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Amdocs offers specialized CRM solutions for the communications sector. Amdocs 6 is an integrated suite that includes billing, CRM, self-service, content-revenue management, etc. Amdocs has tied up with SAS for delivering advanced marketing automation and BI solutions to communication service providers (CSPs). The Customer Profitability and Segmentation solution offered by the partners allows telecom companies to gain a better understanding of the costs involved in doing business with their clients.

CSPs can manage their prepaid, postpaid, voice, and data billing operations with Amdocs 6. Amdocs CRM also enables customers to manage their billing and ordering processes. Amdocs 6 enables enhanced service management. The software provides a common product catalog that allows companies to maintain a record of their offers, for billing and order management, at a single place.

Salesforce.com previewed Salesforce Sandbox in the first fortnight of December 05′. The application, which is a hosted tested and training application, is expected to be available in the latter part of this quarter. The application replicates the existing Salesforce.com deployments and enables training on hosted applications from AppExchange, which is an online directory of online applications.

AppExchange is intended to further the interests of Salesforce.com that are currently limited to hosted sales and service applications. AppExchange offers 80 applications on the sforce development platform. techtarget.com says:

Using Sandbox, companies planning to implement add-on tools on AppExchange, like Diamond Data, the data cleansing tool from Trillium Software, can set up a cloned database to test the cleansing operation before a deployment.

Go to: Salesforce gives enterprises Sandbox to play with

NetSuite Inc. links the future of hosted CRM with the tussle between best of breeds and integrated suites. NetSuite provides its clients ERP, CRM, and e-commerce functionalities. Its proven expertise lies in the field of SFA. NetSuite opines that CRM systems have to do more than just track prospects, it has to convert prospects into customers.

RightNow feels that the future of hosted CRM is with business processes and workflow management. The company, which has concentrated mainly on customer service through CRM, released version 7.0 of its application in October 2005. The new version includes sales and marketing functionality. RightNow’s expertise in service enables it to outperform its competitors; 40% of the company’s revenues are generated from its alliance with companies that have revenues in excess of $ 1 billion. 87% of its offerings are deployed on-demand. The company has resolved latency-related issues that are present in a conventional html application by deploying a service oriented architecture and smart Web technology.

Siebel Systems is of the belief that the future of hosted CRM may not involve hosted solutions only; there will be room for on-site solutions as well. Siebel gave its hosted solution CRM OnDemand a major boost by purchasing UpShot Corp. The company; however, does not see much of a future for customizable CRM offerings.

bTrack™ is a customizable, web-based, CRM system that facilitates connectivity between users regardless of geographical distances. The salient features of bTrack™ include data storage on the user’s server, ability to capture web leads, contact management, workflow customization, email notifications, transaction logging, etc.

NetSuite, which provides on-demand software, has added the Incentive Compensation add-on module to its CRM+ application. The new module will enable people to move away from Excel-based forecasting. It will allow users to keep track of the various quotas and more than one forecast as well as the concomitant plans for commission. The software is capable of handling transaction-related processes. crm-daily.com says:

NetSuite said the additions make any tracking and forecasting performed using Microsoft Excel obsolete. CEO Zach Nelson noted that, in the past, companies were not offered the tools to do basic, single-metric quotas, so they had turned to Excel.

Go to: NetSuite Intros New Incentive Module for CRM+

Customforce 2.0 is the customization platform by Salesforce.com. It includes functions such as lead scoring, case aging, etc as well as a 100 Business Processes. Customforce Formulas aid in the decision making process by creating customized business formulas. It provides a tool for forecasting, Customforce Forecasting, which enables users to forecast according to the product line or the opportunities generated during the various phases in a product’s life cycle.

Salesforce.com feels that because its offering is easy to deploy and implement, it will allow system integrators to concentrate more on process management. However, Rob Desisto, analyst, Gartner Group, is of the opinion that customers need to do a cost-benefit analysis to determine if the costs of customizing the application outweigh the advantages of having a hosted CRM.

Microsoft.Corp has stated that it will enhance its Office software by adding data culling capabilities to it. This capability, which comes within the scope of Business Intelligence, is mainly used by analyst firms and enterprises wishing to obtain actionable information from the data in their databases. Microsoft is of the opinion that the scope of this application is increasing and employees are using it more frequently for activities like budget allocations and monitoring customer satisfaction.

Microsoft intends to incorporate BI capabilities to its Office versions meant for business users. The next version is expected to come out by the end of 2006. The enhanced Office suite will be able to cull data from systems that use SAP and Oracle applications. According to the Burton Group, this move by Microsoft could put pressure on BI companies such as Cognos Inc. and Business Objects SA, which may have to offer more sophisticated analysis tools and even more specialized applications in order to compete with Office 12.

Companies that cannot outsource their call center activities but still look to drive down costs are increasingly turning to home-based workers. This new breed of workers is more driven and always available, which means that a customer does not have to wait or leave a message behind. WillowCSN is based in Florida and operates with more than 3,000 home-based employees.

According to the Gartner group, 10% of all call centers in the US will employ home-based agents. At present, there are around 100,000 home-based workers who execute call center duties. Home-based phone representatives cost around $ 21 per hour as against an in-house agent who may cost the company around $ 31 per hour. crm-daily.com says:

Outsourcing to companies with home-based agents is particularly beneficial to companies that need scalable workforces.

Go to: Home-Based Agents: A Growing Trend

Oracle has stated that over the next two years it intends to build on its numerous acquisitions. It will develop a new set of enterprise applications as a part of Project Fusion. Even though, Oracle’s $ 5.85 billion acquistion of Siebel was the most talked about, it was just one of the dozen takeovers that Oracle has been involved in, in 2005. arnnet.com says:

The industry’s previous acquisitions champ, Computer Associates (now CA), spent the first half of this decade cleaning up the wreckage left by its rapid growth and lax management.

Go to: The year in software: Oracle rules the roost

UniPress® Software Inc, which provides web-based service desk automation software to mid-market enterprises, has released the FootPrints® Deploy Suite. This offering is an ad-on module with several desktop management activities incorporated into it. It offers patch management and asset discovery capabilities that empower users with greater troubleshooting capabilities. realmarket.com says:

In addition, the new add-on module dramatically improves administrative control by delivering real-time insight into the configuration states of computer systems on the network.

Go to: UniPress Unveils New Version of Software