We Blog CRM

Skyline, the Minnesota-based manufacturer of trade show displays, has announced a mammoth strategic initiative to standardize its customer relationship management systems across its dealer channel of 140 in 45 countries with FrontRange Solutions’ GoldMine CRM application.

Skyline touted “GoldMine software’s combination of functionality, configurability and affordability, as well as its worldwide network of support” as integral to the selection.

First Direct Corp., a FrontRange Solutions partner supporting all FrontRange/GoldMine products, created a configured GoldMine template for Skyline dealers; Skyline is currently in the process of the GoldMine rollout, with “several” dealers having gone live thus far.

Software and solutions developer FrontRange Solutions now claims a clientele of over 130,000 companies and more than 1.7 million seats worldwide. FrontRange corporate clientele includes Coca-Cola, Shell Oil, Prudential Securities, Electricite de France, Mack Trucks, Campbell Soup, Avaya, Bechtel Corp, Bank of America, and the Turner News Network.

Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, today announced that Standard Bank of South Africa will be employing Graham to provide a contact management solution for its front-office contact centre.

Graham Technology and global IT services firm, Dimension Data, has been chosen to roll out the solution in a phased approach beginning in the first quarter of 2007.

Graham launched their flagship product Ciboodle, its customer relationship management software bundle for the multi-channel contact centre, in October.

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.”

Standard Bank of South Africa is reportedly the largest South African banking group and operates in some 17 African countries and 21 others. SBSA employs 40,000.

Graham Technology specializes in contact centre software and services. Graham was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Scotland; the company today has nine global offices.

SAP’s come out in 2007 with guns a-blazin’…

Today company representatives announced the firm’s 1,000th customer going live on enterprise service-oriented architecture mySAP ERP 2005. mySAP now lays claim to the record for “fastest adoption rate of an ERP release in the history of the company.”

With the announcement, SAP PR took the time to profile a few of their customers truly spanning the globe, including Higher Education Press, the largest publisher of educational books in that big country known as China; The State of California Department of Water Resources; Technische Werke Ludwigshafen AG, a provider of electricity, natural gas, drinking water and heat to private and commercial customers in Germany; and Palfinger AG, an Austrian manufacturer of hydraulic lifting, loading and handling systems.

SAND Technology, Inc., provider of intelligent enterprise information management software, announced that it has joined the Business Objects Technology Partner Program. Under terms of the agreement, SAND and Business Objects will collaborate on sales and marketing initiatives.

(Plus, they’ll get more reportage on CRMchump.org, because you gotta love the name “Business Objects.” Classic!)

The two firms have reportedly worked together to deliver business intelligence product to seven customers in multiple industries. In such solutions, SAND/DNA products are typically combined with the business intelligence and enterprise information management software in BusinessObjects XI Release 2. Read more

AutoSurvey, a provider of customer loyalty software, is undergoing a name change. From this point forward, AutoSurvey, Inc. will be registered under an unpronounceable glyph. Future press material may contain references to “The Company Formerly Known as AutoSurvey, Inc.”

Ah, would that it were so.

As it turns out, AutoSurvey, Inc. will now be called “Vital Insight Group, LLC.” Reportedly, company executives decided to differentiate between AutoSurvey the web-based CRM product and AutoSurvey the business due to plans calling for consolidation of the company’s additional product lines under one entity.

Said Jason Tryfon, now president of Vital Insight Group: “…we’ll be combining several development teams and growing several product lines under one roof, adding increased functionality, support and Research & Development.”

In 2006, The Company Currently Known As Vital Insight Group experienced growth that saw the company boom from fewer than 100 automotive dealers to over 1,000, while company revenues quadrupled.

Vital Insight Group, LLC is headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz. with Canadian operations located in North York, Ontario. The company also maintains a regional based office in Los Angeles.

Tenrox, a specialist in workflow-driven project workforce management software has an extension of its relationship with Microsoft today. Under terms of the new agreement, Tenrox may now offer Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 under the Microsoft ISV royalty licensing program and services provider licensing agreement. Tenrox now plans to release a new version of its Project Workforce Management software that leverages the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 feature set.

