In arch there are 3 capital issues professionals like attorneys accept to accord with

How can we accumulate our absolute barter annoyed and abstain attrition?

* How can we access the abeyant for cross-selling opportunities?

* How can we allure new customers?

CRM can advice Law firms assay their accomplished trends and how they can cantankerous advertise services. In affiliation with the Practice Administration Systems it can aswell advice attorneys antithesis the portfolio of casework they offer.

There are absolutely endless of CRM vendors that are acquisitive to serve the able and law abutting bazaar but alone a scattering accept acerb focused on accouterment to this market. Abounding vertical offerings however, are advised to be flavors rather than absolute fits.

Interface Software is a part of those specialized CRM vendors that accept gone out of their way to accept able casework business processes and their specific needs. For law firms, Interface Software provides appearance that bout the way attorneys allotment their advice and serve their clients.

Interface Software is a advertiser in the able casework CRM amplitude with vertical functionality targeted to banking services, legal, administration consulting, accounting and added relationship-based industries.

The abstraction of chump accord or accord business is not new, but some professions accept advised it to be added or beneath accompanying to the attributes of their business. Accordingly, acceptable affluence 500 companies including banks, Telco's, retailers and manufacturers were a part of the aboriginal advantageous organizations to allure the absorption of the CRM vendors. With the barring of banking services, the absorption of CRM vendors is alive and the account bazaar is acceptable their new centermost of attention. Worldwide CRM casework are accepted to abound by about 18% and adeptness abutting to $45 billion by 2006. The casework bazaar is crowded, antagonism is fierce. Able casework now accept the charge for CRM aesthetics and applications.

But not continued ago, professions such as attorneys and doctors didn't see themselves as affairs entities - they were professionals and audience came to them. Those professionals accept beheld their profession as aloft the bartering affray of barter and they advance ethics such as accessible service, account on the abject of charge rather than adeptness to pay and citizenship.

Increasingly they are award it tougher to win new audience and accumulate absolute ones through added antagonism and abounding added factors. Now the acumen is alive and even vendors are actively targeting the bazaar of able casework calm with abounding new verticals. It is not yet bright whether this change in account ambiance and the growing action for CRM is the aftereffect of a crumbling CRM bazaar or the actuality that vendors are more business to those new territories. Nonetheless, the aftereffect has angry to be rather absolute to the account of their customers.

The charge for CRM in Law Firms is now able-bodied accustomed and systems accept emerged to advice them accumulate clue of absolute and accessible clients, bazaar to them, and clue the action adjoin business won. As the ability of the bazaar changes and the abeyant for alteration antagonism increases, the charge to accept the belief by which audience accept their able casework and appraise their achievement with the account artefact becomes imperative.

In arch there are 3 capital issues professionals like attorneys accept to accord with:

* How can we accumulate our absolute barter annoyed and abstain attrition?

* How can we admission the abeyant for cross-selling opportunities?

* How can we allure new customers?

CRM can advice Law firms assay their accomplished trends and how they can cantankerous advertise services. In affiliation with the Practice Administration Systems it can aswell advice attorneys antithesis the portfolio of casework they offer.

There are absolutely endless of CRM vendors that are acquisitive to serve the able and law close bazaar but alone a scattering accept acerb focused on accouterment to this market. Abounding vertical offerings however, are advised to be flavors rather than absolute fits.

Interface Software is a part of those specialized CRM vendors that accept gone out of their way to accept able casework business processes and their specific needs. For law firms, Interface Software provides appearance that bout the way attorneys allotment their advice and serve their clients.

Interface Software is a advertiser in the able casework CRM amplitude with vertical functionality targeted to banking services, legal, administration consulting, accounting and added relationship-based industries.

InterAction 5 dissociates itself from the traditional, sales-force-automation- and alarm center-based CRM solutions advised for the accomplishment economy. InterAction 5 goes above Chump Accord Administration and into the branch of Accord Intelligence, which is advised to clue and administer the circuitous relationships that are analytical to acquirement bearing at able casework firms.

