We Blog CRM

CDC Software, that wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and provider of enterprise software applications, announced today that RS Components Hong Kong has selected he Pivotal suite of CRM applications for its fourteen offices throughout the Asia Pacific area.

RS will be using Pivotal CRM to manage and track customer services including contact and activity management; telesales and sales account planning; account territory alignments and scorecard tracking; and tracking visits to customers and prospective customers. The company will also be marketing and distributing its trade catalogues and comparing customers and prospects data to their customer marketing management lifecycle data using the Pivotal application.

Established in 1937, RS’ mission statement declares the company “is committed to providing a part for every job, from research and development through pre-production to maintenance and repair.” RS is making good on the goal, today supplying more than 300,000 products to 24 countries and exports to an additional 160 countries worldwide.

LexisNexis has announced that Marks Paneth & Shron LLP has selected InterAction as its Customer Relationship Management software. Marks, Paneth & Shron is today one of the largest independent accounting firms in the New York region and is America’s 36th largest firm according to Accounting Today magazine.

Among key factors in the choice, Marks Paneth & Shron cited InterAction’s ability to “extend the firm’s industry reach by empowering professionals to discover and capitalize on their colleagues’ relationships to help land the next new client engagement.”

MP&S also reportedly appreciated InterAction software’s ability to allow the firm to be more proactive in managing relationships. Prior to selecting InterAction, MP&S had been using a single, firm-created database controlled by the marketing department.

“In the past, word-of-mouth was a great vehicle through which to grow our business – today, an informal knowledge-sharing approach isn’t enough,” said Marks Paneth & Shron LLP managing director of marketing Sara Walsh.

LexisNexis is a leading provider of information and services solutions, including the flagship web-based Lexis and Nexis research services, to professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. A member of Reed Elsevier, LexisNexis serves customers in 100 countries with 13,000 employees.

Access Commerce, a provider of e-commerce and CRM software, this week released Cameleon EasyQuote for salesforce.com’s AppExchange.

Cameleon EasyQuote for Salesforce is an on-demand quotation system which incorporates AJAX, providing features including an advanced quotation spreadsheet; catalog search; product and service configuration; pricing and promotion applications; and a proposal generation program.

The Apex on-demand platform is now generally available. The Apex programming language is currently available for developer preview, and is currently scheduled to be released in beta version to Salesforce.com customers “later in 2007.”

Access Commerce is an international provider of e-Commerce and CRM software, and its flagship product Cameleon Commerce Suite. Among Access Commerce clientele are AREVA, Eaton Corporation, Eiffage Construction, Invacare, Leroy Merlin, Manitou, Mitsubishi Caterpillar Forklift Europe, Perceptron, Perkins Engines, Saint-Gobain, Schneider Electric, ThyssenKrupp, Total and X-Rite. Access Commerce is headquartered in Toulouse, France and Chicago, Ill.

Linux-based specialist CRM vendor SugarCRM launched into the project-planning market this week with their new project-management application.

Touted within the release is a feature known as “Sugar Projects,” which promises a 360-degree view of a project along with shared files, notes and benchmarks, while allowing collaboration between internet users and customers.

The announcement was couched in the shadow of the opening of Sugar Europe. The office located in verdant Dublin, Ireland, was announced earlier this month. Company figures show that about one-quarter of SugarCRM’s commercial customers are located in Europe and more than 30 percent of Sugar Open Source downloads take place in Europe.

SugarCRM PR once again took the opportunity to note its low overhead in making such product innovation possible: Chairman/chief executive John Roberts states "the extreme sales and marketing of the other CRM vendors, [so] R&D is a very large proportion of our budget.”

And in the gauntlet-throwing department, Roberts kicked in: "We are doing to Salesforce what Salesforce did to Siebel a couple of years ago.”

As for prices on the SugarCRM product, no serious details have been released yet.

Convergys Corporation, a provider of customer care, human resources, and billing services announced its signing of a direct response contract with Rosetta Stone, publisher of Rosetta Stone language-learning software.

Convergys will provide agents and a routing platform to direct calls. Convergys first began providing inbound customer care and sales support to Rosetta Stone in December 2006.

