The 10 most disruptive crm solution providers 2018

October 2018
www.insightssuccess.com
Rory J. Cutaia
Founder, Chairman & CEO
Assisting Businesses
Achieve Their Sales
& Marketing Goals
Digital Transformation
- Shifting the Gears
of Energy Sector
CRM
uptIveDisr
CRMSolution
Providers
2018
MOST
THE
Digi-Talk
The Impressive Impact of
Organic Networking
Editor’s Pick

Leveraging CRM
for Awakening
the Reverence
in Businesses
ustomer is king in a world of business. In the commercial world we live in, the importance of
Cimproving the trust of existing customers and expanding business is absolutely essential. The
progress of any business is dependent on serving as many customers as possible.
The better businesses can manage the relationships with their customers the more successful businesses
will become. Without customers businesses are of no use. Happy Customers are the pillars on which
businesses thrive. Businesses have to accomplish the trust of customers by being productive and efficient
in delivering services that add value to the lives of customers. This is easier said than done. That is where
the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comes into picture, to figure out how to offer best possible
services to the customers and earn their trust and manage relationship with them.
CRM is a strategy to learn more about customers’ needs and behaviors in order to develop deeper
relationships with them. Having loyal customers and solid relationships with them is an essential condition
for maximum sales and maximum business growth.
The software used in CRM consolidates the information of the customer and their documents into a single
form of database so their business will become easier for them to handle. The advancement of CRM
technology, with the right management, helps delivering what the customer needs. CRM runs with the
goals of business owners to improve their business relationships, assist the retention of the customers and
the growth of the driving sales.
The essence of CRM is an all in one type centralized system which effectively manages, collects and
directs customer information, sales processes and marketing activities of organization, and enhancing
customer experience. CRM awakens the awe and reverence among customers for businesses by
contributing value to the lives of the customers.
October 2018
www.insightssuccess.com
Rory J. Cutaia
Assisting Businesses
Achieve Their Sales
& Marketing Goals
Digital Transformation
- Shifting the Gears
of Energy Sector
CRM
uptIveDisr
CRMSolution Providers 2018
MOST
THE
Digi-Talk
The Impressive Impact of
Organic Networking
Editor’s Pick

CRM modifies their business operations to ensure that customers are served in the best possible way.
Essentially, CRM helps businesses to recognize the value of its customers and to build on improved
customer relations.
Competent CRM adapts according to the changing times and it does whatever it takes to add value to
the customers and in turn earn the trust and confidence of customers. The value CRM adds to the
industry and businesses is priceless. The more the businesses take advantage of an efficient CRM the
more businesses are benefitted in general because of the precious service that CRM offers to the
customers of businesses. Therefore using CRM in any organization for the successful businesses is
prerequisite for any organization.
Considering CRM’s vital importance in the world of business, Insights Success has curated the list of
“The 10 Most Disruptive CRM Solution Providers 2018” which have added value to the solutions
of various organizations and helped them to offer best possible services to their customers.
Featuring as our Cover Story, nFusz is a SaaS applications developer and services provider,
marketing cloud-based, interactive video business software products, offered on a subscription basis.
This issue highlights the efforts of some disruptive companies including Avertra, a global integration
services, product development and consultancy organization focused on the energy and utilities
industry; Capitan specializes in developing and applying organizational workflow solutions and
services for a variety of constructional, industrial & commercial organizations; Cirrus Shield is the
plug and play, extensible CRM to manage businesses; Pipelinersales Inc. is the next-generation
CRM software that uses unique visual tools to help salespeople interact with and improve their sales
pipeline; Salpo Technologies a platform connecting people, data, processes and systems to achieve
desired goals; SPI Software which excels at solutions for key players in the furniture business;
Voicent Communications, a US-based company aspires to eliminate the communication gap
between companies and its management.
The magazine also features worth read articles from some industry leaders and our in-house editorial
team. Don’t miss them as well.
Let’s flip, shall we?
Kedar Kulkarni

