The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a rather new find, Diane Burch's debut white soul album, Bible Belt. She has a good voice for this sort of thing (think a warmer, more playful Joss Stone), and there are some sparkling moments here -- "Ariel" is a standout track -- but this is the second time through and it's sounding very much the same. Lenny Kaye's fine guitar work is wasted on the rather bland arrangements, the horn charts don't knock me over and she could have used stronger songs. But it's a good showcase for her vocal abilities, and she can broaden the material she tackles next time out, she certainly has the pipes for it:
Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has named NetSuite CRM recipient of a 2009 CRM Excellence Award.
NetSuite officials say the award recognizes "NetSuite's growing impact on companies looking for powerful, integrated Software as a Service (SaaS) business management." The CRM Excellence Awards, now in their tenth year, are based on each rated product's ability to extend and expand the customer relationship across the entire enterprise, and provide end-to-end customer life cycle management.
Other recent industry awards for the on-demand CRM vendor recognize the company's software products and "contribution to helping organizations streamline business processes and spur growth," NetSuite officials say. Strategic advisory service ISM recognized NetSuite and NetSuite CRM solutions with a Top 15 CRM Small and Medium Business Software Award for 2009 -- marking the eighth straight year ISM has so honored NetSuite -- and Network World listed NetSuite as one of the top 10 cloud computing companies to watch, alongside technology leaders Amazon and Google.
These recent industry accolades complement NetSuite's launch of SuiteCloud Connect for both SAP and Salesforce.com, which provides transparent integration with other enterprise systems, and NetSuite OneWorld, a product pitched for those looking to improve their "global business operations," NetSuite officials say. For more information about these awards.
ISM officials say their awards are issued on the basis of testing at the Bethesda, Maryland-based firm's ISM Software Lab. NetSuite and its peers were rated on 217 selection criteria, including 102 business functions, 51 technical features, 36 implementation capabilities, 11 real-time criteria and 17 user-support features.
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Officials from Stratford Upon Avon-based -- how cool to find a firm based in Bill Shakespeare's old stomping grounds -- Cyber City note that as the recession continues to bite, "many companies are looking at how they can achieve the impossible; improve the level of service they offer for an ever increasing demanding customer base at the same time as reducing their costs.
In call center outsourcing, shared service typically involves paying a call center a fee pay per minute, rather than the hourly paid business model. The in-house call center operates at medium-level staffing levels, switching to overflows any calls past a certain point. To outsourcers such as, oh, Cyber City. This ensures more efficient productivity for the in-house center and cutting down -- a lot -- on the abandon rate. And this is a concern -- "With the downward pressure on costs, some centers are now experiencing abandon rates in excess of 20 percent at busy times of the week, which in the long-run has been proven to have a negative impact on customer retention," company officials say.
It's not for everyone -- shared service call centers are "typically more suitable for applications of a purely transactional nature," Cyber City officials note.
Some companies like to use shared service overflows to deal with any activity which stimulates calls not handled efficiently in-house, such as responding to media advertising, or when there are heavy call volumes due to billing periods. "Many of our clients use our shared service to handle calls resulting from DRTV, catalogues or press advertising," Cyber City officials say, adding that in the retail sector, shared service overflows "are often heavily used during the run up to Christmas or whenever call volumes are higher."
Then, of course, there are those companies who see a 24x7 call center as too expensive for the cost per call, and prefer to use outsourcers to keep the cost per call answered down to a minimum by paying per call minute rather than the fixed costs of dedicated staff. It's also attractive to those concerned about disaster recovery.
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Prolific report and study generators IDC's latest study finds that, despite the "tough economic climate," more than 30 percent of Asia/Pacific companies have "intentions to increase" their spending on software, while only 6.1 percent intend to reduce their investments in this area over the next 18 months.
Overall, the study showed, a majority of the companies are "still keen to maintain their investment budget on software solutions."
The results of the study were "encouraging. Many companies whom we interviewed were particularly interested in solutions that can play an integral role in improving performance and automation efficiency within the infrastructure environment," says Wilvin Chee, Research Director, Asia/Pacific Software Research at IDC.
Across the board, Chee says, "the increase in infrastructure management and database software spending could see some reallocation of budget away from business applications and middleware solutions. However, countries such as India, PRC, Indonesia, and Vietnam are expected to see a continued surge in investments for customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERM) applications."
