re in my general galaxy. Two, they’re located in Tarrytown, New York, where I grew up — hello McKeel Avenue. Three, they do cool things, like involve themselves in the third annual Cycle Faster, which raised more than $18,000 in donations for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you’re in the Greater CRM Metro area and you do cool stuff for charity, First Coffee’s happy to let you puff out your chest a bit. Cycle Faster B2B 2007, which involved nearly 100 riders and reached thousands of spectators, kicked off at the beginning of the cycling season — at April’s AIIM Expo in Boston — and concluded at the October ARMA Conference in Baltimore. Funds were raised throughout the cycling season.

 

“Cycle time” in the ECM industry refers to document processing time. Datacap’s Cycle Faster brings together major imaging, capture, and ECM vendors to benefit worthy causes. Sponsors compete in the cycling time trials, racing on a grueling one-mile virtual course to become the “Fastest Man” or “Fastest Woman.” Winners earn not just bragging rights, but Cycle Faster donations are made in their company’s name.

 

So congrats to the 2007 Cycle Faster Fastest Man at AIIM, Alexander Goerke from Kofax, the Fastest Woman at AIIM Sabrina Stratford of Captaris, and the Fastest Man at ARMA, a tie between Jack Kasperski of Kodak and Jaime Castillo of Canon. Special thanks to the Best Fundraiser, Sabrina Stratford of Captaris, who raised $1,000 in pledges.

 

“The breadth of support we have seen from our partners underscores the generosity and heart of the ECM industry,” said Scott Blau, Datacap CEO. “Just as an ECM product requires vendors to work cooperatively to help customers meet their document processing challenges, Cycle Faster gives us a chance to work together to raise funds and awareness for worthy causes.”

 …

 

Well done to CRM Insider for recognizing quality when they see it, and putting Paul Greenberg’s CRM blog at the top of the list of CRM blogs today. Thanks to Angela, the Excitingly Enchanting Expatriate English Rose, for pointing the list out to First Coffee, who was too busy watching the best documentary produced in years, The Great Global Warming Swindle to notice.

 

Kudos to the witty CRM guru and oenophile Dick Lee  and the classy, gracious Jim Berkowitz for receiving due praise for their CRM blogs as well. And First Coffee pledges anew to do his utmost for the highest goal of never allowing such plastic wordoids, such as “solution,” “leader,” “enable,” “utilize,” and “leverage,” or pretty much any unearned adjectives or adverb infest this column.

…

 

CPM Marketing Group, a Customer Relationship Management vendor for healthcare, has released a white paper on its Patient Loyalty Study. This paper “explores CPM’s loyalty study and the benefits of identifying and measuring loyalty within a healthcare organization,” according to the CPMians.

Measuring patient loyalty can help determine a particular marketing campaign’s impact on an individual’s future behavior. Increased loyalty, so the thinking goes, equates to a hospital’s likelihood of retaining an existing or prospective patient. Therefore, long-term viability of any business lies in the retention of its customers. “Once a relationship is developed, patient loyalty is achieved, thus, capturing a higher percentage of the individual’s lifetime value over time,” CPM officials say.

CPM, in association with leading experts in market research, sought to create a loyalty index for its customers. Key components of the survey included, awareness, brand equity, perceptions of the organization, hospital choice, and likelihood to recommend.

 

To that end, then, information gathered through a loyalty questionnaire was administered to individuals who have been contacted as part of a hospital’s Customer Relationship Management program and its associated control group, who have never received CRM communications. The results for both groups were computed and cross referenced to determine the program’s effect on loyalty.

CPM Marketing Group is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin and works the database development, intelligent healthcare marketing systems, and predictive market segmentation side of the CRM street.

…

 

According to various press reports eLoyalty has lowered expectations for fourth-quarter services revenue to $20 million to $21 million, citing delays at “numerous” pending integrated contact projects, lower-than-expected consulting revenue, and potential delays in completing contracts before the end of the year.

 

The Lake Forest, Illinois-based management consulting company said it has completed a restructuring of its operations, whacking ten percent of its workforce of 406. ELoyalty said the employee reductions, as well as other expense control actions, will reduce the company’s cash expenses by about $9 million annually.

…

 

IEnterprises, a global desktop and wireless customer relationship management (CRM) vendor, has announced that it has incorporated enhanced composite applications available on IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 into its desktop CRM, iExtensions CRM.

 

By using composite applications, the iEnterprisers say, small and medium companies can now “access, pull, and take action on precise information from heterogeneous enterprise systems right when they need to.” Such yogalike flexibility and heightened automation lets companies lower their total cost and better collaborate.

 

“Composite applications help companies create longevity for their technology investments,” said John Carini, chief software architect, iEnteprises. “Users are no longer confined by their job functions or by multiple systems. They can pull information whenever, and however they want it.”

 

For instance, sales representatives may want to retrieve sales quotas by geography while customer service representatives may need to pull a customer issue to see if it has been resolved. By configuring the composite application components, information is sent to the requesting person. Such accessibility to information “eliminates the need for duplicate copies” and “reduces inaccuracies,” company officials say.

…

 

How does First Coffee keep going? Turkish wine and Exile on Main Street on the iPod. Try it at home and see. Results may vary. Batteries not included. Sea monkeys may die.

…

 

DealerAdvance officials say they’ve converted three of their clients to a new and growing WebDA product, the latest iteration of  their CRM application.

 

WebDA allows automobile dealers to capture a customer’s purchasing requirements, and lets customers and dealerships personnel to search inventory at multiple locations, locate an appropriate vehicle in stock and print out the necessary forms. Through an integrated CRM app, the system sends tasks for prospect and customer follow-up and produces management reports to measure compliance.

 

The company stated that the original server based system is now being replaced in the almost 100 dealerships previously being served.

