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Technology Audits - published 16/08/2010 - Angela Eager
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Its BPM heritage means Pegasystems comes to the customer service part of the CRM market with a manageable, rules-driven approach to business process design and execution. The sophistication of the rules engine whereby multiple rules can be assigned to a process, combined with the use of declarative, goal-seeking logic that emphasizes the outcome rather than proscribing a linear route (although linear routes can be defined), are particularly valuable in the customer service area, where there is a large ma…
Technology Audits - published 23/07/2010 - Angela Eager
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RightNow has maintained a rapid pace of development for the CX customer experience management platform, which enables organizations that understand the importance of the experience to keep in step with the needs of their consumers in terms of their behavior and the channels they use to interact (mobile is the latest addition to the suite). Organizations know the image they want to present and the objectives they want to achieve, and RightNow CX provides the means to coordinate resources to develop, execu…
Technology Audits - published 23/07/2010 - Angela Eager
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Salesforce.com’s willingness to diversify combined with its use of technology and ideas adapted from the consumer Web are fundamental to its success. It has diversified from SaaS sales automation into customer service, the Force.com development platform, data services, and enterprise collaboration. Initiatives such as Chatter that tap into the peer-to-peer collaboration trend provide innovation around enterprise and customer interaction, areas that businesses address as part of their customer lifecycle m…
Technology Audits - published 23/07/2010 - Angela Eager
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The product supports a classic approach to CRM where the business is viewed through sales automation (opportunity and lead management) and effectiveness (sales activity and order management) lenses. This results in limited depth in the traditional marketing and customer service areas of CRM but does drive developments around mobile and social media integration because of their potential impact on effective operations. SalesLogix straddles old and new-style CRM but is still rooted in the traditional trans…
Technology Audits - published 08/07/2010 - Angela Eager
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The needs of organizations for rapid deployment and fast return on investment are increasingly being met through industry-specific solutions that require less customization and extension than generic applications, and provide out-of-the box support for key industry processes. Amdocs CRM is part of a broad and maturing portfolio that provides platform telecommunications providers with what they need to run their businesses. The CRM component addresses contact-center and retail-channel management, self-ser…
Technology Audits - published 23/06/2010 - Angela Eager
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Many of the transactional aspects of CRM, particularly in sales force automation, are approaching commodity status with little differentiation among different vendors’ offerings. Extracting value from CRM systems requires more imagination and a shift in focus from controlling data (an unmet goal, given that many enterprises still struggle to achieve a single view of the customer) to deriving intellectual capital that can improve present and future business operations. Analytics is the obvious way forward…
White Papers - published 27/05/2010 - Angela Eager
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Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is an application suite from Microsoft’s stable of mid-market ERP products. What differentiates it from the other Dynamics applications is the combination of packaged functionality and an integrated development environment that facilitates extension and further development, enabling it to be tailored to specific business requirements and industries. It is undergoing rapid evolution but the changes are being managed to minimize risk and disruption, and enterprises are not being …
Technology Audits - published 25/03/2010 - Angela Eager
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GraphTalk A.I.A is an integrated, process-oriented, policy administration platform for the insurance sector in the EMEA region. Its ability to support multiple lines of insurance business (personal and commercial lines; life, pensions, investments and savings products; risk and protection products; and health insurance), from a single platform that also provides back-office administration, makes it suitable for organisations with multiple product types, and for those with expanding insurance operations. …
Technology Audits - published 17/02/2010 - Angela Eager
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SAP customers fearing a maintenance price increase in early 2010 under the Enterprise Support programme will have a reprieve following the announcement that the increase will be postponed pending “intensified engagement” with customers and user groups to prove the value of the programme.
OpinionWire Articles - published 18/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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Panaya Inc provides a set of analysis and testing tools, unique in that they use the SaaS model, for use during SAP ERP application upgrade programmes. Panaya’s fully automated applications are used for testing and identifying in advance what will break during a change or upgrade. Operation is based on the simulation of a client’s actual system on the proposed target system. This provides detailed and extensive information about problem areas from a code-level perspective, and the SaaS model shifts the b…
Technology Audits - published 17/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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Global Graphics gDoc Fusion is a desktop application aimed at easing the process of creating and managing documents in industry-standard PDF or XPS formats. The solution allows users to assemble, read, edit, and convert source documents of many different formats through an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface. Apart from making textual edits, adding comments, redacting potentially sensitive information, and rotating images, the user can also configure the conversion process so that the output document is …
Technology Audits - published 14/12/2009 - Angela Eager, Karthik Balakrishnan, Somak Roy
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At a recent gathering of customer-service professionals at the RightNow Technologies conference, one of the recurring themes was the value of a good customer experience. While this is not a new realisation, it is clear that there has been movement in terms of execution, with a clear focus on proactive engagement with customers resulting in positive business value.
