Mountainous Investment Transforms Enterprise Management Software Vendor

To say that the last several years were "interesting" times for doing business would be a huge understatement for Deltek Systems, Inc. And while it intends to stay true to its roots, the period ahead promises to be equally fascinating. Lately, owing to new ownership and leadership, there has been a sense of a new era at the privately held, Herndon, Virginia (US)-based principal provider of enterprise software and solutions for project-focused organizations.

Part One of the series Mountainous Investment Transforms Enterprise Management Software Vendor.

After over two decades of stewardship and funding by its owners and founders, the deLaski father and son team, in mid-2005 Deltek announced that New Mountain Partners II, L.P. (sponsored and managed by New Mountain Capital LLC, a private equity firm based in New York) would make a majority capital investment in the company. Under the terms of the investment agreement, New Mountain would purchase 75 percent of Deltek's shares, while the deLaski family and management shareholders would continue to own 25 percent. New Mountain Partners II, L.P. is New Mountain's second fund, with $1.55 billion (USD) in committed capital; Deltek was New Mountain's second investment in this new fund. Interestingly, the Deltek move was the equity firm's third investment in a Virginia-based company: in 2001, the firm made an investment in Strayer Education Inc. (NASD: STRA), followed in 2003 by a majority control investment of Chantilly, Virginia (US)-based Apptis. New Mountain claims to invest for long-term capital appreciation through direct investment in growth equity transactions, leveraged acquisitions, and management buyouts. To that end, it focuses on niche, cash-flow-rich opportunities, as with other past investments such as Overland Solutions and National Medical Health Card Systems.

There have been no major changes in operations at Deltek as a result of the investment by New Mountain, nor there have been any staff reductions. Ken deLaski initially continued as Deltek's chair and chief executive officer (CEO), and was joined on the board of directors by New Mountain managing directors Alok Singh and Michael Ajouz, as well as Steven Klinsky, New Mountain's founder and CEO (who had previously co-founded Goldman Sachs & Co. Leveraged Buyout Group, and served as senior partner at Forstmann Little & Co.). Additional outside board appointees were to be named during the several months following the investment.

Soon after, in June 2005, Deltek named Kevin T. Parker as the company's new CEO. According to Deltek, the appointment was made to bring "a new level of expertise to accelerate the company's future growth and success" in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) marketplace. Ken deLaski, who co-founded Deltek in 1983, and who was CEO from 1996 until 2005, remained on as Deltek's chairman until May 2006, when he retired from the board of directors. Today, Parker serves as chairman.

As for Parker's history, he was appointed senior vice president (SVP) and chief financial officer (CFO) of PeopleSoft in 2000. Beginning in 2004, he was co-president and CFO, until the company's acquisition by Oracle later that year. He had led efforts to increase PeopleSoft's operating margin, and was actively involved in all facets of the business, including directing all shareholder communication and activity during Oracle's eighteen-month hostile tender offer. The architect and driving force behind PeopleSoft's innovative and protective Customer Assurance Plan (CAP), he also orchestrated PeopleSoft's strategic acquisition of JD Edwards in 2003, which added 7,000 new customers and 6,000 new employees, making PeopleSoft the world's second-largest enterprise software company at the time. Prior to joining PeopleSoft, Parker had held senior executive positions with Aspect Communications, a provider of contact center solutions and services, and Fujitsu Computer Products of America, a provider of data storage and imaging solutions.

Since its foundation, Deltek had been run as a successful business (albeit sometimes regarded as a family-run or "lifestyle" business). But in 2005 it decided that the time had come to embark on the next level of growth. To that end, Parker's business philosophies—high levels of customer service, technology leadership, and employee teamwork—are in tune with its core values. But the idea behind the new recapitalization and new management was to address many drawbacks that came from the company's traditionally lower profile. Already a recognized ERP leader for North American project-based businesses, Deltek is now looking to strengthen its global position in its target vertical in both the large enterprise and small and medium business (SMB) markets.

Nurturing What Works

Indeed, what has not changed much is the fact that Deltek remains a company with project DNA strands pervading all its products (either developed in-house, or acquired and maintained) and corporate culture, which has been helping it in terms of focus, and in terms of fending off generic enterprise applications providers (in spite of their typically larger size, higher global profiles, and market clout). In other words, having designed all its products with project ID/No. as the key field in all system database tables (as opposed to the order ID/No., account ID/No., or item ID/No. of traditional generic ERP systems), Deltek is a natural fit for several project-based market segments. Moreover, large generic ERP systems typically require serious customization and retrofitting to achieve the required functionality. Possibly less known and expected is also the fact that scalability is also what enables Deltek to compete successfully, even against the likes of Oracle and SAP, in larger deals, such as with organizations with 60,000 employees (the vendor is glad to demonstrate load test results upon inquiry).

Most ERP systems have been tailored for businesses handling physical products. In order to follow well-defined, often high-volume and repetitive production cycles and traditional supply chain management (SCM) principles, these systems typically do not have to (and thus cannot) provide an estimate of completion for accounting (in other words, there is no interim snapshot basis for revenue recognition, job costing, cost allocation, and so on). The same holds true for shipping processes, which typically do not allow a percentage of completion, and cannot be ongoing and specific; they are rather binary (either the process is completed, or it isn't). Conversely, project-based businesses have to follow project lifecycles varying in length and complexity, and have to rely on a snapshot "estimate to complete" value for job costing, revenue recognition, and cost allocation. In a manner of speaking, project business is SCM "for people" (in terms of scheduling and resource management); the same "inventory" can be shared across multiple projects and processes. Customer relationship management (CRM) can also be viewed in this way, since project-based CRM solutions do not focus on call centers but rather on pipeline generation and opportunity and lead tracking.

Project-oriented organizations require the ability to perform many other project-specific business and accounting tasks, including tracking costs and profitability on a project-by-project basis; providing timely project information to managers and customers; and submitting accurate and detailed bills or invoices, often in compliance with complex industry-specific and regulatory requirements. Many project-oriented organizations provide products and services under government contracts, and project accounting for these organizations often requires the use of sophisticated methodologies for allocating and computing project costs and revenues. There are many different types of contracts used by government contractors (such as cost-plus, fixed price, time-and-material, and so on), and within each of those there are dozens of variations or more; each variation drives its own type of billing, revenue recognition, and requirements for reporting back to the customer. For more information, see Project-oriented Software: Many Choices, Many Differences.

For over twenty years, Deltek has been a recognized leader in providing systems (and built-in controls) for firms that do business with the US federal government. Its solutions provide capabilities that enable customers to maintain their accounting records in a manner approved by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) and other governmental oversight sets of rules such as federal accounting regulations (FAR) and cost account standards (CAS). The US government requires its contractors to collect and allocate cost in certain ways. For example, according to DCAA rules, labor costs must be recorded daily. Also, a contractor is required to keep track of several contracts simultaneously, meet the rules for different types of contracts, and be consistent in accounting for a number of indirect costs. Thus, of 11,000 Deltek customers, over 2,100 are federal contractors, and they account for more than half of the vendors' revenue. The remaining customers are from the commercial sector, which Deltek started to target quite a bit later in its existence.