 

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 Abbey Road:

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of China's CDC Corporation, has launched its Pivotal Customer Relationship Management (CRM in the Indian market through its new franchise partner, CDC CRM Solutions Private.

CDC Software has said it will pay $20 million for investment in channel partners worldwide. CDC Software has taken a 19 percent ownership stake in CDC CRM Solutions Private Ltd. and the company will exclusively sell Pivotal CRM in India.

CDC CRM Solutions has announced a sale of Pivotal CRM to TTK Services, a person-to-person outsourcing company in India.

…

According to The Writer's Almanac, today in 1843 Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. The book, an instant bestseller, revived the entire tradition of Christmas, which was then on the decline in England. "It launched Dickens into a fame much like The Beatles," the Almanac says, "on his reading tours, Charles Dickens was mobbed by adoring fans, who would rip his clothes, wait in long lines to shake his hand, and pull down the windows on his train car to grab at him."

…

Salentica Systems has announced it will begin offering compatible products within 30 days of the next major release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "Titan," an evolution of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 product, introduces an advanced multi-tenant architecture, and uses a single code base to support on-premise deployments as well as software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployments.

Expected to be generally available in early 2008, the Titan CRM will offer a smooth upgrade path for existing on-premise and SaaS customers.

Salentica has been working with Microsoft for the past year under its Technology Adoption Program, and was one of a group of global partners chosen to be involved from the very early stages of the product development cycle.

"Our early involvement and ongoing investment in product development has allowed us to be very fast off the mark in offering our clients all the benefits of Microsoft's latest CRM release," said Bill Rourke, President, Salentica. "Our products will be available, on both an on-premise and hosted basis, for Titan's release."

Salentica's products are meant to help wealth management firms, institutional brokers and financial product wholesalers drive revenue and manage their client relationships. All data is instantly captured and retrievable for client service, management reporting and regulatory compliance.

Rourke recommends that companies, wishing to upgrade, set up as a defined project with a budget and timeline. "A good step to take even now is to start building a list of preferred enhancements and changes," he advised. "This list can be prioritized and the requirements matched to the capabilities of the upcoming release."

…

Callfinity, a vendor of contact center technology, and Urban Outfitters, which operates under the Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie and Free People brands, have announced that the retailer has selected Callfinity's call recording, reporting, and quality evaluation systems for use within its contact centers.

Bryan Whitney, Director of Call Center Operations for Urban Outfitters, said they have implemented Callfinity's Quality Monitoring application "because it increases our ability to evaluate and improve our customer service interactions within the Direct Contact Center. It is augmented by Callfinity's Business Intelligence product, which assists us in identifying the root causes that prompt customer inquiries."

Callfinity's full suite of products includes a multimodal ACD platform for queuing and routing inbound telephone calls, chat sessions, e-mails, and faxes to call center agents; a modular IVR system for automated assistance and Web services support; a voice and screen recording system for quality management and training as well as a complete CRM system designed for use in contact centers. The Callfinity modular suite is available as both an on-premise system and as a hosted service.

…

Antenna Software has announced that its customer, DirecTV, received Network World's Enterprise All-Star Award for its mobile CRM project. DirecTV used Antenna's AMPower SALES product to provide its 75 area sales managers with real-time customer and product information in the field -- "allowing them to access essential data and manage accounts using their BlackBerry smartphones," according to the Antennians.

DirecTV wanted to provide its mobile salesforce with consistent, up-to-the minute marketing and sales information without consuming IT resources. DirecTV picked Antenna's AMPower SALES mobile application, an on-demand product that manages and guarantees delivery of bidirectional wireless communications and transactions between the device and the back-end system.

Since deploying AMPower SALES, DirecTV officials say they've seen a 30 percent increase in the number of accounts that can be visited in a week, improved frequency of sales data reporting from seven days to one day and service request resolution shortened from five days to three days.

"DirecTV's successful implementation of Antenna's AMPower SALES caught the judges' attention for its smart decision to mobilize its CRM on-demand applications," said Beth Schultz, editor, Network World.

"This mobile CRM implementation will serve as a model for other enterprises moving forward," said Jim Somers, vice president of marketing, Antenna Software. "We are delighted that DirecTV has been singled out for demonstrating that mobility not only adds value to an enterprise CRM system, but provides real and measurable business benefits on top of that."

…

Siperian, developers of a master data management platform, have announced that Siperian MDM Hub is now available on salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace.

The integration of Siperian MDM Hub with salesforce.com's Force.com platform and CRM applications is intended to help organizations obtain customer data for "improved sales productivity and more effective customer service," according to the Siperianites.

Siperian MDM Hub unifies data about customers, products, and organizations across different systems and delivers views of this data to reduce cost, improve compliance, and drive operational effectiveness.

Now AppExchange-certified, the Siperian MDM Hub demonstrates how customer information contained in Force.com or Salesforce CRM applications can be aggregated, reconciled and synchronized across the enterprise. Siperian MDM Hub combines the most up-to-date customer information from disparate sources and makes it available in real-time even as updates are being made in Salesforce and other applications.

…

ELoyalty, an enterprise CRM vendor, has provided an update on the progress of its Behavioral Analytics Service Line. Since its last update on November 7, eLoyalty has signed two additional Behavioral Analytics Deployment contracts and one additional Behavioral Analytics Assessment contract, the eLoyaltians say.

The two most recent deployment contracts are with "a very large retail bank" and with "one of the 5 largest HMOs," with both contracts having a combined value of approximately $10 million.

ELoyalty has signed, in the fourth quarter, five contracts for Assessments and three for deployments. The company currently has 29 Behavioral Analytics customers, 15 customers in deployment and 14 customers in assessment.

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 second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is a Steve Earle mix:

 

Omnistar Etools has joined HostSearch.com’s Value Added Service, it was announced today. The company offers a range of PHP software products that include an e-mail-marketing product and helpdesk CRM software.