Contents
nFuszAssisting Businesses Achieve
Their Sales & Marketing Goals
08
Points to Remember
Before Investing
in a CRM Software
The Future of CRM
is in your Inbox
Articles
Editor’s Pick
The Impressive
Impact of Organic
Networking
Digi-Talk
Digital Transformation-
Shifting the Gears
of Energy Sector
18
46
24
32
Cover Story

Avertra:
Disrupting Utilities
Industry Globally
Capitán:
Solidifying Innovative
Manufacturing Processes
Cirrus Shield:
The Next-Generation
CRM Platform
Commence
Corporation:
Leading Provider of
Customer Relationship
Management Software
Pipelinersales:
A Valuable Sales
Enablement Tool
Salpo
Technologies:
Pushing the Boundaries
SPI Software:
Data for the
Furniture Business
Voicent:
The Effortless
CRM Powered by
Communication Tools
20
28
36
42
22
30
38
44

sales@insightssuccess.com
Corporate Ofces:
October, 2018
Database Management Stella Andrew
Technology Consultant David Stokes
Circulation Managers Robert, Tanaji
Research Analyst Patrick James
Steve, Joe, Alan, Vishal
Anish MillerManaging Editor
Art & Design Director Amol Kamble
Associate Designer Nagesh Tembhekar
Visualiser David King
Senior Sales Manager Passi D.
Business Development Executives
Marketing Manager John Matthew
Jenny FernandesAssistant Editors
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Sales Executives
David, Kevin, Mark, Manish
SME-SMO Executives
Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Prasad
Online Marketing Strategists
Alina Sege, Shubham, Vishal
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Technical Head Jacob Smile
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Executive Editor
Contributing Editors
Abhishaj Sajeev
Hitesh Dhamani
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal
Kedar Kulkarni

Assisting Businesses Achieve
Their Sales & Marketing Goals
nFusz:
nFusz’s notiﬁCRM application
creates new customer engagement
while other CRMs only track
existing customer engagement.‘‘

Rory J. Cutaia

In today’s business environment, competition for
customers has never been greater. In order to compete
for customers effectively, businesses need an edge.
They need to distinguish themselves from the competition
by adopting a strategy that not only allows them to stand-
out, but does so in a way that is engaging. Gone are the
days when businesses could communicate their value
proposition through lengthy, detailed emails, letters,
brochures, or through cold calling. To engage customers
today, you need to communicate with them in the way that
they prefer to consume information – not just your
information – but all information. And that’s through video.
Video has become the preferred method of consuming
information, including sales and marketing information. In
fact, businesses that are not using video in their sales and
marketing are truly missing out. Yet, the customer
relationship management (CRM) software programs on the
market today don’t utilize video in their platforms – that is,
all except one: notifiCRM by nFusz, Inc.
An Interactive Video-based CRM Platform
nFusz’s flagship product, notifiCRM, is a CRM application
that is distinguishable from other CRM programs, as it not
only incorporates and leverages the power of video, but
takes it to an entirely new level. notifiCRM utilizes
interactive video as the primary means of communication
between sales and marketing professionals and their
respective customers and prospects. notifiCRM allows its
users to create, distribute, and post interactive videos that
contain on-screen interactive icons, buttons, and other
elements, that when clicked, allow their customers and
prospects to respond to its users’ call to action in real-time,
in the video, while the video is playing, without leaving or
stopping the video. Users can even add interactive elements
to their existing sales and marketing videos quickly and
easily. notifiCRM users report higher engagement rates as
well as increased sales conversion rates compared to
traditional, static, non-interactive video. And unlike other