With the new US emphasis on improving homeland security and on expanding anti-terrorism operations around the world, many of these firms have already experienced and will likely experience significantly greater demand for their services, along with rapid growth over the next several years. Due to an expected increase in defense and national security spending, US federal government contract spending and activity are also expected to increase in the next several years, but this will come at some additional costs for aspiring contractors. The government has increasingly been issuing cost-reimbursable contracts, which usually triggers dreaded DCAA audits (this is usually not the case with fixed-cost or time-and-material based contracts). While the government might be a generous customer, it is most certainly a demanding one, and its auditors insist on transparency and audit trails, so that they can trace a transaction from a source document (like a timesheet or an invoice from an end-supplier) all the way through to billing to the government. Aside from the fact that contractors have to supply a pile of documents about their business operations to customer agencies, government pre-award and post-award audits also cover a wide range of particular business practices, such as price checks and billing, use of subcontractors, time-sheet verifications, contract scope checks, financial statements, executive compensation reviews, compliance with the US Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, and payment of industrial funding fees for US General Services Administration (GSA) schedule sales.

Here's an example of how a tight vertical fit works compared to generic solutions: In aerospace and defense (A&D) project manufacturing, there is a requirement for automated collection of detailed cost information for standard National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) monthly and quarterly contractor financial management reports (NASA 533M and 533Q). While generic accounting solutions would require manual compilation and reporting, or custom programming, the flagship Deltek Costpoint industry-specific solution comes up with native support for these complex NASA reporting requirements. Likewise, in government contracting, the value-added general and administrative (G&A) allocation requirement is often fulfilled by generic solutions via pesky and dangerously insecure spreadsheets and manual inputs of calculations (with no audit trail or centralized control), whereas Deltek Costpoint and Deltek GCS Premier feature configurable allocation options that are automated in the job cost process, and that are highly integrated across financial and project reporting. For more information, see Project-Oriented Versus Generic GL-Oriented ERP/Accounting Systems.

To use a medical analogy, Deltek can call itself a specialist, whereas most other solutions are general practitioners. For general accounting or ERP products— numerous as they are—to emulate Deltek's out-of-the-box functionality, it usually takes an enormous amount of customization. Specialized project-oriented products provide compliance-ready solutions, and less time and money spent on implementation should equal better value. Thus, Deltek clients typically talk about a reasonably low total cost of ownership (TCO), high return on investment (ROI), and ease of deployment (EOD). To meet these specific project-based needs, Deltek has built its products from the ground up since day one, starting with DCAA compliance. To meet these stringent government contract requirements, in 1985 Deltek introduced its former flagship DOS- and Cobol-based product, System1, which was one of the first government contracting solutions (GCS). Deltek next released GCS Premier in February 2000 as the successor to System1, delivering a Microsoft Windows-based accounting solution designed for small-to-medium government contractors. Deltek's founders managed the company with great success by also expanding client focus into the commercial sector during the late 1980s. In 1991, Deltek reached its thousandth customer on System1, at which time its revenue was about $15 million (USD), and the company began to configure its software for larger customers.

SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/mountainous-investment-transforms-enterprise-management-software-vendor-18622/

Integrating Customer Relationship Management and Service Resolution Management

A customer relationship management (CRM) system that accommodates complex customer-facing processes requires four key factors to give the system a competitive advantage.

The first key factor lies in the application's ability to develop a complete customer profile that supports multiple business units and products. Service organizations need a wide range of customer data, including demographics, financial status, and current and anticipated lifestyle changes (for example, college-age children, retirement concerns, newborn kids, house or condo purchase, changing insurance requirements, etc). To gain a true understanding of customers' needs and wants, any interaction with them must be captured and analyzed.

For example, when a customer with a savings account inquires about a home loan, a full-service financial services company would want the customer-facing employee, whether in the branch or contact center (if not even an intelligent online software agent), to recognize that here lies an opportunity to cross-sell a home insurance policy to the client as well.

Having a complete customer profile enables users to quickly identify key attributes about a customer, such as whether the customer has multiple accounts with the bank, and therefore is a customer the bank would not want to lose. Naturally, customers are highly sensitive to how they are treated; they notice such things as whether their service institutions answer the phone quickly and recognize the customer when he or she calls, or whether the establishments answer questions astutely or resolve issues promptly. Also of importance is whether the institution provides rapid turnaround for specific offerings, such as new account origination, new loan origination, refinancing a home, and so on.

Most customer-serving institutions need software solutions that can deliver services that are personalized to the customer's needs. Take, for example, an insurance company that has many distinct lines of insurance products but no common customer database, leading to the disastrous result of several agents calling on the same accounts. Such disorganization is not only costly and inefficient, but it also creates a great deal of customer dissatisfaction, annoyance, and ultimately, defection. By implementing a unified solution to market more than one product to the right customers, the service company should be able to improve revenues while driving down the costs—and retaining customers.

The second key factor is that the CRM application should provide companies with the ability to customize their solution to address their unique business needs and evolving external requirements. In a dynamic business environment, the service enterprise must be able to sense and react, almost instantly, to changing market conditions. These conditions vary depending on whether they are caused by shifts in market structure, new competitive threats, micro- or macro-economic changes, or other factors. A company must also adapt to its users' needs, since not all users are alike; an adaptable system should provide a personalized interface for the user, based on his or her specific information needs. Ideally, the system should also be able to dynamically modify its behavior, depending on what the user is doing.

Financial industry enterprises—especially those competing with larger organizations—claim that they win and keep customers because they leverage their in-depth knowledge about the client to offer more personalized service. These clients do not want a cut-and-dried solution that looks and acts like the same CRM system that their next-door competitor uses. Rather, they want a flexible solution that they can tailor to their products, services, and business operations.

The third essential factor of a CRM system that accommodates customer-facing processes is that it should offer organizations the ability to adapt to customer and market changes, since most traditional enterprise CRM offerings require users to write lots of expensive, time-consuming custom code as part of their deployment. This often creates many problems, starting with most customers finding that by the time they have completed the development cycle and are ready to roll out the software, something in their business has yet again changed (such as a new, fierce competitor has entered the market; new legislation has been passed; the company is involved in a merger; management has decided to add or drop a new product line, etc.). Thus, these firms may find themselves stuck using their old model and needing to go through another long, expensive software development cycle to add the changes they need. On the other hand, customized environments can be very difficult to upgrade when the vendor comes out with a new release of its software.

The fourth factor is the CRM application's ability to integrate, in near real time, with other complex systems, and its adaptability to users' existing infrastructure. It is not at all uncommon to find dozens of systems in the service firm's back offices, all of which have data that needs to be integrated with the new CRM system. Some of these systems can even go back a decade or more. Many of these systems, although ancient in the IT timescale, still deliver mission-critical services reliably and effectively, day in and day out. Thus, a modern CRM solution must easily and seamlessly share data bi-directionally with these systems, using open industry standards.

As the first factor indicates, an adaptive service enterprise must be sensitive to ever changing customer requirements, and must foster an optimal customer experience by creating and delivering incremental services that customers want and are willing to pay for. This requires an IT infrastructure capable of seamlessly tracking and managing interactions across all customer touch points, such as the retail store, the Internet, e-mail, fax, the call center, etc.

Though CRM mega-vendors often want users to rip and replace their entire IT infrastructure with the mega-vendor's software stack, many clients view their legacy systems as mission-critical, and might prefer a CRM solution that will protect their investment by plugging into their existing infrastructure.

To be sure, services institutions live and die by the services and products they provide to fickle and demanding customers, and they need to be able to change direction quickly in order to meet competitive challenges or to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Only by deploying astute CRM technology will they be able to capture customer and market data, sense and understand how their customer segments want to be served, and be able to analyze and respond to changes in customer needs and wants.

Because CRM processes touch so many parts of a business, they can have a major impact on both cost and revenue. The improvement of sales and marketing processes can bring in new revenue, while call center productivity can drive down the costs of servicing customers, as well as present up-sell and cross-sell opportunities (and maintain customer satisfaction).

