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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / AUGUST 4, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 31
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Systems/Enterprise:
FIRSTWAVE ANNOUNCES V10.0 OF CRM
SOLUTION, BUILT ON .NET
Firstwave Technologies Inc announced the newest version of its Web-based
CRM
Suite, Firstwave Version 10, which is built on .NET architecture. Firstwave
v.10 features an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), which is designed
to decrease total cost of ownership and improve customer responsiveness. This
decrease is achieved by enabling business analysts or similar resources to
quickly develop and deploy customized CRM applications that fit changing
business models and needs. Firstwave v.10 focuses on the critical need to
leverage legacy systems for quicker integration and implementation by
connecting to multiple data sources using a built-in business objects layer.
This business object layer can be utilized with or without more expensive
enterprise application integration software.
The Firstwave IDE and Firstwave v.10 CRM Suite are built on Microsoft .NET
architecture, which provides increased scalability, performance and robust
support for Web services. Firstwave's .NET-centric CRM solution provides the
level of interoperability required to meet individual customer needs for
flexibility and customization. Built on open Internet standards and protocol,
the .NET architecture is being widely adopted across the enterprise spectrum
and facilitates simplified deployment and management of enterprise
solutions.
"Lowering total cost of ownership and improving a company's ability to
respond
to market demands are twin quests of the CRM marketplace," said Denis
Pombriant, vice president and CRM research director at Aberdeen Group.
"Firstwave's strategy of being among the first to leverage Microsoft's .NET
architecture catapults the company to the forefront in CRM design and
efficiency."
Generating Revenue Opportunities with Lower Total Cost of Ownership
A defining characteristic of today's CRM market is its constant state of
evolution. As the enterprise identifies new sources of revenue, all
customer-interfacing resources and systems must be able to easily assist in
identifying and capitalizing on these opportunities without incurring
significant cost.
Using the Firstwave IDE, business analysts as well as IT professionals can
swiftly respond to changing business needs by customizing the CRM solution,
managing business flows and comprehensively managing data. Unlike competing
solutions, which are comprised of multiple, complex development tools, the
Firstwave IDE provides enterprises with a single, intuitive tool that enables
the enterprise to meet current customer and market demands in a timely
manner.
The intuitive environment of the Firstwave IDE allows the business analyst
to
create applications by graphically dragging and dropping objects. This ease of
use means enterprises can quickly develop customized, enterprise-level
applications, without having to rely solely on the use of more expensive
programmers.
Richard Brock, chairman and CEO of Firstwave, stated: "Most CRM products
come
with a toolset that allows business users to make minor changes to appearance,
field names or other negligible aspects, but require a programmer to make any
business logic changes to the system. Built as a workflow or graphical
business process modeler, rather than attempting to "bolt on" workflow
functionality, the Firstwave IDE is designed for business analysts, who are
close to the day-to-day business processes. Combined with the increased
scalability and performance of .NET architecture, the Firstwave v.10 solution
allows companies to decrease their total cost of ownership for CRM and get
applications that are designed to serve current business purposes, up and
running quickly."
Firstwave's solution consists of four basic solution modules: First-Market,
First-Sales, First-Service and First-Contact Center. The solution is easily
customizable to accommodate other functionality that pertains to enterprise's
specific needs. The Firstwave v.10 solution provides the following
functionality:
- First-Market supports true closed loop marketing processes that
efficiently
pass "hot" leads to the appropriate staff and automatically creates a schedule
for follow-up, thus helping hard won interest become realized business. By
helping users capture and evaluate both the quality and the quantity of
marketing knowledge gained during a campaign, users are able to quickly
identify key trends and new markets. This leads to marketing campaigns that
are cost effective and show results.
- First-Sales gives salespeople an advantage by providing a collaborative
environment where the right information is shared, at the right time, with the
right people. With the introduction of the Firstwave IDE, companies can
further support the changing needs and demands of sales staff by quickly
delivering customized applications that improve how knowledge is accessed and
entered. The Firstwave v.10 solution adapts easily to existing sales process,
providing business continuity and supporting individual business
processes.
- First-Service provides companies with a better understanding of client
needs by giving them access to complete account histories and powerful
reporting and analytics. Customer service representatives can identify new
revenue-generating opportunities in a timely manner by keeping track of
maintenance and service agreements and cross- and up-selling opportunities.
The Firstwave IDE enables companies to develop customized applications that
improve how knowledge is accessed and entered, as well as allowing companies
to quickly create customer-feedback mechanisms, such as surveys and Web-based
interaction. In addition, the Firstwave IDE supports the integration of
disparate systems to provide a complete view of a customer's history in a
time-sensitive context.
- First-Contact Center allows contact center staff to deal with inbound,
outbound and non-calling activities, while tracking call histories and average
response times. First-Contact Center enables the timely discovery of
revenue-generating sales, marketing and service opportunities through a
variety of communication mechanisms, including telephone, Web, e-mail,
Digital-TV and SMS.
"Most CRM applications provide only limited workflow functionality, and the
ones that do rarely provide a visual representation of the business process,"
said Marsha Calfee, vice president of product management for Firstwave. "The
Firstwave IDE enables business analyst level employees to graphically drag and
drop an application template, while using .NET to manage the underlying data.
In this workflow design environment, a business analyst can design or alter a
process on the screen using a visual drag and drop metaphor."
While the Firstwave IDE is primarily being targeted as a CRM tool, it can
also
be used to extend the functionality and usability of other enterprise business
applications or line of business applications. Firstwave is currently engaged
with several of its customers on the introduction of its IDE and the migration
of their application to Firstwave v.10.
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