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Tactile CRM, Intrabench's VAT Upgrade

November 26, 2008 1:23 PM | [image]0 Comments

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is The Grateful Dead's live album Europe '72. Surprisingly good work music, along with Traffic's Welcome To The Canteen or The Allman Brothers' Eat A Peach, high-quality jam music that's never obnoxious:

Senokian, the Coventry, England-based applications hosting and open source firm, has announced the new version of its Web-based contact and sales management system, Tactile CRM.

The release "brings social media style tagging to allow small businesses to search their sales leads, contacts, diary and e-mails in one hosted system," according to company officials.

Many small businesses have been slow to embrace traditional Customer Relationship Management (CRM) due to complexity and cost, according to the Tactilians, who say Tactile's dashboard "gives a visual overview of the current sales pipeline and recent customer contact," showing the deals most likely to be won: "Information previously available only to individual team members is now shared across the whole department or company."

Having worked with local businesses in a range of industries, Senokian officials say they "built the new version of Tactile CRM to meet the issues faced by sales and admin staff in their day to day life... a system that can be used to replace homegrown spreadsheets and paper-based processes that small businesses must evolve from."

With a free trial for organisations to test the system and several payment plans (start from as little as £6 per month), Senokian have already signed up clients across the UK, US, and Australia.

Tactile CRM was chosen as one of the top 20 UK Web 2.0 companies by Digital Mission 2008 sponsored by UK Trade & Investment department, and one of the top UK start-ups by TechCrunch UK in 2008.

Senokian was founded in 2002 by Managing Director Jake Stride and is privately funded.

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Intrabench, which sells CRM and accounting software, has implemented and made available the UK VAT change in its software, company officials say:

"The result of the recent UK VAT changes is that many companies are now struggling to cope with software upgrades and accounting changes, which will come into effect the first of December." Intrabench officials see the SaaS model as having an advantage, as a change can be made to a central system which goes out to all users of the software.

Companies that are not using a SaaS model may have to upgrade their software themselves to comply with the change, "and pay high costs for consultancy as well as deal with any problems that arise when the change takes place," company officials added.

The cost to business for this 2.5 percent VAT software change is immense, as many software implementations have been hard coded to 17.5 percent, which makes changing the software a time-consuming, expensive operation.

As this software update has already been implemented within Intrabench, customers need only select the new VAT rate and all new invoices, quotes and accounts will take into effect the VAT change for repeat billing and payments, according to the Intrabenchers: "VAT returns will calculate the figures correctly taking into account the amounts before and after the 1st of December."
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Socius, a Sage North America business partner, has announced today that its client, Experient of Twinsburg, Ohio, has won a Sage Customer Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Experient won the Lifetime Achievement Award by "demonstrating the long-term benefits derived from the use of Sage SalesLogix," according to the Socians. For 10 years, Experient has used a customized version of Sage SalesLogix.

The size of the company has tripled over the same 10 years. The ability to extend and expand the data across all areas of the business, as well as integrate new business units, required an integrated product using Sage SalesLogix and Experient's ERP product, was considered when awarding the honor, Socius officials say.

"Experient is one of our most successful clients, and their Lifetime Achievement Award from Sage is truly an outstanding achievement," said Jeffrey R. Geisler, Socius' CEO and Senior Managing Director.

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In trying to solve its own marketing communications issues, company officials say, Fort Myers, Florida-based Genesis Global Technologies developed an online sales tool, Sales Advantage, to communicate and engage with clients and prospects.

Sales Advantage incorporates CRM and sales force automation, but introduces new concepts such as outbound interactive (two-way) e-mail marketing and intelligent automated follow up.

"We didn't like what was available, so we threw everything out the window and asked ourselves, 'If we could have the perfect sales assistant, marketing communication system and tracking tool, what would we want it to look like?'," explained Mona Hilton, president of Genesis.

While designed for sales and communications-driven organizations such as insurance, finance, medical and pharmaceutical, education, nonprofits and others, Hilton said the communication and tracking tools within Sales Advantage "are transferable to virtually any sales-driven organization, including individual telecom sales agents."
Agents can request a free 30-day trial at http://www.advantageondemand.com.
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According to a recent study conducted by Smart Transaction Systems, a vendor of gift card systems for small businesses, "less than one-tenth of a percent of small businesses charge inactive or dormancy fees on their gift cards, and 97 percent of gift cards issued by small businesses are good for a period of 5 years or more."

However that figures into your marketing plans, there you are.

The Smart Transaction Systems 2008 Small Business Gift Card Study covered just over 4,500 merchant locations nationwide with a total of 1.1 million gift cards issued. The average merchant in the study is a small business with 3.3 stores or restaurants.

By industry, the merchants in the study were 37 percent restaurant/hospitality, 34 percent retail, 8 percent Salon/Spa or fitness industry with the remaining 21 percent in "other industries."

In the wake of failures of several large retailers, the Smart study concludes, "consumers are more concerned than ever about purchasing a gift card from a merchant that may go out of business. However, only one of the 4,500 small merchants in the study has gone out of business."

"Of all the small merchants in this study, only two charge dormancy fees on gift cards that have not been used for an extended period of time, and one of those two will immediately refund the fees upon request," said Ray Clopton, President of Smart Transaction Systems. "We see a strong focus on customer satisfaction among small business owners."

The numbers, Clopton went on to say, show that purchasing a gift card from a small, independently owned restaurant or retail store tends to be a more consumer-friendly experience, from both a financial and customer service perspective, than consumers might expect from a large chain, mall or credit card company.

Smart Transaction Systems has consistently found that gift cards are most popular as a last minute purchase. The 23rd and 24th of December are the busiest days of the year for gift card sales.

The study also found that the average person purchasing a gift card from a small business places close to fifty dollars ($48.99) on the card. The average small business in the study has sold 1,531 cards. This ranges from "Mom-and-Pop" businesses with very few cards in circulation to a 6-location Salon & Spa with over 65,000 cards issued.

"If you have consumer-friendly gift card policies, such as no expiration dates and no inactivity fees, that's an important advantage that your customers should know about," said Stephanie Kroner, Director of Merchant Relations at Smart Transaction Systems. "According to our study, 91 percent of small merchants do not have an expiration date on their cards."

Smart Transaction Systems has operations in an oddly interesting handful of places - Boulder, Colorado, Lodi, Wisconsin, St. Louis and Oslo, Norway. Tell First Coffee what (else) these four have in common other than the letter "o" and win the Kewpi doll.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
 
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Revel and Reader's Digest, Opera Mini 4.2, Ignify's Growth, Open Solutions, A Word from Management

November 26, 2008 1:16 PM | [image]0 Comments

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is chosen for a morning like this, when you need something to get going, the high-energy album keeping you pumping out the work through a tired patch... yes, the ultimate First Coffee work album, makes a slow day peppy and gets a peppy day grooving... Sinatra's Swingin' Session by the Chairman:

We'll give you the condensed version: Revel Consulting, a Kirkland, Washington-based business and IT consulting firm, has been selected by Reader's Digest to integrate a software-as-a-serviceproduct with the company's current customer relationship management (CRM) platforms.

Reader's Digest selected Revel based on the firm's past successes in SaaS implementation as well as Revel's "pure consulting" approach to business.

"The combination of Revel's industry expertise in SaaS and direct access to their senior consultants made the difference," said Kelly Kolb, Director of Business Intelligence for Allrecipes.com (Food & Entertainment group of Reader's Digest). "We needed a team with experience integrating different tech platforms into Salesforce.com in a way that meets our business needs."

Kolb is presumably not a twin to Kevin Kolb, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.