The business case for call center applications is becoming increasingly obvious, especially given the recently established National Do Not Call Registry in the US. The revenue driver will thus become inbound customer calls rather than companies trying to generate leads via outbound telemarketing efforts, which have too often proved to be annoying to customers, and ultimately counterproductive.

Contact and Call Centers Close the CRM Loop

Virtually all firms, therefore, have a strong need to share customer data across multiple business units, which can then enable them to deliver a wide variety of services to customers and enhance their ability to cross-sell or up-sell. Another driver is the need to enforce consistency across the enterprise. When a customer is talking with a bank, for example, the customer expects similar, consistent treatment, regardless of who he or she is interacting with (i.e., a call center person on the phone, via a Web chat, or face to face with a teller ), and regardless whether it is about a service complaint or a mere inquiry. The combination of customer information, dynamic scripting, and built-in process management must help to ensure this consistent customer treatment.

The contact or call center is constantly changing, and businesses need ever more powerful and flexible CRM tools that continually provide greater productivity, decreased costs, and enhanced service. Also, as many research and surveys report, companies have traditionally focused too heavily on technology in their contact centers, and have not paid enough attention to key customer service processes and performance measurement changes.

Service companies have been realizing more and more lately that there is a need to properly evaluate their customer-facing processes and to provide call center representatives with supporting technologies that allow them to execute processes that improve operational effectiveness. Only in this way can these companies increase customer satisfaction and generate new business opportunities. The integrated CRM and call center solutions have reportedly helped some service companies realize a remarkable return on investment (ROI), including a 45 percent increase in case volume (without increasing staff), a 35 percent decrease in time to resolve cases, and a 40 percent decrease in backlogged cases—all ultimately resulting in an 18 percent increase in overall customer satisfaction.

However, for various reasons, but especially because of the challenge of human resources, most call centers have yet to achieve this goal in earnest, and universally. This is because contact center agents' working conditions have traditionally been a far cry from ideal, as these employees typically need to “do more with less.” As the job requirements for agents increase, the challenge in meeting their performance goals also increases. To achieve these performance goals, call centers are increasingly harnessing technologies that have to track customer workflow, thereby providing more consistent and accurate answers to customer inquiries, seamlessly across all the channels.

Almost anyone reading this article has experienced frustration when an automated voice response system to which he or she has just dictated a lengthy account number (and plethora of other sensitive information) fails to transfer that information directly to the agent, who finally picks up the phone and asks the customer to repeat the information once again. This is not to mention the case of when a customer is (at long last) transferred to a specialist who, of course, wants to know the account number "before we get started." Also common is the case of the customer asking an agent to confirm if the information he or she has just read on the web site is correct, only to hear “Sorry, that's not right,” or worse yet, “Hmm … I am not sure. Sorry.” The chances of the agent solving the problem on the spot, and perhaps even upgrading the customer to a product or service that meets his or her needs, are then indeed slim.

Traditionally, agent turnover rates at call centers are fairly high, due in part to having to listen to customers' (justifiable or not) rants, complaints, and displeasure. As a result, call centers are constantly bringing new agents on board who need training before they are able to serve clients satisfactorily, creating a vicious circle of frustrated customers and frustrated agents. The pressures of dealing with furious customers, the need to do more with less, and dealing with rigid systems that are not even scalable or accurate, make the call center agent's life difficult. All these elements also impact the agent's ability to deliver on the call center's desired performance goals.

Implementing appropriate knowledge-based and intelligent search–backed solutions should enable the staff to share information more interactively. Such solutions can also allow staff to rank problem resolutions so that agents share not only knowledge, but experience too. The application should do this by itself, leaving agents the ability to effortlessly help one another and maintain a relevant, highly fluid body of information. When the root causes of problems change daily (for example, if a particular service application is down versus an entire server being down), an agent can see that several other agents have used one solution within the last hour that was the correct solution, which should increase the chances that it is the right answer for their customer call too.


SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/integrating-customer-relationship-management-and-service-resolution-management-19184/

Knowledge Management: The Core of Service Resolution Management

Today's businesses are faced with the reality of customers expecting and demanding more multichannel information and better service from call centers than ever before. Integrating call center service resolution management (SRM) into customer relationship management (CRM) can help companies retain both their call center agents and their customers.

For more background, please see Integrating Customer Relationship Management and Service Resolution Management.

Knowledge management (KM) is at the core of integrating CRM and SRM. KM software aims at helping to unlock the power of a company's knowledge to improve efficiency, competency, and profitability. It does so by providing an environment in which companies can, more quickly and cost-effectively, create a company-wide knowledge base to store and index documents and to more accurately search for the answers to user questions.

Currently, the key trends in KM tools enable companies to perform the following: 1) target their online information to reflect what is most likely to interest customers, and 2) maintain online forums where customers can share amongst themselves what they know about the company's products.

Hence, KM products typically fulfill two functions. KM accommodates self-service, meaning a customer can access a pool of public information that a company accumulates about itself, without the need for live assistance, to have his or her questions answered. Second, KM software helps call center agents to retrieve information from a repository that is often, obviously, larger than what is available to the public (since the aim of live assistance is the same as self-service—to answer customers' inquiries quickly and accurately, but with the preferred human touch).

The above considerations have marked a fundamental shift away from the time when any company could claim to perform a valuable service to customers simply by displaying information on its web site, without having to take into account who the customers were. Today however, virtually all companies must demonstrate their value to customers by segmenting information that is directly relevant to them.

Customer segmentation is not a new idea, since segmentation was supposed to be the way that—with the help of CRM tools—companies would offer the best possible service to their best customers. The problem with applying overt segmentation to customer service was that it then revealed a hierarchy that placed most customers at the bottom. This was so because, by definition, elite customers represent a small minority (the proverbial Pareto's 80/20 Rule). The premise of segmenting customers reinforced the idea that customers existed to create value for companies, rather than the other way around. Using this logic, most (up to 80 percent) customers were of little value to the companies that they bought products and services from.

By contrast, the practice of KM helps companies establish a bidirectional relationship with customers that rewards them for sharing knowledge (their product and service use experience), and not only for spending money. The latest generation of KM software makes this possible by enabling the company to combine what it knows about customers and what customers know about the company, and to offer this information as part of the resources available on its web site.

As discussed in Making the First Call Count by Greg McFarlane, an astute KM software has to make it easier for agents to author new knowledge when new services, products, or upgrades are in place. This reduces the need for agents (especially novice agents) to escalate calls to the upper service tier. This decreases the costs and the lengths of calls, but more importantly, it gets calls answered more quickly. In addition, the diagnostic search functionality helps resolve customers' issues quickly and accurately with its ability to pull answers from any data source an agent can connect it to, thereby giving agents the right information at the right time. Lastly, the automation of key resolution processes enables new agents to get up to speed more quickly. By pre-populating case notes and pre-establishing workflows and other techniques, the companies can create an environment that allows agents to operate as effectively as possible, regardless of their experience.

With the addition of multiple channels and new technologies to support them, call center agents' job descriptions should become more interesting and diverse. When this occurs, several of the major barriers to call center agent job satisfaction, such as stress, repetition, and dullness, can be eliminated, thus resulting in greater retention. The customer service representative (CSR) might start to feel like a problem-solver rather than a mere document reader.

Agents might also feel more accountable for problem resolution, as they begin to follow problems from start to finish. For instance, a CSR can access and present solutions to problems from a knowledge base; create a service ticket; request repair services; note a complaint; process returned materials; issue a rebate, coupon, or refund; and escalate issues to other responsible parties, such as tier (level) two support, development, quality assurance (QA), or even third parties.

Customer satisfaction should, in turn, increase, as the number of disconnected handoffs between agents, customers, and channels are reduced. On the other hand, increased agent retention should improve the organization's domain knowledge, and as a result, the number of first-call closures should rise.

