By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is Eric Clapton’s Timepieces:
Headscratching news item
of the day, courtesy of Yahoo!: “Believe
it or not, people who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate
than those who get 8 hours of sleep.”
I had always kind of thought the death rate was pretty close
to 100 percent no matter how much sleep you get, but hey, I’ve been wrong
before.
…
Xactly Corporation, an on-demand sales
compensation management company, wants
to take a page from salesforce.com’s playbook in succeeding with
online CRM.
New board member Cindy Padnos, director, Outlook Ventures,
said she’s excited to join the board of Xactly, since in her view “Xactly will
be mainstreaming on-demand sales compensation management similar to how
salesforce.com popularized on-demand CRM.”
Using spreadsheets to manage sales compensation is a legacy
approach that predates the Internet, Padnos says, adding “why would companies
want to be held back when there’s an affordable, proven alternative product in
Xactly Incent? It’s going to be the ‘next big thing’ in CRM.”
Xactly has announced that it has secured $8 million in Series
B funding led by Outlook Ventures and Spinner Asset Management, LLC. In related
news, the company also announced the appointment of Padnos to the Xactly board
of directors.
Bay Partners and Rembrandt Ventures, the lead investors in
Xactly’s Series A round, along with other Series A investors, also participated
in the Series B financing.
The new financing will be used to increase Xactly’s sales
and marketing initiatives, expand the service organization and accelerate
market adoption of the company’s leading on-demand sales compensation
management product.
Christopher W. Cabrera, Xactly founder, president and CEO,
said he believes “savvy mid-size businesses are rapidly moving to our on-demand
approach to automate sales compensation. These entities are realizing increases
in top-line revenue growth, seeing quick ROIs as a result of rapid deployments,
which range from 24 hours to two weeks, and ensuring that they meet various
regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley.”
Cabrera said he also sees companies “able to shape behavioral
changes in their sales forces to sell more of the right products.”
…
UCN, Inc., a vendor of on-demand contact
handling software and business telecommunication services delivered over the
UCN national VoIP network, has announced that AnswerX, a provider of
customized, hosted CRM products to the call center and telephone answering
service industry, selected inContact to
support its company.
AnswerX, based in Orlando,
develops and hosts a customizable and flexible CRM product designed to support
the specialized needs of its call center and answering service customer base.
The AnswerX Intelligent CallCenter product integrates with database
applications and virtual automated call distribution products, providing such
features as screen pops, user interfaces for information handling, multiple
messaging delivery options and case management tools.
In addition to its proprietary CRM
software, AnswerX offers integration and support expertise in helping
businesses convert their operations, teams and agents from a facilities-based
operation to “the new age of virtual operations,” explained Richard Riga,
director of technology, support and development for AnswerX.
The way AnswerX officials
see it, they’re working with a virtual business model. “All of our developers,
sales, support and business relationship specialists work primarily from home
offices,” said Riga. Tweaking an on-site legacy ACD product to handle their virtual
workforce needs didn’t work well, so they decided to go for a hosted contact
handling product.
One of UCN’s big selling points, according
to Riga, was the company’s flexible connectivity options. “UCN enabled me to
integrate our existing telephony infrastructure with the inContact platform,
saving us time and money,” said Riga. “Additionally, UCN is able to provision
AnswerX customers with their own local inbound or toll-free numbers, allowing
our customers to own and control those numbers, not AnswerX, which is exactly
what our customers want.”
Implementation took only a week, after the scope of work was
agreed upon. Setting up a team member took all of 20 minutes, according to
Riga. Because of the way inContact was programmed to deliver a call – using a
customized interactive voice response with database integration and flexible
skills-based routing with preferred priority – overall talk time per call was
reduced by 50 percent.
“Our average service level went from 70 percent to 100
percent. All calls are now answered in 30 seconds or less. With improved
routing and database integration, overall, we are saving about a minute per
call,” said Riga.
…
Alba Spectrum Group has announced its Oracle E-Business Suite customer support
call center for the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and
Brazil Oracle customers.
One of the prioritized directions is Oracle Applications
integration with Legacy System, Supply Chain Management, CRM, Warehouse
Management, Barcoding, Transportation & Logistics, Manufacturing Oracle
based and third party systems.
According to Alba Spectrum Group spokesmen Riccardo Lanzuolo
and Sandro Marques, the new trend in MRP/ERP system market is heterogeneous
systems (LINUX, Unix, Microsoft Windows, etc.) integration into one working
ERP.
An Oracle E-Business Suite client might have already
implemented SCM system with advanced Electronic Data Interchange features, and
needs integration development and following support. Nowadays customers require
advanced technical skills in system design, customization, extensions
development and integrations, Lanzuolo says.
…
HickoryTech Corporation has announced the selection of Dale E. Parker as
a director on HickoryTech’s 10-member board. Parker will fill the
independent board position being vacated on April 24, 2006 by Robert E.
Switz, president and CEO of ADC Telecommunications, Inc., and will complete
the remainder of Switz’s term, which expires in 2008.
Switz stepped down due to ADC’s guidelines restricting the
number of public company boards on which he may serve. Switz had been a
director since 1999.
HickoryTech Corporation is a diversified communications
company headquartered in Mankato, Minn., with approximately 460 employees in
Minnesota and Iowa. In its 109th year of operation, HickoryTech’s Telecom
Sector offers local voice, long distance, Internet, Broadband services, Digital
TV, and IP networking.
The Enterprise Solutions Sector provides IP telephony, call
center management, and data network products. The Enventis Telecom Sector provides IP-based voice and data services
and network products on a state wide SONET-based network.
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