Still, the on-premise subscription model remains "the dominant option" for most companies in the region, IDC officials say, "due to better control over reliability and security." The survey did find that more companies have warmed up to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) or open source concepts, with an average of 16.2 percent of respondents saying they are "likely" to adopt SaaS model for their new (or increased) deployment in the next 18 months. A year ago 2.6 percent said they were likely to do that.
"Better product values and offerings, coupled with the current economic pressure," are the major reasons driving more companies to consider this pay-per-use option, Chee said, noting that while cost considerations remain "the prime factor" when making decisions on software investments, companies are not so tolerant towards poor support services or complex product features.
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ProTrak International has announced full-scale integration with BlackBerry handheld devices for their CRM application.
Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has named NetSuite CRM recipient of a 2009 CRM Excellence Award.
NetSuite officials say the award recognizes "NetSuite's growing impact on companies looking for powerful, integrated Software as a Service (SaaS) business management." The CRM Excellence Awards, now in their tenth year, are based on each rated product's ability to extend and expand the customer relationship across the entire enterprise, and provide end-to-end customer life cycle management.
Other recent industry awards for the on-demand CRM vendor recognize the company's software products and "contribution to helping organizations streamline business processes and spur growth," NetSuite officials say. Strategic advisory service ISM recognized NetSuite and NetSuite CRM solutions with a Top 15 CRM Small and Medium Business Software Award for 2009 -- marking the eighth straight year ISM has so honored NetSuite -- and Network World listed NetSuite as one of the top 10 cloud computing companies to watch, alongside technology leaders Amazon and Google.
These recent industry accolades complement NetSuite's launch of SuiteCloud Connect for both SAP and Salesforce.com, which provides transparent integration with other enterprise systems, and NetSuite OneWorld, a product pitched for those looking to improve their "global business operations," NetSuite officials say. For more information about these awards.
ISM officials say their awards are issued on the basis of testing at the Bethesda, Maryland-based firm's ISM Software Lab. NetSuite and its peers were rated on 217 selection criteria, including 102 business functions, 51 technical features, 36 implementation capabilities, 11 real-time criteria and 17 user-support features.
...
Officials from Stratford Upon Avon-based -- how cool to find a firm based in Bill Shakespeare's old stomping grounds -- Cyber City note that as the recession continues to bite, "many companies are looking at how they can achieve the impossible; improve the level of service they offer for an ever increasing demanding customer base at the same time as reducing their costs.
In call center outsourcing, shared service typically involves paying a call center a fee pay per minute, rather than the hourly paid business model. The in-house call center operates at medium-level staffing levels, switching to overflows any calls past a certain point. To outsourcers such as, oh, Cyber City. This ensures more efficient productivity for the in-house center and cutting down -- a lot -- on the abandon rate. And this is a concern -- "With the downward pressure on costs, some centers are now experiencing abandon rates in excess of 20 percent at busy times of the week, which in the long-run has been proven to have a negative impact on customer retention," company officials say.
It's not for everyone -- shared service call centers are "typically more suitable for applications of a purely transactional nature," Cyber City officials note.
Some companies like to use shared service overflows to deal with any activity which stimulates calls not handled efficiently in-house, such as responding to media advertising, or when there are heavy call volumes due to billing periods. "Many of our clients use our shared service to handle calls resulting from DRTV, catalogues or press advertising," Cyber City officials say, adding that in the retail sector, shared service overflows "are often heavily used during the run up to Christmas or whenever call volumes are higher."
Then, of course, there are those companies who see a 24x7 call center as too expensive for the cost per call, and prefer to use outsourcers to keep the cost per call answered down to a minimum by paying per call minute rather than the fixed costs of dedicated staff. It's also attractive to those concerned about disaster recovery.
...
Prolific report and study generators IDC's latest study finds that, despite the "tough economic climate," more than 30 percent of Asia/Pacific companies have "intentions to increase" their spending on software, while only 6.1 percent intend to reduce their investments in this area over the next 18 months.
Overall, the study showed, a majority of the companies are "still keen to maintain their investment budget on software solutions."