The Impact of Online Customer Service

Online customers are becoming increasingly demanding, since they want answers to queries quicker than ever before, and they want to be able to access services when it suits them—around the clock. No customer wants to be put (seemingly endlessly) on hold or escalated, or to attempt several different solutions over the next hour, only to be called back the next day. He or she wants the issue resolved as quickly as possible, either through self-service or by a knowledgeable agent at the other end of the telephone.

At the same time, web site design is maturing, and the average customer is becoming more computer literate, which means that customers are ready to be introduced to online self-service solutions. Many customers indeed want to be able to solve their own problems through self-support on the Web, since we are all “too darn busy, and who has time for lengthy phone calls.” Companies, too, are ready to embrace the benefits of self-help solutions, which offer the dual advantage of cutting the cost of support while improving the quality of the service delivered to users.

In the early 2000s, Forrester Research reported that it costs, in US dollars, about $33.00 to handle a customer inquiry by telephone, $10.00 to handle it by e-mail, and about $1.00 to deal with the question through an online self-service system. Furthermore, by 2010, Gartner projects that self-service interactions will account for 58 percent of all service interactions, up from 35 percent in 2005. Thus, the goal of self-service has been to drive as many inquiries as possible away from the telephone to the Web, which is less difficult than it might seem, because organizations usually find that about 12 questions will account for half the calls made.

An effective self-help system should allow users or customers to resolve most common queries on their own, but it should also make it easy to escalate inquiries to an operator through telephone, Web chat, or e-mail if users get stuck or their questions are more complex. Also, call center representatives can sometimes handle problems more productively over live chat than on the phone, since an agent can deal with only one customer at a time over the phone, but it is quite possible to simultaneously juggle a few live chat sessions with customers.

One should note, however, that different users have different levels of tolerance for the length of time they are willing to commit to self-service, which means the availability of live support is still a necessary option companies must offer. On the other hand, in a corporate setting, the company may want to discourage highly paid staff from using self-help for more than a few minutes, because it does not want these employees to be unproductive.

In summary, enterprises can provide customer self-service that reduces service costs, improves customer satisfaction, and facilitates the sales and marketing of products and services. Moreover, IT organizations can increase the effectiveness of employee help desk operations while decreasing internal technical support costs.



SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/knowledge-management-the-core-of-service-resolution-management-19189/

Dealing with Global Trade Management Complexity

The moves of JP Morgan Chase and TradeBeam, and their respective acquisitions, as discussed in Market Leaders of Global Trade Management of this note, indicate that the global trade management (GTM) space is consolidating and that point solution providers are disappearing. Leaders like JP Morgan Chase and TradeBeam understand that to truly improve global trade, one must be able to manage both the physical and the financial supply chain across the entire trade transaction. The physical supply chain consists of export/import compliance, document management, shipment tracking, supply chain electronic management (SCEM), inventory management, global parts management, security management, and contract management. The financial supply chain refers to tasks such as purchase order processing, letter of credit (LC) management, open account management, pre- and post-shipment financing, reconciliation, invoice presentment, dispute management, foreign exchange, and insurance management (See figure 1).

As for the acquisition of Open Harbor by TradeBeam, product integration should be complete by the second half of 2005, and TradeBeam pledges to maintain uninterrupted service and support for a key group of Open Harbor clients during the immediate transition phase and post contract execution. TradeBeam has also been engaged in discussions with Open Harbor's customers to understand their specific circumstances, the scope of their projects, and to jointly agree on terms to work together to ensure alignment of business goals. GTM is a new and potentially very large enterprise applications space that has been compared by some to be the next corporate paradigm after enterprise resource planning (ERP). TradeBeam is considered a thought-leader because of its significant "first mover" advantage. It has had a few years head start compared to most competitors, and began with an "end-to-end" GTM portfolio, and did not retrofit its solution onto other "cousin" enterprise applications. So far, TradeBeam has an impressive functional scope, and it promises much more in the future.


Figure 1: Physical and financial solutions value chart (Source: TradeBeam)

Some enterprise applications, such as international trade logistics (ITL) and GTM simply seem to lend themselves well to a hosted model. Because of their widespread nature, they can not efficiently work the other way. Namely, global import/export "procure-to-pay" or "order-to-cash" processes entail a number of activities, such as source suppliers and customers; process purchase and sales order; insure goods; issue and receive LC; finance trade; arrange shipping; create trade documents; customs compliance export/import; send and receive goods; send and receive invoice; reconcile; and initiate and receive payment (see figure 2).

On a more granular level, these activities belong to the following sub-processes:

* order—includes plan demand needs, manage bills of materials (BOM), manage product catalogs, check inventory status, create purchase orders, check compliances, manage inventory, manage purchase orders, assess supply chain management (SCM) risk, acknowledge order, classify goods, calculate landed costs, manage contract, insure goods, and obtain credit insurance

* finance—apply and manage LC, manage documents collection, manage open account, request financing pre- and post-shipment, check compliance, assess SCM risk, and arrange foreign exchange

* ship—request booking, ship book, create ship notification, create shipping documents, manage shipping notification, manage shipping guarantee, track shipments, manage events, assess SCM risk, manage customs, clear customs, receive goods, and manage returns

* settle— create invoice, present invoice, reconcile documents, manage disputes, prepare documents, present documents, manage insurance claims, and receive remittance

In any case, many of these could only be efficiently fulfilled through a Web-based hosted solution, priced per transaction. To optimally complete the global trade cycle, a business must automate, track, and provide visibility to the entire GTM process to optimize its supply or distribution chains.

The average global trade cycle of order through settlement is 120 days, whereas a comprehensive hosted GTM solution like the one from TradeBeam can reduce this cycle by an average of 12 days, which can improve users' cash flow by 10 percent or so.


Figure 2. Global order-to-cash and procure-to-pay cycle

This is Part Five of a six-part note.

Part One defined GTM.

Part Two discussed the tradeoffs.

Part Three addressed managing global trade flows.

Part Four presented the GTM leaders.

Part Six will present challenges and make user recommendations.

Web-Based Tools

The number of users wanting solutions delivered over the Internet with monthly subscriptions or transaction-based fees has noticeably increased. Most new customers want a transaction-based model rather than a straight purchase with a big, upfront, payment (see Trends in Delivery and Pricing Models for Enterprise Applications). Moreover, an enterprise-wide, on-premise approach to global trade and logistics might not be the best approach because of high costs and implementation difficulties. In fact, products with the broadest appeal for global trade today appear to be hosted, web-based solutions that allow companies to go outside their firewall to deliver supply chain visibility, event management, multimode logistics execution, import and export management, and trade security to enterprise shippers.

Such a web-based tool is not just the choice for connecting to far-flung carriers, forwarders, and other service providers, but is often a better approach than ERP-oriented solutions for trade compliance and documentation. This is largely because ERP systems usually only have product marketing descriptions in their item master data, not technical descriptions needed for regulatory compliance. So, for example, if Apple Computer is importing PowerBooks, its name and associated marketing description would not be adequate for US Customs. Trade compliance applications should be able to take the marketing description off of the purchase order and associate it with a commercially acceptable description and the correct Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) classification. For example, the system should list the PowerBook as a laptop computer with certain features and specifications, and the right HTS code number.

Further, complying with the 24 Hour Rule, and based on the importer's purchase order, and the information about the customers' products, the application should be able to create the shipping instructions for the forwarder and send it to the carriers for their manifest. Thus given all the information that needs to be complied, a web-based system, connected to trading partners around the world, should be faster, easier, and better than taking an enterprise-based system and trying to turn it into a global logistics system. Enterprise-based systems are notoriously difficult to integrate with a large network of users. Also, hardly any company would want its ERP master data going directly to vendors. It is far more secure to have a system that takes only the absolute necessary data from the ERP or back-office system to share with the supplier.

