We Blog CRM

Jum Jum! Jumsoft has announced the release of its customer relationship management application for small businesses, Relationship Version 1.0. (If you ask CRMchump, that sounds like a robot-in-love film.)

Relationship helps users organize and manage their contact information, titles, campaigns, and resources.The interface allows users to create groups for company contacts, customers, friends, business partners and others. Users can also use any criteria to create "Smart Groups.”

Relationship is a Universal Binary application, allowing it to run natively on PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.

Relationship 1.0 is priced at $39, and is available for download at the Jumsoft website.

FrontRange Solutions closed out their week with the general release of GoldMine Plus Accounting 4.0. This is an add-on to the firm’s Customer Relationship Management solution, and seeks to allow users to draw information seamlessly from Inuit Inc.’s QuickBooks, and view it in tandem with GoldMine data.

Updates can also be sent from GoldMine back to QuickBooks. Through the integration with QuickBooks, users who are in GoldMine may now view invoices, and drill down to specific details and status.

GoldMine Plus Accounting 4.0 is touted as capable of “solv[ing] a plethora of issues that result from organizations using separate systems to access customer, sales, accounting, and operational data.” Gotta love the use of the word “plethora.”

Software and solutions developer FrontRange Solutions now claims a clientele of over 130,000 companies and more than 1.7 million seats worldwide. FrontRange products are designed primarily for small-, mid-sized, and distributed enterprise organizations. Solution families are three: customer relationship management, including GoldMine; IT service management including HEAT, ITSM and infrastructure management product lines; and communication interaction management, including IP Office, GoldMine IP Voice Suite and IP Contact Center. 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.

Enterprise management software vendor Deltek has announced that international engineering services provider the Wilde Technology Group has selected Deltek Vision software to provide integrated accounting, project management, customer relationship management and resource planning for four companies within the group.

Manchester, UK-based Wilde Technology Group is a quartet of consultancies and mechanical engineering firms specializing in finite element analysis simulation.

Formed in 1980, the Wilde Group has provided services to clients in industrial manufacturing, the defense industry, property developers, local government and national government. No word on the connection – if there is one – to dear old Oscar.

Founded in 1983, Herndon, Va.-based Deltek specializes in enterprise management software, specifically their Deltek Costpoint, Deltek Vision and Deltek GCS Premier. Applications hocked by these products includes accounting, billing, resource planning, budgeting, budget control, business intelligence, CRM and proposal automation, employee time and expense, HR management, material procurement, materials management and project management. Among Deltek clientele are Bechtel, CACI, HOK and Verizon.

Those folks at Blackbaud, Inc., software provider for non-profits, are a bunch of animals!

Well, maybe not, but they are doing their part to help the animals supported by the Zoological Society of San Diego, reportedly the world’s largest zoological organization with over 500,000 members. (Human members, that is.)

The Zoological Society of San Diego and Blackbaud Inc. announced just before the holiday that the two organizations are collaborating on a solution to strengthen the society’s fundraising efforts and to streamline its development operations. After considering over fifty software providers, the zoo crew will be going with The Raiser’s Edge, Blackbaud’s fundraising management solution, to provide a single source of data for staff members and to streamline operational activities.

The Zoological Society of San Diego was founded in 1916, has more than 250,000 member households, 130,000 child memberships,and raises almost $25 million in donations annually. Post-implemenation, the society has set a goal of raising $30 million in 2007, and the Zoological brain trust hopes that the fundraising program will soon garner $35 million to $40 million per annum.

The not-for-profit Zoological Society of San Diego is dedicated to the conservation of endangered species and their habitats, engaging in conservation and research work around the globe. The Zoological Society manages the 100-acre San Diego Zoo, the 1,800-acre San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park and the center for Conservation and Research for Endangered Species.

Blackbaud Inc. is a provider of software and related services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations. Blackbaud solutions include The Raiser’s Edge, The Financial Edge, The Education Edge, The Patron Edge, Blackbaud NetCommunity, The Information Edge, WealthPoint, and ProspectPoint. Blackbaud’s clientele of over 15,000 organizations includes the American Red Cross, Bowdoin College, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Detroit Zoological Society, Episcopal High School, Cancer Research UK, the Lincoln Center, and United Way of America. Founded in 1981, Blackbaud is headquartered in Charleston, S.C., and has operations in Toronto, Ontario; Glasgow, Scotland; London, England; and Sydney, Australia.

Representatives of CDC Software announced today that Davidson Companies has chosen the Pivotal Customer Relationship Management suite of software applications for its Equity Capital Markets practice. Davidson cited Pivotal CRM’s financial services industry-specific functionality as primary reason for going Pivotal.

Davidson’s Equity Capital Markets will be employing Pivotal CRM for its comprehensive, integrated, industry-specific application that promises to increase operational performance, streamline processes across the value chain, and improve responsiveness to client requests. When Pivotal installation is complete, Davidson Companies plan to have approximately 200 users in 20 offices supporting 16,000 contacts.

Davidson Companies, founded in 1935, is an employee-owned financial services holding company based in Great Falls, Montana. Davidson Companies owns D.A. Davidson & Co., the largest full-service investment firm based in the region. Also part of the Davidson Companies family are Davidson Trust Co., a wealth management and trust operation; Davidson Investment Advisors, a professional money management firm; Davidson Fixed Income Management, a registered investment adviser providing wealth management and other fixed income services; and Davidson Travel, a full-service travel agency.

Pivotal Corporation is a software unit of CDC Corporation that boasts of clientele of 1,800 companies all its own, including Farm Credit Services of America, WCI Communities, Premera Blue Cross, Qiagen, ESRI, AvMed Health Plans, Sharp Electronics Corporation, and CMS Cameron McKenna.

