We Blog CRM

Chordiant upgrades customer interaction software

Piyush Bakshi — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:46:30 +0000

CRM software and services provider Chordiant Software has released a new version of its real-time conversation and interaction management application for organizations with high customer-interaction volumes. The new Recommendation Advisor 6.1 has the ability to come up with “Next-Best-Action” recommendations for agents based on the software’s understanding of the conversation between a call-center agent and a customer.

It can also work in the self-service format where it provides personalized offers and recommendations. In fact the software is advanced enough to offer information on the moods of the customer so that the agents can speak accordingly. The software is built upon the Chordiant Decision Management, a suite of predictive and adaptive decisioning applications.

SAP All-in-One is all that mid-sized manufacturers need

Piyush Bakshi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:40:28 +0000

SAP Business All-in-One, an alluring name. Only time will tell if this ERP system that targets mid-sized manufacturing companies can live up to the name of being an “all-in-one”.

The system is available preconfigured with best practices and offers an end-to-end solution for mid-sized businesses that are keen to enhance their competitiveness in a global environment. The application is SAP NetWeaver technology and is both flexible and comprehensive. Functions include best practices for marketing, sales and service, with integrated analytics, to end-to-end opportunity management, telesales and service, returns management, and real-time reporting.

Salesforce CRM for the iPhone

Piyush Bakshi — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:11:18 +0000

If the Blackberry has Microsoft and SAP batting for it then the iPhone has its own two stalwarts. Along with Oracle’s announcement of offering free applications via the iPhone comes another announcement by Salesforce.com in which the SaaS biggie has stated that its customer relationship management (CRM) applications and Force.com platform are available as Salesforce Mobile applications for the iPhone.

Businesses can now access not only Salesforce.com CRM but also custom made and third party applications developed using the Force.com platform. The deal implies a great deal of exposure for Salesforce.com products and it being a SaaS provider, its reach increases manifold via mobile internet. It would be cool to find out the manner in which these businesses select partners as being the right fit for their products and services. Do iPhone users have a soft spot for Salesforce.com products?

Oracle CRM products for iPhone

Piyush Bakshi — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:01:53 +0000

Oracle has announced that free Oracle business applications for the Apple iPhone are now available. Soon, businesses will be able to access Oracle CRM products on their iPhones. I guess this is to counter the growing friendship between SAP and RIM and also Microsoft and RIM. It will be interesting to see the kind of research and development push mobile CRM gives to hand held devices. Screen size and computational power are an issue as of now. At present the Oracle applications will focus on offering information on key metrics and analytical data. Oracle Business Indicators will allow a business to make company financial trends and supplier information available to its mobile workforce

The Oracle business applications will make use of the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus and Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Fusion Edition.

In Favor of Open Source CRM

Piyush Bakshi — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:25:50 +0000

The idea of owning the code to your software, being able to tinker with it and customize it is a powerful motivator for most companies employing a self-respecting IT staff. Open Source offers a tantalizing promise of free/cheap software that can be personalized to your requirements. Simplicity is another advantage; sometimes companies are looking for something that does not have too many bells and whistles in it.

Two big enterprise customers of open source CRM are H&R Block which uses SugarCRM and IMA Financial Group, which uses Concursive. Since most of the code is open, the applications tend to be very customizable, run on any platform, and have a good, if not all-encompassing, feature set. SugarCRM, the largest player in the category, has added more mobile features than many of its commercial rivals.

Succeed with Mobile CRM

Piyush Bakshi — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:25:52 +0000

The proliferation of mobile communication devices that are now much more than just telephones has interested application providers. Mobile CRM can help traveling executives take timely decisions and furnish advice to demanding customers without having to rely on a data being relayed from an office.

Deploying a mobile CRM environment is a new experience for most businesses. The dynamics of the process are slightly different from those of a standard CRM deployment. A good piece here at MyCustomer explaining in detail about the best ways to succeed with mobile CRM.

Dunbar Armored Selects Microsoft CRM

Piyush Bakshi — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:27:05 +0000

Dunbar Armored, an armored car company headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, has selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 for its sales teams. Dunbar will use the CRM technology to integrate data that is generated in its 80 branches across the US. Microsoft scored over competing CRM systems on the basis of its role-based CRM capabilities.

The Microsoft offering will work alongside Dunbar’s existing systems that store customer information. The deployment of Microsoft will enable Dunbar to eliminate manual processes and working with spread sheets for obtaining information on prospects and customers. Planning and reporting scenarios, such as consolidation and budgeting, are offered through integration with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server.

Zimbra for Zip Realty

Piyush Bakshi — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:47:00 +0000

Zip realty has picked the open-source, Yahoo-owned Zimbra, an e-mail, calendar and chat (instant messaging) client. The company chose Zimbra over other products including Google apps because of its open source architecture that will enable it to work smoothly with the existing applications that Zip Realty uses.

The new messaging client is facilitating communication between customers and real estate agents. the information fed at the front-end can be easily assimilated into the CRM system.

Coveo G2B for CRM

Piyush Bakshi — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:06:43 +0000

Coveo Solutions, Inc., is offering Coveo G2B for CRM, an application for bringing together data from diverse sources including salesforce.com, Siebel Systems, corporate intranets, tech support emails, customer support databases, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

G2B also offers content analytics and graphical representation of data so that making sense of tons of data and spotting trends becomes easier. Coveo’s product should further add impetus to mashup devices that help in extracting information from an ever increasing array of sources that come from so many different vendors.

The usefulness of such an application can hardly be overstated. It will help decision makers to arrive at decisions faster and after acquiring a holistic view of the scenario.

AMC integrates SAP with Avaya

Piyush Bakshi — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:52:10 +0000

AGL Energy, an Australian energy company, announced today that it’s integrating its Avaya contact center and SAP Customer Relationship Management systems with middleware technology from AMC Technology. The integration process will involve deploying additional Avaya technology that includes the Avaya Interaction Center, an Avaya Voice Response system as well as NICE Perform call recording deployed by NSC Enterprise Solutions, Avaya’s largest partner in Australia.

The AMC middleware will allow the placing of customized pop-up windows inside the SAP windows client interface so that one can view real time agent state and call control information.