Rosetta Stone is claimed to be the top-selling language-learning software in the world, and the thirty languages’ worth of product is sold in over 150 countries. Inc. Magazine recently named Rosetta Stone Inc. one of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the United States, and Deloitte and Touche has named it one of the fasted-growing technology companies in Virginia. The company’s corporate office is in Rosslyn, Va. and the company’s main office is in Harrisonburg, Va.

Convergys Corporation provides customer care, human resources, and billing services in more than seventy countries and 35 languages. Convergys clientele is based in industries including communications, financial services, technology, and consumer products. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Convergys employs some 74,000 in 75 customer contact centers, three data centers, and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Vormittag Associates, Inc., an ERP solution provider specializing in the IBM iSeries, has announced the pre-configuring of its S2K enterprise management software with the Extol International line of business integration software.

In hopes of expediting commonly used business integration functions, certain S2K functions automatically launch views and maps to Extol Integrator. For example, S2K now ships with preconfigured maps between Extol and major trading partners; Extol functionality includes EDI management that integrates with multiple departments and applications throughout the enterprise.

Companies currently using the S2K/EBI product include Dorcy International, Badanco Enterprises, Maple Leaf Farms and Beer Nuts. (Mmmmm, beer nuts!)

Extol International, Inc. is a provider of B2B integration application software for companies seeking to integrate demand-driven supply chains. Extol solutions are available preconfigured to address specific electronic commerce applications including EDI, AS2, XML, and data synchronization.

Vormittag Associates, Inc. is an IBM premier business partner and software developer. Designed for the mid-range market, S2K Enterprise applications include Warehouse Pro, EDI, CRM and e-Business. VAI is headquartered in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.

There’s a nice folksy story being reported over at TMCNet set in – where else? – Kansas. As it turns out, calendar year 2007 will see the 30th anniversary of a family-owned and family-run CRM vendors Ruf Strategic Solutions.

In family terms, the longevity of this company based in Olathe, Kansas is “a tribute to the commitment of four brothers who are keeping the family business running, as well as carrying on their father’s dream of entrepreneurship.”

Jacob and Sondra Ruf founded the company in the basement of their home in 1976 – ah, the American dream! – where Jacob developed decision support software.

Jacob Ruf is perhaps most well-known by those in the know as helping co-create the first ZIP code-level marketing system with Martin Baier, member of the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. Yes, there really is a Direct Marketing Hall of Fame.

The company also claims development of the first commercially available relational database, the first truly household-level consumer clustering system, and the first business clustering system using proprietary “corporate lifestyles.”

Naturally, the Ruf brothers credit their success to the father’s Midwestern values: “Dad always pushed us to compete, whether that was with each other or in business. We are all quite different, but I think that is what makes this company work. We all have our own ideas to bring to the table, yet every one of us has the same goal — to keep our father’s dream alive. If we can do that as a family, then we’re doing pretty well.”

Yesterday saw the release of Salesforce.com’s Spring ‘07 release, the 22nd generation of its on-demand business services, but the buzz in the last 24 hours has been all about the heretofore unreleased product known as AppSpace. Representative headlines from those in the industry media include “Salesforce.com Aims to Do for Portals What MySpace Did for Networking,” “My Space for the CRM Crowd” and “What Salesforce.com Is Wearing This Spring.”

AppSpace is essentially Salesforce’s take on MySpace (“Just as MySpace brought together individuals on the consumer web,” said ever-quotable Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff upon opening Spring ‘07, “AppSpace will bring together companies and their customers on the business web.) The Salesforce version is designed to enable “companies to engage with customers using Salesforce and AppExchange applications inside a secure, branded online environment.”

Benioff went on to do the visionary thing again, with “We are excited to bring the End of Software to portals and blaze a new way for enterprises to engage richly and securely with their customers.” (And, yes, in the official print version of this quote, the capital letters are there.)

AppSpace is currently scheduled for a limited release as part of Spring ‘07 in April. Prices start at $995 per organization per month. General availability is scheduled for the third quarter of fiscal year 2008.