According to the agreement, Revel will define and then implement an enterprise-wide product for the sales and marketing data of Reader's Digest's Food & Entertainment group, including such properties as allrecipes.com, Every Day with Rachel Ray and Taste of Home. Using the infrastructure of the industry-standard CRM tool Salesforce.com, Revel officials say they will focus on designing a hosted CRM product which, according to Reader's Digest officials, will allow the publisher to access information to improve decision-making.

"The challenge will be to harness data collected from a number of different sources, such as Web, direct mail and e-mail marketing, on four technology platforms and aggregate it into a single Salesforce.com view," said Joseph Sedmak, Revel's Founder and President.

Revel has developed a specialty in helping companies implement SaaS products. The company was named by Inc. Magazine in 2008 as the fifth fastest growing services company and the 48th fastest growing company in the U.S.

SaaS, software deployment in which applications are hosted off-premise, is a rapidly expanding industry. According to a recent Gartner Press Release, global revenues for SaaS will exceed $6.4 billion in 2008, a 27 percent increase over 2007 revenues of $5.1 billion.

Revel was founded as CRM Consultants, Inc. by Joseph Sedmak.
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Management would like to invite readers looking for news about Confocal Raman Microscopy, the process which measures minute shifts in the frequency of photons that interact with the atomic bonds of a crystal, to follow the link, as this CRM column is a Customer Relationship Management column. Thank you.
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Opera Software has released the final version of its Opera Mini 4.2 for mobile phones.

Company officials claim trials show this version gives more than 30 percent speed improvements for users in the US, due to the addition of a new Opera Mini server park in the United States.

This release also marks Opera Mini's official availability on the latest version of the Android mobile platform. Opera Mini, according to the Operaticians, is "the first Web browser alternative on Android." A technical preview of Opera Mini was previously released for an earlier version of Android in April 2008.

Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software, says their support of the Android platform "helps fulfill our mission to be available on more platforms, for more devices and reach more users, anywhere in the world."

Opera Mini 4.2 adds more language versions and skin selections. Data is compressed before it is sent to the phone in an effort to keep end-user costs low, company officials say, "since the data delivered is kept to a minimum."

Languages include the recently added Amharic, Armenian, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kirghiz, Lingala, Marathi, Malayalam, Mongolian, Oriya, Punjabi, Pashto, Sinhala, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Uzbek, Khmer, Kashmiri, Lao and Turkmen.

Be honest now - how many of those 24 languages did you know existed? First Coffee got 18.

The product includes Opera Link support for notes, allowing users to sync their notes between the PC and Opera Mini. Opera reports that 21 million unique users browsed five billion pages in October 2008 alone, "totaling a 490 percent increase since October 2007."

People using the Sprint Instinct can upgrade their firmware and download Opera Mini at the link.
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We interrupt this column to remind readers that this is a Customer Relationship Management column, as noted above. Those inquiring about the Christian Rugby Mission in Fiji's 10s rugby tournament, organized with the aim of helping youths paralyzed from rugby and orphans, please hit the link and support this worthy CRM cause. Thank you.
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Ignify, a Microsoft Gold Partner specializing in CRM and other products for the mid-market, has been put by Deloitte L.L.P. on the Technology Fast 500 list.

To determine the fastest growing companies, Ignify officials say, Deloitte calculated the revenue growth percentage over five years (2003-2007), with Ignify's total growth at 1983.23 percent or an average of 123 percent per quarter.

The vendor has also recently announced expansion into the Chicago region, recruited more team members at its Nashville office, added new customers to its roster such as Clipper Corporation and started new enterprise projects at existing customers such as Rand McNally.

The Fast 500 ranks the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications and life sciences companies in North America as compiled from Deloitte's regional North American Fast 50 programs, where nominations submitted directly to the Fast 500, and public company database research. Companies are selected based on percentage revenue growth from 2003 to 2007.

Entrants must own proprietary intellectual property or proprietary technology that contributes to a significant portion of the company's operating revenues, or devote a significant proportion of revenues to the research and development of technology. Using other companies' technology or intellectual property in a unique way does not qualify.
 
Base-year operating revenues must be at least $50,000 or $75,000 Canadian, two hub caps and a hot toddy. Current-year operating revenues must be at least $5 million. Companies must be in business a minimum of five years, and they must be headquartered within North America.

Ignify attributes the company's growth to several key elements, including the ability to execute enterprise ERP, SharePoint and CRM implementations using both onsite and offshore resources, as well as the success of its flagship e-commerce platform, Ignify eCommerce.

As a Microsoft Gold and Sage Certified Partner, the Ignify eCommerce platform integrates with all Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Sage ERP product lines.
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In response to reader inquiries, management would like to clarify that this is not a Crew Resource Management column, anybody wanting CRM news from the Dubai Helishow 2008 please follow the link. Thank you.
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Open Solutions, a vendor of technologies for financial services providers, has announced a reseller agreement with Panini, a distributed capture technology provider.

Open Solutions will use Panini's Vision X check scanner to offer a product for remote deposit and branch image capture to its bank and credit union clients.

Tim Clewley, senior vice president and general manager, Open Solutions Imaged Payment Technologies Group, says the vendor's clients "have embraced distributed capture technology and our products, combined with Panini's, help position them more competitively in their respective markets."

Open Solutions' IseDeposit and ISBranch products, along with the Panini Vision X, allow financial institutions and corporations to electronically process and depositing checks.
 

According to Ron Young, Open Solutions' VP, product strategy and management, "our clients have invested in our remote deposit and branch capture products," and with Panini's check scanners they can use Check 21.

Founded in Turin, Italy, Panini has been in business for more than sixty years. Panini North America, a wholly owned subsidiary, sells check capture products.
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Bango's Mobile Web Update, Jenzabar and ACU, Pronto and Heritage Seeds, Parallels Enhancement

November 26, 2008 1:11 PM | [image]0 Comments

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and the music is Al Stewart's latest album, Sparks of Ancient Light. The usual eclectic Stewart song subject selection - President McKinley, Elvis, sixth-century BC explorer Hanno the Carthaginian, the Shah, Lord Salisbury, the Eisenhower years in America, dissipated international embezzlers and the like. You know, typical rock'n'roll stuff:

Mobile Web tech vendors Bango say they see that the opening-up of mobile traffic channels - paying for on-deck links to off-deck sites and mobile advertising through Yahoo! and Google - as an indication that content providers are acquiring customers through the mobile Internet rather than via PC Web affiliate programs.

"WAP billing is now the preferred way to sell content to customers acquired through mobile marketing," says Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing and Alliances at Bango, adding that they predict this "e-commerce for the mobile Web" will "dominate how subscriptions are marketed and sold in the US within the next 12 months."

Subscriptions tend to be the mainstay of the mobile content market in the US. Bango's MMA-compliant WAP-based mobile subscription service is designed to eliminate the need to send text messages to make a purchase - "the price, subscription time period and T&Cs are clearly displayed on-screen before consumers click to purchase," according to the Bangovians.

A recent update to the Bango mobile subscription service provides an API so content providers can see the status of their subscriptions. "Bango re-bills consumers on their behalf once the subscription period has finished, notifying the user by text," Malhotra explains.
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The WAP model "capitalizes on this year's surge in mobile Web browsing," Malhotra says. "We anticipate US mobile operators will support more flexibility around subscription pricing models next year with the introduction of weekly subs, at price points other than $9.99."
 

Bango has offices in USA and UK and is quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

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Jenzabar, a vendor of software for higher education, has announced that it is supporting the Association of Commonwealth Universities' Conference of Executive Heads, to be held at the end of November in Hyderabad, India.