 

Each of their products are Web-based, and do not require any additional software to be installed. The company is offering HostSearch Support Members who sign up for their products the special offer of a 10 percent discount on its full suite of products.

 

Established in 1997, HostSearch.com provides information about Web hosting providers and the Web hosting industry. It’s basically a source of searchable information related to Web hosts and their products and services. The site’s members — known as Support Members — are all Web hosting providers.

 

“Omnistar Etools has a number of Web-based software products that will benefit our Support Members,” said John Hughes, HostSearch.com’s Web Editor, to explain the move. “They offer Web-based e-mail software for managing e-mail list campaigns, help desk software, a Web file manager that allows you to setup a secure file storage system, job recruiter software, Web-based shopping cart software, and I believe it’s a pretty useful suite of products as far as Web hosts are concerned.”

…

 

PacificNet, which sells gambling technology and Customer Relationship Management and e-commerce products in China, has announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100 percent ownership of Octavian International, a supplier of gambling technology.

 

The transaction is subject to various conditions, including the completion of due diligence, which has already commenced. PacificNet will issue restricted shares of PACT representing approximately 19.5 percent of PacificNet’s outstanding shares.

 

There is also an additional cash performance bonus. According to Octavian’s financial reports as audited by Grant Thornton UK LLP under UK GAAP, Octavian had a revenue of approx $64.6 million, gross profit of approx $18.4 million, EBITDA of approx $6.2 million, and pre-tax profit of $5.5 million, for fiscal year ending Dec 31, 2006.

 

This acquisition is expected to increase PacificNet’s overall gambling revenues and profits and is expected to be accretive to PacificNet’s consolidated Earnings Per Share (EPS) in 2008. Upon completion, Octavian would continue operating under its current name as a wholly-owned subsidiary of PacificNet and would continue to pursue its global growth strategy as a leading provider of gaming technology.

 

Harmen Brenninkmeijer would become an executive director of PacificNet and a member of the board of directors, and continue to server as CEO of the Octavian subsidiary within PacificNet’s gaming division.

 

Furthermore, upon completion of the earn-out provisions and profit targets as defined in the acquisition agreement, Harmen Brenninkmeijer would become President of PacificNet’s Global Gaming Division.

 

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008. Sterne Agee has been appointed as the financial advisor for Octavian for this transaction.

 

Tony Tong, CEO of PacificNet, said his company is “excited at the prospect of adding Octavian’s global gaming brand name and distribution channels to PacificNet’s gaming strategy. The acquisition fits well within our key focus of garnering long-term, high-margin, recurring revenue contracts in emerging gaming markets worldwide.”

…

 

Zoho, an online office productivity software company, has recently extended its flagship AJAX based RIA product Zoho Writer with offline capabilities. According to industry journal InfoQ.com, Raju Vegesna of Zoho said the reason for going offline is very simple:

 

“We believe that ten percent of online users would like to continue their works when they are offline. We’d like to support those ten percent of Web users. After we decided to move Zoho Writer offline, we took a good look at all the available technical options and platforms, including Adobe AIR, Microsoft Silverlight, even the upcoming Firefox 3, which should come with offline capability.”

 

However, as Vegesna told InfoQ, as an AJAX-based RIA Web applications provider, “we believe a real Web application should natively support Web standards such as HTML and CSS. The biggest reason we started out with Javascript is that it is native to the Web — in the sense its core object model for Javascript is the HTML/CSS Document Object Model.”

 

Vegesna said Zoho “decided to develop something on our own, using technologies like SQLLite. Then, just in time, Google Gears was released. It’s open source and Javascript based. We particular like the BSD license. We thought, instead of developing something new, why not use Google Gears and contribute back to it too. That’s how Google Gears became our offline platform and we are very happy about this.”

 

Zoho is “committed on using Google Gears,” he told InfoQ: “We have two major categories of products, one is file centric apps and another is database centric apps. Zoho Writer is file centric based, and once we’ve done Zoho Writer, the next thing will be extending other tools in the category to offline. We will go through the same approach on database centric tools such as the CRM product.”

…

 

CargoWise edi, a vendor of integrated international supply chain logistics management systems, suggests how IT enhancements can not only improve operational efficiencies for freight forwarders, but also improve and streamline the sales process for a more successful outcome.

 

“Successful sales outcomes are often determined by the degree of integration within a company’s CRM program,” says Gene Gander, VP Sales — USA of CargoWise edi. “In today’s global marketplace, integrated IT-based solutions can play a significant role in driving increased sales for freight forwarders if sales and marketing functionality is integrated within the overall freight management and supply chain system.”

 

The company has identified key drivers for an effectively integrated IT-enhanced CRM sales and marketing process as ones that provide improved communications for more timely customer service, supply chain visibility for sales personnel to better document shipment activity and better management of time-sensitive product distribution.

 

The vendor also highlighted the importance of call notes that schedule the next call and upload it to specified Outlook calendars, opportunity management that provides sales forecasting and funnels relevant information to the sales and marketing department and the ability to deliver marketing campaigns using filtered database lists.

 

A cold call register for generating leads before they’re prospects or customers is important as well, as are sales activity reports and measurement metrics, optimization of the entire supply chain process and cost savings over using multiple systems.

 

Gander says that IT enhancements can provide “critical access to sales department personnel by enabling them to view, measure and manage accounts from a sales account standpoint instead of restricting sales access due to existing security parameters.”

 

Providing the sales department with the appropriate access to account information via an integrated software platform can enable the sales team to better focus on core elements of the entire sales process rather than spending time tracking, scheduling and managing existing accounts in a separate system.

 

“Many companies in our industry have tried to patch together a CRM system with operations software without much success. There are good software solutions in the market if sales are operating in a vacuum, but none can match the integration of a system such as ediEnterprise within a single platform… and at less cost than using multiple systems.”

