By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Charlie Parker’s The Gold Collection:

 

CRM and other applications vendor IFS has announced what company officials are calling a “significant deal” with Wellstream International Limited, a supplier of flexible pipelines to the oil and gas industry.

 

Wellstream has chosen IFS Applications to help manage its entire project lifecycle. IFS Applications will enable Wellstream to ensure that products are manufactured to the company’s standards of quality, health and safety.

 

Because of its engineer-to-order business model, Wellstream officials said they needed a software system that could manage the critical path of all project activities in order to deliver products to its customers within a specified critical timeline and support oil field operations, often offshore.

 

IFS Applications will replace a number of legacy systems from multiple vendors.

 

IFS will also provide Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Product Data Management (PDM) and Design, and Document Management, as well as Quality, Plant Maintenance, HR and Payroll functionality to 240 users in the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia during the first phase of the implementation.

 

The project is expected to go live in October/November 2007, to be followed by the second phase in 2008.

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Syntellect, a vendor of Customer Interaction Management products, has expanded further into the credit union market with more than twenty new customers including Anheuser-Busch Employees’ Credit Union, America First Credit Union, White Sands Federal Credit Union, and Metropolitan Credit Union.

 

Syntellect officials maintain that by using Syntellect’s Customer Interaction Management platform, “credit unions can deliver the same services offered by larger banks such as detailed account information, loan inquiries and payments, transfers, banking and investment information,” including customer surveys.

 

J.R. Sloan, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, said the company’s products use the Syntellect Customer Interaction Management platform to incorporate add-ons like Advanced Speech Recognition, multi-channel communications, ACD functionality, Screen Pop, CRM integration, call recording and other features.

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On-demand CRM vendor Salesforce.com has deployed Salesforce Enterprise Edition to Melbourne-based Australian Football League Club, The Western Bulldogs.

 

The move comes as part of an overhaul of the Club’s business operations in order to transform the sporting organization into “one of the most sustainable and profitable businesses in the AFL industry,” according to Bruce Kaider, general manager business development and strategy at the Western Bulldogs.

 

The Western Bulldogs Football Club is using Salesforce to manage its database of sponsors and commercial relationships which include LeasePlan Australia, WorkSafe Victoria and EzyBonds Global Payments.

 

The Western Bulldogs previously used a spreadsheet system to track and manage a data base of more than 14,000 contacts. After more than three years of 20 percent annual growth this process was becoming increasingly complex.

 

“Spreadsheets are the common language for sportspeople and teams but as our sponsor base grew our existing processes became more and more disjointed,” said Kaider.

 

“We had multiple spreadsheets to track and manage sponsors so it goes without saying that there were duplications and inefficiencies. There was also no mechanism to set reminders or track calls and obviously no single view into the sales pipeline.”

 

Sporting clubs “don’t normally invest time in reviewing CRM packages,” Kaider noted.

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Rescompany Systems, an international CRM and other software company registered in the UK with offices in Austria, Australia and Canada, has announced that it has achieved Microsoft Certified Partner Status.

 

Rescompany sells to the leisure industry, with a focus on the cruise and tour operator market. Certified Partner Status is awarded by Microsoft to partner companies who have their software tested and certified and who have staff members on the team which hold several Microsoft certificates.

 

Customer service is considered as part of the certification process, and through an e-mailed survey, Microsoft contacted Rescompany customers to evaluate their satisfaction with the services offered.

 

Rescompany staff originates from eight different countries and is able to provide support and implementation services in seven different languages. The Resco reservation and CRM application is currently translated into English, German, Spanish, Chinese and Russian.

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Right90, a vendor of on-demand sales forecasting for high-technology and manufacturing companies, has announced that it has secured $12 million in Series B funding.

 

Bruce Cleveland, partner at InterWest, said Right90 “fulfills a critical need for high-technology manufacturing companies. Right90’s forecasting products complement CRM, ERP and BI applications by enabling sales personnel to make detailed forecasts, while providing executives with the analytics they require.”

 

The investment was led by InterWest Partners, a leading diversified venture capital firm, which has raised over $2 billion in capital since its inception, including investments in such high-technology firms as Xilinx, Placeware and Ciena.

 

Shasta Ventures and US Venture Partners, the lead investors in Right90’s Series A round, also participated in the Series B financing.

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Callidus Software has announced it is entered the Latin American market via a reseller partnership with CIS Corporation. Starting immediately, company officials say, CIS is “reselling the entire product portfolio of enterprise incentive management and sales performance management products available from Callidus Software.”

 

Latin America has experienced robust economic momentum with strong regional growth rates, subdued inflation and rising current account surpluses, according to Callidus officials, adding that “as a result, companies show a growing demand for SPM applications.”

 

Christopher May, director general at CIS Corporation, said being “the first and only reseller for Callidus’ products throughout Latin America” would be a net plus for his company.

 

In particular, CIS will market Callidus’ SPM to customers in the markets of financial services, retail, pharmaceutical and telecommunications.

 

Future customers of Callidus Software in Latin America will contract directly with CIS for the software licenses, as well as implementation services and maintenance.