The news as of the all-important third cup of coffee today, and the music is a Sly & The Family Stone iPod shuffle. Because sometimes you just need to get back to the solid basics, back when rock, funk and soul were all rolled up into one:
Prestige International USA has announced the opening of a new contact center by the Hong Kong branch of Prestige International. Prestige International sells global, integrated Business Process Outsourcing and Customer Relationship Management products.
The new facility, located in downtown Hong Kong, offers multilingual customer interactions combined with what the Prestigians describe as "global connectivity to organizations such as those servicing the financial services, insurance and luxury goods markets."
Company officials say the new Hong Kong center "extends Prestige International's global service network to 15 facilities in 13 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas regions... other locations include a 1,200 seat contact center in Japan and facilities in metropolitan areas such as London, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Singapore."
The new contact center is located in Tower 1 of the Gateway Tower office complex, rising above the Harbor City shopping mall with its 700-plus shops, including 50 restaurants and two cinemas. The facility itself has over 4,700 square feet of space located on the 20th floor - "with a picturesque view of Hong Kong bay and Kowloon Park below," company officials point out.
Company officials say the new Hong Kong center "extends Prestige International's global service network to 15 facilities in 13 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas regions... other locations include a 1,200 seat contact center in Japan and facilities in metropolitan areas such as London, Los Angeles, Sydney, and Singapore."
The new contact center is located in Tower 1 of the Gateway Tower office complex, rising above the Harbor City shopping mall with its 700-plus shops, including 50 restaurants and two cinemas. The facility itself has over 4,700 square feet of space located on the 20th floor - "with a picturesque view of Hong Kong bay and Kowloon Park below," company officials point out.
Prestige International USA and Prestige International are wholly owned subsidiaries of Prestige International, a Tokyo corporation publicly trading in Japan and a vendor of Business Process Outsourcing and CRM services.
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Hogan Financial Systems, a vendor of item processing disaster recovery products to financial institutions, and Open Solutions, which sells integrated enabling technologies for financial services providers, have announced a referral partnership agreement under which Open Solutions' in-house item processing clients will have direct access to Hogan's disaster recovery services.
Under the terms of the agreement Hogan Financial will provide complete support to Open Solutions' in-house item processing clients in the event of a disaster declaration.
Under the terms of the agreement Hogan Financial will provide complete support to Open Solutions' in-house item processing clients in the event of a disaster declaration.
Open Solutions' clients "will have the ability to continue check processing and enable their customers or members to have continued access to funds," Hogan officials say. Hogan's services include redeployment of the client's check processing systems, as well as driving branch capture operations and electronic exchange.
Hogan Financial and Open Solutions have worked together as business partners for eight years.
"The business continuity needs of financial institutions are evolving with the adoption of branch capture and electronic presentment," said Ken Hogan, president of Hogan Financial. "Institutions now realize that support for their branch capture operations - along with electronic cash letter receipt and presentment - are necessary components of disaster recovery planning."
Hogan Financial and Open Solutions have worked together as business partners for eight years.
"The business continuity needs of financial institutions are evolving with the adoption of branch capture and electronic presentment," said Ken Hogan, president of Hogan Financial. "Institutions now realize that support for their branch capture operations - along with electronic cash letter receipt and presentment - are necessary components of disaster recovery planning."
According to Ron Young, vice president of product strategy and management of Open Solutions, Hogan is "well-suited to help our in-house IPTG clients solidify their business continuity planning."
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in that nerve center of America, Flower Mound, Texas, Hogan Financial specializes in item processing disaster recovery services for its community banking clients.
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in that nerve center of America, Flower Mound, Texas, Hogan Financial specializes in item processing disaster recovery services for its community banking clients.
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Ntractive, vendors of Elements SBM, the Hybrid Web application for small business management, has announced that Peak-to-Peak Systems has adopted Elements SBM as its CRM and business management application.
