By David Sims
David at firstcoffee d*t biz
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, for this Bowie fan’s money, a better overall rock listening experience than the ridiculously overpraised Ziggy Stardust. I put Station To Station above the Zigster, and Diamond Dogs if I’m feeling particularly seedy. No, around these parts, pilgrim, Siggy Freudust is throwing elbows with Lodger, Stage and, heck, Let’s Dance for inclusion on the list of the Thin White Duke’s Five Least Maddeningly Inconsistent Albums:
Research firm IDC has issued a report finding that the Western European CRM applications market grew by 6.3 percent in 2006, beating last year’s forecast by almost one percentage point and reaching a value of almost $3 billion.
IDC officials say they see no reason the up tick won’t continue.
The report, titled “Western European CRM Applications, Forecast and Analysis 2007-2011,” finds that early CRM adopters, especially in the financial services and telecommunications sectors, are investing in CRM again, while the low-end segment is seeing a significant impact of software-as-a-service, according to Bo Lykkegaard, IDC’s program manager for European Enterprise Applications as reported on industry journal Web site WiseMarketer.
IDC’s forecast breaks down the CRM application market by deployment model, finding that revenue from on-demand CRM applications grew almost 40 percent during 2006 and is expected to maintain this momentum.
IDC expects on-demand CRM applications to make up almost half of the net market growth of the entire CRM market in Europe during the five-year forecast, and believes that the net effect of on-demand is market expansion as the ease-of-deployment of on-demand attracts first-time buyers of packaged CRM software.
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Single Source Systems, Inc., a vendor of service business software, has released a new version of its SM-Plus service business software product for aftermarket product service and support organizations, independent service companies and service-intensive equipment distribution organizations worldwide.
Company officials say all functions integrate with existing ERP, CRM and supply chain systems.
Built on a Microsoft-based technology architecture, the new SM-Plus version 2.07 offers such features as support for complex service contracts, incident escalation, Service Level Agreement compliance, service parts inventory management, new equipment sales and mobile field service.
SM-Plus is an integrated information system that manages and maintains both company-owned and customer-owned assets, and provides service business process support, including call taking, scheduling and dispatch, field service, depot repair, work order management, preventive maintenance, service contracts, purchasing, inventory control, and costing for a total enterprise service management product.
“Our latest benchmark research shows that leading companies are more and more adopting integrated service-specific technology products,” said Steve Roth, SVP, Strategic Service Management practice at Aberdeen Group.
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L2, Inc. has announced the presentation of customer case studies as part of its presentation at DM Days New York. The company will present demonstrations of its Fuse technology that helps marketers deliver multi-channel campaigns
The product, L2 Fuse, helps customers use their CRM systems and campaigns to get over 25 percent response rates at one-quarter the cost, to drive better than 300 percent ROI. Fuse, a Web-based software, includes L2 service support to help customers develop campaigns that include sending out dynamically-generated direct mail pieces to prospects, leading recipients to their own PURL.
Each PURL contains a pre-populated form to make it easier for prospects to respond. PURLs are used to provide customized information to existing customers, direct prospects, and encourage participation in a product demonstration, which collect and update customer data to build a quality database for ongoing CRM and marketing efforts.
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Pharmaceutical business software vendor Cutting Edge Information has announced the release of the new “Patient Communications Library.” The new collection is comprised of three primary research studies, all geared toward solving common problems many pharmaceutical companies face in the areas of patient adherence, direct-to-patient communication, customer relationship management (CRM) and overall patient education.
Used together, the three reports in the collection will allow pharmaceutical companies to “build a comprehensive strategy to increase the effectiveness of interactions with patients,” according to company officials. Findings from the three-report package cover topics ranging from patient program budgets to organizational support structures for patient education, CRM, and patient adherence and disease management programs.
Download free online summaries at www.cuttingedgeinfo.com.
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Jenzabar, a vendor of CRM and other software and services for higher education, announced that last week’s client conference was “the largest event in Jenzabar history.”
JAM 2007 hosted more than 1,300 attendees, including Jenzabar users, client executives, industry partners, Jenzabar client services and technical staff, and thought leaders within higher education. The theme of last week’s event was “Building Stronger Communities,” and numerous sessions focused on how Jenzabar’s product, constituent relationship modules (Jenzabar CRMs), and learning management system can be used.