The event will bring together participants from higher education worldwide, including ACU member institutions and vendors. Jenzabar Vice President of Client Relations Sashi Parthasarathi will speak on how technology can be used for enrollment, retention, and advancement.

The conference is organized around the theme of "Dazzling technologies: Seismic shifts in higher education in a fast-changing and unequal world." 

The Jenzabarbarians say the conference's attendance of heads of tertiary education institutions from across the British Commonwealth is expected to be "one of the largest gatherings of university heads ever held."

The first ACU Conference of Executive Heads was held in Bristol, England over 60 years ago. Established in 1913, the Association of Commonwealth Universities is reputedly the oldest inter-university network in the world. The ACU's 500 members are spread across five continents.

It serves as, among other things, a forum for universities in Australasia, Canada and the UK to benchmark their research contract and grant activity, and for those in Africa and South Asia to compare their extension work programs.

Jenzabar is headquartered in Boston, with regional offices located across the United States.
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Pronto Software, an Australian vendor of enterprise software products, has inked a deal with Heritage Seeds, an Australian seed company, to roll out its flagship ERP product, Pronto-Xi for the company's manufacturing operations.

Melbourne-based Heritage Seeds is part of the Royal Barenbrug Group which last year generated 212 million euros in sales. The company sells seed products including ryegrass, alfalfa and tropical and turf grasses to farmers across Australia through wholesale distributors such as Elders and Murray Goulbourn.

It also exports to 50 countries and has a 70-hectare seed research facility.  The company will roll out Pronto-Xi across its four branches nationally, and has selected modules including Financials, CRM and Manufacturing.

The company plans to go live in April 2009 in time for its peak autumn season. Heritage officials are hoping the Pronto-Xi will allow greater efficiency throughout its manufacturing operations.

"Pronto-Xi will streamline and automate our manufacturing processes which are currently manual-based. With Pronto-Xi, we'll be instantly alerted to low stock levels and know which materials need to be ordered in, which will feed into our back ordering process," company officials say, adding that such capability is "important in our industry, which can be affected by unpredictable conditions such as drought or crop disease."

Pronto Software's Managing Director David Jackman got in a good line, saying says Heritage Seeds "will be able to reap the benefits of an ERP product fast."
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Parallels officials have announced an enhancement to the company's Parallels Operations Automation 2.8 software in the form of a SaaS module, which uses the Application Packaging Standard.

Parallels Operations Automation is described by company officials as "an operations support system for enterprises and service providers to automate the delivery of server-based applications and resources."

The new SaaS Module lets service providers offer third party applications to their end-user customers. New features built into the operations system provide a platform. This new version 2.8 release of Parallels Operations Automation, company officials say, "incorporates 210 new features and functional improvements."
 
Parallels Operations Automation is designed to improve server provisioning and datacenter management, reduce operational costs and reduce service delivery errors. Company officials say they feel that the new SaaS capabilities make it easier for service providers to offer a wide range of applications, including CRM.

"Parallels Operations Automation lets customers manage their operations and provide new services such as SaaS applications into a business software market expected to reach $40 billion by 2011," said Jack Zubarev, President, Service Provider Worldwide, Parallels.

According to recent research from Saugatuck Technology, companies with fewer than 500 employees are a key growth area for SaaS. In addition, the research firm says, new SMBs are foregoing traditional IT and from the start using SaaS and Cloud-based IT.

Founded in 1999, Parallels has 800 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.
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Veryant, a COBOL and Java tech firm, has announced that Softwrx has selected the isCOBOL Application Platform Suite for its suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

Nashville-based Softwrx sells software products for a variety of business needs, including accounting and financial management, business analysis, inventory management, and customer relationship management (CRM).

The company initially developed and deployed its products on ACUCOBOL-GT, but company officials say difficulties with performance, file structure, graphical controls, and long-term portability "created challenges for Softwrx in supporting its customer base."

"We were experiencing frustration with support delivery, product weaknesses, and high costs so we decided to look for an alternative COBOL product," said John Jackson, president of Softwrx. "We knew we wanted a product that was more functional, stable, and direct, with good documentation and a high level of support."

Softwrx found isCOBOL APS to be more streamlined and efficient than its previous COBOL platform and company officials say the firm was able to move nearly 800 COBOL programs to isCOBOL APS "in one week."
 
Veryant is headquartered in Phoenix.
 
 
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CA's Internet Security Suite, Market2Lead Rated by Raab, Bluewolf and Hasler and Force.com, E-autobusiness and GM

November 26, 2008 1:06 PM | [image]0 Comments

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a Verve reissue of the 1947 Charlie Parker album, cleverly titled Charlie Parker, jammed with the usual outtakes and false starts, which is the lot in life of reissues seeking to justify the $11.99 iTunes price.

By the way, if your grandmother has a copy of this vinyl in her attic, ask her if you can "borrow" it, then take it to a jazz records dealer, it's worth a few hundred bucks. Buy her something nice with the money and you may not even have to think up a lame lie about how you "lost" it:

CA has announced the immediate availability of its CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009.

Company officials say the suite has a personal firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and anti-phishing software. The single console lets users monitor the security status of all of the licensed PCs on their home networks, and has parental controls that help protect children from inappropriate Web content and lets parents to monitor (each other's) Internet activity.
 
The product can also be used to back up and restore data and PC settings or transfer them to a new PC.

In addition to the enhanced security features, company official say they've tried to make the suite more user-friendly through the inclusion of an Intuitive Help Desk for customer support, as well as an interface that lets users set preferences or check program status, and a gaming/movie mode "to reduce interruptions."

With security options for wireless connectivity, the suite uses WiFi HotSpot detection technology to alert users when they enter a new network outside of the established home network.

According to the 2008 CA Internet Threat Outlook Report, online attacks will be dominated by smarter malware and bots targeting Web users ranging from gamers and social network users to the elderly and unsuspecting parents.

Brian Grayek, vice president of product management for CA, said the parental controls are designed to be "child-proof" and prevent "even computer-savvy children from uninstalling or disabling the products."

The product also supports the Domain Key Internet Mail and Sender Policy Framework industry-standard e-mail security protocols by scanning e-mail and detecting phishing attempts via E-mail Inspector.

Customers receive daily protection updates, upgrades to the latest product features and 24 X 7 online technical support at no additional charge with their subscription. The suite also includes at no additional charge an Internet protection plan with coverage up to $10,000 in identity theft coverage and coverage against damage to the customer's PCs caused by a computer virus. Fine print aboundeth, check for further details.
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Market2Lead, a vendor of on-demand B2B automated marketing products, has announced its product, a demand generation systems , has been reviewed in what company officials describe as an independent study of the market.

The just-released "Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems" reveals that Market2Lead supports more of the evaluated attributes than other vendors in the study.

Raab Associates, vendors of marketing technology evaluation reports and studies such as the above, conducted the study and published the 125-page guide. It provides a comparison matrix that evaluates Market2Lead and four other vendors on more than 150 specific attributes.

Market2Lead provides support for 137 of the listed attributes, "more than any of the other vendors," Market2Lead officials say, adding that the matrix "shows that Market2Lead provides support for up to one third more attributes than other evaluated vendors."

Author David M. Raab said when marketers shop for demand-generation or marketing automation software, "it's not easy for them to determine the real differences between the various products. The comparison matrix in our guide makes it easy to see which capabilities are unsupported, partially supported or fully supported by each product."

Market2Lead officials contend that because of its relatively low cost and high efficiency, "online demand generation has become even more valuable now, in a difficult economy."

"The Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems" reviews products from Market2Lead, Eloqua Corporation, Manticore Technology, Marketo and Vtrenz. The guide is available online at www.raabguide.com. A $100 discount is available through December 31, 2008 to purchasers who enter the discount code M2L1108.