 

While these provide efficiencies and improved communication between the sales person and potential customers, Gander said, “they can also be compared to other CRM systems, such as Salesforce.com, Goldmine or others that serve all industries.”

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Van Morrison’s live medley of “Shakin’ All Over/Gloria” with John Lee Hooker, from A Night In San Francisco:

 

WiredContact, a Web-hosted Customer Relationship Management service, has noted a sharp increase of around 90 percent in sales figures over 12 months, which the WiredContacters attribute to “its strategy to offer various tailored versions of the product to directly fit the needs of individual business sectors.”

 

Having recognized the market need for tailoring its technology to suit sector-specific requirements, WiredContact’s Vertical Market Applications (VMA) have “proven to be a hit with the channel in recent months,” company officials say: “Indeed the VMAs have played a major role in WiredContact’s development into the Financial Services, Recruitment and Education markets.”

 

The services provide added functionality for each sector in specific ways. For example, the Recruitment service enables the user to differentiate between clients and candidates, temps and perms. The educational version, CRM4FE, can discern between Delegates, Clients, Courses and Training Providers, which is especially useful in Colleges. The Financial Services module tracks policies, properties, proposals and prospecting.

 

The WiredContact CRM service is Web-based and “suitable for all levels of usage, from SME’s to Bluechip Enterprises,” company officials say. Originally a Web-based front end to ACT!, WiredContact can now work in conjunction with or independently of ACT! to provide a leading edge Customer Relationship Management service product.

…

 

Rona, a Canadian retailer and distributor of hardware, home renovation and gardening products, has announced it has selected two new partners for its marketing communications and advertising — Cundari for a brand agency across Canada, and Saint-Jacques Vallee Young & Rubicam for Reno-Depot.

 

The Cundari Group will develop marketing communications for the Rona brand, including corporate brand creative, tactical and promotional programming, company officials say, including “Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) initiatives in support of our Air Miles reward program, as well as using Rona’s Olympic and Paralympic sponsorship.”

 

In addition, Rona has concluded agreements with existing partners Quebecor World to print its flyers and Transcontinental to distribute the flyers while CARAT maintains its mandate for media planning and buying as well as sponsorship management.

 

SVY&R has been selected as the marketing communication agency for the 15-store network of Reno-Depot in Quebec.

 

In addition, Rona has concluded agreements with two of its long-term strategic partners. Quebecor World and Transcontinental will continue to work with the company on its flyer program. Quebecor World will print the flyers for Rona’s banners across Canada and Transcontinental will maintain its role as Canada-wide distributor.

 

“As a proud Canadian company, we aim at building this same relationship with consumers from coast to coast,” explained Rona Senior Vice President of Marketing Michael Brossard.”

…

 

StayinFront, a vendor of enterprise-wide (CRM) applications, has announced it has joined the Motorola PartnerSelect Independent Software Vendor Program.

 

Motorola’s PartnerSelect Program is to promote “long-term go-to-market relationships and ecosystem-partnering among independent software vendors, product and business partners, and professional service providers worldwide,” according to StayinFront.

 

As part of the program, StayinFront will focus on relationship development, application software and professional services by co-validating its CRM applications with Motorola’s mobile products, including the MC70 and MC50 Enterprise Digital Assistant.

 

StayinFront’s latest version, StayinFront CRM 10, enables organizations to gain the flexibility to deploy the product across multiple platforms, including LANs, WANs, Tablet PCs, and mobile devices.

…

 

The City of Las Vegas has implemented Oracle BPEL Process Manager, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware, to integrate various applications and business processes, as well as to provide a better experience for city employees.

 

The city worked with Innowave, a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork, on the implementation, which was the most recent step in a citywide technology transformation. The city previously implemented the Oracle E-Business Suite to improve financial and human resources management, as well as Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management to manage assets and maintenance.

 

The City of Las Vegas first used Oracle BPEL Process Manager to streamline business processes within its Water Pollution Control Facility, which treats wastewater generated by more than 650,000 residents and businesses in Las Vegas and North Las Vegas.

 

The facility recently implemented Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management to enhance efficiencies in maintaining public assets and managing the respective city workforce. The city used Oracle BPEL Process Manager to integrate the utilities product with the Oracle E-Business Suite’s financial, human resources, payroll and purchasing applications — delivering a comprehensive view of the facility’s numerous infrastructure assets and enabling more strategic management decisions.

 

The City of Las Vegas is also using Oracle BPEL Process Manager to integrate its land management application with its Oracle back-office systems and is planning additional integration projects to improve efficiency citywide.

…

 

Following the successful launch of the DocCheck Faces network in Germany, DocCheck, a community for medical professionals in Europe, is now making its social networking package available in other countries.

 

The Italian version is already online. English, Spanish and French versions will follow in January 2008. The English version is also aimed at the U.S. market. “Online market research, eMarketing, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) lie at the heart of DocCheck’s business model,” company officials say.

 

Within DocCheck Faces, medical practitioners can put their profile on show, set up their own forums and exchange news with colleagues. “Our aim is to establish a global community of healthcare professionals, thereby significantly improving international exchanges between physicians,” explains Dr. Frank Antwerpes, DocCheck’s CEO.

…

 

Kintera has announced that Advizor Solutions, a leading provider of business analysis software, has joined the Kintera Connect partner program to “develop a product that will help nonprofits gain a better understanding of donor behavior and giving patterns.”

 

Once completed, the application will provide nonprofit organizations with interactive, customizable, and on-demand business analytics, Kintera says: Using Advizor Solutions’ Visual Discovery, nonprofits will “be able to graphically view robust analytics including gender, age, giving history, payment time and type, donation frequency, and donor campaign activity.”

 

Additionally, the interactive functionality of Advizor Solutions’ business intelligence software will enable nonprofit clients to drill down and personalize information gathered from Kintera’s donor management and fundraising products.