In other Salesforce.com news, the folks down there in that bizarre-yet-common amalgamation region known as “Europe, Middle East and Africa” were proud to announce Salesforce.com EMEA’s status as the no. 1 market share in “the world’s fastest-growing on-demand CRM market.” Statistics came courtesy of industry analysts at Ovum.

Salesforce PR quoted Gartner statistics showing that EMEA will surpass worldwide growth rates for on-demand in 2007, a market to be worth $19.3 billion by the end of 2011. Salesforce.com EMEA is showed a growth rate of 72 percent year over year revenue growth and 77 percent fourth-quarter revenue growth over 2005.

Recent sales wins for Salesforce.com EMEA include Allianz Cornhill Commercial, ALD Automotive, Astratech, Deutsche Bank, KONE, and Salesforce.com’s 5,000th EMEA customer … drumroll please … Rolls-Royce Motor Cars!

PacificNet, Inc., a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management, mobile internet, e-commerce and gaming technology in China, announced subsidiary PacificNet Games Limited’s (or PacGames) launch of a new line of gaming products called the Multiplayer Electronic Table Game Series at the 6th International Gaming & Entertainment Expo in Macau, China, last week.

(“The first time,” noted oft-quoted PacificNet CEO Tony Tong, “PacificNet has had a chance to showcase our gaming products at a leading international gaming expo in Macau.”)

The first promised products in the Multiplayer Electronic Table Game series were the multiplayer electronic SicBo machines, which were presented to “leading casino operators in Asia” at the event.

What is SicBo? Glad you asked.

A dice-rolling game, Sicbo is made distinctive by its history. Reads the authoritative-if-minimalist webpage Sicbo.info, in part:

Sicbo, which literally means “dice pair,” is an ancient Chinese gambling game. This name is slightly peculiar since Sicbo is actually played using three standard six-sided casino dice. But Sicbo may have originally used a pair of dice shaken between a plate and an overturned bowl. This is why Sicbo is also called ‘Dice-in-a-bowl’ at some casinos.

At the heart of it, Sicbo seems a simple game with bets placed simply on what gamblers guess the next combination of three dice will be; check out this nicely broken down listed of odds and payoffs for each typical Sicbo table bet at the excellently-named Wizard of Odds. Like craps, it’s gotta be about riding the waves of luck, eh?

Naturally, with the 21st century upon us, the ancient game – like poker, keno, bingo, whatever ways places like Las Vega$ devise for us to part with our money – is now, having passed through mundane electronic ways, digital: In modern casinos the dice are shaken mechanically, and the outcome is keyed into a computer which automatically lights up the winning zones on the table.

Macau as the setting of the games’ launch was appropriate, for according to recent Macau government statistics, Macau is the fastest-growing gaming market in the world and has reportedly recently surpassed Las Vegas as the largest gaming market in the world. Macau’s total gaming revenue is now $7 billion.

Macau is the only area in China where gambling is legal.

As for PacificNet and the PacGames, they’ll be heading on into Manila, Philippines for the GEM Gaming & Entertainment Plus Leisure Expo 2007 starting on Wednesday.

PacGames is a provider of Asian multi-player electronic gaming machines, gaming technology solutions and gaming related maintenance, IT and distribution services for the leading hotel, casino and slot hall operators based in Asian gaming markets.

Beijing- and Hong Kong-headquartered PacificNet Inc. is an investor in and operator of companies that provide outsourcing, e-commerce, and value-added services in China, such as call centers, telemarketing, direct response television marketing, CRM, interactive voice response, mobile applications, and communications product distribution services.

PacificNet corporate clients include China Telecom, China Mobile, Unicom, PCCW, Hutchison Telecom, Bell24, SONY, TCL, Huawei, American Express, Citibank, HSBC, Bank of China, Bank of East Asia, DBS, TNT, and the Hong Kong government. PacificNet employs over 2,300 in China with offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Macau, and branch offices in 26 provinces.

One more time, from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, act two, scene two:

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…

On Thursday, CRMchump reported a story that read just like any other acquisition announcement running on this page weekly, but there was one vital difference.