Market2Lead is a privately held company headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
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Bluewolf has announced that Hasler has deployed two custom applications built on the Force.com platform.

Hasler provides mailing and shipping systems to its network of 150 independent dealers who sell Hasler's postage and handling products to customers nationwide.

Hasler asked Software as a Service consulting firm and Salesforce.com consulting partner Bluewolf to provide a product that would replace the software tools that each dealer was using to track and manage its databases. Using Hasler's current Salesforce CRM application, Bluewolf used the Force.com platform to design two applications for Hasler's dealers.

Hasler and Bluewolf designed consistent sales templates so partner could track postage meter lease information with a Salesforce CRM product. In addition, workflow triggers were built into Salesforce for partners and dealers to automate the process of filling out order paperwork and alerting the sales team when customer leases were coming up for renewal.

Hasler forecasts that more than 50 percent of its dealer sales force will go live with the product within the first year.

"We knew that if we could make our dealer partners more effective and productive, we could affect our national sell-through and market penetration rates," says Bob Ruby, Senior Director of Sales Strategy for Hasler. "The new custom built product on Force.com helps our dealers get a better handle on their pipeline, and it's helping us build the database of competitive users that we will be able to target in the future."
 

One of the first dealers to sign up was Hasler partner, Addtronics, a retailer selling postage and shipping products, supplies, and services throughout Oklahoma, Missouri, Southeastern Kansas, and Northern Arkansas.

"The majority of my time used to be spent tracking down and recording sales activity and forecasts for my team," said Darrell Gibson, Director of Sales for Addtronics. "Now my time is freed up to help my team directly in the field, managing customers and calling on accounts."

In addition to the productivity enhancements for Addtronics, Hasler provides monthly and quarterly reports on postage usage and meter data for Addtronics customers. This type of reporting and 360 degree view of a customer was not available to Addtronics before using Salesforce CRM, Hasler officials say.
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Charlotte-based e-autobusiness, a vendor of software and services to automotive retailers, has announced that its Aeros Software Suite has been recertified for GM Lead Management, under the new GM "OneSource" lead distribution program.

There's optimism for you - signing a long-term deal with GM.

The certification allows Aeros to electronically receive, process, and optimally manage General Motors leads for e-autobusiness clients, as well as report back to GM their lead status and disposition in real-time.

GM's electronic lead delivery and consolidation pipeline system transmits leads to dealers, collects any inbound Internet leads and provides other options to "enrich customer and lead information before delivering the lead to the dealer's Aeros lead management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system," e-autobusiness officials say.

The Certified Lead Management & Integration Partner program was recently revised, requiring testing and adherence to the Automotive Industry Action Group's Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail program.
 

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.

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CA's Data Center Manager, RewardStream and 2020, Plexus Sales Up, Informa's Med CRM, Bx.com

November 24, 2008 11:08 AM | [image]0 Comments
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Internet radio, for a change - liveIreland for Celtic folk music:
 
CA, Inc. has announced that CA Data Center Automation Manager "now addresses the needs of consumers and providers of cloud services."
 
Larry Ellison was right to famously complain a while back about everybody acting as if "cloud" is the panacea to what ails IT. "Cloud computing providers will only be successful if they focus on deep management and automation technologies," said Tom Bittman, vice president and analyst for Gartner. "To deliver highly available services, cloud computing providers and enterprise IT organizations should use technologies that automate operational processes and reduce the risk of human error that could cause downtime and damage customer satisfaction."
 
The CA product is designed along those lines, and is billed as helping enterprise IT organizations and cloud computing providers "deliver, scale, and manage computing resources on demand."
 
"Similar to enterprise IT data centers," CA officials claim, "cloud computing environments struggle to meet changing business demands because of the level of abstraction created by virtualization and other emerging technologies."
 
In their opinion, management is "key to providing accurate availability and performance data," as well as "the capacity needed to meet service demands."
 
CA Data Center Automation Manager enables "real-time provisioning and performance management between on-premise and off-premise clouds," designed to assist with resource allocation control, network availability, and service level management of cloud-based service offerings, company officials say.
 
Basically customers can use the product for cloud service deployments, if they decide that's the way to increase their operational efficiencies. It's designed for companies who want to improve IT agility, and are looking for ways to mitigate IT and business risks.
 
Roger Pilc, corporate senior vice president and general manager of CA's Infrastructure Management and Data Center Automation business unit, says the product compresses data center provisioning processes "and improves management capabilities."
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RewardStream, which sells SaaS loyalty marketing technology, has announced that 2020 Marketing, a vendor of loyalty and incentive products, has licensed RewardStream's Lifecycle Marketing Platform.
 
The agreement means 2020 Marketing can offer loyalty and incentive programs with RewardStream LMP as their core technology platform. The product lets marketers launch loyalty and incentive program in under 30 days, 2020 officials say.
 
The marketing firm plans to expand on their ability to offer marketing products and services by using RewardStream's LMP to deliver loyalty products to clients.
 
James Ryan, CEO of 2020 Marketing, says RewardStream's LMP "addresses our need" to offer loyalty program sophistication, so 2020 "can now focus on client strategy without worrying that our vision will be shortchanged by our inability to deliver the technology."
 
The licensing announcement is considered by RewardStream officials as reinforcing their focus on selling loyalty products through partnership.Company officials say they plan to pursue more partnerships with marketing service providers like 2020 Marketing, concentrating on those who use RewardStream's LMP as a technology backbone.
 
RewardStream officials claim their Lifecycle Marketing Platform lets marketers launch customized loyalty programs "in under 30 days."
...
 
You know, there's only so much of lilting Irish ballads sung by girls with quavery voices that a man who's not in an Irish pub can take. So it's over to Big Blue Radio for Johnny Winter tearing up "Johnny B. Goode."
...
 
Plexus Systems, vendors of Plexus Online software for manufacturing firms, say that sales have been "growing... in spite of economic challenges in the marketplace."
 
In the fourth quarter of 2008, Plexus officials report selling an average of one to two new deals per week.
 
The software lets manufacturers have enterprise resource planning and manufacturing execution system functions, along with customer relationship management designed specifically for manufacturers. The product's used in automotive, aerospace, defense, life sciences and the food & beverage industries.
 
The software as a service technology and business model Plexus uses is "well-suited for the current challenges facing manufacturers," believes Plexus Systems president Mark Symonds.
 
According to Symonds, Plexus is seeing an accelerated shift away from legacy on-premise software packages, "many of which have not had significant new features added in five or more years. Companies are rejecting the cost, complexity and inflexibility of these systems, and are turning to the software as a service model in record numbers."
 
In fact, he says, "we are seeing a huge wave of replacements of software that was installed hastily in the run up to Y2K. This software was old at that time, and now it hinders manufacturers' innovation and growth rather than enhancing it."
...
 
Informa Medical Publishing has launched e-MedINFORM, described by company officials as "an electronic delivery platform of clinical medicine books, journals and educational content." Company officials see their value proposition as easing access to such medical knowledge "for the busy physician."
 
The system is supposed to improve the way pharmaceutical brand managers provide physicians with information on the latest research, diagnosis and treatment methods.

The product creates educational learning modules for sponsorship by pharmaceutical companies looking to provide clinical information to physicians. "A single knowledge center can contain a limitless library of Informa Medical Publishing's clinical medicine books and journals," or content selected by the brand manager to support their product, company officials say.
 
Access to the knowledge center is provided via the Internet, free of charge to the pharma company's list of physician contacts.