In the case of TradeBeam, the company has been striving to distinguish itself from peers and competitors by offering more than the mere ability to track orders and shipments, by aiming to improve all three groups of activities that make up a global trade—the order, the shipment, and the financial settlement. It has designed several so-called "solution blueprints" for solving specific global trade issues, ranging from providing import shipment visibility and trade compliance to eliminating financial discrepancies while managing LC. TradeBeam's Solution Blueprints begin with the key pain points of global trade and identify tools and strategies available to corporations seeking the advantages of the value of optimized GTM. They include an on-demand set of GTM applications that individually might contribute significant value to a corporation while solving specific event management problems. This supply chain monitoring system enables businesses to proactively monitor their supply chain performance by automatically alerting users to exceptions in the order fulfillment process. TradeBeam harnesses data to provide integrated decision support to give managers their best response to out-of-tolerance situations pertaining to order execution and fulfillment. TradeBeam provides near real-time monitoring, measuring and visibility of order and shipment tracking across the entire global supply chain.




SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/dealing-with-global-trade-management-complexity-18010/

N-Tier Demand Management

The classic bull-whip effect means that the further a supplier is removed from the end-consumer, the worse are the fluctuations in demand that they see. This has led many to recommend an n-tier approach to demand management, where everyone gets visibility to the end-customer demand at the same time. In practice, very few companies have been able to actually realize this vision. There are some practical approaches that a supplier deep in the supply chain can do to mitigate the bull-whip effect.

Build-to-Consumption

Outsourcing and leaner supply chains are pushing companies to using networked models (real-time sharing of information across multiple tiers) for demand management. Most networks today are still working on building connectivity with their immediate trading partners, but the real promise comes from connecting n-tiers. Successfully managing an n-tier networked model involves sharing of real-time data such as POS data, orders, and changes in plan. This vision does not necessarily mean that companies need to create a detailed model of the n-tier supply chain and run optimization logic as they might within their own organization. Major practical challenges that have kept many companies from realizing the n-tier vision must be dealt with, specifically

* Understanding multi-channel demand
* Avoiding multi-counting

Managing N-Tier Demand through Multiple Channels


Figure 1—Multiple channels for single customer

In an n-tier supply chain, demand to the supplier from a single customer, such as an OEM, may travel through multiple channels (see figure 1). It is up to suppliers to aggregate expected demand for each major [] customer regardless of the channel that it flows through. This requires understanding the total market size, demand elasticity, and share for each customer (see section below "Forecasting Your Customer's Demand"). In addition, many suppliers fail to effectively aggregate demand by channel for each major customer, although it is critical to understanding overall demand. Effectively synthesizing demand across multiple channels requires close dialog with the OEM about demand at the finished-goods level, and systems that are able to explode a complex demand BOM against OEM finished goods demand (see sidebar). That is why it is important to monitor and forecast OEM sell-through rates[]. Once these are in place, the dialogs with OEM about demand can shift from discussion about supplier's parts to discussion about OEMs finished goods, for which the OEM has longer-term data and forecasts than they have in their MRP plans for individual parts.

[1] Aggregating by customer is only worth effort for your top customers (e.g. the top 20% of customers comprising 80% of demand). Demand from smaller customers can be aggregated by channel.

[2] Sell-through means knowing your channels' sales data, in this case the actual sales of the OEM, rather than consumption into their production lines.

Avoiding the Multi-Counting Trap

Suppliers that are several layers removed from the end-customer in multi-tier supply chains are prone to confusion about true end market demand. Multi-counting of the same demand is a common symptom. For example, a large telecommunications carrier replacing their line of cell phones sends out RFQs to multiple phone OEMs, who in turn send RFQs to several contract manufacturers. By the time the demand signal gets to the supplier, it can be grossly overstated.


Figure 2—Multi-counted demand signals

If the supplier is several steps removed from the end customer, they need to use their own intelligence to ferret out big end-customer deals, to get a more accurate picture of actual demand. As they pursue opportunities with OEMs, the account management team should capture information on potential end-customer deals (e.g., end-customer name, project name, size and type of deal, etc.). This data is factored into the forecasting scrubbing process to eliminate duplicate demand (see sidebar "Rationalizing Demand Across Channels"). Getting salespeople to consistently enter this kind of data is not easy. It must be made nearly effortless, and part of their compensation should be based on consistency and accuracy in tracking large end-customer deals. Forecasting Your Customer's Demand Beyond this, you should forecast demand for your customer's whole market and their share. For example, if you are a supplier to Ford, you would create your own forecast of demand for the whole light truck market and for Ford's share. Or a supplier to Juniper Network would forecast the whole enterprise switch market and Juniper Network's share. This way, if several major customers have aggressive forecasts, you can make your own informed opinions about whether the total market is really growing, or whether there is some double-counting going on. Formulating your own market assumptions provides the checks and balances needed to get to the best number you can for each account.

Taming the Bull Whip

Suppliers that are several layers deep in the supply chain can stop being at the mercy of late or incomplete demand information by

* Developing a demand BOM approach to understanding the actual demand as it flows through various channels

* Having a disciplined approach to keeping their "ear to the ground" on what is happening at each of the largest downstream channels and end-customers or large OEMs

* Maintaining their own perspective, getting a good handle on the total market size and using it to sanity check forecasts they receive from their customers

These steps can help upstream manufacturers avoid much of the misery and destructive force of the "bull-whip effect" that is normally the bane of their existence.


SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/n-tier-demand-management-17705/

Comparing On Demand Customer Relationship Management Service Alternatives

In a recent Forrester Research report, it was noted that while functions and features are important in selecting customer relationship management (CRM) software, they are not the "be-all and end-all" deciding factor.

It was also noted that when organizations looked back in terms of the criteria they used, or would use, to select CRM software, product capabilities were not nearly as important as most users initially thought they were.

Two of the top three criteria listed by companies focused on a CRM system's flexibility (i.e. configuration and customization) and the ease with which the application can be integrated with other systems.

Interestingly, a few features that some vendors have worked hard to incorporate into their products fell near the bottom of the evaluation-criteria lists. Vertical market specialization, for example, did not rank high among potential CRM buyers.

CRM Functions and Features

So, what exactly is core CRM functionality?

To come up with our answer, we researched hundreds of CRM products, and as a result of this process, we defined twelve functional areas that we believe cover the functionality that should be core components of any (and every) CRM solution.

The following is a list of these "core" CRM areas.
Area
1 CRM interface
2 Account management
3 Campaign, lead, and opportunity management
4 Customer service
5 Document management
6 Workflow automation
7 Desktop tools
8 Reporting, analytics, and dashboards
9 Administration and setup
10 Internationalization
11 Customization
12 Integration

Core CRM Area Definitions

1. CRM interface. This is the overall user interface, including home, pages, tabs, menus, dashboards, etc., as well as all the factors that affect the usability of the system.

2. Account management. The area of a CRM solution where all of the information about the companies (and the contacts or people at those companies) that the user enterprise has relationships with, is centrally maintained and managed. In addition, this area includes all calendar and activity management functionality.

3. Campaign, lead, and opportunity management. These areas of a CRM solution are where all of the selling opportunities are centrally maintained and managed.

4. Customer service. This area of a CRM solution is where customer service questions, requests, problems, and issues are input, tracked, and escalated (if need be), so that customers are able to get what they need handled in the most efficient and effective manner.