March 15 saw one Consona Corporation officially closing its acquisition of KNOVA Software, Inc in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $47 million. Nothing different for this reader of dozen of press releases and online trade media until the line about Consona’s status as “the business formerly known as M2M Holdings, Inc.”

(Yes, at the time, CRMchump promised more on that particular aspect of the story by Friday’s end. Well, hopefully you’re down with the old saw “better late, etc. etc.” By the way, apologies, too, for not reporting the name change on the 8th; my newest daughter was newly born and i was off the blogging for a short while. Again though, better late…)

Now, “M2M” carries some weight. This company made a half-dozen acquisitions in the past eighteen months and turned in record numbers for growth in 2006. In fact, this “tremendous growth” is somehow what led to the name change: After the results were in, “the executive team at M2M Holdings Inc. decided a new name was needed to describe the unified vision behind its growing line of world-class enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management solutions. That’s why … they will officially rename their holding company Consona Corporation (Consona).”

A bit odd-seeming at first, the reasoning soon becomes clear, with Consona vice president of sales and marketing Tom Millay explaining that “M2M Holdings was never intended to be a widely-known name. We started the business with the Made2Manage product and … keeping the ‘M2M’ as part of the holding company name has caused confusion in the marketplace.”

Fair enough, but why “Consona,” exactly? After all, CRMchump is ever fond of aesthetically interesting company names, but this one is a bit … um … abstract, isn’t it? It’s a bit cold-leaving. One wonders, too: Is it “CON-sun-ah” or “con-SONE-ah”? This is not empirical from the spelling.

Consona CEO Jeff Tognoni went on to explain in the announcement that “the new name is derived from the concept of ‘consonance,’ which describes the perfect alignment of elements within a single entity.

Oh.

Um, should you really have to explain the meaning behind your company’s name? If so, should you really then have to give the definition of the word?

(Incidentally, a tight definition of “consonance” is provided by the Merriam Webster online dictionary: “harmony or agreement among components.”)

Tognoni went on to say that “We like the meaning because it emphasizes the aspects of our strategy that remain central to each line of business within the company. First, we strive to build high-fit software that closely aligns with the business processes of our customers. Second, we encourage our people to be similarly aligned in order to provide excellent service and support…”

So, why not “Aligna”?

(Surprise, surprise: www.Aligna.com is taken by a business consulting firm called AlignOrg. On the front page is a statement reading “Alignment is the harmony or congruence between the numerous organization choices and the desired results.” Kind of like “consonance,” actually.)

Over at a website called Vitamin – or possibly Think Vitamin – is a piece by Michael McDerment well worth your time, entitled simply “How to name your company.”

Far too extensive to be quoted at length here, McDerment sets some early (and easy to examine in CRMchump) guidelines on “Generating A Good Company Name.” The five main characteristics, according to McDerment, are:

1. It’s easy to remember.

2. It’s easy to spell and requires no explanation.

3. It describes your business category.

4. It describes your benefit.

5. It describes your difference.

Three more “constraints” that, writes the author, “I like,” include:

1. It has to be one or two syllables long - no more.

2. Each syllable starts with a strong consonant (B, C, D, G, K, P, Q, T).

3. It’s fun to say (”…that just rolls off the tongue”).

Examples that adhere to all of the above include Best Buy, PayPal and QuickBooks.

Meanwhile, “Consona” doesn’t fare too well at all; indeed, that’s an 0-for-8 from this informal list.

However, this represents just one list from one dude, listed as an “entrepreneur” on the site he writes for. Surely, back when it was M2M, the company employed a naming agency, an interesting industry in and of itself.

Check out the following part of the company description provided by The Naming Company (presumably named by itself, eh?).

“Using a Name Team™ of no [fewer] than ten experienced namers, we compile a master list of 600 names or more on a typical project. We then narrow it down to a manageable list of only the most memorable and marketable names to present to the client. Our turnaround time is just ten business days and the process is simple and painless.”

Similar organizations can be checked out at NameDevelopment.com, Naming.com, ad transfinitum.

Naming stuff: That’s what i want to do for a living. Is it too late for me to change careers…?