The results of the study were "encouraging. Many companies whom we interviewed were particularly interested in solutions that can play an integral role in improving performance and automation efficiency within the infrastructure environment," says Wilvin Chee, Research Director, Asia/Pacific Software Research at IDC.
Across the board, Chee says, "the increase in infrastructure management and database software spending could see some reallocation of budget away from business applications and middleware solutions. However, countries such as India, PRC, Indonesia, and Vietnam are expected to see a continued surge in investments for customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERM) applications."
Still, the on-premise subscription model remains "the dominant option" for most companies in the region, IDC officials say, "due to better control over reliability and security." The survey did find that more companies have warmed up to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) or open source concepts, with an average of 16.2 percent of respondents saying they are "likely" to adopt SaaS model for their new (or increased) deployment in the next 18 months. A year ago 2.6 percent said they were likely to do that.
"Better product values and offerings, coupled with the current economic pressure," are the major reasons driving more companies to consider this pay-per-use option, Chee said, noting that while cost considerations remain "the prime factor" when making decisions on software investments, companies are not so tolerant towards poor support services or complex product features.
...
ProTrak International has announced full-scale integration with BlackBerry handheld devices for their CRM application.
ProTrak Mobile is the BlackBerry component company officials say was developed by ProTrak "exclusively for the ProTrak Advantage CRM system." It has wireless access to the ProTrak database for searches, retrieval and updates to the central data store.
Simon Koziel, president of ProTrak, said using the mobile product, users can conduct searches for investors, contacts, consultants, managers or funds, view and create activity notes, create and assign follow-up tasks, view and edit the ProTrak calendar and assign contacts to mass mail lists while traveling, among other functions.
"We specifically designed and developed ProTrak Mobile to have the same look and feel as our CRM, instead of simply placing a pre-developed BlackBerry package on top of ProTrak," says Koziel, citing as an example ProTrak's inclusion of a "Send and Add to ProTrak" option in Outlook e-mail. The product lets users Send and Add e-mails to ProTrak whether they are in their BlackBerry Contacts' Address Book or in the ProTrak Mobile application as well.
ProTrak officials said "ease of use and consistency with the ProTrak CRM platform" were "major design considerations" that went into the development of ProTrak Mobile.
Simon Koziel, president of ProTrak, said using the mobile product, users can conduct searches for investors, contacts, consultants, managers or funds, view and create activity notes, create and assign follow-up tasks, view and edit the ProTrak calendar and assign contacts to mass mail lists while traveling, among other functions.
"We specifically designed and developed ProTrak Mobile to have the same look and feel as our CRM, instead of simply placing a pre-developed BlackBerry package on top of ProTrak," says Koziel, citing as an example ProTrak's inclusion of a "Send and Add to ProTrak" option in Outlook e-mail. The product lets users Send and Add e-mails to ProTrak whether they are in their BlackBerry Contacts' Address Book or in the ProTrak Mobile application as well.
ProTrak officials said "ease of use and consistency with the ProTrak CRM platform" were "major design considerations" that went into the development of ProTrak Mobile.
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Transcensus, the Orem, Utah-based makers of SHO Guide, has announced it has earned Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program.
Transcensus, the Orem, Utah-based makers of SHO Guide, has announced it has earned Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program.
Being a Certified Partner means a company has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and pleasing customers. It's good to have if your business makes a considerable chunk of its money off Microsoft products, since being a Certified Partner means you get access, training and support others don't.
Transcensus's SHO Guide is an online guided help product addressing usability issues and new user training. It creates interactive learning scripts with step-by-step guidance for the application. The company also has "Learning Specialists" who create integrated Performance Support products. SHO Guide is optimized to work on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Transcensus declared a Microsoft Competency in ISV/Software Solutions. Microsoft Competencies differentiate a partner's capabilities with specific Microsoft technologies to customers looking for a particular type of help. Each competency has its own requirements and benefits. This one means Transcensus has a successful record of developing and marketing software based on Microsoft technologies.
Dan Peay, vice president of customer and partner experience for Transcensus, explained the product by saying "I can launch SHO Guide, capture doing the task correctly, like creating a marketing campaign in Dynamics CRM, and then publish the resulting script so that anyone in the company can create their own campaign. It's like I'm right there, showing them where to click and guiding them through the process."