"The main advantage" of e-MedINFORM is that it allows brand managers to calculate the ROI of a campaign they run through their library, says Tamaryn Hankinson, director for the new initiative. She explained that the library will capture users' contact details, provide history on their reading preferences and let the marketer know how to tailor future campaigns for improved ROI in the future.

Professor Eckart Haneke M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Dermatology at the Medical Center of St. Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, said "I personally like the idea of writing your own comments, updates into or alongside the text without spoiling a printed book."

"Pharma has long been under pressure to increase the profitability of all its activities, but sales and marketing divisions have been feeling that pressure more than most, with job and budget cuts sweeping the industry," explained Marianne Russell, President of Informa Medical Publishing.
...
 
Bx.com, an eCommerce software vendor, has announced a $25 million acquisition strategy. "It took us the better part of this year to finalize the strategy," says Ken Berquist, EVP, bx.com, who led the negotiations. "The funds being raised will enable bx.com to purchase strategic eCommerce assets."
 
Company officials say they want to acquire eCommerce software companies with a strong client base and convert their shopping cart software packages to bx.com's pureCommerce platform. They think they believe they have the capability to capitalize on the success of a similar company directive implemented seven years ago during the last economic downturn.
 
The goal is to assist companies in financial difficulty - be that pre- or post-Chapter 7 or 11 bankruptcy - or companies wishing to discontinue eCommerce services. "We will purchase their client base and create a clear migration path to ensure that their eCommerce clients do not experience any downtime... plus, the administrative staff will enjoy the reduction in work required for maintaining and managing their eCommerce products," says Mark Shapiro, President of bx.com.
 
Traditionally November through January is considered a slow period for eCommerce software sales, but bx.com officials are betting that the current economic environment has created a panic effect among customers, wondering if their eCommerce provider will survive.
 
Established in 1994, bx.com is a Certified Microsoft Partner.
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BroadSoft's One-Oh, EchoSign's 4.0, Tealeaf, EGain's Benchmarking Report, Globo Gets Moody

November 24, 2008 11:06 AM | [image]0 Comments
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass." It's one of those classic albums that's almost great. Probably the best record any ex-Beatle ever did, it has a couple too many dead spots - "Isn't It a Pity" versions 1 and 2, "Awaiting On You All" as Exhibits A and B, for beatification.
 
"Hey look," you say, "it's a double album, buddy. Don't "Exile on Main Street," "Blonde On Blonde" and, for that matter, "The White Album" themselves have a dud here and there?" Sure do - but "All Things Must Pass" doesn't hit the high points those three albums do. "Lacunae" is permissible if you bestir yourself to recording a "Tumbling Dice" or "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" as well:
 
BroadSoft, a vendor of Voice over Internet Protocol application software, has announced its 10-year anniversary.
 
Founded in 1998 - but hey, you've already figured that out - company officials say in the last five years, BroadSoft's annual revenue has grown more than 1,000 percent and the number of employees has increased from 84 to almost 300.
 
Company officials attribute the growth and success to what they call the firm's "forward-thinking vision of IP convergence, product innovation and ability to secure top-tier customers around the world."
 
Highlights of the past ten years for the firm:
 
August 1999 - Unveils architecture for the delivery of telephony services.
 
December 2000 - Introduces first software-based VoIP media server.
 
September 2001 - Partners with Siemens to be first to test SIP interoperability.
 
October 2003 - Hosts first VoIP industry conference, BroadSoft Connections, for senior executives from telcos around the world.
 
January 2004 - Brings enhanced telephony to the residential market.
 
October 2008 - Partners with Microsoft for Hosted Unified Communications.
...
 
EGain Communications, which sells customer service and knowledge management software on-premise or on-demand, has published its 2008 international benchmarking report for the retail sector.
 
The report benchmarks and compares e-mail customer service and Web self-service offered by retail companies in North America and the United Kingdom. The research found that North American retailers performed worse than the United Kingdom in e-mail response quality, but better in Web self-service and speed of e-mail response.
 
However, the research shows that there is significant room for improvement in both these areas. As if we had to be the ones to tell you that.
 
EGain used a "mystery shopping" approach to evaluate customer service performance. Posing as prospective buyers of high-value products and services, eGain researchers contacted retail businesses through e-mail, showing an obvious intent to buy, and also evaluated the self-service capabilities offered by these businesses.
 
The objectives were to assess the responsiveness and quality of e-mail customer service, the range of "Web self-service" options offered, and the ability to escalate to agent-assisted service.
 
Interestingly, only the North America research included such aspects of customer service as interaction channels offered, and multichannel and multi-agent service consistency.
 
In North America 25 percent of the companies failed to respond to customer e-mails, 65 percent responded to e-mails within 24 hours, but 55 percent of the responses were "poor" or "below average" in quality.

Forty-five percent scored "above average" or "exceptional" in Web self-service, but 55 percent received "poor" or "below average."
 
Which, considering that "average" is midpoint and "poor" is below that, would be about what you'd expect.
 
Sixty-five percent of the North America sample responded to e-mails within 24 hours, compared to only 36 percent in the United Kingdom, and 25 percent of the North America sample completely failed to respond to customer e-mails, compared to 35 percent in the United Kingdom.
 
This report consolidates the findings of the "2008 State of Customer Service in North America" and the "2007 State of Customer Service in the United Kingdom" research studies. The combined sample consisted of over 240 companies, with $250 million or more total annual revenue, and included 50 retailers.
...
 
Tealeaf, which sells Customer Experience Management software, has announced Tealeaf CX Mobile Experience Manager, described by company officials as a "mobile session replay."
 
The visibility mobile session replay affords is being marketed as important by the vendor, "given the variability of mobile devices," since it "allows companies to understand mobile customer engagement, discover ongoing behavior patterns, and compare success and failure of mobile users alongside the experiences of traditional desktop users."
 
Tealeaf has also announced several additional updates to the Tealeaf CX products, including enhanced Robot (bot) traffic reporting to improve organic search rankings and affiliate marketing efforts, and new user community-driven event and analysis templates with best practices included.
 
Mobile Experience Manager's actual function is to capture interactions of mobile users without dependence on JavaScript or other mechanisms "that can miss mobile interactions," company officials say, explaining that the module can replay an exact browser-level recording of each session, taking into account mobile variables including specific device capabilities, screen sizes, and other limitations - such as not supporting JavaScript.
 
The product also provides reports on usage statistics and patterns, including ad-hoc segments based on mobile attributes.
 
Forrester Research recommends that companies be prepared for mobile and its implications in the October 2008 report "How Shoppers Evolve Online." According to the report, "as mobile commerce initiatives gain traction with the increased penetration of smartphones, retailers will need to incorporate mobile projects into their plans. The history of category growth in the online shopping world is likely to be replicated in mobile shopping."
 
Founded in 1999, Tealeaf is headquartered in San Francisco and is privately held.
...
 
Globo, a vendor of e-business products and an SaaS products provider, has announced that its CitronGO cloud software will be available with Mood Settings, allowing users to choose a "Business" setting to filter through work e-mails and client phone calls, or a "Personal" setting to receive calls from family and friends, along with social networking updates on their existing handset.
 
This is part of CitronGO!'s offering. Company officials say it's designed to "eliminate the need for people to have two phones - one for business and one for personal use." Users can set their Business account as active from Monday to Friday - and from nine until five - and then the Personal account will automatically come into effect the rest of the time, for example.
 
 
One of the product's advantages, company officials say, is that it synchronizes - via push technology - data over the air on almost all mobile handsets, with hundreds of services such as e-mail, calendars, contacts, instant messaging, folders and more. Users have the flexibility to activate and de-activate Business or Personal settings whenever they choose as well, so that only communication deemed relevant to that setting will be pushed to their mobile device.
 
