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Jagged Peak, Inc., a provider of Enterprise Demand Management software and such, has announced a national agreement with California-based Towne AllPoints Communications Inc.

Towne AllPoints is reportedly “the country’s largest direct response communication companies to supply joint fulfillment and logistics services.” Towne AllPoints employs Jagged Peak’s flagship product EDGE (or “Enterprise Dynamic Global Engine”) within its order management systems, is a 48-year-old company that provides integrated print, mail, and electronic product.

Jagged Peak, Inc., is a global provider of enterprise demand management, CRM execution, e-fulfillment solutions, and services. The company’s flagship product is EDGE, a web-based software application. Founded in 2000, Jagged Peak has clientele in the financial services, insurance, pharmaceutical, travel and tourism, automotive, manufacturing, and consumer goods segments. Jagged Peak was named one of America’s fastest-growing technology companies for four consecutive years (2001-2004) in Deloitte and Touche’s Fast 50/Fast 500 program.

CIBER, Inc. today announced completion of the first stage of the SAP MySAP enterprise resource planning business suite implementation project for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. In fact, stage one, the CIBERians are happy to report, was completed thirty days ahead of schedule.

The project is commonly known as PRIDE and is an example that rare but disturbingly more prevalent beast known as an acronym containing an acronym: PRIDE stands for “PTC Readiness for an Integrated Decision-making Enterprise,” where “PTC” refers to the commission.

In any event, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Readiness for an Integrated Decision-making Enterprise represents a thorough transformation of PTC’s disparate information technology systems into a single integrated system.

Project planning was a collaborative effort between CIBER and PTC professionals on functionality needs. In November, CIBER conducted system training for more than 700 PTC employees across the entire length of the turnpike. Transition to the new system began November 27th and was completed on December 1st.

The remaining stages of the project will involve enabling functionality for work orders, purchasing, inventory, human capital management, and financial processes, including treasury.

Also during 2007, CIBER, SAP, and the PTC plan to implement SAP and Microsoft’s new “Duet” functionality. Such a project would represent one of the first public sector Duet implementations in North America.

PTC employs approximately 2,400 people and earns $580 million annually in toll revenue. PTC operates a transportation route, which accommodates more than 500,000 vehicles per day, and includes 531 miles of turnpike, 59 fare collection facilities, 21 maintenance facilities, five twin tunnels, ten state police barracks, 21 service plazas, and two traveler information centers.

CIBER, Inc. is a pure-play international system integration consultancy with private- and government-sector clients. Founded in 1974 and headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colo., the company now serves client businesses from over 60 U.S. offices, 22 European offices and five offices in Asia. Operating in 18 countries, CIBER employs some 8,250 and boasts annual revenue of approximately $1 billion.

The folks at Salentica Systems Inc., a provider of Microsoft Dynamics CRM-based client management product, today announced that Fortigent has selected the Salentica Suite of its client management software system for use in streamlining its customer contact database.

Fortigent provides outsourced wealth management solutions and consulting services to advisory firms and banks targeting high net worth clients.

Salentica provides client management solutions for buy- and sell-side financial service firms built around the Microsoft .NET platform and Microsoft CRM. Salentica’s customer base includes “many” of North America’s largest financial services firms in mutual fund wholesaling, investment banks, institutional asset management, private wealth management, retail brokerage and insurance.

CRM software provider Infinity Info Systems has announced that Ohio-based Midstar CRM Solutions is “joining forces with their New York operations.”

Midstar customers will now be offered Infinity’s mobility solutions, business intelligence tools and analytics in CRM implementations.

Founded in 1987 and headquartered in New York City, Infinity Info Systems has recorded successful implementation of more than 2,500 contact management and CRM solutions, while training more than 120,000 professionals. Infinity specializes in providing a comprehensive package of CRM software, consulting services, training and support.

Midstar was founded in April 1990 with a primary focus given to ACT!-based implementations, introducting SalesLogix as an option in 1997.

CRM’s cousin, brother, red-eyed stepchild CEM – however you feel about it depends how you describe it, but the relationship is doubtlessly filial – is back again in a couple of new stories and in the consciousness of CRMers.

On Customer Experience Management, there is quite an extensive piece on the subject appearing in this blog written back in October, the last time murmurs of CEM seeped into the CRM news grid.

CEM is often confused with CRM, or the relationship between the two isn’t exactly clear. Indeed, industry online publication TMCNet.com ran a piece in September of last year that contained the mots “contentwise there isn’t any appreciable difference between CEM and what we’ve been doing in CRM for years.”

CEM is the group of psychological principles that underlie compelling customer experiences and the business strategies to put these principles into action. CEM practitioners typically place heavy emphasis on the “essential first step” of making the selling environment more appealing.

Rather than high-level advertising campaigns and heavy promotion, CEM focuses on the generally cheaper but more obscure method of feedback and improvement. The main difference comes in the interest on returns: CRM is essentially based in software systems designed to maximize transactions via quantitative data, and ultimately is most effective in the short term.

The CEM philosophy seeks to investigate and exploit the relationship between the consumer and his/her “experience” with the product or service; in this way can a long-term relationship and true customer loyalty result.

First off in the news today, then, is the quaintly named privately-held San Francisco-based TeaLeaf Technology, self-proclaimed “leader in Customer Experience Management,” which announced that TeaLeaf CX had been selected by uSwitch.com to provide a comprehensive understanding of each customer journey on its website.

uSwitch.com is a free informational service to customers to assist in finding the best supplier for home services such as gas and electricity, broadband, landline calls, credit cards and current accounts.