5. Document management. This functionality typically includes a document library where users can store files that other people can access via the web.

6. Workflow automation. This functionality can keep a business running smoothly by automatically assigning tasks (or sending e-mail alerts) based on a business's pre-defined processes. Workflow rules put workflow alerts and workflow tasks into action whenever the designated criterion is met.

7. Desktop tools. This functionality provides integration with desktop office tools like Microsoft Excel, Word, and Outlook, as well as wireless support and off-line access.

8. Reporting, analytics, and dashboard. This functionality monitors an enterprise's performance utilizing a variety of pre-defined (yet customizable) reports covering each of the services' main data areas. CRM solutions also allow users to use data filters, so they report on only the information needed, and to subtotal or chart the data to help analyze trends and get a concise picture of what's happening.

9. Administration and setup. This is the area of a CRM solution where an enterprise can import or export data and manage user roles (for information access) and security.

10. Internationalization. Internalization provides support for foreign language and real time currency conversion.

11. Customization. This is the ability to customize the CRM solution to meet industry- and company-specific requirements.

12. Integration. These are tools for integrating the CRM solution with other third party or legacy systems.

Other CRM Functionality

All of the other many functions and features that we found in our CRM product research (that were not part of our definition of core CRM) fell into one of the following categories:

* non-core CRM functionality,
* vertical industry specific features, and
* accounting-related CRM features.

Enterprises that are evaluating CRM solutions that include "non-core" CRM functionality need to be aware of the potential issues associated with these features.

From our experience, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a CRM solution that incorporates any, or all, of these types of functionalities. However, enterprises that are evaluating CRM solutions need to be aware of the potential issues associated with functions and features that are not part of core CRM functionality.

Non-core CRM Functionality

Some CRM vendors seem to be competing for business based on the number of functions and features that they offer. Their assumption is that the more functionality they offer, the better. The thing that distinguishes these features from core CRM functionality is that many enterprises don't need all of these things. Some examples of non-core features are

* Event management
* Project management
* Proposal generation
* Vendor management
* Product defect tracking
* Partner management

The issue is that if you don't need all of this non-core CRM functionality, you don't want any of it to negatively affect the usability (i.e., increase the complexity) of the system for your enterprise.

Of course there's nothing wrong with any of this functionality being incorporated into a CRM solution, particularly because there are enterprises that can benefit from one or more of these features. The issue is that if you don't need all of these things, you don't want any of them to negatively affect the usability by increasing the complexity of the system for your enterprise. So, when evaluating CRM solutions that include functionality that will not be needed by your company, it is imperative that you understand what will be required to remove (or hide) any unneeded functions and features from the user interface.
It is absolutely critical that you evaluate whether or not the process flows embedded into the functionality of each CRM solution being considered match your enterprise's needs.

Secondly, when evaluating CRM solutions, it is not nearly enough to determine whether or not the needed functionality is available in the CRM solutions that are under consideration; you must evaluate whether or not the process flows embedded into each solution match your enterprise's needs. For example, a CRM solution that inherently assumes that four or five people are involved in a particular process (e.g. developing and approving new entries into a customer support, frequently asked question-type knowledgebase) and segments the process into four or five steps will not be a good match for an enterprise that has only one or two people who will want to perform this process in one or two steps.

Vertical (Industry Specific) Features

We are often asked which approach is better: customizing a basic CRM solution to meet an enterprise's industry-specific requirements, or buying an industry-specific CRM solution.

Some customers recognize that there is still a price to pay for accepting easily customizable solutions and opt for vertical market solutions that reduce the need for even further customization. Vertical solutions have built in advantages such as business rules and a data logic that are industry specific. The customer does not have to build in the rules, specific numbering systems, or the common reports that their industry normally uses to track customers, services, and leads. In addition, industry specific workflows can be created, and back-end integration becomes easier as the database logic is likely to be close to the industry norm.
Some companies that tout industry-specific CRM solutions may have something to hide; namely that their software is not that easy to customize, so they've done a lot of it for you.

But, as noted previously in this report, vertical industry specialization did not rank high among many potential CRM buyers.

From our experience CRM best practices don't change all that much from one industry to the next. Sure there are unique data and workflow requirements, but this should be easy to implement. After all, doesn't every business in a given industry have different company-specific needs that they'll want to implement? True, but by all means, be careful out there! Some companies that tout industry-specific CRM solutions may have something to hide; namely that their software is not that easy to customize, so they've done a lot of it for you.

Since most industry-specific CRM solutions are generally more expensive then horizontal (non-industry-specific) CRM solutions, one of the most important evaluation activities is to compare the additional cost of the industry-specific solution to the cost of customizing the non-industry-specific solution, so it will meet your enterprise's needs.

Accounting-related CRM Features

Some CRM vendors incorporate functionality that will ultimately result in financial entries in an accounting system. When a vendor offers a fully integrated accounting solution (like NetSuite does) that your enterprise already has, or is planning to implement, then this functionality is not an issue—except that it will probably add to the complexity of the system's implementation.
The more accounting related functionality that a standalone CRM solution offers, the more difficult, time consuming, and expensive it may be to integrate it to a back-office accounting system.

Problems arise when accounting related features are offered in a standalone CRM solution. For example, when a standalone CRM solution includes functionality for processes, like managing return material authorizations (RMA), job and project management, time tracking, and commission tracking, each of these processes ultimately should result in entries (or access to additional information from an entry) to an accounting system. The more of this type of functionality that a standalone CRM solution offers, the more difficult, time consuming, and expensive it may be to integrate it to a back-office accounting system.

CRM Configuration and Customization

No two companies operate the same way, even if they are in the same industry. In addition, businesses are dynamic and to ensure their continuing success they must continue to adapt to their changing environment. Accordingly, the CRM processes and technology solutions that support those processes must be continuously re-engineered.
One of the most important areas that should be analyzed when evaluating a CRM solution is the ease with which it can be configured and customized.

We believe that one of the most important areas that should be analyzed when evaluating a CRM solution is the ease with which it can be configured and customized.

When new data must be captured using new or modified input/view forms, with re-worked automated processes and customized reporting and analytics, who in the organization will be able to implement these changes?

It's our experience that the best CRM solutions are those that are so easy to configure and customize. Ones where users with administrator privileges can implement most, if not all, of the needed changes on their own, without the need for assistance from technical information technology (IT) personnel.

Why? Because in many companies, ongoing technical resources (or budgets for third party assistance) are often not available to continuously reconfigure and customize the CRM solution.

Over the years, we have been approached by hundreds of enterprises that are looking to change from one CRM technology solution to another because they have become frustrated with the limitations of their current solution.

For many however, the truth of the matter is that this frustration has grown over time because of their inability to continuously configure and customize their CRM solution to meet their ever-changing needs.

When evaluating CRM solution alternatives, be aware that just about every CRM solution provider will claim that their offering is very easy to configure and customize. Have vendors demonstrate these tools to you so that you can gauge the ease of configuration and customization for yourself. And remember, your long-term satisfaction with your CRM solution may end up being directly related to having the ongoing needed resources to work with these tools. The more that non-technical people can do for themselves, the better.


SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/comparing-on-demand-customer-relationship-management-service-alternatives-18295/

A Customer Relationship Management Solution Aims To Cover all the Bases

Surado Solutions Inc., founded in 1995, is a privately held company based in Riverside, California (US), and offers a suite of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.

Surado aims to provide a complete CRM suite, rather than a modularized solution targeted towards departmental delivery. Its goal is to build full-featured, integrated, and multifaceted systems, as well as out-of-the-box solutions. The vendor is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Microsoft Business Solutions Certified Gold Partner, and uses the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) as the foundation for its product development. It also touts the merits of the Six Sigma methodology and Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) as quality improvement philosophies.

