CRM from Salesforce.com at Priority, NetSuite and B2BGateway, Ciboodle and Crazy John, Consona Results, Brand2Media and Assured Logistics

David Sims : First Coffee
David Sims
| CRM, ERP, Contact Center, Turkish Coffee and Astroichthiology:

CRM from Salesforce.com at Priority, NetSuite and B2BGateway, Ciboodle and Crazy John, Consona Results, Brand2Media and Assured Logistics

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald's sublime "Summertime" duet:

B2BGateway, a product of Shannon Systems, and an integration product partner of NetSuite Inc. since 2001, today announced the release of the B2BGateway client portal.

With the B2BGateway client portal, NetSuite users can use the client portal to initiate new trading partner relationships, review data transmitted, schedule transaction imports/exports and to cross reference data, B2B Gateway officials say.

B2BGateway has provided NetSuite users with EDI connectivity in North America to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, General Motors and over 700 other organizations. In the European Union, NetSuite users use B2BGateway to connect to ASDA, Argos, Tesco, Carrefour, and many others.

Any NetSuite user who intends to sell products to these large organizations is required to use EDI.

Before 1999, when B2BGateway started providing fully managed EDI products, the industry process of receiving electronic purchase orders and sending electronic invoices could be difficult, costly and prone to errors. B2BGateway's idea was to connect to trading partners through a central hub. Consequently, all of the data translation required in EDI takes place in a central location.



The music now is Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty."



Salesforce.com has announced that Priority Telecom, a division of UPC Broadband, The Netherlands, has chosen to deploy some of its applications, with Accenture as its business planning and implementation partner.

Using the entire suite of Salesforce Software-as-a-Service CRM applications, Priority Telecom expects to gain a 360-degree view into its customer interactions throughout its marketing, sales and customer service departments.

Hans Luyckx, Vice President of Operations for Priority Telecom and a guy who never has to spell his name over the phone to Americans, said replacing the current legacy systems with Salesforce is "a major shift for our company," but "Salesforce.com will save us money."

"This project will enable Accenture to combine its global Salesforce.com delivery capabilities with its telecommunications, systems integration and data migration expertise to deliver business transformation to Priority Telecom," said Peter van Tilburg, manager CRM service line at Accenture.



The music is now the title track from Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, one of the few Springsteen albums First Coffee finds listenable. His debut doesn't suck either.



Glasgow-based Graham Technology has announced that it has successfully rolled out a company-wide CRM platform for Australian mobile phone retailer, Crazy John's. The platform is based on ciboodle, Graham Technology's customer interaction platform, and represents the first deployment of the software in Australia.

Crazy John's is Australia's largest independent mobile phone retailer with over 100 retail outlets across six states, two mainland territories and three time zones, employing over 700 staff. The company recently launched its own mobile virtual network, and ciboodle provides the underlying CRM and sales platform.

"The evolution of Crazy John's has to be supported by the right kind of technology platform," said Stephen Tuffley, Head of Operations at Crazy John's. Ciboodle is Graham Technology's flagship customer interaction software for contact centers, what the Grahamites call "a refreshing alternative to the rigid CRM and telephony software packages prevalent in today's call centers."

While Graham Technology has had an established presence in Australasia for some years, with customers including Energex, MBF Group and Telecom New Zealand, the Crazy John's deployment is the first implementation of ciboodle in the region.



The music is now Dan Gediman's "Three Time Loser." C'mon, admit it -- you care.



Brand2Media, a vendor of e-commerce products, and Assured Logistics, which sells logistics products, have announced an Alliance Partnership.

The agreement implies integrating e-commerce and supply chain management abilities into a single product for retail companies looking to take their business online. Together, Assured Logistics and Brand2Media officials say, they believe they will be able to lower the deployment and recurring operational costs of e-commerce in Canada "while ensuring enterprise level performance."

The Brand2Commerce Pro system ties into catalogue, pricing, CRM, ERP, logistics and other sources of data to "help extend retail activities online." The product is configured to maximize the use of Assured Logistics' current systems, namely SAP. This gives users real-time information on package tracking, inventory levels, shipping and return status.

"Assured Logistics understands the real-time integration requirements of bringing e-commerce logistics to life," said Christopher Thierry, President, Brand2Media. "This alliance will allow us to package e-commerce with warehouse logistics."

"The partnership adds value to customers looking to go big online in Canada," said Louise Villeneuve, Vice President - Business Development and Marketing for Assured Logistics Inc.

Brand2Media is a division of ETeleSolv.com, a Canadian vendor of e-commerce products, e-mail, and e-marketing products. The Brand2Commerce Pro e-commerce product supports multi channel sales, both B2C and B2B. It comprises site development, hosting, order management, fraud prevention, customer service and other functions.

Brand2Media currently builds and manages online products for Motorola, Aliant, Bell, Rogers, RBC Financial Group, and other retailers.

Assured Logistics sells third party logistics products to the retail industry. Clients include Amazon.ca, Vonage Canada and Canada Post Corporation.



The music is now They Might Be Giants's "Hearing Aid." These guys suck so badly you're kind of mesmerized, like at a car wreck.



Consona Corporation, a vendor of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software and services for the enterprise, has reported "record revenue and customer satisfaction levels" for the year ended December 31, 2007.

In 2007, Consona delivered a 64 percent increase in total revenue over the previous year. Following a 129 percent increase in revenue between 2005 and 2006, the company was named one of the top ten fastest growing software companies by Software magazine."

"We've grown our revenues by more than 400 percent since our first acquisition, Made2Manage Systems, in 2003," Consona's Jeff Tognoni said.

In 2006, the company acquired six product lines, followed by the acquisition of Knova Software in March 2007. In the latter half of 2007, the Consona management ceased M&A activity and assessed the business. As a result, the company implemented several organizational changes that will be rolled out in early 2008.

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