Client Tracking Software

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dexter Gordon's 1978 set Live At Carnegie Hall. Great music, but sad to hear his in-between talking to the audience, the man sounds so completely baked. Amazing that it doesn't affect his playing any, but then again Keith Richards used to go out on stage with the Stones strung out on heroin and not hit a wrong note: NetSuite has announced a new version of NetSuite OneWorld for large SAP enterprise customers "at the divisional level," while retaining their current SAP on-premise systems at the corporate level.

Officials of NetSuite say that with the new version, "large SAP legacy accounts can now use NetSuite's on-demand application to manage business operations," and roll up division-level transaction and summary data. Key to NetSuite OneWorld for SAP is a new integration offering called SuiteCloud Connect for SAP, which lets SAP users roll up data to their SAP system at the corporate level and any data that was captured and used in NetSuite OneWorld at the divisional level, such as general ledger, order and revenue information.

This new offering is a pretty clear indication that NetSuite sees a huge market opportunity -- namely, large enterprises seeking to control costs and gain greater efficiencies across processes who are tired of the high price tags on corporate implementations which don't deliver what the enterprise is expecting. NetSuite's betting that they'll be in the market for more malleable, customizable and flexible software systems than those provided by the corporate parent company.

Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite, admits as much when he says "NetSuite OneWorld for SAP enables large companies to keep their investment in legacy business applications, while deploying a Web-based business application suite that reduces costs."

Bruce Richardson, Chief Research Officer at AMR Research, notes that with this offering, NetSuite is looking to exploit one of the gaps in SAP's strategy -- the lack of a cost-effective product for smaller sites -- by providing a way to link the hub and spokes via the new SuiteCloud Connect for SAP: "This is a product and services offering that allows SAP customers to roll up transactional data generated by NetSuite applications, including invoices, purchase orders, shipments, inventory adjustments, invoicing, and order and payment integration with point-of-sale systems," he explains. "NetSuite is positioning its product as more functional than SAP Business One and less expensive and complex than SAP Business All-in-One and the SAP Business Suite."

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Acteva, a vendor in the on-demand event registration, ticketing and payment management services space, and the Salesforce.com Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the CRM vendor, have announced Acteva's involvement in the Salesforce.com Foundation's "Power of Us" Partner Program. In addition to donating products and related services, Acteva's employees will continue to volunteer for nonprofit organizations, including activities organized by the foundation.

The foundation's objective, according to company officials, is to provide Salesforce.com partners with a vehicle for contributions to their communities "through a donation of time, equity, and products to nonprofits who need their expertise." Nonprofits such as the National Council on Aging are already using ActevaRSVP for Salesforce CRM. NCOA works with organizations across the country to help seniors find jobs and benefits, improve their health, live independently and remain active in their communities.

Acteva has developed two special nonprofit editions of ActevaRSVP to address event registration needs. The ActevaRSVP Nonprofit StarterPack Edition is $149.00 for a full year of service and includes one organizer user, one event per month and up to 5,000 e-mails per month. The ActevaRSVP Nonprofit Enterprise Edition, a discounted version of ActevaRSVP Enterprise, is $780.00 per year and includes up to five organizer users, an unlimited number of events per month, and up to 15,000 e-mails per month.

Both editions include unlimited event registrations and unlimited phone and email support.

Ed Lemire, Acteva's Executive Vice President, noted that forty percent of the company's 14,000 customers are nonprofits and associations.

The Salesforce.com Foundation mentors companies to successfully incorporate Salesforce.com's 1/1/1 integrated corporate philanthropy model -- 1 percent time, equity, or product -- under the rubric of trying to "do well, while doing good."

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Ireland's biggest bookmaker, Paddy Power, has implemented nGen E-mail from nGenera Customer Interaction Management. The bookie has also introduced live chat assistance on the Web site, powered by nGen Chat, to offer customers rapid and highly personalised responses to any query.

Paddy Power officials say nGen Email lets its agents "significantly reduce e-mail response times and improve the accuracy of information provided through e-mail management features, including intelligent routing rules that direct e-mails to the most appropriate agents, spell check and pre-written suggested responses."

Using nGen Chat, a single agent can hold up to six live assistance sessions simultaneously in order to handle customer queries in real time on the site. "As a result," company officials say, "customers no longer have to contact Paddy Power by telephone to check last minute information, such as the odds for a horse race just before the start."

First Coffee has some experience with Paddy Power, having attended the big-deal horse derby in Dublin a couple years ago, and hopes they appreciated his modest charitable donations.

The comprehensive reporting system within the nGenera CIM Suite is also providing Paddy Power's management team with a real-time view of its e-mail and live chat customer service, enabling the company to accurately measure Service Level Agreements and agent performance for the first time.

Darren Lovern, Online Operations Manager for Paddy Power, says it's a "strategic decision"to move more customer service online, "recognising that e-mail and chat can be highly effective and cost efficient communication channels."

Paddy Power officials say they're planning to integrate nGen Knowledgebase into customer service operations in Q1 2009. This should let any customer service agent log in and access information through a flexible portal "to ensure accuracy and consistency of responses across all channels."

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Argistics, a SaaS vendor of customer interaction products, has developed a Live Chat platform for company Web sites integrating video, audio (VoIP) and text chat along with content sharing, form sets, and on-the-fly video push. 

It allows multiple applications running from one platform, such as sales chat, help desk, and customer service, all running on the same sites. Each application is  customizable for either small or large businesses. 

Argistics officials say the platform's main advantage is that it lets users "expand and brand their chat applications for less, by moving live interactive chat to a cloud-powered environment." Waxing lyrical about the powers of the product, they claim the product lets users "break the chains of Windows-based servers and the limitations and costs that are associated with expanding business." Fellow workers... 

"The vision was not about developing a new chat application but about developing a platform that used chat for initial engagement, and then gave control to agents and reps to use the program to close sales faster by using their own materials and processes. That's what chat was designed to do," said Jeffrey Bennett, CEO and head developer at Argistics. "We are really excited about pushing chat to the next level." 

Saying the platform has been designed to complete sales transactions faster, and give customers "more information than can be provided by more traditional chat programs, Bennett said the platform is intended for a company "looking to sell more online with fewer resources." The company is based in Marietta, Georgia.