Representatives from public, private, two-year, four-year and specialty schools came to the conference, which featured more than 325 user information sessions covering the entire range of Jenzabar’s product and service offerings.
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Meijer, a family-owned chain of 177 superstores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, has deployed a new marketing tool that optimizes delivery of individualized promotional offers to Meijer customers.
Provided by NCR Corporation and Teradata, a division of NCR, the Enterprise Offer Management product includes NCR’s Copient Logix software and Teradata Customer Relationship Management (CRM), an analytical software portfolio.
Meijer Director of Retail Systems Elmer Robinson said the Enterprise Offer Management “greatly enhances our ability to manage the promotional offers that we extend to shoppers at the checkout and, potentially, at other touchpoints in the future. It provides a ‘closed loop’ product, from data warehousing to campaign management, to offer optimization, to content management to multichannel execution.”
Enterprise Offer Management comprises the processes and technologies that enable retailers to create, manage, execute and evaluate promotional programs. Software components include Teradata CRM, which “helps retailers understand the needs and preferences of different customer groups and automates the delivery of personalized communications through the best channel,” company officials say.
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A coyly-unnamed global financial services firm, with “operations in more than 50 countries” has extended and expanded its existing hosted services agreement with Intervoice to use Intervoice’s expertise and capabilities in voice portal, contact center and VoIP technology over the next four years, according to Intervoice officials.
Based on the customer’s minimum commitments, Intervoice is valuing the contract at approximately $17.0 million over 4 years, subject to certain cancellation provisions.
Intervoice has been providing hosted services to enterprises in North America since 1999.
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Per your write-up on CRM surging in Western Europe: Consider the missing link: Strategic
Service Management.
See Report Below:
IDC
Manufacturing Insights: EMEA Supply Chain Top 10 Predictions 2007- A mid Year review by Pierfrancesco Manenti
In summary, the landscape and opportunity for us is positive with implications for both Planning and Workforce. An unfulfilled and developing requirement is Risk Management and Risk Mitigation solutions. I feel we could address this market by repositioning existing functionality to meet this need e.g. Service Commitment Management.
Opportunity and Threat from market consolidation needs consideration by both vendors and suppliers.
Prediction #5
The presenter identified the shift from product focus to service focus and emphasized the need for manufacturers to change processes and technology to meet the Service model.
Prediction #9
Workforce can satisfy part of this requirement
From SSM Whitepaper:
SSM Defined:
Until recently, nearly all executives considered post-sale service as a low-level transactional function delivering little strategic value. Many companies viewed service as a necessary evil, emphasizing topics such as “the customer experience� and “customer loyalty� as they remained focused on squeezing better performance out of the product side of their business.
These product-focused efforts ignored the fact that for many manufacturers, service margins are 30–200% greater than product margins.
Strategic Service Management
The advent of Strategic Service Management is beginning to change all that. Strategic Service Management should not be mistaken as a new piece of software or industry term. It is a mindset, a new way of thinking, that represents a fundamental shift in how companies conduct business. It is a new customer commitment–centric business strategy that is built around an understanding of the power and value associated with exceeding customer expectations. This new strategy is causing companies to completely reexamine underperforming service businesses to boost profits while effectively delivering on customer commitments.
Strategic Service
Management results
The results Strategic Service Management can provide speak for themselves. A recent BusinessWeek article highlighted some of the quick, yet significant, results recognized by companies deploying Strategic Service Management solutions.1 These results
included Avaya reducing service parts inventory from $250 million to $160 million, Sun Microsystems saving $40 million in the first year, and Dell growing service revenues over 20% in one year. Strategic Service Management can help leaders break the rules of competition in rising markets and can shield companies caught in industry downturns from financial distress or ruin.
Strategic Service Management is not about better tactical execution or firefighting. It is focused on bringing new levels of insight, control, and closed-loop visibility to make intelligent, proactive decisions around service strategy, resources, customer commitments, partners, and pricing. If we look at companies like Dell, Avaya, Sun, Case New Holland, Volvo, and others, it becomes clear that Strategic Service Management can lead an overall business strategy. It can create significant competitive differentiation that is much harder to replicate than any product strategy. In fact, one could argue that in certain industries, Strategic Service Management is not just a business strategy and philosophy. It is the business strategy and philosophy that leader
More information about L2's Fuse can be found at their corporate website at www.l2soft.com