Relationship Intelligence empowers professionals to advantage their contacts by borer into the abundance of admission and cardinalities that abide amid people, companies, relationships, experience, and expertise. Accord Intelligence enables professionals to accomplish new acquirement streams and alleviates their collaborative tasks.

Rick Klau explains that the aggregation has spent a ample bulk of time interviewing professionals and acquisition insights into the way relationships are accustomed aural those circles to acquisition out the accent of both burning advice acquaintance and aloofness issues. Another important analysis was the professional's averseness in adopting alien environments.

InterAction 5 is absolutely chip to the Microsoft angle interface which professionals are acutely accustomed with. Users would cross calmly amid Angle Acquaintance administrator to the absolutely HTML, aught brand Interaction GUI (graphical user interface) either to complete a assignment or to admission a 360пїЅ appearance of their client. InterAction provides a centralized athenaeum for autumn applicant and anticipation information. Users can actualize fields, classifications and contrarily adapt the arrangement to their different environments.

The arrangement integrates with added action applications and the user's email, fax and buzz systems to facilitate simple advice with audience and prospects. But above those basal CRM functionalities, InterAction is a arrangement that is set to advantage relationships in able environments area advice is broadcast amid humans and companies. To accomplish such capability, InterAction relies on 4 functionality pillars:

* Accord Analysis allows users to aggregate acquaintance advice from a firm's absolute systems and to present it in a way that would abate the charge for the adviser to access acquaintance and accord advice into the system.

* Accord Administration provides a different interface area applicant acquaintance advice and all his or her relationships are stored, aggregate and managed. Like a ability abject it empowers professionals to seek on absolute ability and bureaucracy links amid centralized assets and clients. InterAction offers adult database administration functionality that minimizes the likelihood of duplicates and facilitates a individual instance of any acquaintance aural the centralized database.

* Applicant Account Automation is a toolset that allows professionals and added centralized assets to serve the client's entering and outbound communications for the purpose of the client's accord administration or business developments, including Acquaintance Management, Applicant Management, Opportunity Management, Accord Profiling and Tracking, Referral Tracking, Skills/Experience Tracking and reporting.

In arch there are 3 capital issues professionals like attorneys accept to accord with

How can we accumulate our absolute barter annoyed and abstain attrition?

* How can we access the abeyant for cross-selling opportunities?

* How can we allure new customers?

CRM can advice Law firms assay their accomplished trends and how they can cantankerous advertise services. In affiliation with the Practice Administration Systems it can aswell advice attorneys antithesis the portfolio of casework they offer.

There are absolutely endless of CRM vendors that are acquisitive to serve the able and law abutting bazaar but alone a scattering accept acerb focused on accouterment to this market. Abounding vertical offerings however, are advised to be flavors rather than absolute fits.

Interface Software is a part of those specialized CRM vendors that accept gone out of their way to accept able casework business processes and their specific needs. For law firms, Interface Software provides appearance that bout the way attorneys allotment their advice and serve their clients.

Interface Software is a advertiser in the able casework CRM amplitude with vertical functionality targeted to banking services, legal, administration consulting, accounting and added relationship-based industries.The abstraction of chump accord or accord business is not new, but some professions accept advised it to be added or beneath accompanying to the attributes of their business. Accordingly, acceptable affluence 500 companies including banks, Telco's, retailers and manufacturers were a part of the aboriginal advantageous organizations to allure the absorption of the CRM vendors. With the barring of banking services, the absorption of CRM vendors is alive and the account bazaar is acceptable their new centermost of attention. Worldwide CRM casework are accepted to abound by about 18% and adeptness abutting to $45 billion by 2006. The casework bazaar is crowded, antagonism is fierce. Able casework now accept the charge for CRM aesthetics and applications.

