We Blog CRM

CRM solutions provider AdventNet Inc. and WebEx, provider of software-as-a-service applications for collaborative web business have announced a partnership. As of today, AdventNet flagship web-based CRM product known as Zoho will be available via the WebEx Connect application grid. Zoho CRM is billed as a “complete relationship lifecycle management solution delivered as a service.”

With the new WebEx Connect integration, say company officials, Zoho CRM users can now instantly schedule or launch WebEx meetings directly from Zoho CRM. Individual tools such as Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet and Zoho Show are also now available via WebEx Connect.

Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show individually seek to deliver web-based full-featured document, spreadsheet and presentation creation, respectivefully with “all the benefits of the latest Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX.”

The WebEx Connect is an application platform specifically designed for on-demand collaboration and third-party application integration.

Founded in 1996, AdventNet delivers software solutions to a clientele base now numbering more than 10,000 customers and partners. The AdventNet product portfolio is divided into five core areas and brands: ManageEngine for network and systems management; SecureCentral for security; Zoho for web-based collaboration, CRM and office productivity; SQLOne for database search and migration; and QEngine, test automation tools.

WebEx Communications, Inc., is a global leader in software-as-a-service applications for collaborative business on the web. WebEx delivers applications over the WebEx MediaTone Network. WebEx is based in Santa Clara, Calif., and has regional headquarters in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, today announced the launch of ciboodle, a customer relationship management software bundle for the multi-channel contact centre.

Promising full integratibility with all contact centre channels such as telephony, web, interactive voice response and instant messaging, ciboodle provides a single interface for contact centre agent / customer interaction. Ciboodle is plugged as “a product of 20 years of CRM and business process management expertise at Graham Technology,” and as a solution to “many of the key challenges facing today’s multi-channel contact centre.”

Ciboodle will be officially unveiled at the Call Centre Expo 2006, in the Birmingham NEC, on October 3 and 4.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Scotland, Graham Technology specializes in contact centre software and services.

Software and services provider Amdocs today announced that it has provided the implementation services needed to assist T-Mobile UK in launching Flext, reportedly the country’s first flexible postpaid price plan.

Under the Flext program – said to be “part of T-Mobile’s strategy to cut tariff confusion” – is simply a program which dominates value in terms of pounds sterling spent per month, rather than fixed numbers of minutes or texts, and “it lets customers spend their money on whatever mix … they want.” Isn’t that un-British?

Amdocs has a long-standing relationship with T-Mobile UK, as the cellular firm already employs Amdocs billing systems.

Amdocs is a software and services provider that seeks to accelerate implementation of integrated customer management by the world’s leading service providers. Amdocs boasted revenue of more than US $2 billion in fiscal 2005 and has 13,000 employees in fifty-one countries around the world.

Global Vision Technologies, Inc., software developer, has announced full PDMA compliance support in their suite of pharmaceutical sales and marketing support products. GVT partnered with Lansing, Mich.-based Signature Applications to complete compliance requirements.

The new technology allows tracking through a touch pad to capture electronic signatures that are recognized by court officials. GVT expects to have the final piece integrated into their GVTIconnect product before the end of 2006 and is finalizing beta customers now. The GVTIconnect product is a web-based, salesforce automation / customer relationship management especially touted for the pharmaceutical industry thanks to its medical education portal, sample fulfillment handling, and tracking abilities.

Signature Applications, LLC is a company specializing in the use of electronic signature capture devices and software to capture signatures digitally and therefore automate the signature process. Signature product is used by physicians, hospitals, clinics, pharmacists, financial personnel, legal personnel, HR departments, and security checkpoints.

Global Vision Technologies was founded in 1994. Software services that provided by GVT apply in training and development certification systems; e-learning, sales, marketing and CRM Applications; pharmaceutical sales operation applications; case management systems for human services; court systems and clinical trial software.

Representatives of Endeavor Commerce have announced today their SmartCatalog solution has been tested and verified compliant with Sage CRM SalesLogix v7 from Sage Software. Endeavor Commerce, a premier solutions partner of Sage, worked in conjunction with Sage CRM SalesLogix’ development team to ensure compliance.

SmartCatalog is a program designed to increase the efficacy of the quote-to-order entry process.

Sage CRM SalesLogix v7 was unveiled at the annual Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit in Chicago earlier this month. The software is designed to assist advertising sales reps manage dealings with media buying agencies and clients.