 

“The Kintera Connect platform enables us to create an integrated product that we believe will enable nonprofit organizations to raise money more efficiently,” said Doug Coswell, CEO of Advizor Solutions. “The idea to contact Kintera and join the program actually came from one of our nonprofit clients.”

 

 

By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Thelonious Monk’s Brilliant Corners:

 

Stein Rogan & Partners has announced a partnership with Vtrenz, a marketing automation and lead management company, to “optimize demand for products and services for one of its flagship clients, TransitCenter.” Acquired by Silverpop in May 2007, Vtrenz does marketing campaigns, scores and routes leads to sales, and analyzes marketing results.

Tom Stein, president and CEO of Stein Rogan, said the Vtrenz partnership “has enabled Stein Rogan to take our demand generation and CRM practice to a new level of proficiency and sophistication.”

For TransitCenter, the non-profit organization behind TransitChek tax-free commuter benefits, which encourage mass transit and reduce traffic congestion, Stein Rogan created an acquisition campaign in concert with a Vtrenz-powered automated lead nurturing campaign using articles, white papers, telemarketing, surveys, and special offers.

“By implementing precision marketing, we’ve been able to identify and route high opportunity leads to the sales team,” adds Susan O’Sullivan, vice president of Marketing, TransitCenter. “At the same time, we can nurture ‘less sales-ready’ leads, moving them steadily to ‘sale-ready’ status.”

Precision marketing is “an area with huge upside for B2B marketers,” Stein observed, adding that the agency is in the midst of a second client implementation, and anticipates at least four more in 2008.

…

 

Allbase, a vendor of online business products, has announced a Web-based Enterprise Resource Planning system designed for SMBs, allowing business owners to “manage all aspects of their operations in one system: accounting, CRM, inventory, marketing, scheduling, and more.”

 

Powerful business management products are “no longer exclusive to large corporations”, says Bert Johnson, president of the Allbasers. “The Allbase Suite combines the features of traditional ERP with the affordability and ease-of-use of online software.”

 

The Allbase Suite runs over any Internet connection and is available 24/7. The software is upgraded on a regular basis, providing features and improvements at no additional cost.

In addition to employee access, the Allbase Suite “can enable clients to place orders, view appointments, and make service requests. The system further integrates with vendor databases, allowing employees to view real-time product pricing and availability information,” company officials say.

 

The Allbase Suite is available starting at $3,000 as an SaaS product. Hands-on training and full support are available by phone, e-mail, or appointment. A free 30-day evaluation of the Allbase Suite is available through the www.allbase.com.

…

 

Dr. Mover, Inc. has announced that Moishe’s Moving and Storage, a moving company in the NYC & Tri-State area with operations across the United States, has selected Dr. Mover as its Customer Relationship Management software.

 

Since implementing Dr. Mover, Moishe’s has been “able to increase sales, improve profitability, reduce costs, control pricing, make dispatching easy, and improve customer satisfaction,” according to the Moisheites, who add that streamlining the process of identifying leads, closing orders, and empowering company managers to drive sales productivity has meant increased sales of 25 percent.

 

Dr. Mover’s tools not only increase profitability; they allow managers to closely track and monitor profits and costs on a day-to-day and project-to-project basis. “Overall costs are reduced,” as “information flows easily and swiftly within the company by files that are shared through designated departments within the company.”

 

In addition to sales costs, box costs are also reduced. “Box costs?” By precisely tracking the company’s packing material inventory, Dr. Mover is able to determine the impact of missing boxes, whether workers have given them away or failed to account for them.

 

See, when you and I move, we just go down to the local liquor store and get boxes. They’re strong and the guys love giving them away, otherwise they have to break them down. There’s your daily tip from First Coffee, who’s done his share of moving — when you’re the only guy in your circle of friends who’s got a 1974 Volkswagen bus with the middle seats ripped out, you get asked to help with a lot of moves, and if you have the right kind of friends, there’s beer and pizza in it for you somewhere.

 

Dispatching is another area in which Dr. Mover has influenced Moishe’s bottom line. A highly sophisticated file dispatch system allows men, trucks, and job fields to be viewed concurrently and allocated with simple clicks and drops. This is, again, an imporvement over First Coffee’s dispatch system, which is, “Hey Dave, can you have that ugly bus out in front of… well, actually could you park behind the house… at nine?”

…

 

SoftBrands, a vendor of enterprise application software, has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, ended Sept. 30, 2007.

 

Revenues for fourth quarter fiscal 2007 were $23.3 million, an increase of 23 percent compared to the prior year’s equivalent quarter. The year-over-year increase in revenue was primarily the result of the acquisition of HIS in fourth quarter fiscal 2006. License revenue was 19 percent of total revenues in the current quarter, up from 11 percent in Q4 fiscal 2006.

 

SoftBrands had operating income of $2.5 million in Q4 of fiscal 2007, compared with an operating loss of $12.3 million in the fiscal 2006 quarter. They reported net income available to common shareholders of $1.8 million, or $0.03 per diluted share, for fourth quarter fiscal 2007, compared with net loss available to common shareholders of $17.0 million, or a loss of $0.42 per diluted share, for the prior year’s quarter.

 

“While our revenue performance was slightly behind plan in the quarter, we continue to make gains in license revenue,” said Randy Tofteland, SoftBrands’ president and chief executive officer. “Our operating income was right on target, despite incurring $1.7 million in restructuring costs.”

 

SoftBrands recently introduced a new set of Customer Relationship Management tools for hotels, which allow hotels to centrally manage guest, travel agent, and company profiles and communication across multiple properties. Mosaik CRM includes sales force automation, campaign management, and loyalty program administration.

…

 

Here’s something you wish they’d thought of before: Connecting the guys out digging around your facility with the CRM and contact centers of phone companies, so they don’t cut through your phone lines.