But not continued ago, professions such as attorneys and doctors didn't see themselves as affairs entities - they were professionals and audience came to them. Those professionals accept beheld their profession as aloft the bartering affray of barter and they advance ethics such as accessible service, account on the base of charge rather than adeptness to pay and citizenship.

Increasingly they are award it tougher to win new audience and accumulate absolute ones through added antagonism and abounding added factors. Now the acumen is alive and even vendors are actively targeting the bazaar of able casework calm with abounding new verticals. It is not yet bright whether this change in account ambiance and the growing action for CRM is the aftereffect of a crumbling CRM bazaar or the actuality that vendors are added business to those new territories. Nonetheless, the aftereffect has angry to be rather absolute to the account of their customers.

The charge for CRM in Law Firms is now able-bodied accustomed and systems accept emerged to advice them accumulate clue of absolute and accessible clients, bazaar to them, and clue the action adjoin business won. As the adeptness of the bazaar changes and the abeyant for alteration antagonism increases, the charge to accept the belief by which audience accept their able casework and appraise their achievement with the account artefact becomes imperative.

Professional Services Are Catching-up With CRM

The CRM bazaar is shifting. Instead of searching for an advantageous and accumbent aggressive CRM application, barter are gluttonous a added specialized and industry specific tool. From the beyond alignment to the aboriginal customers, CRM buyers are assured their applications to chase their business archetypal with bound charge for customization. As the all-embracing casework bazaar is projected to abound decidedly by 2006, vendors accept a adeptness to baby this alcove added than ever.

Illinois-based Interface Software, one of the few CRM appliance providers that accept acerb focused on the able casework market, faces challenges inherent in traveling for a alcove market. The claiming for a alcove amateur adjoin broader ambit providers is not alone to actuate that its alcove bazaar will embrace its technology but aswell that the all-embracing abeyant is ample abundant to sustain approaching development.

Since 1996 the Oak Brook, Illinois-based Interface Software, Inc. has been an important amateur in Accord Intelligence solutions for the $500 Billion able casework industry. Interface Software addresses the CRM needs of able account firms such as accounting, banking services, administration consulting and legal. Specifically, these firms advantage experience, adeptness and relationships to bazaar services. During a contempo account with Rick Klau Vice-President vertical bazaar and John Lipsey Director of communications, TEC was able to appraise Interface's bazaar action and InterAction, the latest adaptation of the company's market-leading CRM band-aid for able casework organizations. InterAction is internet-enabled, acceptance professionals to appearance advice about they choose. For added advice amuse appointment Interface Software's website at: www.interfacesoftware.com

The abstraction of chump accord or accord business is not new, but some professions accept advised it to be added or beneath accompanying to the attributes of their business. Accordingly, acceptable affluence 500 companies including banks, Telco's, retailers and manufacturers were a part of the aboriginal advantageous organizations to allure the absorption of the CRM vendors. With the barring of banking services, the absorption of CRM vendors is alive and the account bazaar is acceptable their new centermost of attention. Worldwide CRM casework are accepted to abound by about 18% and adeptness abutting to $45 billion by 2006. The casework bazaar is crowded, antagonism is fierce. Able casework now accept the charge for CRM aesthetics and applications.

But not continued ago, professions such as attorneys and doctors didn't see themselves as affairs entities - they were professionals and audience came to them. Those professionals accept beheld their profession as aloft the bartering affray of barter and they advance ethics such as accessible service, account on the base of charge rather than adeptness to pay and citizenship.

Increasingly they are award it tougher to win new audience and accumulate absolute ones through added antagonism and abounding added factors. Now the acumen is alive and even vendors are actively targeting the bazaar of able casework calm with abounding new verticals. It is not yet bright whether this change in account ambiance and the growing action for CRM is the aftereffect of a crumbling CRM bazaar or the actuality that vendors are added business to those new territories. Nonetheless, the aftereffect has angry to be rather absolute to the account of their customers.