Meanwhile, in a story that has industry news outlets throwing the word “dysfunctional” into headlines, results in a recently-performed Strativity “CEM Study” indicated numbers coming across the ‘wires translated as “Our customer relationships are dysfunctional” and “Customer-centricity is lacking in many companies.”

Speaking more specifically, some results included:

• 60 percent of senior executives claim they do not deserve their customers’ loyalty;

• 51 percent of respondents claim that their company does not deliver unique and beneficial products or services;

• 56 percent claim their company’s products or services are worth the price;

• 75 percent do not know the cost of a new customer;

• 70 percent indicated that customer strategies are more important than they were three years ago; and

• 81 percent did not know the cost of a customer complaint.

The research was conducted via a structured, anonymous, on-line survey. The survey was hosted by CustomerSat Inc. using the “advanced ECEMTM (Enterprise Customer Experience Management) solution.” 309 surveys were submitted by executives from the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Participating companies represent a wide range of sizes and cross business types.

Finally, over at TMCnet.com, Cincom CEM Products marketing director Randy Saunders comments on “Customer Experience Management: Is It Just Another Name for CRM?” (Which essentially was answered in the affirmative by David Sims of ol’ TMCnet six months ago.)

Saunders quotes statistics from Shaun Smith, co-author of “Managing the Customer Experience: Turning Customers into Advocates,” one of the seminal texts in the field; and Saunders finishes with a flourish: “When you create an experience so positively powerful that it burns a memory of your company’s brand into your customer’s mind, they can’t wait to return for more. And they’ll bring their friends and colleagues along.”

That, we can suppose, is CEM.

In the opinion of CRMchump, doing anything for thirty years in a row is an admirable run. That noteworthy stretch of time was surpassed by SAS in 2006, a company which was able to report this morning that its 30th consecutive year of revenue growth had been achieved.

The SAS revenue figure for 2006 ended up being $1.9 billion, a 12 percent increase over the $1.7 billion mark posted in 2005, and new software license revenue increased 20 percent, nearly twice the growth rate expected in the market this year. The Americas accounted for 45 percent of total revenue; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) 45 percent; and Asia Pacific 10 percent.

Said SAS’s wonderfully named CEO Jim Goodnight, “We had a good year.”

Analyst firm IDC kicked in an enviable quote for the announcement, proclaiming that "in the short term, IDC does not see any serious challenge to SAS’ dominance of the advanced analytics market and expects the company to continue to experience above-market growth rates for query, reporting, and analysis.”

Verint Systems Inc. and Witness Systems, Inc. yesterday announced a “definitive agreement” via which Verint will acquire Witness for $27.50 per share in cash.

The combined Verint/Witness portfolio includes solutions for quality monitoring; IP recording; multimedia interaction capture; speech and data analytics; performance management; contact center and enterprise workforce management; eLearning and eCoaching; customer feedback management; and strategic professional and consulting services.

The total enterprise value of the transaction is approximately $950 million. Verint expects to fund the transaction through a $650 million debt financing commitment provided by Lehman Brothers Inc., Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, a $293 million preferred stock investment by Comverse Technology, Inc., the 57 percent shareholder of Verint, and the remainder from existing cash of the combined company.

The conference call in which Verint heads discuss the transaction and new strategies for Witness’ goods is available by replay at the Verint homepage until February 28.

Zilliant and Deloitte Consulting LLP have announced the formation of a strategic alliance with a mission statement “to provide total price management software and services.” Under terms of the agreement, the firms will plug Zilliant’s suite of pricing applications together with Deloitte Consulting’s comprehensive implementation and consulting services.

Deloitte Consulting and Zilliant are formalizing their already-extant alliance relationship in order to better meet what company reps are calling the growing demand for advanced pricing management solutions. The alliance will focus on business-to-business manufacturers, distributors and service companies.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Zilliant is a privately held company. Investors include Austin Ventures, Cardinal Ventures, JP Morgan Partners, and Trellis Partners.

Microsoft Corp. has announced the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation, touted as nothing less than “a new way of using business intelligence tools from Microsoft.”

Analytics Foundation seeks to enable business performance to be tracked continuously through dashboards; managers and employees to quickly create reports and drill down into areas of interest; and helps sales, marketing and service employees to use more predictive analytics.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation uses data management and analytic technologies from the Microsoft suite of business intelligence products including Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft SharePoint Technologies, Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager and Microsoft Office Excel.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Analytics Foundation is available as a free shared-source download for customers and partners. It is currently available via CodePlex.

An early calendar marker for you, then: SYS-CON Events reminds us that June 24-26, 2007, will see the 11th International SOA World 2007 East take place in New York City.

Today, Laszlo Systems and webMethods have gotten on board the event program, joining SOA World 2007 East Conference & Expo as "Charter Sponsors."

Laszlo Systems is the original developer of the open source platform OpenLaszlo, an XML-native foundation for building next generation web applications. Laszlo Systems provides comprehensive support services, education, and commercial application modules.

webMethods now has a clientele for its business process integration of over 1,400 of large corporations and government agencies.

SYS-CON Events also announced that the "Call for Papers" for SOA World 2007 East Conference & Expo and Enterprise Open Source 2007 East Conference & Expo closed today.