In the words of Costis Papadimitrakopoulos, CEO, Founder of Globo and a guy who never has to spell his name over the phone, research shows that employers "will pay a significant amount of money to make their employees truly mobile. But for all of us there are times when we need to ensure that we preserve the space between our personal life and our professional life."
 
Founded by Papadimitrakopoulos, the company is headquartered in Athens.
...
 
EchoSign, a vendor of electronic signatures and signature automation has announced the availability of EchoSign 4.0.
 
The demand for e-contracting has accelerated dramatically over the past 12 months, company officials believe, saying "businesses of all sizes are shifting to doing business primarily on the Web and in the cloud."
 
By keeping the contract and deal electronic, digital, and in the cloud, "EchoSign prevents the contract cycle from going off-line and having to revert to manual or traditional ways of getting a signature," company officials explain.
 
The product builds real-time reports showing the percent of agreements signed, average "time to sign" and user and group performance over time. Benchmarking capabilities set thresholds that allow organizations to compare their "time to sign" and " percent signed" performance with that of hundreds of industry peers in SaaS, Telecom, Media and Inside Sales.
 
On average, 55 percent of EchoSign contracts are signed electronically in under two hours and 37 percent of written contracts are signed in just under 24 hours.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
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Customer Effective, Nortel in Romania, ClairMail, CA and PwC, Cast Iron and Microsoft

November 24, 2008 11:01 AM | [image]0 Comments
The news as of the first cup of coffee this morning, and the music is a Creedence Clearwater Revival-John Fogerty solo iPod mix. I'd pretty much ignored Fogerty solo, as much as I like CCR, who are one of the half-dozen finest American rock bands ever, figuring he couldn't be anywhere near as good as Creedence. He's not - who is? - but he's better than I thought:
 
Customer Effective, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, has hosted its first annual user conference in Greenville, South Carolina, attracting more than 100 attendees representing more than 45 companies.
 
Attendees included representatives from companies in financial services, professional services, public sector, manufacturing, technology, as well as execs from Microsoft, ExactTarget and Scribe.
 
Attendees heard presentations by Customer Effective executives and consulting directors, industry thought leaders and peers on current trends and issues including business intelligence, data management, workflow automation and SharePoint integration with Dynamics CRM.
 
The conference offered a wide variety of breakout sessions on Sales Force Automation best practices, marketing automation and development /customization strategies for CRM.
 
"Attending Customer Effective's user group was an excellent decision," said Aaron Roth, MarCom Specialist for Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, noting that "the sessions on business intelligence and overall CRM strategy as it relates to performance management were exceptionally valuable for my firm... everyone was there to learn more on how to use the software, but what I think was equally valuable was to see how other companies were using Customer Effective."
 
Customer Effective was named to the 2008 Inc. 500 list.
...
 
The Romanian Educational Network has chosen a Nortel next-generation 10G optical product to provide scientists and researchers with enough bandwidth and network capacity needed for science and research projects, as well as education and training.
 
Felix Telecom, Nortel's integration partner in Romania, will deliver the project to RoEduNet including design, installing, deploying and providing ongoing servicing for the network.
 
The adaptive and intelligent RoEduNet optical network from Nortel will "unite all Romania's research and educational facilities, using more than 4,239 kilometers of optical fiber to connect cities and campuses," according to the Nortellians, adding that the network is intended to provide universities, high schools, cultural, scientific and research non-profit institutions with the means to communicate with each other, "as well as delivering access to higher-speed, always-on connectivity."
 
"We are building a true partnership and cooperation between RoEduNet and Nortel," said Professor Rusu, general manager RoEduNet, adding that they want to "ensure that our new 10G network can down the road easily evolve to 40G and 100G."
 
"The RoEduNet project appealed to Nortel from the beginning because of its value to global research," said Sorin Lupu president Eastern Europe Markets, Nortel.
 
The Nortel product is engineered so it's possible to increase network bandwidth to cope with bandwidth-sapping applications like IPTV, Internet video and grid computing for faster processing capabilities -- a powerful benefit for cash-conscious research and educational institutions.
 
Nortel's Optical Network Manager is being used by RoEduNet to conduct network-wide administration, monitoring and planning from a single management center in Bucharest. This enables troubleshooting, fault resolution and traffic management with no need for technical personnel to visit individual network nodes.
...
 
ClairMail, a vendor of mobile phone-based customer interaction products, has announced that the ClairMail System has reached "millions of monthly mobile banking transactions" and increased growth, with over twelve mobile banking transactions conducted every month per consumer.
 
This is "more than three times greater than the monthly transactions per consumer" found in published reports from other mobile banking products, according to the ClairMailers.
 
ClairMail's bank customers have also experienced adoption rates "higher than industry averages," which ClairMail officials attribute to the product's two-way mobile banking and payments services and the ability for consumers to choose their preferred mobile interface.
 
ClairMail customers have seen upwards of 25 percent adoption by online banking consumers, reportedly higher than industry averages: the industry adoption rate for a bank's online consumer base averaged less than three percent, according to published data related to other mobile banking products cited by ClairMail officials.
 
The product offers two-way mobile banking and payments functionality on all mobile phones across three user interface types - messaging, mobile Web and client applications - known as the "two-way triple play."
 
On one platform with a single implementation, the ClairMail System integrates with a bank's systems of record and provides bank customers with a suite of two-way mobile banking and payment services. The ClairMail System incorporates a Event Engine that can handle the potential transaction volumes from banks and deliver actionable alerts.
 
TowerGroup estimates that every month through the first quarter of 2009, between 150 and 300 banks and credit unions in the United States will sign contracts for mobile banking products. Mobile banking will surpass six million users by the end of 2008, and TowerGroup forecasts 42 million U.S. active users of mobile banking by 2012.
...
 
CA, Inc. has teamed with PricewaterhouseCoopers to market a joint governance, risk and compliance product to help companies "improve operational efficiencies and better manage their risk and compliance initiatives," CA officials say.
 
The idea is evidently for PwC and CA to team up for an enterprise GRC product to help reduce the risk of business interruption due to non-compliance with industry, governmental or IT regulations and standards. PwC's part will be to identify and define an integrated GRC lifecycle framework, while CA's GRC Manager product is supposed to take care of implementation of the risk and compliance program.
 
Officials of both firms see the advantages of the pairing to include combining the experience of PwC's GRC practice and CA's experience in implementing risk management systems throughout the enterprise.
 
The companies say they partnership offers visibility into risk and compliance across the organization via dashboard views, for a view of a company's compliance posture and centralized test results and policy documentation.
 
Acxiom, a global interactive marketing service provider, has said it's working with PwC and CA to implement a GRC program to help manage industry regulations.
 
In addition, PwC and CA are also offering a joint product for insurance organizations faced with the new requirements concerning the Model Audit Rule mandate which requires insurance organizations to adopt corporate governance and reporting standards similar to Sarbanes-Oxley for the 2010 reporting period.
...
 
Cast Iron Systems, a SaaS integration company, has announced its public participation in the Microsoft ecosystem, helping connect Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM products with other enterprise applications.
 
Using what Cast Iron officials call a "configuration, not coding" approach, the Cast Iron Integration product allows the adoption and use of on-demand Microsoft Dynamics business products.
 
Cast Iron officials believe that many companies hesitate to transition to a SaaS product when confronted with the complexity of real-time integration with existing systems that contain business-critical information. They market their services as lowering the costs and risks associated with SaaS integration by delivering an integration product.
 
The product itself is available either as an integration service in the Cast Iron Cloud for complete outsourcing, or as an on-premise integration appliance.
 
Ken Comee, CEO of Cast Iron Systems, said the company looks forward to "strengthening the relationship" with Microsoft.
 