The charge for CRM in Law Firms is now able-bodied accustomed and systems accept emerged to advice them accumulate clue of absolute and accessible clients, bazaar to them, and clue the action adjoin business won. As the adeptness of the bazaar changes and the abeyant for alteration antagonism increases, the charge to accept the belief by which audience accept their able casework and appraise their achievement with the account artefact becomes imperative.

Will Adonix Provide A Warmer Home To CIMPRO

In the year apparent by black account advancing from about all corners of the apple abridgement and decidedly from the tech sector, which has aswell resulted in a contempo flurry of acquisitions (often for ridiculously low prices), it may be auspicious to apprehend an upbeat strategy, including the Xmas-shopping-like acquisition, advancing from still a almost beneath known, but absolutely advancing vendor.

On December 19, Adonix (www.adonix.com), a abreast captivated French action applications provider for mid-sized mixed-mode accomplishment and administration companies, appear that it has acquired CIMPRO, a Tarrytown, NY accessory of MAI Systems Corporation (NASDAQ: NOW), a provider of business solutions primarily to the accommodation industry. Adonix will reportedly accept all CIMPRO employees, net assets, technology (including flagship CIMPRO V action ERP product), and acknowledged rights to all 250 barter and business partners. The bell-ringer believes the aggregate of its X3 flagship ERP band-aid (primarily for detached manufacturers) and CIMPRO V will accompany to the bequest backup bazaar a able alms tailored for specific action industries such as the chemical, biologic and aliment & cooler sectors. CIMPRO, continuing for Computer Chip Accomplishment for Process, is accurately advised to abode the needs of these action industries.

In the abbreviate term, Adonix affairs to advance the CIMPRO blueprint administration engine and amalgamate it with the blow of Adonix X3 and absolution it as an Adonix CIMPRO action accomplishment solution, with the availability envisioned for the end of Q2 2003. The bell-ringer believes this will affected some of the challenges that accept continued bound the marketability of the antecedent CIMPRO products. Long-term, however, the bell-ringer intends to accommodate CIMPRO V into the absolute Adonix X3 framework, admitting with no close timeframe yet. In the meantime, Adonix assures those CIMPRO barter who would like to just accomplish the abstruse bound from the aged CIMPRO Classic to CIMPRO V adaptation will still accept the advantage to do so. The bell-ringer is aswell reportedly acceptable the Adonix CIMPRO aliment arrangement to abetment those who would like to accomplish the bound from earlier CIMPRO systems to a newer option.

The CIMPRO acquirement carefully follows Adonix' acquirement of Groupe ABEL in September (see Adonix Grows Roots Against The Odds ), the a lot of contempo in a alternation of acquisitions that began seven years ago. Adonix has back acquired four added software vendors for their assets and ability and has melded the best of their capabilities into an chip action software framework for mid-market companies.

Adonix recognizes that mid-market companies crave absolutely chip enterprise-wide software solutions that accommodate both beyond and abyss of functionality on a avant-garde abstruse belvedere and at an affordable price. Thus, to accompaniment its antecedent solution, which focused mainly on finance/accounting and administration for the lower-end of the mid-market, Adonix has acquired a bulk of companies during the endure few years. In 1998, it acquired the software aggregation GSI Transcomm, a US provider of administration and banking applications alleged TOLAS, which had offices both in Pittsburgh and Tarrytown.

Adonix started afterlight its band-aid in 1997 afterwards the aboriginal above accretion (Prodstar, a French accomplishment ERP provider) and appear the aboriginal adaptation of Adonix X3 in backward 1999. Accepted as a artefact development company, Adonix has afresh kept on carrying aural the X3 versions 1.3 and 1.34 the chip CRM modules and built-in Web extensions. With this accretion and the ones that preceded it пїЅ i.e., Prodstar, TOLAS, Geode CLE128 (warehouse administration system) and ABEL (fixed assets administration product) -- Adonix ability be positioned as an adorable another for mid-sized companies.