Surado targets the small and medium business (SMB) market, namely organizations with annual revenues of $1 million (USD) to $1 billion (USD), and approximately 88 percent of its clients fall into this category. To reinforce its position in this market segment, Surado offers Surado Small Business CRM 5.0, designed for ten users or less. Surado Small Business combines the core Surado CRM suite (Contact & Account Management, Sales Automation, Marketing Automation, and Customer Service/Help Desk) with Integration for Exchange (for e-mail, contacts, and tasks), the Surado Integration Module (for connecting to third party databases or creating custom tables and screens), and Surado CRM Web (a web interface for remote user access to basic functionality.

Although Surado CRM is not vertical-centric, it enjoys a wide installed base in traditionally "vertical CRM"-dominated industries, such as technology, health care, education, banking and finance, and government. The vendor has customers in all fifty US states and in over sixty-four countries worldwide. A sampling of its top clients from those vertical industries includes Blackbox, County Regional Medical Center, California State University, Georgia Student Finance, and the City of Riverside Economic Development Agency.

We'll analyze Surado CRM 5.0 from the perspectives of core CRM functionality, look at some of its distinguishing factors, and discuss some of the challenges users may face when considering Surado CRM for small to midsized businesses.

Core Functionality of Surado CRM 5.0

Core CRM functionality covers five aspects:

* contact and account management
* sales management
* marketing management
* customer service and support
* integration

The figure below is a TEC-created table comparing Surado against other vendors and their offerings. Surado performs above other vendors in the areas of marketing automation, sales force automation, customer service and support, and partner management. In the areas of contract management and creation, and project management, Surado's performance is above average, but below the highest-rated competitor.

B2B (Business-to-Business) CRM Module Ratings


Source: http://www.vendor-showcase.com/software/281-16091-idealprofile/Customer-Relationship-Management-CRM/Surado-CRM-by-Surado-Solutions/ideal_customer.html

Contact and Account Management
This area of CRM typically displays and manages detailed account information, such as information related to the company, contacts within the company review of past activities and history, scheduling, and task management.

This module offers a unified interface for account and contact management functionality, where users can review past communications, upcoming activities, sales opportunities, quotes and purchases, support issues, links to relevant documents, and information from back-end systems. In addition, Surado CRM also captures all customer communications, whether through phone, e-mail, fax, the Internet, or personal contacts. A fully integrated workgroup scheduling and task management features the ability to track activities, participants, and resources, including pop-up reminders. A relationships tab also allows users to track the important relationships that may exist between two or more contacts in the system that otherwise might otherwise be overlooked or poorly managed.

Sales Management
This area of a CRM solution focuses on managing sales opportunities and processes. It provides the features and functionality to define, implement, manage, and execute one or more sales cycles, based on individual opportunity types. This allows users of Surado CRM to configure the system to better fit their unique needs rather than having to conform to a generic sales cycle supplied by the system.

The module includes the basics: contact information, correspondence, opportunity and forecasting data, literature and presentations, quotes, orders, and post-sale service history.

Surado CRM 5.0 allows for multi-source data import from lists, or captured leads from a web site through its eLeads module. It also allows inquiry tracking and intelligent leads routing. Automated process can be initiated to distribute literature, schedule follow-up activities, and set conditions to advance opportunities. Managers can use Surado CRM to monitor team activities across customized sales stages across multiple product pipelines. Sales positioning features and functionalities are also available through competitive intelligence analysis and customer analytics, to identify habits, trends, and potential.

Marketing Management
In this area of CRM, the key components to attracting and retaining a customer base are evaluation, design, implementation, and execution of marketing initiatives.

The application can track the results of advertisements, direct mail, and telemarketing, and help design, execute, and manage personalized, permission-based campaigns. Surado CRM 5.0 also allows for the planning, design, execution, and management of multichannel permission-based marketing campaigns. Users can assign tasks and responsibilities according to revenue projections, campaign periods, targeted audiences, and channels. Potential deployment issues can be identified, and resources re-allocated. E-mail and fax campaigns can be set up for automated execution and follow-up.

Surado CRM provides for campaign return on investment (ROI) analysis as a means to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, by comparing potential and actual responses and sales.

Customer Service and Support
This area of a CRM solution is where customer service inquiries and support issues are entered, tracked, and in specific cases, escalated to resolution.

Surado CRM 5.0 features a customer service, help desk, and support knowledge base, with keyword searches. It also provides an integrated system that coordinates and tracks customer interactions across multiple contact points to address customer inquires.

Surado CRM automates support and help procedures, by automatically converting incoming e-mail messages into support tickets (including attachments), responding to support tickets, and notifying customers of soon-to-expire service-level agreements (SLAs). It also handles routing, load balancing, escalation based on multiple criteria, automated response, and ticket updates and deletions.

In addition, Surado's Web Self-Service module provides a channel for clients to access an Internet knowledge base search as well as conduct self-service ticket submission and review.

Key metrics are displayed in graphical form, and can provide managers with the information necessary to make rapid decisions regarding re-deployment of resources to the most urgent support areas. Performance gauges (such as support metrics by urgency, touch point, area, type, and support groups) provide managers with the opportunity to act quickly to prevent potential bottlenecks in providing support. Finally, color-coded alerts for events that fall outside defined parameters provide managers the ability to take a proactive approach, preventing escalation of support issues.

Integration
While integration is not traditionally considered to be a functionality, it is nonetheless a critical component of any solution, and needs to be given the same level of consideration as core functionalities. Surado CRM 5.0 is very well designed to run on a Microsoft platform (including operating systems and applications, SQL databases, and Exchange servers), and integrates tightly with front-office programs (Microsoft Office, Outlook, and Project, as well as with mobile devices, scanners and business intelligence [BI] tools) and back-office applications (Great Plains Accounting). Surado CRM 5.0 has also enhanced its level of integration with Intuit QuickBooks. This is in alignment with Surado's focus on the SMB market, where such systems are widespread.

With the optional add-on Surado Integration module, back-office applications like financials, enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), logistics, manufacturing, shipping and delivery, human resources, e-business, and industry-specific applications can be integrated to give users a unified view of the disparate back-office application environment within a centralized CRM solution. This module also allows system administrators to create unlimited custom detail data tabs to display information from back-office applications directly from within the Surado CRM solution. Finally, administrators can also create stored procedures to automatically write Surado CRM data into other databases using automatic data exchange (ADX).


SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-customer-relationship-management-solution-aims-to-cover-all-the-bases-18676/

A Tectonic Shift in Communications Customer Life Cycle Management

Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX) recently unveiled a new marketing philosophy—one so significant that it is touted as the most important development since the company went public in 1998. Amdocs is an Israel-based company that provides billing systems, customer care, and support to communications companies throughout the world. Its corporate paradigm shift aims to give companies stronger, more profitable customer relationships through its comprehensive portfolio of software and services that span the customer life cycle. Boasting an "intentional customer experience", Amdocs claims to help companies cultivate their return on investment (ROI), lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and improve operational efficiencies.

Part two of the Amdocs Overhauls Its Marketing series.

Amdocs, whose revenue was approximately $1.8 billion (USD) in 2004, has created a customer-centric approach in its Integrated Customer Management (ICM) strategy. As communications companies are facing increased competition and price commoditization, ICM offers to further customer loyalty and increase profitability by offering a point of differentiation in the customer experience. To create this offering of expanded services and integration capabilities, the new strategy involves three elements.

1. Consultancy services
2. A unified software platform
3. A greater reliance on business with industry leaders

This is Part Two of a three-part note.

