By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the first cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver's There's A Light Guiding Me, one of the finest vocal bluegrass gospel harmony albums currently available:

 

Toronto-based ETP will showcase its Xeligence Analytical Platform for business performance and efficiency to enterprises and organizations at the 2008 Financial Services Technology Forum scheduled on October 28 and 29 at the Design Exchange in Toronto.

 

Established in the United Kingdom in 1994, ETP has worked with Fortune 500 enterprises and organizations doing analytical CRM, data warehousing, business intelligence, and business optimization-oriented projects.

 

ETP's methodology is based on finding "the right balance and integration of people, process, information and technology," company officials say. The firm offers the Xeligence Analytical Platform in industry-specific versions for Financial Services, Insurance, Telecom/Media, Retail, Manufacturing and Health-Care.

 

Xeligence automates generation and integration of predictive analytical algorithms within enterprise business processes and systems. Users can "configure and trigger the production and deployment of predictive models within areas such as Enterprise CRM (cross-selling/up-selling/customer retention), credit scoring, pricing and charge-off and default prediction," company officials say.

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Finotec Group, an on-line foreign exchange company, has released its White Label On-Line Trading Platform software product for financial institutions.

 

It's a turn-key product adaptable to the specific needs of the end-user, with a full back-end including CRM, back-office, marketing applications, SMS alerts module, statistics and accounting module with real-time P&L reporting.

 

The product is being offered to financial institutions looking to enhance their trading business via technology offered under their own brand name. Finotec's proprietary Finotec Trading Platform delivers real time pricing and executions, plus integrated charts, news, position management tools, and more.

 

The interface is currently available in several languages, and can be adapted to additional local markets. Finotec will offer a number of different pricing choices to clients purchasing the system "in order to assist the budgetary needs of the institutions purchasing the product," company officials say.

 

"The Finotec Trading Platform is a beneficial product for traditional financial services firms seeking to move their FX trading operation online, as well as for established online brokers or trading firms, wanting to expand their product offering," says Didier Essemini, Chairman of the Board and CEO.

 

Demand for online trading is at "record highs," Didier says, adding that the Finotec platform product will be offered to "over 5,000 financial institutions world-wide."

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Outsourcing services provider Convergys has announced that it is considering separating its information management business into an independent company, Datamonitor has reported.

 

Convergys, a vendor of call center, billing and employee care outsourcing, has about 75,000 employees in 85 customer contact centers, data centers, and other facilities worldwide.

 

Datamonitor says Convergys officials will "make a final decision in the fourth quarter about the separation, which it said has no bearing on its recent $335 million acquisition of CRM company Intervoice that is scheduled to close this week."

 

Dave Dougherty, president and chief executive at Convergys, said the evaluation is "a part of our plan to align the company's assets and capabilities with our leadership in relationship management," according to Datamonitor. "We believe the separation is a means of enhancing the strength and focus of each of our businesses to better serve our clients and bolster each business's competitive position."

 

The company's information management revenue fell 12 percent to $324 million in the first half of 2008.

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Fonality, a vendor of open source business communications systems, has announced the collaboration of trixbox Pro Unified Agent Edition and Salesforce.com's AppExchange.

Trixbox Pro UAE is immediately available for test drive and deployment from Fonality Australia. The collaboration is intended to provide a view of a company's telephony interaction, Fonality officials say.

Fonality Australia director Marc Englaro notes that "it used to take time and budget" to create integration between a CRM and a phone system. The vendor is providing "automatic logging of phone calls into Salesforce.com. No longer do the sales and service representatives have to manually log calls into the CRM system," he says.

Using the product, call center and support agents are informed of the customer purchase and case history before they even take the call. "Both the customer and the call center or support agent develop an ad-hoc amiable relationship based on perceived consideration from the company's side and subsequent positive response on the client's side," company officials explain.

 

The product has an automatic call history feature, providing a history of who employees are calling and the duration of each call. It allows any call to be recorded from the PBX system and attached to the corresponding record in Salesforce.com, and provides reports on how many calls were required for conversion, lead activity and other functions.

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Total Learning Concepts, a training content company, has introduced an interactive training guide -- Introduction to Pharmaceutical Sales -- for sales representatives who are new to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

 

Introduction to Pharmaceutical Sales: A Guide to Selling Within The Pharmaceutical Industry "provides a comprehensive primer for understanding and selling within the biopharmaceutical marketplace," company officials say, adding that the learning suite "includes two interactive modules that use Total Learning Concepts' serious-gaming technology platform: The U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry and Pharmaceutical Sales Overview."

 

"The biopharma industry has its own unique language and culture," said Dr. Glen Low, Director of e-Learning Strategies for Total Learning Concepts. "It is a different kind of sell from other business-to-business or customer-based selling. New hires from outside the industry need to be able to communicate at an expert level to healthcare providers with years of education in a highly specialized field."

 

Sales representatives new to the biopharma industry "need to be assertive in an environment where physicians are busy with patients," added Dr. Low. "They also must be aware of managed care prescribing decisions, and limitations physicians may have in selecting treatments and products."

 

Learners compete in a "fun, engaging Challenge Arena" at their own pace and according to their individual availability for training. Each learning initiative can be monitored by managers, sales trainers, and the marketing department with the system's QDashboard learner analytics engine.

 

The company has developed customized training materials used to launch more than 90 pharmaceutical products worldwide.