CRM products on the market today that only ‘track’
customer engagement, notifiCRM’s interactive video sales
and marketing tool actually ‘creates’ customer engagement.
nFusz developed the proprietary interactive video
technology that serves as the basis for its cloud, Software-
as-a-Service (“SaaS”) products and services, which it offers
on a subscription basis. And with pricing packages starting
as low as $9.99 per month, notifiCRM is affordable by any
sales or marketing professional. Their products are
accessible, and the videos are viewable and clickable on all
mobile and desktop devices, and no download is required.
Introducing… ‘Augmented Sales Intelligence’
Augmented Intelligence or “AI” is becoming more than just
a phrase permeating current tech vernacular. More and
more business leaders are recognizing the competitive
advantages AI will provide, especially in the context of
customer communications. At the leading edge of
technological innovation, nFusz has not only coined the
phrase Augmented Sales Intelligence, but they have built
tools, features and functionality into their notifiCRM
product that truly act to augment and enhance the skills of
any salesperson, whether an experienced professional or a
novice. notifiCRM users have access to detailed, yet easy to
understand analytics data in the application dashboard. The
dashboard reflects when the videos were viewed, by whom,
how many times, for how long, and what interactive
elements were clicked-on in the video, among other things.
Through this simple and easy to understand dashboard that
identifies which clients or prospects watched the videos,
notifiCRM users are able to focus their sales and marketing
efforts on those prospects that have demonstrated an interest
in the subject matter of the video.
Moreover, in many cases the interactive videos, with
clickable “buy-it-now” buttons right in the videos, actually
do the selling with little to no intervention on the part of the
salesperson required. As a result, sales and marketing
professionals are able to produce and close more sales and
generate more revenue in less time. Businesses report lower
attrition rates, lower recruitment costs, lower client
acquisition costs, lower training costs, and heathier bottom
lines.
Upcoming versions of notifiCRM will include additional
augmented sales intelligence features such as the ability to
deliver follow-up videos and other information to
customers and prospects automatically based on the way
they interact and engage with the videos, including such
innovations as tracking, recording, and analyzing where a
viewer may have paused, or even hovered their mouse in a
video, and applying algorithms to that data to predict
viewer behavior, including the ability to predict the
likelihood of closing that particular lead.
The notifiCRM platform can accommodate any size
campaign or sales organization, and it is enterprise-class
scalable to meet the needs of today’s global organizations.
nFusz offers stand-alone versions of its notifiCRM product
on a subscription basis to individual consumers, sales-based
organizations, consumer brands, marketing and advertising
agencies, as well as to artists and social influencers. It also
offers notifiCRM through a network of partners and
resellers that include Oracle/NetSuite, Marketo, and Odoo,
among others who offer notifiCRM to their respective
clients and customers as an upgrade or add-on to their
existing subscriptions. The company is actively developing
integrations of notifiCRM into other popular marketing,
CRM, and Enterprise Resource Management (ERP)
platforms.
Thinking Outside the CRM Box
The power of interactive video for sales and marketing
applications is undeniable, but nFusz has not only identified
applications for its technology beyond sales and marketing,
it has already developed innovative new products for the
healthcare and education sectors. Its notifiMED application
is designed for physicians and other healthcare providers to
create more efficient and effective interactive

