We Blog CRM

Intelestream, a Chicago-based software development company that sells automating sales and marketing products for businesses, announced today that it’s signed a partnership agreement with Interspire, a vendor of content management and e-mail marketing software.

The companies say that Intelestream will customize, resell, and host the Interspire Shopping Cart, E-mail Marketer, and Knowledge Manager products.

Intelestream has already customized the Interspire Shopping Cart to include an automated workflow based on customer buying habits, according to the company. The product is intended to enhance e-commerce selling for clients using the product, company officials say. Intelestream has also modified the E-mail Marketer according the particular business needs of one of its clients.

AG announced that South Africa’s Office of the Public Protector has selected an SAP product to transform its case management operations, automating its manually driven investigations, reviews, analysis and reporting processes. The office, an independent and impartial constitutional institution, conducts investigations into alleged improper conduct by state organizations.

The SAP package in question is the SAP Investigative Case Management for Public Sector package, based on the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application and the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. OPP can now introduce automation in the core processes related to dispute resolution.

E-Gain is an established name in the field of multi-channel customer service and knowledge management software. E-Gain OnDemand, the hosted version of its EGain Service software suite., has completed 10 years today. E-Gain considers itself to be “the industry’s first-ever hosted enterprise applications software”. It aims to offer a single platform for multi-channel customer interaction and knowledge management.

Customers for E-Gain products are from varied domains such as consumer goods, healthcare, media and finances, financial services, etc. E-Gain enables its customers to make use of the SaaS approach and have a hybrid of application hosting, both on-demand and on-premise.

Salesforce.com Inc is going after the independent adviser market with Salesforce for Wealth Management, a customized, adviser-focused version of its popular customer relationship management application.Odds are good that the software will make the short list among advisers who desire a hosted solution.Its existing version of Salesforce can claim 60,000 users who are brokers and advisers from companies such as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. Another 40,000 operations and support staffers from those firms rely on the software as well.

South African company i5 has been named the first global winner of the Microsoft Partner of the Year award in the category, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The award is to be presented at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Texas, in July.

According to i5 CEO Glen Ansell , the award is the culmination of the company’s determination and sharp focus on the Microsoft technology stack, and specifically, Dynamics CRM. “Having recognised the viability and relevance of Microsoft’s CRM package soon after the inception of i5 in 2004, our company took a strategic decision to become the South African market leader in this aspect of Microsoft’s technology solutions,” he says.

The audience for video games is zealous but fickle, and because of that, game studios have a unique challenge in attracting and retaining customers. While the tools they use are similar to those of other industries, studios have learned to be creative in the marketing tactics that support the effort.

The video game industry considers CRM to be a vital aspect of their business as it is based on a recurring payment model where the length of the subscription and the loytalty of the customer are linked. Renewing customer interest is important to have them coming back for more.  Micro-payments and sometimes item-by-item payment are the lifeblood of this business and these have to be renewed through offering something new frequently and letting the customer know about it.

Maximizer Software announced its partnership with McObject to enhance mobile productivity on Maximizer’s mobile CRM offering for BlackBerry smartphone devices.

With the new partnership, on-the-road sales professionals, business owners and others relying on popular BlackBerry devices will be able to store more critical data from Maximizer CRM onto their mobile device. The Perst Lite object-oriented embedded database from McObject, running on the Java ME mobile device platform, will enable CRM data to be stored on flash memory-based Secure Digital (SD) cards to extend storage capacity while on the road - making it possible to access more customer information in real-time, instead of relying on networks to download new data to the device.

CDC Software, a wholly owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software applications and consulting services, recently announced that its Pivotal 6.0 CRM software suite has been named by ISM Inc., a premier CRM consulting firm, as one of the “Top 15″ CRM software packages in the enterprise category for 2008, its 12 consecutive appearance in this prestigious listing.

The Top 15 are divided into two categories-1) Enterprise, and 2) Small & Medium Business (SMB) - to reflect the changes in, and growth of, the CRM marketplace.

Pivotal CRM 6.0 was chosen after intensive testing by the ISM Software Lab at its Bethesda, Md.-based headquarters. Each package was rated according to 217 selection criteria, including 103 business functions, 52 technical features, 36 implementation capabilities, 9 real time criteria and 17 user-support features.

Inetium, a Microsoft partners, has announced that it will be conducting an Accelerated Deployment Program for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online customers. The program will help businesses to start quickly and effectively with the Dynamics online CRM.

Headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota, Inetium provides technology consulting services to organizations of all size throughout the United States. Inetium officials say the their company is committed to increasing people and organizational productivity by providing IT planning services, customer relationship management, business productivity, IT infrastructure, Web strategies and real estate technology products.

Verticals onDemand, a vendor of Software-as-a-Service CRM products for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, has secured $4 million of funding from Emergence Capital Partners, a venture capital firm specializing in investing in technology-enabled services companies.

Emergence has a habit of backing winning horses, its other investments include Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors and HireRight. Verticals hopes to ride the next big wave of SaaS that will cover the vertical market and platform-as-a-service. The company will use the funding to further develop its flagship product - the VBioPharma SaaS CRM application for the life sciences market.