Since 1995, Tenrox has served over 800 organizations in 50 countries including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Caterpillar, Corning Cable Systems, Wilmington Trust, First National Bank, Hydro Quebec, Invensys, Major Drilling, Pioneer Natural Resources, State of Wyoming, The Pentagon, University of Michigan, Fisher Scientific, and Wyeth.

SAP AG announced a nice client win today, with document processing and postal specialist Böwe Bell & Howell will replace its extant CRM system with mySAP Customer Relationship Management. BBH will roll out mySAP CRM initially within its North American service organization and later extend implementation throughout parent company operations worldwide.

BBH plans to link the mySAP CRM application to its existing GPS system, seeking to enable selection and dispatch of the most appropriate service technician at the closest customer location.

It was a great day for the pair of software providers who announced a strategic alliance, not to mention bloggers who enjoy classic company names.

Today it was on-demand sales compensation management specialist Xactly Corporation and RightNow Technologies; the firms will be teaming RightNow service, sales, and marketing product with Xactly’s sales compensation management programs.

Xactly now hopes to provide clients with on-demand sales, services and compensation management product to firms in industries such as high technology, telecom, travel and hospitality, public sector, education, and financial services.

Founded in 1997, RightNow Technologies itself is billed as the firm “leading the industry beyond CRM to high-impact customer experience management solutions.” RightNow boasts a clientele of more than 1,500 companies around the world, including Alaska Air, Andrews Federal Credit Union, Banknorth Group, Bell Microproducts, Briggs Corporation, Cendant, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Dow Chemical, Dun & Bradstreet, Friend Communications, Germany Pioneer, International Rectifier, Kodak, Merry Maids, Paddy Power, Sketchers, The Right Start, Thomas Cook, Victoria International, and Victoria University of New Zealand.

SYS-CON Events has announced that webMethods has joined the SOA World 2007 East Conference & Expo as a "Gold Sponsor." Gold sponsors for the 2006 show included Adobe, Apress, Backbase, CalAmp, Cassatt, Centric CRM, Chariot Solutions, Composite Software, Exadel, Ingres, Metallect, Optaros, OSS Nokalva, Parasoft, Rogue Wave Software, SugarCRM and Web Age Solutions.

The SOA World Expo will be held in tandem with the Enterprise Open Source 2007 East Conference & Expo in New York City on June 25 and 26 of this year. webMethods provides business process integration to some 1,400-plus large corporations and government agencies.

The call for papers for both expos is still open through January 31. (You’ve got time if you hurry.)

Potential topics include all development and management aspects of web services, Service-Oriented Architecture; all development and management aspects of open source technology is also on the table. For the SOA, ideal candidates are those with first-hand experience in the development and/or implementation of web services, .NET, MX, or Java applications, XML-based technologies, and service-oriented architectures in general.

For the open source expo, first-hand experience in building, deploying and developing the Open Source environment, perl, php, Python, Apache, Eclipse, Symbian, LAMP, MacLAMP, and/or mySQL are sought.

While SAP HQ was detailing its “new game changing approach to the mid-market” (i.e. the development of a hosted suite of business applications for the midmarket) ‘Stateside, SAP Arabia outlined details of its upcoming participation at Cairo ICT 2007. The annual show is Egypt’s largest IT exhibition.

SAP Arabia will be taking the opportunity presented by the show to hard-sell the latest solutions and products from the open-sourcers including mySAP ERP, mySAP CRM, mySAP supply chain management and mySAP supplier relationship management. I

n the announcement, SAP Arabia president Essam Enany saw the show as key to his branch’s interests: “SAP’s presence at Cairo ICT [event] represents our ongoing commitment to the region” and promised his company’s product would help area firms to “out-think, out-execute and out-perform their competitors.” (Sounds like a true SAP guy, eh?)

In the Egyptian market, SAP Arabia’s foci in 2007 will be public affairs, financial services, mid-market and real estate markets.