communications with patients. Patients are able to avoid
unnecessary and inconvenient visits to their physicians’ or
other healthcare providers’ offices by viewing and
responding to interactive videos through in-video, on-
screen clicks that are designed to assess the patients’ need
for an office visit. If the patient’s responses to the
interactive video indicate that an office visit is either
necessary or desirable, the patient can schedule the office
visit through the video in real time. Patients can also
download and print prescription information, care
instructions, and other physician distributed documents
right from and through the video.
Its notifiEDU application is designed for teachers and
school administrators for more effective communications
with students, parents, and faculty. notifiEDU allows
teachers to deliver interactive lessons to students which are
both more engaging and more effective. It also allows
teachers to communicate with students through their mobile
devices and laptop computers to deliver lessons and
tests/quizzes on the screen and in the video. The analytics
capabilities of notifiEDU available on the dashboard of the
teacher or school administrator allows them to track which
students watched the lesson, when, for how long, how many
times, and track and report on test/quiz results.
nFusz’s notifiTV and notifiLIVE products are also part of
its proprietary interactive video platform. These
applications allow viewers to interact with pre-recorded as
well as live broadcast video content by clicking on links
embedded on-screen in people’s attire, in sponsors’
products, and other objects, graphics, or sponsors’ signage
in the video. Viewers can experience interactive content and
capabilities of notifiTV and notifiLIVE on most devices
available in the market today without the need to download
special software or proprietary video players.
Exemplifying the Spirit of Innovation
Rory J. Cutaia, Founder, Chairman and CEO, is the
visionary behind nFusz with an impressive track record of
disrupting established industries through technological
innovation. Rory began his career as an attorney at a major
NYC law firm, representing world renowned entrepreneurs.
Rory left the practice of law to change the landscape of the
telecom industry through a tech company start-up he
founded called Telx. Over the course of only 6 years, Telx
became the internationally recognized leader in the data
center/carrier interconnection sector by creating the de facto
standard, still used even today, by which the world’s
telecom carriers interconnect to one another to distribute
and share data traffic globally. Telx was sold for more than
$200 Million to a prominent Palo Alto private equity firm
after a highly competitive bidding process, in which Rory
returned more than 18 times invested capital to his
investors. Telx was recently sold again for $1.9 Billion.
Rory brings that same innovator spirit and drive to nFusz.
One of Rory’s quotes that very aptly sums up his approach
to innovation is “To deliver true innovation, we must focus
not on what is possible - but on what is not yet possible.”
Rory encourages his management team to think beyond pre-
conceived boundaries and not simply accept things as they
are, but instead envision them as they can be and then
develop and execute a plan to make it so. His team is
encouraged to explore and develop their own otherwise
unknown, unrealized potential, rewarding them for
demonstrated initiative and innovation, while keeping them
We’ve redefined
what engagement
means in today’s
video-centric
business and
social environment.
‘‘

keenly focused on the company’s business plans and
objectives.
Additionally, Rory is actively involved in many charitable
endeavors. He founded the US Chapter of Innocence in
Danger, a global organization dedicated to the protection
and rehabilitation of children who have been victims of
trafficking. He is also a former member of the Board of
Trustees of The New York Institute of Technology and the
Board of Trustees of the American Shakespeare Center.
The Plan to Create Stockholder Value
Rory states that as CEO, his first and foremost
responsibility is to create stockholder value. Like most
CEOs, he seeks to create value by executing well-conceived
growth strategies. For nFusz, it began with its interactive
video technology and determining the best way to exploit it
for maximum value creation. Recognizing that nFusz’s
interactive video technology was an effective
communication tool, Rory determined that he could
maximize the value of the technology by wrapping a CRM
application around it.
Rory chose CRM for several reasons. First, the CRM space
is huge; currently a $40 Billion dollar-a-year industry and
growing at more than 10% a year, according to Gartner. In
fact, this year, CRM overtook data management as the
largest software market, and those that were cloud-based
SaaS, and had subscription-based revenue models
commanded the highest valuations. But notwithstanding the
size of market and its impressive growth rate, Rory found
the major CRM applications to be outdated, bloated,
complicated, and expensive. He and his team foresaw that
small and medium sized businesses would begin to
understand the need for CRM applications to grow their
businesses. Yet, the cost and steep learning curves of many
CRMs were prohibitive. Rory and his team also recognized
that most sales methods were becoming outdated, and most
salespeople were ineffective at selling. Salespeople were
either untrained, poorly trained, or simply lacked sales
skills, including communication skills. The nFusz team also
recognized that the way people purchased products and
services had changed. People had become much more
informed buyers and began to consume more and more
information through videos. In fact, recent studies show that
retention rates are dramatically higher for video-based
communications. Accordingly, Rory and his team
concluded that the CRM sector, which had not yet adopted
an effective video-based communications strategy, was a
ripe for disruption.