 

TelDig Systems, a software vendor, has announced that it has implemented its TelDig Nexus Asset Management Software to manage Bell Canada’s office and field operations for both buried and aerial network interventions.

   

The product ties together office resources, field technicians, excavators, inspectors, as well as supervisors through a virtual access to a central database. Users are able to attach photos, videos, images, and digital mapping and connect to other corporate systems such as CRM. Centralizing data allows process automation and improves infrastructure damage reporting and claims management.

 

It also will connect excavators to damage prevention call centers. “Having a central database for all the data concerning our assets, improves our cost control, our inspection process and therefore the overall service to our customers” said Brent Fleury, Associate Director Field Services at Bell’s Damage Prevention Cost Recovery Center. “It is much easier now to manage our claims; all the information is accessible.”

 

 

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Tom Waits' Mule Variations album:

Recently Concursive Corporation, for its first major announcement after changing its name from Centric CRM, released a new version of its core software suite. The new application, Concourse Suite 5.0, "integrates CRM, Web site creation, content management and Enterprise 2.0 technologies into a complete front office product," according to Cent- … excuse me … Concursive officials.

Michael Harvey, EVP of Centric CRM, answered some questions for First Coffee before the big switchover:

FC: Why now for the name change?

MH: For some time, our vision and product development have been expanding beyond the bounds of traditional CRM. CRM traditionally focused on aggregating large amounts of customer data segregated into the three silos of salesforce automation, marketing automation, and customer service. For those who actually are familiar with the term CRM, it often brings to mind visions of large, late and over-budget IT projects enacted by big companies.

ConcourseSuite is a complete front office product that includes capabilities associated with traditional CRM, to be sure, but also includes capabilities like Web content management, enterprise content management, team collaboration, and even business to business networking. We wanted a name for a company that reflected this much broader mission and set of capabilities. Shipping a brand new version of our main product seemed like the ideal event for announcing the new company and product names.

FC: How strong do you see the shift in collaborative, community-oriented CRM across the entire CRM market?

MH: I think the genie is truly out of the bottle in terms of how customers want to deal with businesses in a wired, always-connected world. They expect online access to information and ordering, they want to be able to communicate with companies at the time they want and in the manner they choose. They want to be able to post comments and reviews and connect to other customers to share information. Almost every successful business, no matter what size, is going to have to embrace, adapt to, and adopt these means of interacting with their customers, partners, suppliers, affiliates, and other key stakeholders.

Interestingly, most businesses who are implementing these sorts of capabilities are not thinking of them as CRM. Rather, they just look at it as Business 101 in a wired age. In some ways, I think that smaller businesses are almost at an advantage compared to larger companies since they are starting almost from scratch. It is much harder for a large business with a legacy CRM system to figure out how to "bolt on" community collaboration tools to their system, rather than starting with something that, from the get go, has been engineered for a wired world.

FC: What future do you see for social networking as part of CRM applications?

MH: Many of the dynamics in consumer-oriented social networking sites will be adapted to the business world: user-generated content, micro-publishing, ad hoc teams and groups. These capabilities will have to be modified, however, to support the needs of businesses. As much as we might like to imagine otherwise, for the foreseeable future, most companies will continue to have hierarchies, will continue to organize activities by project and measurable goals, and will continue to measure success via profits.

This means that business-networking tools will need to provide robust security models, role-based permission systems and access controls to corporate information. A credible business-networking tool will need to offer more than just a souped-up wiki.

For ConcourseSuite 5.0, within a single application, a business can now stage and manage all of its Web content, tie that content directly to contact information in the CRM, grant portal access to users, publish the product catalog that it maintains within its CRM to an integrated e-commerce system, set up workspaces for team collaboration that include discussion forums, news postings, and project plans, and more.

FC: What does the name Concursive conjure up for you?

MH: Concursive is a made up name derived from a real but obscure word, "concursion." Concursion is a synonym for "fusion" and literally means a "running together of people, things and ideas." Words like "concourse," "concurrent" and "concur" are all derived from this same Latin root: con carre, to run together.

There is also an implication of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. So for me, and for any others who care to investigate, Concursive will conjure the notion of many elements coming together to create something powerful.

We are also making use of the term "concourse" for our products. A concourse is a place where people meet and connections are made. As discussed above, in today's wired world, those are essential components for successful business.

FC: How do you think it will change the market's perceptions of your products?

MH: Your phrase, the market's perception of a company's products is basically the text book definition of "brand." So what we are talking about here is our brand. Building a successful brand is a long-term process that depends on many factors including corporate identity elements -- name, logo, colors -- with customer experiences with the company's products and, increasingly, the ability to actively participate in some sort of ecosystem that forms around the company.

I think our new name does several positive things. First, it eliminates any limiting or even negative associations that might exist around the term "CRM." Second, it explicitly, if subtly, states our mission which is to create a dynamic fusion of capabilities that empower today's businesses. We are sitting right at the epicenter of the convergence of software, communications, and services.

FC: The product certainly seems to have a strong many-to-many emphasis. Are there business verticals where you find that particularly useful?

MH: The many-to-many aspects of ConcourseSuite is indeed a differentiating attribute. It derives from several capabilities including a true multi-tenant architecture meaning that a single copy of the application can support lots of independent businesses, each of whom in turn can have large numbers of users.

What this means is that we are effectively offering a Salesforce.com type of system in a box to our customers. We also enable something that we call the "Extended Enterprise" in which a company might choose to host a multi-tenant system themselves for the benefit of their own affiliates. This type of deployment model works very well for franchisors, for example, or dealer networks, or agent networks like realtors and insurance companies.

FC: With ConcourseSuite 5.0, what had you heard from your customers about their partner data-sharing needs which affected the final version of the product?

MH: Businesses increasingly want to be able to collaborate in ways that go beyond simple e-mail or IM. These collaborative relationships can form between workgroups within an enterprise, with connected partners" and, of course, with customers. We have put a lot of effort -- and will continue to put a lot of effort -- into making these types of collaborations easier and more productive.