On the aforementioned day, Adonix appear that it has fabricated cogent enhancements to Adonix X3 that bolster its barn administration arrangement (WMS) and abstracts accumulating capabilities. Adonix X3's new WMS appearance include:

* Directed Put-away to adapted accumulator locations by radio-frequency (RF) scanning according to factors such as account velocity, weight, ambit and alliance rules

* Palletized Acrimonious and Consolidated Shipping, including RF analysis and abduction of bassinet and accession identifications

* Pick Planning and Scheduling, including directed acrimonious for individual shipments or groups of shipments, based on barn location

* Barn Activity Tracking to accommodate activity ability and appliance advertisement to management

This comes at the heels of Adonix' contempo rollout of a new abstracts accumulating bore advised to advice barn and boutique attic operations by communicating with manufacturing, administration and accounting functions. Adonix Abstracts Accumulating gathers abstracts anon from automatic ascribe accessories beyond operational areas, verifies its accuracy, and passes abstracts to Adonix X3 for actual update. It aswell controls all prompts on accumulating devices, manages the absolute arrangement of devices, and ensures that abstracts is adored during arrangement downtime. Moreover, in accession to accouterment acceptable extended-ERP functionality aural the X3 software, chip abstracts collection, barcode characterization management, and abounding accomplishing services, Adonix aswell provides abstracts accumulating accessories bogus by arch accouterments vendors including Intermec.

Last but not least, aswell on November 19, Adonix apparent a new three-tiered accomplishing affairs aimed at allowance mid-sized companies absolutely accouter their business with ERP software in a timeframe that reportedly exceeds the industry benchmarks. Depending on the admeasurement and the anatomy of the organization, and on its centralized resources, Adonix touts it can apparatus an ERP affairs in as little as two to three months. Possibly battling the accustomed accumulation customization analogue of afresh absolutely acknowledged coffee franchises (e.g., Starbucks), Adonix now offers three audible accomplishing flavors that alter in casework based on the assets accessible and the adapted timeframe. These three models include:

* Adonix eXpresso is for small-to-midsize audience with up to 25 circumstantial users that crave accepted functionality and a fast accomplishing timeframe. Implementations can be completed in as little as two to three months.

* Adonix Cappuccino is for companies with 25 to 75 circumstantial users that crave mostly accepted ERP functionality but some added adaptability in capricious the software parameters. Cappuccino implementations can be completed in as little as four to six months.

* Adonix Latte is advised for beyond midsized audience with added than 75 circumstantial users that accept added adult anatomic and abstruse requirements and whose accomplishing requires a cogent bulk of activity management. Implementations in this accumulation about yield added than six months.

NetSuite CRM+ versus Salesforce.com

NetSuite aspires to be a single-source provider of fully-integrated business solutions, whereas saleforce.com seeks to offer pre-integrated best-of-breed business applications from multiple vendors.

NetSuite aspires to become the Oracle or SAP of the mid-market segment. It wants to be the main choice of enterprises looking for a single-source provider of a fully integrated suite of accounting, e-commerce, and CRM solutions. Zach Nelson, NetSuite's chief executive officer (CEO) recently noted that "such applications have been previously available only to the world's largest companies. NetSuite gives that power to small and medium enterprises (SME) at a price they can afford and with the ease of use they require."

Salesforce.com on the other hand, aspires to be the leader in the second approach to application integration, purveying pre-integrated best-of-breed business applications from multiple vendors. To support this strategic approach, salesforce.com has developed and released a new application-sharing service, AppExchange.

With AppExchange, salesforce.com is attempting to accomplish something that hasn't been practical or cost-effective in the past. Namely, it wants to provide a service that allows companies to find, try, buy, and install a variety of useful pre-integrated business applications (in this case, on-demand applications) with just a few "clicks" of a mouse.