SalesLogix also promises to help establish relationships of various brands and the relevant agencies and to facilitate media budget planning, i.e. establish budgets available across different media and competition. Inclusive in the software are features such as customer profiling, prospects, agencies, media buying houses, and customer interaction history. SalesLogix is also touted for its proposal generator, sales target management, efficiency in information on deals, and management reports.

Sage Software is a provider to more than 2.6 million small- and mid-sized business customers in North America. Sage products support accounting, operations, customer relationship management, human resources, time tracking, merchant services and the specialized needs of accounting practices and the construction, distribution, manufacturing, nonprofit and real estate industries. Sage Software is a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now has 5.0 million customers served by 10,500 employees worldwide.

Endeavor Commerce is a provider of specialty solutions for mid-size enterprises and divisions of Fortune 500 corporations.

Oracle’s first business announcement of the week came early, with representatives today announcing that Humanscale, a leading manufacturer of ergonomic office products, has chosen the Oracle e-business suite. (And they wanted to point out the Humanscale chose them over SAP, too.) Humanscale will deploy Oracle Applications to assist in improving customer service and the ever-popular empowering of employees.

Humanscale will use Oracle customer relationship management applications in hopes of centralizing data and streamlining customer interaction. The system is designed to allow more than 250 Humanscale sales representatives to identify prospects, execute upsell or cross-sell opportunities, create proposals, handle complex quotes and contracts, track order fulfillment and enable thorough customer follow-up. Humanscale management will also use Oracle’s global compensation management application to create sales incentives.

In the future, Humanscale will use Oracle Order Management to automate the entire sales order management process, from order promising and order capture to transportation and shipment, and plans to use Oracle Order Management to capture multi-channel demand, including EDI, XML, telesales and its online storefront.

As for the decision, Humanscale officials stated the company brain trust felt more confident in the Oracle product’s capability to handle Humanscale’s planned growth. “We have lofty IT and business goals,” said Humanscale vice president of finance Michele Gerards.

Humanscale is reportedly the leading manufacturer of ergonomic work tools and posted revenues of US $124 million in 2005. Humanscale supplies over fifty percent of Fortune 1000 companies and gets its stuff shown on American television programs such as “24,” “Boston Legal” and “CSI: Miami.” (Hey, they’re very proud of their stars.) Important to note is that Humanscale founder / CEO Robert King is a member of the WWF National Council and all product design, makeup and packing materials are made with sustainable living in mind.

Ah, a happy ending for Vendere Partners … and Sage Software, too.

Sage Software representatives were no doubt happy to get out of bed and go to work on this Monday: After all, they were able to announce that Vendere Partners, Inc., a Dallas-based sales consulting and lead generation management company, has just passed the one-year anniversary of their SageCRM implementation. No big deal in itself, to be sure, but Vendere reported a whopping US $150,000 return on investment thanks to “increased efficiencies” brought about by SageCRM.com.

The Vendere brain trust credited SageCRM.com’s reporting capabilities with helping Vendere create an additional revenue stream by providing a system to more effectively collect and package industry marketing intelligence for its clients. Vendere also gave Sage the thumbs up for data mining and reporting capabilities, which have reportedly helped Vendere increase revenue by adding new competitive information tracking services. Industry marketing and product-specific information collected from lead generation and sales calls are packaged into custom reports that Vendere sells to organizations seeking market intelligence, thus that additional revenue stream.

Vendere had worked with Ascendix Technologies, a Sage CRM Solutions business partner, to customize SageCRM.com for its targeted account and solution selling methodologies. Ascendix also helped customize inside sales pipeline capabilities for use with lead generation, qualification and client campaign tracking.

Vendere Partners, Inc., is a Dallas-based firm providing lead generation services for technology vendors. The company also provides sales planning and sales process management consulting services for both inside and field sales teams. Ascendix Technologies is a consulting firm providing business systems.

Ascendix has been in business since 1996 and boasts over 50 years of combined experience in the deployment of business systems in CRM.

LexisNexis is releasing a bunch of new stuff today, formally launching its client development solutions line, billed as “one of four strategic solution lines supporting the company’s Total Practice Solutions strategy to help professional services firms win.” (“Um, win what?” “Quiet, keep typing.”)