Part One profiled the company.

Part Three will cover alliances, challenges, and make user recommendations.

Consultancy Services

In mid-March, the vendor announced new business consulting services that should help accelerate the ICM-readiness for communications service providers (CSP). In addition to a current broad set of implementation, integration, and managed services that Amdocs provides to customers, the new consulting services include

* Amdocs ICM Blueprint Framework of Services. An overarching framework that includes the Amdocs ICM Benchmark Service and encompasses a wide range of offerings—from high-level strategy to business process integration, training, and testing. They are designed to help CSPs design, plan, and execute their transformation from a voice service utility to a customer-centric, multi-media retailer.

* Amdocs ICM Benchmark Service. Addresses critical business processes that impact the intentional customer experience: target, sell, deliver, bill, and support. The ICM Benchmark Service ensures a comprehensive cross-silo view of the organization, which is a business imperative for achieving true ICM. As a part of the ICM Blueprint Framework, the ICM Benchmark Service was designed to assess current state versus industry benchmarks and best practices toward achieving ICM. To that end, the ICM Benchmark Service will facilitate creation of an ICM strategy and vision based on the customer's unique situation, taking into account investments, goals, competitive environment, etc. It will define the unique ICM vision and strategy of an CSP; measure ICM maturity versus industry best practices across people, processes, and technology; identify and substantiate gaps; and define, size, justify, and prioritize initiatives that can be improved through the Amdocs ROI Methodology. The service leverages the Amdocs Telecom Maturity Tool developed based on a licensed methodology researched and designed by Gartner, Inc.

* Amdocs Contact Center Optimization Service. Focuses on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of contact center operations and self-service capabilities with the emphasis on designing and implementing a customer interaction strategy that delivers an intentional customer experience. The service considers both efficiency and effectiveness of operations and uses modeling and simulation tools to determine the appropriate cost-to-serve, helps elicit the right customer behavior, and maximizes both the perceived value of the interaction to the customer, as well as customer profitability.

* Amdocs Customer Profitability and Segmentation Service. Helps plan and execute an applied segmentation and customer profitability strategy delivering actionable intelligence at the point of decision, while rationalizing and leveraging past business intelligence and marketing automation (MA) investments. This should give CSPs the power to create better-targeted product offers, communications, bundled services, and support approaches.

* Amdocs Billing Operations Improvement Service. Applies Amdocs' decades of accumulated "best practices" so that CSPs can take steps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their existing operations in areas such as bill cycle time, hardware performance, error handling, service time-to-market, customer satisfaction, and quality.

Possibly the most important facet of Amdocs integration services is that the vendor will now also provide integration services to operators that have not purchased its billing or customer relationship management (CRM) system, including software management, checking and testing, and carrying out the changes necessary to prepare the operator's system to go live. The vendor plans to continue expanding consultancy and integration services, and develop them for integrated customer management.

At present, all users have several accounts with the same operator, such as a cable television account, a fixed-line telephone account, a cell phone account, and so on. The idea behind the new concept is that the operator should manage the system so that every user will have a single account. The new consultancy and integration services should also help operators manage the user's account for all types of services—landline communications, wireless, TV, etc. from one central point. Amdocs believes that consulting and integration services should give it an advantage over the competitors at a time when operators and systems are being consolidated, as these services should enable the vendor to advise the operator about the right approach for integrating networks and systems following the merger.

Unified Software Platform

The launch of these new Amdocs consulting services comes on the heels of the second element of Amdocs' marketing overhaul: a first time offering of a unified software platform. In mid-February, Amdocs launched Amdocs 6, a pre-integrated portfolio of modular, billing, CRM, self-service, order management, mediation, and content revenue management software products aimed at easing and accelerating the adoption of the ICM strategy.

According to a recent Amdocs' study, almost 75 percent of surveyed consumers think their CSP only sometimes, seldom, or never understands their needs. Surprisingly, the survey also revealed that 34 percent of women and nearly 20 percent of men would rather give birth than interact with inexperienced or unhelpful customer service representatives. While consumers clearly identified short hold times and friendly staff as key determinants of good customer service, more than 64 percent felt that their providers only improved customer service when faced with the threat of either the loss of business or increased competitive pressure. Quite simply, when offered an ample choice of providers and services, consumers today feel the easiest and best way to express dissatisfaction is to take their business elsewhere.

Therefore, the products in the new Amdocs 6 portfolio are going to be pre-integrated to remove process barriers across the customer life cycle, from targeting, selling, and delivering, to billing and supporting each customer at all touch-points, including the Web, contact center or bill mailing. Technical platform integration aims at reducing implementation costs for service providers and driving a lower TCO. Key products within the Amdocs 6 portfolio include

* Amdocs Billing 6. A fully convergent billing product, designed to meet the evolving needs of the world's largest CSPs prepaid, postpaid, voice, and data billing operations.

* Amdocs CRM 6 . Delivers out-of-the-box solutions to optimize customer-centric business processes.

* Amdocs Order Management 6. A scalable order management product designed to meet the complex ordering requirements of CSPs.

* Amdocs Content Revenue Management 6. Manages the content supply chain from the partner's domain, through the operator's environment, to the end consumer.

* Amdocs Mediation 6. A single converged system that adapts to diverse requirements and executes large-scale service logic to address CSPs' most urgent objectives: reducing TCO and increasing business agility.

For instance, the self-service system that Amdocs will provide as part of the platform will purportedly enable telecommunications subscribers to self-manage their budgets via the Internet. They will be able to order and change services, change their account information, check the status of a service they have ordered, and so forth. This system provides subscribers with what amounts to an independent and automated customer service center, thereby relieving the operator's customer service center of a great burden.

Also, in order to provide customers with integration between systems, Amdocs has also developed an integrated catalogue, in contrast to the separate ones it has previously used for each system. The integrated catalogue is software that enables operators to define the systems and services that they want to order. At the same time, users can still order each Amdocs system separately, since the vendor has found that most of its customers prefer switching to an integrated system in stages.

Business with Industry Leaders

The third element of Amdocs' marketing revival ploy is a greater reliance on business with industry leaders, which should enable the vendor to better understanding its customers' business needs and provide proactive solutions. For example, in 2004, Amdocs established a new global business relationship with IBM to provide comprehensive, flexible billing, and CRM solutions with an emphasis on telecommunications customers. Under the terms of the agreement, Amdocs and IBM provide telecommunications companies with joint solutions and a range of managed services options based on IBM services expertise, including business process transformation, order management, information technology (IT) management, and additional business process support. The agreement also enables Amdocs and IBM to pursue joint sales opportunities, expand product and services offerings, and share technical expertise.

In addition, new partnerships with smaller niche players, particularly providers of middleware and video services, have helped Amdocs prepare telecommunications companies to sell video services over their IP networks. With these innovative products, Amdocs touts it is ready to help make the triple play (voice, data, and TV) or even a quadruple play (wire line, wireless, data, and TV) a reality for telecommunication companies as they seek to reclaim their leadership in communications. Amdocs believes these moves will help it fend off its chief competitor, Convergys, which in 2001 bought the UK-based billing provider Geneva. Geneva's product remains highly effective in carrying out billing on IP networks, making it one of the world's largest specialist billing companies. Geneva, along with the cable billing operator CSG Systems, are direct competitors of Amdocs. Moreover, many still believe that Convergys might have another edge over Amdocs due to its WIZARD system (which came from the acquisition of former Israeli company Wiztec Solutions). WIZARD does billing for video broadcasts and is aimed at the cable and satellite communications market.

SOURCE:
http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/articles/a-tectonic-shift-in-communications-customer-life-cycle-management-18094/