CDC Software is a provider of enterprise software applications designed to assist organizations in delivering a superior customer experience. The CDC Software product suite includes Pivotal CRM, c360 CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform development tools, Ross enterprise resource planning, Ross supply chain management, IMI warehouse management, order management, Platinum China human resource solutions, and business analytics.

CDC Software now boasts more than 5,000 customers worldwide in the manufacturing, financial services, health care, home building, real estate, and wholesale and retail distribution industries. CDC Software is a division of CDC Corporation, a provider of enterprise resource planning and supply chain management software applications in addition to its CRM solutions.

i-design closed out their week with announcement of success on two fronts: The company has released its CRM solution ATM:ad Insight and has been chosen by “major blue-chip client,” the Nationwide Building Society.

ATM:ad Insight is designed to piggyback ATM:ad and allow financial institutions and third-party advertisers to gain valuable information about the audience interaction with ATM:ad campaigns.

Nationwide Building Society currently holds an exclusive agreement with i-design and becomes the first to sign up for Insight, a John Hancock that will extend the contract “into the next decade.” The new features will go live across the Society network in early 2007 and will include advanced personalization and targeted profiling features.

In September, Nationwide made British headlines with the announcement that the financial institution would be merging with Portman Building Society, to provide “a compelling alternative to the big retail banks.” Nationwide and Portman were the largest and third-largest building societies in the UK. Post-merger, Nationwide now boasts 800 branches, 13 million members and assets of more than £150 billion (approximately $293 billion).

Business software provider Infor has announced that Averitt Express, a freight transportation and supply chain management provider, has deployed Infor CRM. Averitt is employing the Infor system in order to give the Averitt Express sales organization an integrated solution for development of tailored customer-supplier agreements. Averitt Express deployed Infor Warehouse Management in 2005 for purposes of controlling inventory flow, labor planning and warehouse resource management.

Infor CRM is a comprehensive solution designed to integrate marketing, sales, and service focused on meeting the industry-specific customer needs.

Established in 1971, Averitt Express now reaches more than 100 countries. The company specializes in delivering customized solutions with a single source of accountability for service offerings. Averitt’s supply chain management capabilities include dedicated fleet operations, warehousing services and transportation management. Infor delivers fully integrated enterprise solutions, and standalone products in enterprise resource planning, supply chain planning and execution, customer and supplier relationship management, asset management, product lifecycle management, financial management, performance management and business intelligence. Infor employs over 8,100 in 100 countries, and has a customer base of some 70,000.

Redknee Inc., a provider of infrastructure software, today announced that Digicel Group has selected the Redknee CRM Solution from the turnkey Converged Billing suite in its newly acquired El Salvador operation. Digicel Group purchased the El Salvador mobile operator Digicel Holdings Ltd in October, and its network is to see “imminent launch in the country.”

Digicel has also selected a number of Redknee’s applications from the suite of self-care top-up solutions to improve access and frequency of top-ups by their subscribers.

The Redknee CRM solution seeks to enable a “unified mechanism of customer lifecycle management coupled with value enhancement at each step…”

Since its launch in 2001, Digicel is reportedly the fastest-growing wireless telecommunications operator and the largest GSM operator in the Caribbean. Digicel is incorporated in Bermuda and has operations in 22 amazing markets, including Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, Curacao, The Cayman Islands, Dominica, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks & Caicos and El Salvador. Digicel is the lead sponsor of the West Indies Cricket Team, Caribbean Special Olympics teams, and the CONCACAF Gold Cup qualifier the Caribbean Football Union Cup.

Redknee Inc. its an infrastructure software which now boasts as clientele 26 of the world’s leading mobile operators representing over 207 million subscribers combined.

Now here’s a brand name that’ll get your attention: Prophet.

It’s Prophet 4.0, to be exact, and was launched today by Avidian Technologies. Version 4.0 is the latest in Avidian’s Microsoft Outlook-based Contact Management and Sales CRM solution. More advanced contact management features are touted in the release, as is extension of the platform to Windows mobile devices and terminal servers.

New capabilities played up in Prophet 4.0 include sales CRM automation, expanded search capabilities, expanded platform support, improved report creation, adoption of Microsoft SQL 2005 Express database for improved speed and .NET 2.0 technology to allow deeper integration with Outlook and better overall performance.

Prophet is built into Outlook and is based on the .NET 2.0 platform. The Prophet 4.0 product suite can be purchased as Prophet Personal, Prophet Personal Pro, Prophet Professional Server, Prophet Enterprise Client and Prophet Enterprise Sever. Extensions of Prophet 4.0 include Prophet for Palm, Prophet for Windows Mobile and Prophet for Pocket PC.

Prices for Prophet Personal Edition start at $149 per user and $299 per user for the Prophet Professional Edition.

Avidian Technologies is a software company specializing in creating software solutions for users of Outlook and Exchange. Prophet, developed by Avidian Technologies on the .NET platform, is reportedly the leading contact management sales CRM software built inside Microsoft Outlook. The company is headquartered in Bellevue, Wa.

Endeavor Commerce, publishers of SmartCatalog, has announced the deployment of its solution by Norway-based Opplysningen. Endeavor officials stated that the move would strengthen Endeavor Commerce’s European presence.

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

Opplysningen maintains a database with millions of entries and employs a 55-person sales force. Seeking an extensible configuration solution that integrated with Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM, Opplysningen sales controller Martin Vattoy personally selected SmartCatalog for his firm.

Opplysningen is Norway’s leading communicator of personal and business information, with a database of millions of entries. Names, addresses, telephone numbers and company information are available for all communication channels.

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