The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Beatles' The Beatles, a.k.a. The White Album:
Autonomy Corporation plc, a vendor of what they call "infrastructure software for the enterprise and proponent of meaning-based computing," might have to Wiki that term a bit later on today, has announced that Nomura has selected Autonomy's IDOL 7 for a multi-lingual deployment to more than 20,000 users.
Nomura had experience of legacy keyword technologies which spurred them to search for a next-generation solution. CRM vendor Autonomy's product was chosen following a competitive procurement focusing on scalability and finding a system that spoke Japanese.
Nomura is a securities and investment banking company in Japan providing individual investors and corporate clients with a broad range of services, including investment advisory services and securities underwriting.
The firm felt that order to capitalize on opportunities and cater for a broader range of investment needs, it needed Autonomy's technology to automate the process of information retrieval, connecting Nomura's global departments more efficiently than was currently being done, and aggregate information through a single channel.
Mike Lynch, founder and CEO of Autonomy, attributes such interest in his company's products to firms running into "limitations of keyword search."
Siperian has announced a "complete and proven set of architectural styles" for organizations looking to deploy master data management products. The three styles -- Master Identity, Customer-centric Master Data Management, and Customer-centric Operational Views -- "enable companies to reduce both the time and cost typically associated with implementing a master data management" product, according to Siperian officials.
Using Siperian's platform doesn't lock a company into a single vendor's proprietary architecture, company officials say, adding that the configurable, metadata-driven platform "allows organizations to adapt Siperian Hub to coexist with multiple legacy hubs and external data sources," and to grow over time with additional capabilities or to new geographies and business units as needed.
"Master data management is increasingly a top business priority as more Global 5000 companies embark on an MDM strategy to cope with increasing information volatility," said Aaron Zornes, founder and chief research officer for the CDI Institute. "While some organizations may only require a 'lite' approach such as a 'Registry' style, others fully demand a complete master data management solution that reconciles master data for accurate unified views -- such as unified customer data integration."
Zornes recommends organizations look at their current requirements as well as identify future growth requirements before settling on a specific style and vendor.
The Master Identity product lets companies identify key entities such as customers, people and households across different systems and deliver real-time views of the dispersed data to downstream systems. This approach would be good for companies looking to address entity recognition and resolution issues, and may not have an immediate need for a full master data management product.
There's also the customer-centric Customer Data Integration/Master Data Management architectural style. Using Siperian Hub as a system of record, this architectural style creates and manages the "best version of truth" of customer-related master reference and relationship data, such as customer, organizations, location, product, etc., across disparate internal systems and third party sources like Acxiom and Dun & Bradstreet.
This style lets companies reconcile their master data conflicts against the most trustworthy golden record and synchronize the master data changes back to operational applications or with analytical systems. It's a good one for companies looking to improve such business processes as operational customer relationship management (CRM), order-to-cash or to better comply with numerous regulatory mandates.
And Siperian offers a customer-centric Operational Views architectural style, which "federates" customer transaction data in real time from multiple channels, and unifies it with the most reliable master reference and relationship data within the hub. This style is good for delivering timely, unified views of customer and related organizations, products and locations to supporting applications. It's good for companies looking to serve the high-volume transactional needs of a division, usually replacing an existing legacy hub and serving as an information technology platform for composing data views through a layer of business or data services.
CRM vendor Parature has announced that The Weather Channel Interactive is using Parature's Customer Support product across seven departments.
Michael Buckham-White, Manager, Customer Data and Systems, The Weather Channel Interactive said the "comprehensive, integrated nature" of Parature's product lets the Weather Channel Interactive provide better support.
Prior to using Parature's Customer Support Solution, The Weather Channel Interactive was using a mix of products developed internally that served their purpose in supporting customers, but company officials said it "lacked the flexibility and functionality desired."
Channel officials like Parature's online support portal, integrated into The Weather Channel's web site, which lets customers receive support directly from the support team, or via always-on self-service options.
The Weather Channel Interactive is using Parature's online support portal in their business development division, for a separate portal specifically for partners to obtain information, such as how to join their partner network, marketing and sales materials, updates on company happenings, events and networking opportunities, and who to contact with questions.
Neocase, a vendor of collaborative customer care software and services for CRM, has announced that Pacific Coast Companies, Inc., part of the Pacific Coast Building Products family of building companies, and SOS, a vendor of voice, data and telephony management products for small and mid-size businesses, have adopted Neocase to manage their customer service and support operations and subsequently enhance Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.
PCCI provides administrative and IT services to all of the PCBP companies. The Neocase customer care software allows the IT department to track the services being provided to several thousand employees. These services range from the support of desktop computers and printers to the design, production and support of custom software and applications.
Greg Bonelli, senior IT manager for PCCI, explained that Neocase "allows us to efficiently log requests and track them through resolution and closure."
Both companies say choosing Neocase was part of improving their customer care and support efforts.
The busier SOS has become with telephony implementations, company officials say, "the greater the need for fast, efficient customer support." Gia McNutt, CEO of SOS says Neocase allows them to "track detailed customer data, offer self-service options and gather our collective expertise to ensure that every implementation of our products is simple, quick and painless for our customers."
You know, there's something perversely admirable about a band, most probably tired of being praised to the rafters, actually including some atonal garbage like "Revolution 9" on what is otherwise their best work. Keeping themselves humble, and doing it in one song, instead of an entire album of intentional garbage like Dylan's Self-Portrait.
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