Brad Gibbs, President of Peak-to-Peak Systems, joined the beta of Elements SBM this year. They needed a tool to make collective knowledge "accessible across their entire organization," according to the Peakers: "We need our information to flow through the entire business," said Gibbs.
Peak-to-Peak Systems designs, engineers, installs and supports residential audio, visual and control systems in the Pacifica, California area. "Elements SBM is much more than a single piece of software - it's a comprehensive business management suite," Gibbs says.
In the past, Peak-to-Peak Systems has tried to make a number of products integrate, but company officials admit they were "never able to create one seamless, smooth workflow." At times, they were even using both Windows and Mac OS X products. Now, "data goes into the system at the beginning of our process and stays in the system. Plus its available to anyone who needs it," added Gibbs.
The company anticipates expanding its business and staff in the new few years, with the support of Elements SBM. The company says they'll work with upcoming additions to Elements SBM, including Elements SBM on the iPhone and SOAP connectors to integrate with other applications.
In the past, Peak-to-Peak Systems has tried to make a number of products integrate, but company officials admit they were "never able to create one seamless, smooth workflow." At times, they were even using both Windows and Mac OS X products. Now, "data goes into the system at the beginning of our process and stays in the system. Plus its available to anyone who needs it," added Gibbs.
The company anticipates expanding its business and staff in the new few years, with the support of Elements SBM. The company says they'll work with upcoming additions to Elements SBM, including Elements SBM on the iPhone and SOAP connectors to integrate with other applications.
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Scottish vendor Sword Ciboodle, a vendor of business software and services, has been included on Great Britain's industry journal Call Center Helper's Top 10 call center software list. The list is based on the companies and products that have most impressed the British magazine's editor over the past year.
Recently recognized by analyst firm Forrester in process-centric customer service, Sword Ciboodle is the only software of its kind to be included in the Top 10. The Ciboodleans say the product's strength in improving contact center agent productivity was a factor in its inclusion on the list, which selects firms doing business with British or Irish firms.
"Today more than ever, productivity issues continue to plague call centers and the need for effective desktop software products has never been greater," said Jonty Pearce an editor at "Call Center Helper."
A complete list of the Top 10 Call Center Software can be viewed here.
Mike Hughes, business unit director, Sword Ciboodle, called agent productivity "one of the areas that ciboodle helps contact centers improve."
Sword Ciboodle is described by company officials as a combination of process-managed CRM software and specialist consulting and delivery services. Operating in 37 countries, Sword employs over 2,000 people and in fiscal year ending December 2007 generated $263 million in consolidated revenue.
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Advent Software has announced that Silver Bridge has implemented Advent Portfolio Exchange to take advantage of its detailed performance reporting and integrated CRM capabilities.
APX is Advent's portfolio and client management platform.
Founded more than 80 years ago, Boston-based Silver Bridge (formerly Hale & Dorr Wealth Advisors) provides clients with proprietary products and a broad-based set of select external managers, both traditional and alternative. Around 75 percent of the firm's clients are individuals and trusts, the remainder foundations and endowments.
Silver Bridge had been a user of Advent's suite of products including Axys, its turnkey portfolio accounting product; Moxy, its trade order management product; and Qube, its product for CRM.
In the past the firm relied on a third party to provide the more detailed performance reporting many clients required, company officials say, adding that Silver Bridge "recognized an opportunity with APX to eliminate that step and expense, as well as integrate CRM capabilities, and decided to migrate from Axys and Qube to APX."
The move to APX enabled Silver Bridge to bring its performance reporting in-house and deliver a reporting package to its clients. APX incorporates both performance reporting and performance analytics to help managers better understand and explain the sources of performance.
As a portfolio management system to integrate portfolio accounting and reporting with full CRM functionality, Advent officials say, APX lets Silver Bridge "monitor existing relationships more closely, while pulling new business through the pipeline."
Advent Portfolio Exchange, Advent's portfolio management product, integrates the front office functions of CRM with the back office operations of portfolio accounting and reporting.
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