The LexisNexis client development portfolio includes LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, composed of www.martindale.com and www.lawyers.com and seeking to provide buyers of legal services the information and solutions they need to select the ideal lawyers and law firms; and LexisNexis InterAction, a CRM solution helping professional services firms create, track and manage the relationship intelligence for generation of new business, enhancement to client service, marketing, and communication.

Simultaneously, LexisNexis also launched two new products within its client development solutions line: LexisNexis atVantage and the LexisNexis Corporate Intelligence Subscription for InterAction. The LexisNexis Corporate Intelligence Subscription integrates external LexisNexis content with InterAction, a CRM solution for professional services organizations.

The Corporate Intelligence Subscription seeks to assist firms in more easily segmenting markets, conducting more effective marketing programs and making critical decisions about business development efforts. Professionals can also “link out” to LexisNexis atVantage for more extensive corporate information, such as a company’s litigation history, corporate structure and hierarchy, news, business, financial and personnel information about the organization.

Corporate Intelligence Subscription data also theoretically integrates seamlessly with the InterAction Personal Information Manager desktop client interfaces, giving instant access to anyone connected to InterAction via Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes or Novell GroupWise.

LexisNexis Interface Software is a leading provider of information and services solutions, featuring its flagship web-based Lexis and Nexis research services, to a wide range of professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. The company is a member of Reed Elsevier Group plc and does business in 100 countries with 13,000 employees.

LexisNexis Interface Software is the no. 1 provider of CRM solutions enabling professional services firms and similar relationship-based organizations in creating relationship intelligence. Its flagship product, LexisNexis InterAction, is a relationship intelligence providing program which is internet-enabled, allowing the viewing of information through knowledge management platforms, corporate portals, intranet, extranet and wireless devices.

Wealth management software provider Xplan has acquired PlanTech Consulting for US $15 million in order to add risk analysis and analytics functions to its service package.

Xplan calls itself the “leading independent planning software vendor,” and the move is seen as complementing its existing service suite, which includes portfolio management, customer relationship management, practice management and investment modeling. The move potentially adds US $8 million a year to Xplan revenue.

The PlanTech service will be integrated into the Xplan offering “from day one” in the words of representatives and will replace Xplan’s current outsourced risk model. In future, Xplan aims to deliver a more comprehensive integrated package and will eventually be looking to provide a web-based investment / risk solution.

Xplan is also looking to expand its business opportunities in both New Zealand and South Africa by leveraging off PlanTech’s existing market presence in the two countries. As part of the acquisition, PlanTech principals Tony Smith and Mark Young will stay on at Xplan.

The announcement follows Xplan’s like announcement of a technology partnership with Aegis in New Zealand.

And speaking of Talisma, that firm has announced the launch of its Germany-based website www.talisma.de, which will provide Talisma partners and customers with local language support. Alongside this deal, Talisma officials signed a reseller agreement with German system integrator Teleconnect & Service GmbH.

With the Teleconnect & Service GmbH partnership, Talisma hopes to open small, mid-sized and large German organisations (such as German outlets of Canon and DHL) to Talisma’s full CIM product suite including Talisma Email, Talisma Chat, Talisma Phone and Talisma Knowledgebase solutions. Under terms of the agreement, Teleconnect will provide consulting, planning, implementation and local training.

Teleconnect & Service GmbH was founded in 1998 and offers products and solutions for the telecommunication, phone system and call centre market. The company focuses on consulting, concept planning and deploying of systems and solutions in the area of service centres. Teleconnect customers include Citibank, debital, Getronics, Microsoft, and Swisscom and company headquarters are in Unterschleißhein; the competence centre is based in Krefeld.

Talisma is a customer interaction management solutions provider integrating email, phone, chat, and self service with a web services platform, comprehensive analytics, and a system-wide knowledge base. Among Talisma clintele are AOL, Aviva, Banque Populaire, Betdaq, Canon, ChevronTexaco, Citibank, Dacorum Borough Council, Daimler-Chrysler, Dell, DHL, E.on, EPSON, Ericsson, Intuit, Microsoft, MWB, Pitney Bowes, Siemens, Sony, Sprint, NHS University Hospital of Leicester and Xchanging.

Talisma currently operates in 33 countries and offers language support for 12 languages. Talisma CIM 7.0 supports the German language and fully integrates online communication channels, including email, chat, VoIP, web self-service, and telephony with business process functionality and third-party data integration capabilities.