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Management BriefCompany Name
Avertra
avertra.com
Volker Herrmann
Products Manager
Avertra is a global integration services, product development
and consultancy organization focused on the energy and
utilities industry.
Capitan Ltd.
capitan.solutions
Yakir Sabag
Founder & CEO
Capitan specializes in developing and applying organizational
workﬂow solutions and services for a variety of constructional,
industrial & commercial organizations.
Cirrus Shield
cirrus-shield.com
Camille El Hage
Founder
Cirrus Shield is the plug and play, extensible CRM to
manage businesses.
Commence Corporation
commence.com
Larry Caretsky
CEO
Commence Corporation is a software manufacturer specializing
in CRM and Business Process Automation.
Pipelinersales Inc. is the next-generation CRM software that
uses unique visual tools to help salespeople interact with and
improve their sales pipeline
Salpo Technologies is a platform connecting people, data,
processes and systems of associated organizations to achieve
desired goals
SPI Software excels at solutions for key players in the
furniture business
Streak is the developer of an eponymous customer relationship
management platform for Gmail.
Voicent Communications is a US-based company aspires to
eliminate the communication gap between companies
and its management
nFusz Inc.
nfusz.com
Rory J. Cutaia
Founder,
Chairman & CEO
nFusz is a SaaS applications developer and services provider,
marketing cloud-based, interactive video business software
products, oﬀered on a subscription basis.
Pipelinersales Inc.
pipelinersales.com
Nikolaus Kimla
Founder & CEO
Salpo Technologies Ltd
salpo.com
Paul Lawrence
CEO
SPI Software
spi-software.com
Thierry Racinais
Founder & CEO
Streak
streak.com
Aleem
Co-founder
Voicent
Communications, Inc.
voicent.com
Joe Wu
CEO

Points to Remember
Before Investing
in a CRM Software
In the today’s software industry, also on the dynamic
and emerging markets it’s hard to decide what
software to use when it comes to CRM. The reason
why it’s hard is because most of the solution are not one-
size-fits-all and to be honest there is not such solution, all
vendors have their focus on specific verticals or specific
features.
1. The main thing to keep present when making an
investment in a CRM solution, for my opinion, is the
ability to be inter-connected. What does that mean? It
means that your CRM platform must be able to exchange
data, sending and receiving to third party platforms, for
the simple reason... business it’s getting more and more
dynamic, which in itself is translated into having more
demand for different software solutions, and as such, you
should have the ability to exchange this data from one
platform to another, so in very simple words, your CRM
is your orchestrator, like the central hub of your
company, this because the customer is the first class
citizen into your company and the CRM deals with
customer’s data... so to speak.
2. Another major part which it’s important to look at, is
the ability of the CRM platform to adapt to the business
flow a client have. This is very important topic because
business change very rapidly, the dynamics of a business
are really to be considered, as something which may
work today for the business, might not work tomorrow,
due to marketing strategies or sales strategies are
changing, or even the internal hierarchy and procedures
are changing. If the client is about to adapt the business
to the CRM solution, that won’t make any sense in the
long run, as it would be hard to operate and compete in
the market.
3. A CRM Software should be as much open as possible,
so the client might elaborate the data coming in and
going out, due to the fact that data formats are not
standard, and channels from where the information is
collected, such as leads capture or any other form of
data, must be easily accessible through APIs.
4. Another feature which might seems a small one in the
first place, but it has extreme importance, are the
Webhooks. This is a new term in the SaaS industry but
not a new thing, it has been there for years, but recently
widely used from systems. An webhook would allow you
to send data to a third party platform when a very
specific event is happening, let say when you get a new
lead, or when you get a new deal/opportunity.
5. The ability to understand the overall concept of how
the CRM software operates is crucial, many CRM
October 201818
Expert’s Advice