Marc Benioff, salesforce.com's CEO noted during the Dreamforce '05 user conference that

The AppExchange is the world's first on-demand application sharing service. It's [a] new on-line center where salesforce.com subscribers, partners, and developers can share their on-demand applications for everything from tracking purchasing, recruiting, accounting, industry-specific applications, and beyond. Best of all, it will make finding and installing new on-demand applications as easy as downloading a song or buying a book on-line.

The third approach to CRM application integration is to use the tools provided by the CRM vendor for customizing, extending, and integrating its application with other third-party or legacy business applications. These tools typically include tools for customizing the database, form views, and reports; Java applets and Active X controls for use in creating dynamic links to other Web services; and Web services to facilitate the integration with other systems.

Summary

One of the first things you should do when considering a new CRM implementation is to evaluate the existing technologies and systems that are currently in place.

We believe that every business should start out by understanding that their CRM system(s) and their ERP and accounting system(s) ultimately need to be integrated. The only question is how this integration will come about.

In this article, we briefly discussed the three approaches to CRM application integration; determining which approach is best for any given enterprise should be a key component of the CRM evaluation and selection process and one which requires thorough analysis by experienced IT and business management personnel along with a CRM industry/product expert.

CRM Evaluation Considerations

As discussed in Comparing On-demand Customer Relationship Management Service Alternatives, there are three categories that CRM functionality tends to fall under: non-core functionality; vertical, industry-specific features; and accounting related features. Users need to be aware of the potential issues that may arise from these features. For example, non-core functionality that is not used by the enterprise can negatively impact usability, industry-specific functionality may impair customization, and standalone solutions with accounting features may be difficult to integrate with a back-office accounting system.

In this article we'll explore one of the key differences between the salesforce.com service (a standalone CRM solution) and the NetSuite CRM+ service (a fully-integrated business solution/CRM application integration.

CRM Application Integration

There are three approaches that a company can consider with regard to CRM application integration:

* invest in a fully integrated business solution (enterprise resource planning [ERP] or accounting, operations, and CRM) from a single technology vendor,

* invest in a variety of pre-integrated best-of-breed business applications from multiple vendors, or

* use the CRM solution's integration tools to manually integrate the CRM solution with a variety of desired or already existing legacy systems.

The first option involves purchasing a fully integrated business suite from a single software vendor. This vendor would offer the marketing, sales, customer service, accounting, e-commerce, web site management, etc. functionality needed in a fully-integrated suite of software modules.

The big industry players also recognize the impact of fully integrated suites in the market. Recently, the founder of Siebel, Tom Siebel, talked about the market impact of integration in terms of Oracle's acquisition of Siebel. "What really brought this (Oracle's acquisition of Siebel) together was a shift in market dynamics," Siebel said in a recent conference call. "Businesses are no longer interested in connecting standalone applications (like Siebel's CRM applications) and want integrated business suites from a single vendor."

It's clear that both Oracle and SAP support the notion that the integration of CRM into broader suites of business applications (including accounting, supply chain management, and other horizontal and vertical operational systems) is appealing to many Fortune 2000 companies.

But how important is a comprehensive suite of business applications from a single vendor to small and medium companies?

That's one of the primary areas where a fully integrated business suite like NetSuite and a standalone CRM solution like salesforce.com have very different go-to-market strategies.

Integrating Customer Relationship Management through Software As A Service

According to the research firm Gartner, in the past year alone, more then $3.5 billion (USD) was spent on new customer relationship management (CRM) software licenses, but the top four CRM vendors (SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, and Oracle) accounted for only 38 percent of this total CRM revenue.

Part two of the Comparing On Demand Customer Relationship Management Service Alternatives series.

So, despite Oracle's CRM buying spree (including its acquisition of PeopleSoft and its planned acquisition of Siebel), when all is said and done, the combined CRM market share controlled by Oracle in 2004 will be a mere 21 percent, while SAP controls approximately 17 percent of the market.