OpinionWire Articles - published 14/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 is a mid-market ERP suite targeted at the mid-point of the mid-market – organisations up to 1000 employees. It includes modules for financial management, human resource management, supply chain management, sales, marketing, and service, plus manufacturing, project management, and business intelligence. The latest version has been rearchitected for .NET although the business logic has been maintained through migration to minimise risk and provide a level of continuity for custo…
Technology Audits - published 08/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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SAP CRM 7.0 consists of a suite of applications covering the core CRM areas of sales, service, and marketing, plus extension areas such as analytics and contact centre, web channel, and partner-relationship management applications. It is available as an integrated component within the SAP Business Suite but can be run without the other application-level components. Having already invested to round out the functionality and improve the user interface, SAP continues to build the product set and puts a stro…
Technology Audits - published 08/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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Oracle E-Business Suite CRM 12.1 is a full-range suite that provides the core CRM functions around sales, marketing, and service, and adds to them via a heavy emphasis on extension and integration into back-office business operations. The Oracle CRM remit is extensive, embracing not only customers and prospects, but also their relationship with products, contracts, and pricing. This means Oracle CRM encompasses aspects that would not normally be considered CRM, such as Quoting, Proposals, and Incentive C…
Technology Audits - published 01/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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Crime Profiler is used for mapping, visualisation, creation, editing, and analysis of data with respect to location, and provides a location-centric view of operations. Built on top of MapInfo Professional, it makes use of the Engage 3D visualisation engine. It has the technical features that would be expected such as layer control, surfaces (hotspot maps) and grids, analytics and graphing, temporal analysis, and demographic profiling. Each of these function areas is underpinned by an extensive set of en…
Technology Audits - published 01/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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StrongMail Message Studio 5.1 is an e-mail marketing solution comprising a back-end transactional messaging platform that includes an application server for application/data integration and dynamic message creation, and a Message Transfer Agent (MTA) component for message delivery that interfaces with the MTA at an ISP. It also has a marketing campaign management application designed for use by marketers. Together they provide a rich solution for high-volume e-mail marketing that enables organisations to…
Technology Audits - published 01/12/2009 - Angela Eager
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At its recent Convergence conference in London, Microsoft delivered the cheering news that Dynamics CRM Online will finally be available outside of North America and Canada by the end of 2010, with Microsoft planning to outline in six months time the countries where it will be available and the launch timescales. It will not be moving into the world of SaaS ERP, however, at least not under a pure SaaS model, preferring instead a partner-led private cloud approach.
OpinionWire Articles - published 16/11/2009 - Angela Eager
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Customer service CRM specialist Kana Software Inc is to be acquired by private equity firm Accel-KKR for approximately US$48.9 million. The proposal is currently at the definitive agreement stage. If it is concluded (it has the backing of the Kana board of directors so there is no reason to think otherwise), the company will be split into two. The current operating business, consisting of software, services, and licensing, will operate as a private company under the Kana name. The OTC Bulletin Board-list…
OpinionWire Articles - published 12/11/2009 - Angela Eager
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HCL Technologies’ HCL Oracle Universe provides a range of Oracle solutions-related services including blueprinting, design and development, consulting, integration, implementation, instance consolidation roll-out, maintenance, and managed services. Services are provided for all major solutions across the Oracle portfolio, including the E-Business, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and JD Edwards business application suites; Fusion Middleware and SOA; business intelligence tools; and sector-specific and other point sol…
Technology Audits - published 03/11/2009 - Angela Eager, Somak Roy
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There is a lot of debate over the difference between traditional CRM (operational, internally-facing, transactional) and social CRM (outward facing, customer conversations, multi-way interactions) but this type of discussion is a distraction from the more meaningful issue of how to manage the intersection between the freeform aspects of social CRM with the formal transactions and processes (including business processes and sales methodologies) characteristic of traditional CRM.
Butler Group Review Articles - published 30/10/2009 - Angela Eager
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SAP SCM 7.0 is an end-to-end integrated suite that includes new tools to provide a high level of service enablement. Underpinned by the NetWeaver platform, it also offers sector-specific functionality and processes, a focus on collaborative planning and supply chain performance, and the availability of services. It includes a comprehensive set of planning, execution, coordination, and collaboration tools that can be combined to address specific processes. Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO) covers p…
Technology Audits - published 16/10/2009 - Angela Eager, Somak Roy
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FinancialForce.com is the result of a brand new, joint venture between salesforce.com and Unit 4 Agresso (parent company of financial management software vendor CODA). The new company is the vehicle for taking the existing built-for-Force.com Coda2Go financial management application to market. Unit 4 Agresso will have the majority holding of the new venture and CODA CEO Jeremy Roche will be CEO of FinancialForce, but salesforce.com will be actively involved by providing first-line customer support and ha…
OpinionWire Articles - published 15/10/2009 - Angela Eager
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The purpose of SOA is to provide a long-lived catalogue of services that deliver functionality of recognised value to the business. The services must be capable of being used (or 'consumed') in any valid context irrespective of differences in technology, and they must be capable of evolving as requirements change with the minimum possible impact on consumers or other services. The services thus provided form the foundation for adaptable systems that can support the organisation's need to stay agile in th…
Technology Management and Strategy Reports - published 12/10/2009 - Angela Eager, Rob Hailstone, Tim Jennings
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