Founded in 2001, Cast Iron Systems counts British American Tobacco, Emerson, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Salesforce.com and Tesla Motors among its clients. It's backed by Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Lehman Brothers, is privately held and led by executives from Informatica, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel, Vitria, and WebMethods.
 
If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
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Microsoft CRM Videos, SaaS for CRM, InsightNow, Epicor Cost-Cutting, Internet at Limit?

November 20, 2008 10:03 AM | [image]0 Comments

The news as of the second coffee this morning, and the music is that sprawling, glorious freeway crash of an album from The Clash, Sandinista!. Where their self-titled debut was the machine gun drive-by and London Calling the perfectly-placed rifle shot, this is the sometimes-brilliant, sometimes slack-jawed stupid double-barreled shotgun blast of an album:

DynamicsExchange.com has announced the availability of a large online video collection for users and prospective buyers of Microsoft's Dynamics CRM software.
With over 100 videos already categorized for CRM users' various learning needs and buyers' decision support needs, contained in a dedicated Web 2.0 environment, the offering adds resources to the Dynamics CRM platform and global community.
Three sections still in beta include "Demonstrations and Trial" in the "Buyer Resources" area that includes videos on Microsoft Dynamics CRM and related technologies, plus optional product videos from Microsoft Certified Partners from around the world.
The "How To" section of the "User Resources" area offers dozens of training videos in categories such as Analysis, Configuration, Sales, Marketing, Service, Learning, and General. The "Case Studies" section of the "Buyers Resources" area also provides professional produced customer experience videos to support buyers' decision process.
Although still in a beta release, the DynamicsExchnage.com "has over 10 man years of .net and Silverlight Web 2.0 custom development based on Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 and Commerce server," Your Friends From Redmond would like you to know, adding that the product is set to release in late 1st quarter of 2009.

DynamicsExchange.com allows viewing over 150 Dynamics CRM aggregated blogs, a new community Wiki, product specifications, literature, demonstrations, access trials, as well as many products available for Dynamics CRM.
...

Industry observer Amy Schurr wrote recently on how IT leaders "in need of updated applications but can't swing the capital investment" should look at SaaS.
If you're looking for customer relationship management delivered via SaaS, of course Salesforce.com is the heavyweight, but there are lots of other worthy products worth a look, primary amongst them SugarCRM, the primary open source SaaS option, and RightNow.
She cites the much-quoted Gartner report forecasting that the worldwide enterprise SaaS market will surpass $6.4 billion this year, up 27 percent from 2007, adding "you may remember the hype over application service providers at the beginning of the decade, but SaaS is not the same as application hosting or application outsourcing."
First Coffee does remember that hype. First Coffee helped spread that hype.
"The popularity of the on-demand deployment model has increased significantly within the last four years. Initial concerns over security, response time, and service availability have diminished for many organizations as SaaS business and computing models have matured and adoption has become pervasive," says Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner.
In fact, Schurr writes, "Gartner forecasts the SaaS market to hit $14.8 billion in 2012. What's driving deployment are the tough economy, better broadband, and a need to rapidly deploy software to meet a specific business need."
...

Stepping back and taking the Broader View of the world around this world we call CRM:
Demand pushing against physical and logical limitations is "stressing the Internet," according to Nemertes Research's study titled "Internet Interrupted: Why Architectural Limitations Will
Fracture the 'Net."

The upshot is that Internet demand continues to outpace growth in network capacity at the access layer, and IP addresses are quickly depleting.
A follow-up to last year's report "The Internet Singularity Delayed: Why Limits in Internet Capacity Will Stifle Innovation on the Web," - nobody accuses Nemertes of Pollyanna tendencies - the latest study finds demand continues to grow swiftly, driven by more Internet-connected devices and new bandwidth-hungry applications: "Traffic is migrating away from the public core of the Internet and onto private and semiprivate overlay networks," the study finds.


 "The Internet is shape-shifting," says Ted Ritter, research analyst with Nemertes Research, commenting on the fact that traffic appears to be moving off the public Internet onto paid or private overlay networks. "Content providers-such as NBC, which used Limelight Networks to stream the 2008 Olympics-are driving the trend toward a flattening, and shifting of the Internet."

The result for users? Improved service quality for favored content and, over time, the performance distinction between "favored" and "general-delivery" content increasing. But it's not a Doomsday scenario: "None of this means the Internet will abruptly stop working," says Ritter. "Instead, the slowdown will be in the area of innovation. Ultimately, access bandwidth limitations will hamper deployment of next-generation applications."

The study's take is that the Internet is rapidly running out of addresses to assign to new networks and devices - "85 percent of addresses already are allocated," it says, although one wonders if the pool of address possibilities has been delimited that allows a calculation of 85 percent occupied. "Address exhaustion will occur before 2012 in the face of the accelerating growth of the number of Internet-enabled devices and of machine-machine communications."

The report dismisses IPv6, the presumed successor to the current Internet Protocol addressing scheme (IPv4), as "too little too late," finding that only one percent of IT decision-makers participating in Nemertes benchmark, Advanced Communications Services 2008, are deploying IPv6.

...

Insight Now has been awarded a contract to provide Vertex, a global business process outsourcer and IT services company, with a suite of software to enable real-time tracking of customer experience and first call resolution within its contact centers in the UK.
The vendor specializes in using real-time customer experience and employee engagement surveys to optimize service delivery and business performance. The company was selected based on the fit of its product to the requirements set out by Vertex, including the ability to offer surveys via all media channels and to capture the customer, agent and team leader perspectives of each call being surveyed, Vertex officials say.
Vertex has identified one of its clients to be an early adopter, and is currently rolling out the new Insight Now product. The Vertexians say they intend to "socialize" the new service product "progressively to its other clients and prospects in the near future."
In practice, client customers contacting Vertex-managed centers are given the opportunity to rate various aspects of the service they have received using Web-based, Interactive Voice Response and mobile phone technology. Responses are analyzed and the results sent to the advisor, their team leader and senior management.
...

CRM vendor Epicor has announced "expense reduction initiatives" throughout the company.

The company has undertaken a series of cost reduction initiatives, including a reduction in its workforce, stricter controls on discretionary spending, and technology initiatives designed to "improve efficiencies and reduce operating expenses," according to the Epicorians, who say they're hoping for annual savings of between $16 million and $20 million.

 The vendor is expected to incur restructuring charges of approximately $4 million during the fourth quarter related to these actions.

"A thorough review of our global organization identified areas where we could increase efficiencies through streamlined operations and technology initiatives," said Thomas Kelly, Epicor President and CEO, referencing "the current economic environment."

If read off-site hit http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/ for the fully-linked version. First CoffeeSM accepts no sponsored content.
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CRM

CRMTrak's Online Support, StayinFront, iSimple for iPods, Broadlook, Sage MAS

November 20, 2008 9:41 AM | [image]0 Comments

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dexter Gordon's Go:

CRMTrak , sold as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) CRM product, announced it has added online support tickets capabilities to its product.

The new customer service "allows CRMTrak users to setup a branded online support ticket system that is fully integrated with CRMTrak customer records," company officials say.

The product is marketed as a tool to help sales, marketing and services personnel manage customer information, sales processes and services. The online support tickets feature is being billed as a way to give CRMTrak customers "the opportunity to have a single, comprehensive view" of their customers' sales and service information.

"Our customers have asked us to add more service capabilities... and adding online support tickets features was an important step," said Mark Morton, president of Morton Marketing, the developer and product provider of CRMTrak, adding that the company "plans to continue to enhance our service capabilities as part of our long-term development plan."

...