We have customers such as franchisors who want their franchisees to be able to seamlessly trade contacts and leads, for example, or contribute names to a corporate database for an outbound marketing campaign. It makes sense for them to be able to do so directly from within the tool that they use to manage their contact lists, for example, and so that is the kind of thing that we are enabling.

Another capability is support for Portlets. This essentially makes ConcourseSuite a platform for third-party applications. The Portlet standard is an industry open standard that any developer can code to, and can be as simple as little graphical dashboards, or as complicated as applications that integrate data from multiple legacy systems.

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 Emmylou Harris and Robert Duvall's duet on "I Love To Tell The Story" from The Apostle soundtrack:

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a provider of industry-specific enterprise software and services, announced today that Cobbetts, a British regional law firms with offices in Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester, has selected Pivotal CRM to "improve client understanding, promote best practices, streamline marketing activities, and capitalize upon untapped opportunities within the client base."

The move follows a none-too-shabby 26 percent rise in partner profits at the firm, which has a projected fee income approaching £65 million. According to Cobbetts, this success is partially driven by the firm's partner managed-client relationships approach. Using the Pivotal CRM, the Cobbettsians say, will give them a "holistic view of client activity, marketing, and case information in one intuitive system."

Kevin Goosman, Head of IT and CRM Project Manager, said they firm evaluated other providers, both enterprise and industry-specific, and the Pivotal CRM product "offers advanced functionality that can be configured for the way we want to do business."

Goosman specifically cited improvements in the firm's ability to enable them to ensure that all interactions, feedback and action points are visible to all parties interacting with a particular client, and to identify and act on cross-selling and up-selling opportunities with clients in practice areas.

…

Dow Jones & Company has introduced new capabilities offered by its services division, Dow Jones Client Solutions, which focuses on integrating job-specific information for corporate, media and financial clients. DJCS combines three former business units -- Factiva Consulting Services, Factiva Taxonomy Services and MarketWatch Licensing Services -- into one consulting-services practice.

According to IDC, most business professionals spend upwards of 25 percent of their work week looking for internal and external information. Of course if you're a CRM writer "looking for internal and external information" consumes a good 79 percent of your working day, with "drinking coffee" accounting for another 12 or 13 percent.

The new DJCS product combines Dow Jones content with Factiva content, blogs, Web content, multimedia and "a company's internal information," the Dow Jonesians say, and "distributes it according to a company's communication objectives."

Company officials say it's focused on bringing precision to enterprise search via Synaptica, which they describe as "a taxonomy and metadata management tool" for a "centralized repository for semantic management."

The product is being promoted to customers who need to "enhance their CRM, marketing intelligence portal, or intranet for financial advisors," among other needs.

…

Moresolds.com, a real estate software company, has launched MoreSolds.com, which the Moresoldians are billing as "a free online Contact Management application."

MoreSolds.com allows real estate agents to keep an online database of contacts and also keep track of their listings, commissions payable, buyer activities, closings, tasks, scheduled activities, contact notes, and other information, company officials say.

The free version allows users to store up to 100 contacts.

The premium version features unlimited contacts, import and export features, and the ability to add up to 10 additional users. The premium version is $9.95 per month.

In addition to the free contact management CRM, MoreSolds offers snap-on modules to further automate an agent's activities. These additional modules will allow agents to automatically send drip e-mail campaigns, send out a branded monthly e-mail newsletter and get automated feedback on listings.

…

Adenin Technologies, vendors of enterprise Intranet software suites, have released version 9 of IntelliEnterprise, which includes relational search, social networking, and "MyProfile" for the enterprise.

These enhancements "extend the product's Enterprise 2.0 capabilities, giving employees greater control and flexibility over how information in the enterprise is used and shared, while also allowing them to uncover previously unrecognized relationships between information assets," according to the Adeninoids.

With the fully reengineered Relational Search module, users have "a 360-degree view of all structured and unstructured information assets, including documents, wikis, blogs, streaming videos, podcasts, database and contact records," company officials say. It takes "full advantage" of user participation through things like tags and social bookmarks.

Employees searching the Intranet for a travel expense report form, for example, will not only be presented with the desired form, they will also be shown a listing of other related information they may need to access, such as travel advance requests, mileage reimbursement forms, and travel policies; or approved travel agency Web sites.

…

MarketBridge, a vendor of sales and marketing services, has announced it was named SPSS Systems Integrator Partner of the Year 2007 at the annual SPSS Directions User Conference in Orlando.

MarketBridge took home the Systems Integrator honor for developing joint products with SPSS, a vendor of predictive analytics software, to solve such marketing and sales problems as marketing mix optimization, improving B2B pipeline performance and leveraging "passive" market research techniques to estimate the attitudinal effects of marketing activities.

To read the Marketing Sciences white paper, ''Putting the Relationship Back in Relationship Marketing,'' detailing methods such as predictive analytics for building Relationship Marketing programs click on this link: http://www.market-bridge.com/Forms2/Relationship_Marketing.html.

SPSS' Predictive Enterprise architecture is used by MarketBridge to implement a "collaborative CRM" program.

…

Pluris, a vendor of marketing products, has announced the release of its Marketing Optimization and Recommendation Engine, a package of analytics, recommendation engine and optimization engine that provides product recommendations, offer and messaging directives for the retail outlet, call center and Internet.

Pluris' MORE is a completely outsourced product, needing less than a few weeks of effort for enablement. Using its analytics, econometric models and optimization algorithms, MORE users can "pinpoint the most appropriate offer and message for each customer or prospect," according to the Plurisites.

The MORE engine works with communication at the point of sale, aligning the offer at the right point in time when the customer will be most receptive, company officials say. Messages are delivered during customer initiated conversations -- "well above the fray and clutter of outbound direct mail, e-mails, and other mass media."