In other words, 62 percent of the total CRM market is being served, not by the on-premise, full-suite CRM "big three" (soon to be the "big two") vendors, but by smaller vendors, including those that support the software as a service (SaaS) model, and vendors that specialize in best-of-breed offerings for specific CRM functions and industries.

The demand for CRM SaaS offerings has been booming according to IDC. This trend should continue for the foreseeable future.

Although at present, on-demand CRM applications make up a small segment of the overall CRM market, throughout 2004 and 2005 the demand for CRM SaaS offerings has been booming. IDC, a global market intelligence firm, has projected that the SaaS market will to grow to $10.7 billion (USD) by 2009, and will likely continue to grow in the foreseeable future.

In fact, salesforce.com, the industry's leading on-demand CRM service, grew its new subscription sales by 84 percent in 2004 and they anticipate approximately $300 million (USD) in revenue for 2005.

To put this growth in perspective, most of saleforce.com's revenue comes from subscriptions, not from professional services or maintenance fees. Accordingly, when its projected 2005 revenue of $300 million (USD) is compared to SAP's 2004 license revenue of $525 million (USD) (as estimated by AMR Research) there's little doubt that salesforce.com is rapidly gaining market share.

The software on-demand delivery model is helping to reinvigorate the software industry and turns an attentive ear to customer needs and wants.

Industry experts see software on-demand and SaaS having a pronounced market presence in the future. According to Erin Traudt, IDC's SaaS research analyst, "The software on-demand delivery model is helping to reinvigorate the software industry and turns an attentive ear to customer needs and wants � Ultimately, customers want their business problems solved and the on-demand model provides another option to help accomplish that important and necessary feat."

"The SaaS category has changed the whole perception of customer management with faster implementations, quicker time to value, and easy customization." Rob Bois

Likewise, Rob Bois, a senior research analyst with AMR Research notes that "the software as a service category has changed the whole perception of customer management with faster implementations, quicker time to value, and easy customization."

What's more, it appears that rising stars like salesforce.com and NetSuite, which support the CRM SaaS model, have a unique window of opportunity while SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft get their product strategies together.

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.

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.

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.

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

Informatica Goes Multinational With Support for Unicode

This new functionality strengthens Informatica's global reach by enabling resellers and distributors around the world to convert Informatica software to any major language for resale in their local markets. Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, one of Japan's leading technology companies, helped complete the conversion of Informatica software to support Kanji and has already sold licenses to some of Japan's largest companies.

"The globalization of our products is an important milestone for Informatica as it strengthens our ability to build market share around the globe," said Diaz Nesamoney, president of Informatica. "The upgraded version will enable both large companies based solely overseas as well as U.S. customers with multi-national operations to adopt Informatica software. As our customers expand their e-business operations globally, they can continue to leverage Informatica to maintain a similar competitive advantage on a worldwide scale."

PowerCenter, PowerMart, PowerConnect for SAP R/3, and PowerConnect for PeopleSoft have been enhanced to support the Unicode standard, a universal character-encoding scheme that defines a consistent method for encoding multilingual text.

Unicode enables the exchange of text data internationally and creates the foundation for global software. The recognized standard technology for internationalization worldwide, Unicode currently enables the conversion of all major languages of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Asia, and the Pacific Basin."
Internationalization of data movement products via Unicode support is becoming critically important to a vendor's ability to compete in the market. Multi-national corporations will not be satisfied with support for only the North American code pages (code pages 850 and 437). Multi-byte support is crucial for the accurate exchange of international data streams.

Unicode is a superset of the ASCII character set that uses two bytes for each character rather than one. Able to handle 65,536 character combinations rather than just 256, it can house the alphabets of most of the world's languages. ISO (the International Standards Organization) defines a four-byte character set for world alphabets, but also uses Unicode as a subset. (For information, visit www.unicode.org.)