About the Author
Eriol Gjergji is the Founder of
Flexie CRM, a platform which
handles almost All business
operations and needs. Starting
from marketing automation,
business ows automation,
managing sales and a lot more.
Eriol help organizations to
implement best strategies on how
to manage their data and
business ows on top of digital
platforms and tools. Through
Flexie he envisions helping
companies in digital
transformation and move forward
in the online economy era.
operates in different ways, they treat and ellaborate data
differently. So in order to make full use of the CRM
platform, you have to understand it, if you don’t you
simply won’t be able to use it. This is also related with
the fact on how fast the business is growing, and there
are needed to make new implementations for all features,
which should be understandable in the first place.
6. Sales teams are typically busy on their day to day
routine, subsequently they have no time to frequently
check CRM for upcoming tasks or meeting or phone
calls. It should be the CRM itself reminding them for
upcoming events, using all possible channels. This way
the company increases the efficiency of the sales team,
which is the core of the company existence.
7. Among the top items which someone should look
when buying a CRM solution is the support team, and
how fast they react to issues and demands on explaining
how to implement one thing or another. This is very
important on a SaaS model, because the company (your
client) is operating the full business into the CRM
platform, and the expectations are high when it comes to
support.
However, all items above are different from one
company to another, but for us at Flexie, the key thing, is
that the CRM must be inter-connected, that would bring
the client’s company to another level, and create flexible
flows for data to travel and be elaborated from one
platform to another. As the client’s business keeps
growing, we must be there, always to support and
innovate new technologies which resolve vital problems.
October 2018 19
Eriol Gjergji
Founder
Flexie CRM

In an interview with Insights
Success, Volker Herrmann,
Products Manager of Avertra
shares his experience and gives
resourceful insights. In addition to this
he has also noted about Avertra, its
products and motto of the organization
along with the future goals in
revolutionizing the industry.
Below are the highlights of the
interview conducted between Volker
and Insights Success:
Give a brief overview of the Avertra,
its solutions and services?
Avertra began as a boutique IT
Consultancy delivering digital
transformation to the Utilities and
Energy industry via enterprise
technologies such as SAP, Oracle,
Microsoft, Esri, Qlik and Maximo.
Throughout the first 8 years of
consulting services work, the company
consistently observed a major problem
facing the industry: A lack of
integrated, modern, and easy to use
solutions addressing the unique needs
of the industry. Avertra set out to build
a system that would enhance and
provide an innovation layer to the
traditional ERP and CIS systems of
utilities, while reducing
implementation times and costs. In
2012, Avertra began developing the
MiUtility™ platform with the focus on
optimizing, streamlining and
automating the New Construction-to-
Cash lifecycle.
How do you diversify CRM solutions
so that it will benefit your
customers?
Our Customer Service products cover
both the call center and the self-service
endpoints. Each application can be
independently deployed if requested.
But it is in the integration to each other
where our customers are receiving the
full 360 views of their clientele. A user
starting a process by calling the call
center and being able to continue and
finish it in self-service without
interruption and on their own schedule.
Vice versa the same, a business process
started in self-service that requires a
contact to the call center by web chat
or call back can be addressed by the
call center agent with direct access to
the customer’s data. And all products
are following an ease of use approach
that has its roots in our MiCustomer
application.
As users on a web portal we are relying
on functionality that is easy to use and
allows for fast interaction without the
need for training. Can you imagine
having to go through a trainings
tutorial to do online shopping? Why
not apply the same fundamentals to the
enterprise side? Flat menu structures,
non-truncated labeling and guided
processes that provide information,
verification and communication at the
right time and in the right place. All
this leads to a reduction in costly
training and a higher user acceptance
which in turn benefits our customer’s
transformation effort as well.
Describe the experiences,
achievements or lessons learnt that
have shaped the journey of the
Avertra.
We started out as a consulting service
company in the Utility sector, focused
on SAP applications. Our clients called
on us to correct issues that came out of
their ERP implementations, occurring
after the implementer already left. That
gave us a front row seat on where these
“standard software” projects fail.
We saw the results of applying a
template on a Utility company that had
been built on the flawed assumption
that the processes included by the
software vendor are already an overall
match for most utilities. Guess what,
they aren’t. Only because a company is
buying the full suite at a reduced price
does not mean they have the need to
use all of it or that the single piece in
scope right away is fitting their needs
at all.
A municipal water utility does not have
the same goals as a multi-division,
multi company code utility that
operates in multiple states and the
deregulated market. While the software
Avertra:
Disrupting Utilities Industry Globally
October 201820