StayinFront, a vendor of enterprise-wide customer relationship management applications, has announced that Access International Advisors), managers of hedged and structured investment portfolios, has chosen to upgrade to the latest version of StayinFront CRM.

Explaining the decision to upgrade Tancrede Queval, Chief Administrative Officer, AIA, said "the functionality and configurability" of StayinFront CRM "has kept pace" with the company's needs over the past seven years.

The latest version of StayinFront CRM is described by company officials as having a configurable, layered architecture, coupled with Microsoft .NET framework that allows a business model to be created once and deployed across multiple platforms in the enterprise.  The product "combines CRM and analytics into one system" for rendering business intelligence data accessible. 

StayinFront CRM 11 uses Microsoft's Smart Client technology, "providing the benefits of a Web application" while maintaining the appearance of a desktop application, according to company officials.

The product "traverses all platforms across the enterprise - including Tablet PCs, mobile devices, LANs and WANs," said Nigel Huxtable, vice president, Sales EMEA of StayinFront.

...

Since we seem to be on the iPod beat here at First Coffee, let's report that iSimple has announced the availability of iPod docking interfacing kits that give drivers of "hundreds of 1995 to 2007 automobiles" an - "affordable" -- way to enjoy "static-free iPod music directly through their vehicle's factory stereo systems."

 
A distinct step forward, to be sure, but as soon as someone comes up with something that works on a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle convertible, call us.

In addition to audio, these kits also allow the user to track forward and track back on the iPod directly from the factory radio, as well as providing battery charging for many iPod models.

 Each kit features a "brain box" (called a PXDP, for some reason) and a wiring harness that plugs directly into the CD changer port in the back of a compatible vehicle's factory-installed stereo system. Once installed (professional installation is recommended) the unit delivers what iSimple officials describe as "CD quality sound" directly through the sound system, as well as the option of selecting tracks through the car stereo using the FFWD / RRWD CD changer function.

We know what you're thinking, and no, the unit does not block out clickwheel or touch screen controls, those can be used to browse and select tracks as well. "And, because the connection is hardwired to the vehicle," company officials say, the docking connection offers battery charging for most iPod models, including the iPhone.

All iSimple automotive docking products are made by Peripheral Electronics and distributed and marketed by AAMP of America.

...

Pewaukee, Wisconsin-based Broadlook Technologies has announced the availability of Ellis, a product the Broadlookers describe as a "service-based remedy for keeping sales contact lists optimized."

Evidently the product improves and expands contact information by way of three core elements: skilled people, name parsing technology and a proprietary six phase process, company officials say:  "At the heart of the parsing process is Broadlook's scoring system that ranks the contact information it gleans from thousands of real-time Internet data sources."

Where previously a company may have only three or four valid points of contact, now there will be eight or ten, Broadlook officials explain.

The process is described as understanding the organization's needs by performing a needs analysis, then acquiring, normalizing, merging and de-duplicating existing raw data from client sources, then separating refined data and scoring it based on client needs and specifications, extracting real-time data from across the Internet which is then sourced, extracted and scored, then loading the sales organization's "personal Ellis consultant reviewed results" into the organization's source system according to its preferred method. 

Ellis' six phases expand on the traditional "normalize, merge, de-duplicate" process for generating contact data, using the sales organization's supplied data, for what company officials call "extreme data augmentation."

Ellis supports all CRM systems including NetSuite, SalesForce.com, SugarCRM, OnContact, Sage SalesLogix and Maximizer.

Broadlook officials say Ellis services can be administered on a one-time, refresh (monthly/quarterly/annual) or retainer (continual/as-needed) basis.

...

Sage North America has announced the launch of the Sage MAS Online Community, described by the Sagians as "a new resource for Sage MAS users, business partners and developers to connect, exchange ideas and share insights on Sage MAS products."

The community is one of online forums hosted by Sage designed to "improve the overall experience of customers by empowering easier and more interactive communications among themselves and with Sage personnel," according to Sage officials.

This particular community includes interactive forums, expert blogs, networking opportunities and best practices tips, among other resources. Forums and discussion threads are divided by product for Sage MAS 90 and 200, Sage MAS 500, and the Sage MAS 90 and 200 Extended Enterprise Suite.

Within product sections, visitors can access current product information, exchange ideas and products, access expert product advice directly from Sage MAS personnel, and check on the latest tips and tricks of fellow users. The Sage MAS Online Community also features a Partners Only Forum and a Developers Forum to accommodate the interests of these special groups.

The Sage MAS Online Community is being kicked off at the company's annual Sage Summit user conference. Registration kiosks throughout the Denver Convention Center enable attendees to join any number of interactive forums on the spot.

Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a vendor of business management software and services. Sage North America employs approximately 5,000 people and supports nearly 2.9 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 14,800 people and supports 5.7 million customers worldwide.

 
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CRM

SpectorSoft's Monitoring, Numara Footprints, QuoteWerks

November 20, 2008 9:35 AM | [image]0 Comments
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is a truly great song, "Something You Ain't Got" from the 2006 album Greenland by Cracker, a band that hadn't caught lightning in a bottle like this since their self-titled 1992 debut album:
 
SpectorSoft, a vendor of iInternet monitoring and surveillance software, says its 2008 Annual Corporate Customer Survey revealed that "more than 70 percent of its Spector 360 employee monitoring software customers benefited from increased productivity."
 
The survey uncovered what company officials call "conservative savings estimates of from $15,000 for a northeastern United States SMB to $200,000 or more for an enterprise business located in Canada."
 
"As businesses struggle with a deep recession, organizations will need to be diligent about increasing productivity and lowering costs to survive," said SpectorSoft President C. Douglas Fowler.
 
According to a 2008 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the "cyclical effects of the economic downturn" in 2001 had "a dramatic impact on productivity. After slowing and, in some sectors, declining during the recession that occurred in 2001, productivity growth rebounded, resulting in robust increases over the period from 2000 through 2005."
 
Spector 360 is marketed as being able to detect employee PC and Internet activity abuse, and review the details via Quick View charts and graphs. Company officials say 72 percent of respondents reported the employee monitoring software helped increase their organization's overall productivity, and more than a third estimated the productivity increase to be greater than 10 percent. "Several noted an increase of more than 50 percent," company officials say.
 
The product records employees' Web sites visited, e-mails sent and received, chats and instant messages, keystrokes typed, files transferred, documents printed, and applications run.
 
In addition, through a surveillance-like camera recording tool, Spector 360 shows in exact visual detail what an employee does every step of the way. Further, Spector 360 takes the recorded Internet and computer activities, feeds that information into a database, and provides more than 50 easy-to-read reports.
 
At IMV Projects of Calgary, IT Manager Ross Benov conservatively estimated the company will recoup nearly $200,000 in lost productivity, figuring that since most of the company's 650 employees make from $30 to $40 an hour, regaining 10 hours of work per employee per year - and factoring in the lower end of the stated compensation range - the yearly cost savings estimate equates to $195,000.
 
Edward DeAngelis, President of HighTec HVAC -- an SMB located near Philadelphia, said if all business owners used such tools, "they'd save a lot ... more than they realize. You can't comprehend the abuses you will find."
...
 
Numara Software, a vendor of IT service management software, has announced the release of Numara FootPrints 9, the latest version of its Numara FootPrints service desk management product.
 
Company officials say the product offers support for IT Infrastructure Library version 3 service lifecycle best practices and usability enhancements, including mobile technology.
 
David Weiss, president and CEO of Numara Software, said the product is being marketed as a "practical and flexible IT service management" product.
 
Saying Numara Software's approach to the IT service desk would appeal to mid-market and departmental customers within larger enterprises, Paul Burns, senior analyst, Enterprise Management Associate