One broadband services company that tested the MORE product improved its order rate by more than 50 percent, Pluris officials say, adding that "within one small call center alone, the increased sales effectiveness resulted in incremental annual revenues of $2.5 million."

The product fits in existing Web sites, sales processes, incentives, retention efforts, and store and franchise operational environments.

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 second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park:"

ITC Infotech, a global IT services company, has implemented a CRM based loyalty product for Finnair, Finland's largest airline. The Infotechers say Finnair is the first airline in the world to move away from a legacy based frequent flyer program to an analytical CRM product.

The new loyalty system for automating Finnair Plus, the loyalty program for Finnair customers, is expected to improve the effectiveness and usage of Finnair's loyalty program as well as reporting, analysis and decision support.

Tom Källström, Vice President, eBusiness Development, Commercial Division, Finnair said the loyalty program has gone live.

Sanjiv Puri, Managing Director, ITC Infotech, said delivery of the loyalty product to Finnair was part of a five-year multi-million dollar contract signed with Finnair in 2006. ITC Infotech is involved in implementing Finnair's frequent flyer loyalty program, e-ticketing and other operational application systems.

…

ReachForce, a vendor of on-demand software and data services for targeted lead generation, has announced it has been awarded a new technical and intellectual property patent for its Web-based lead generation system using data pre-emptive profiling.

The current patent awarded is Patent Number 7,275,083, and refers to a Web-based system that generates customer leads through the use of pre-emptive profiling. The system is based on an application service model, with its programming accessible to users of the system through web browsers and the Internet.

Suaad Sait, CEO of ReachForce, said by delivering predictive analytics software and custom leads data services, "we are continuing on our vision of eliminating the billions of dollars of waste in B2B marketing and selling caused by extreme inefficiencies in the availability and quality of data."

ReachForce's current U.S. patents include patent Numbers 7,275,083; 7,120,629; 7,096,220; 7,082,427; 7,043,531 and 7,003,517. This includes six lead generation-focused patents awarded.

…

Kelly-Moore Paints, an employee-owned paint company in the United States, has engaged the services of software evaluation firm Technology Evaluation Centers to help it select an enterprise resource planning system.

With over 2,000 employees, three major manufacturing facilities, and 164 retail stores, Kelly-Moore Paints decided that it was time to move from multiple, disparate software systems to one integrated ERP system. Kelly-Moore's project team settled on TEC for its "decision support engine and methodology," according to the TECcers.

Kelly-Moore began with TEC's request for information templates for mixed-mode (process and discrete) ERP to identify feature and function gaps that might have otherwise been missed, and created a custom RFI specifically designed for its environment.

…

Oracle has unveiled Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, a component of Oracle Application Integration Architecture -- the open, standards-based platform for business process integration across Oracle, third-party and custom applications.

Oracle Application Integration Architecture, according to the Oraclians, delivers pre-built Service Oriented Architecture integrations across Oracle ERP, CRM and industry applications. Foundation Pack "takes this one step further," company officials say, by giving customers and partners "the tools to implement their own composite business processes across all applications."

The Foundation Pack is expected to be available in thirty days. It's developed specifically for Oracle Fusion Middleware SOA Suite. It has reference architecture and reusable Web services, and is designed to help reduce the time, cost and risk associated with implementing Service Oriented Architecture projects.

At the heart of Foundation Pack are Oracle's standards based Enterprise Business Objects and Services, which offer a common model approach for application integration. These standards "provide the foundation for creating composite processes while also helping ensure integration durability and sustainability," Oracle officials say.

Also included is the Business Service Repository, which offers visibility into what services are used and how they relate, and the Composite Application Validation System, which allows customers to run complete tests of the integrations.

…

AdventNet, a vendor of network management software, has announced the release of Desktop Central, its Desktop Management software. The new release supports managing Windows Workgroup-based network in addition to Active Directory-based Domain setup and multiple Domains.

Features of Desktop Central include Windows Configuration, patch and service pack managements software deployment, inventory management, remote control and Windows tools, user logon reports and active directory reports.

"We have met patch management and secured controls required for Federal Compliance by implementing ManageEngine Desktop Central. Our workstations are now more organized, manageable, and secure than we could have ever imagined possible," says Steven Deines of Bank of Holden, a user of the product.

"Adding support for Windows workgroups is a significant enhancement as it has opened the door to many small and medium enterprises that do not have an Active Directory setup in their network," says Mathivanan, Director Product Development at AdventNet.

The latest release of Desktop Central can be downloaded directly from www.desktopcentral.com. Desktop Central offers a 30-day evaluation license of the Professional Edition. A permanent Free Edition is also available for small businesses.

The annual subscription price for the Professional Edition starts at $545 for 50 systems.

…

Opera, creators of the Opera browser, has "continued its partnership" with KongZhong Corporation, a Chinese wireless content and media provider, by releasing the newest version of their combined mobile browser offering, "KongZhong Opera."

The new KongZhong Opera 2.0, based on Opera Mini 4, offers users access to KongZhong content, including the official NBA Chinese Web site. KongZhong Opera 2.0 is available free to millions of Chinese mobile users. By supporting cmnet and cmwap, KongZhong Opera 2.0 enables Chinese mobile users to order China Mobile's GPRS monthly package and get unlimited Web/WAP surfing.

Nick Yang, President, KongZhong, said by cooperating with Opera, "we will not only cultivate the Chinese mobile internet market together with Opera, expand the market's influence and penetration, but also further consolidate our market positions."

"Our goal was to enter a dynamic economy like China's with a strong partner," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "We accomplished this with our first release of KongZhong Opera."

KongZhong Corporation is a vendor of wireless value-added services in China and a wireless media company providing news, content and mobile advertising services through its wireless Internet sites. The company delivers wireless services to consumers in China through multiple technology platforms.

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