“
led them to join Avertra in the first place. Too often we have
seen companies implementing a product suite with
functionality that can’t be utilized and the parts that would
be applicable are nowhere near the business requirements.
We are attacking the status quo of the top tier software
vendors by providing true industry specific solutions to
address our customers’ needs, not some attempt of a
modified ‘one size should fit all’ product.
Testimonials from Avertra Clients
"Avertra has helped Loudoun Water meet and exceed the
high expectations of our tech-savvy customer base."
- Mike Beardslee, Managing Director of IT Services,
Loudoun Water
About the Leader
Volker has been in the Utility Industry for over 29 years
now. Prior to Avertra, he worked as a Manager - Advisory
Power and Utilities at PwC. He also worked as Senior
Solution Consultant at SAP for thirteen years. Volker and
his team are continuously engaging with industry thought
leaders and experts to keep validating the roadmaps as well
as presenting their own unique perspective on the utility
industry’s lack of focus on end-to-end unified user
experience across all channels.
vendor might have a scalable product, the templates using it
as a base are not.
With that in mind Avertra invested into Mendix as a
development platform that not only allows us to build our
platform products but at the same time allows for fast
adjustments during implementation without the need for
long development cycles. Our processes have been built
based on the experience of our employees and in
partnerships with our customers and represent a true best
practice approach with little need for major adjustments But
once again, the pieces that need adjusting can be tuned on
the spot.
How does the company contribute towards making the
industry better?
Avertra’s size and market knowledge enable the company to
quickly pivot in response to market changes. Additionally,
Avertra is one of very few software providers building
solutions specifically for the Utilities industry. Competitors
are large, slow to react, and unfocused on the market, and
competing technologies are monolithic, un-integrated, and
require a high degree of costly customization for utility
customers.
Where does Avertra see itself in the long run and/or
what are its future goals?
We see ourselves in the next 2 -3 years launching
MiUtility.com to be the salesforce.com of the utility
industry.
Considering the rising number of CRM solutions
providers, how does Avertra stand out from its
competitors?
Our employees have several life times of industry
experience. They have seen the good and the bad, dozen
times over. That influences our product R&D. They share
the common vision to change the industry, which is what
We are problem
solvers focusing on
simplicity, synergy,
and innovation.
Volker Herrmann
Products Manager
October 2018 21

Businesses around the globe
are growing at a rapid pace.
Industries are pushing
themselves over the edge to sustain
the cut-throat competition.
Manufacturing is one of the most
important divisions which aid the
same purpose. However,
manufacturing comes with its own
set of challenges including
maintaining the inventory, quality
and efficiency of a company.
Manufacturing Execution System
(MES) enables the companies to
overcome these challenges. It is
growing to be the most popular data
based systems that deliver
operational solutions to
manufacturing firms. The global
MES market is estimated to be
$19.36 billion by year 2023. In order
to retrieve the same, many
enterprises have contributed
extensively. One of them is Capitán
Ltd.
Founded in 2015, Capitán develops a
platform for managing, monitoring
and optimizing the production
process in factories. Its unique
platform retrieves the data collected
in real-time from manufacturing
devices (PLC’s, IIoT), and allow
managers and machine operators to
gain a complete control over the
whole manufacturing process, via an
intuitive web applications, and
mobile devices.
Assured Solutions
Capitán believes in the idea of great
experience and greater knowledge.
An approach empowered with same
principal enables the company to
provide the appropriate solution.
Based on its built-in workflows, it
has a comprehensive platform which
enables every factory to set the
required adjustments. Capitán’s
enthusiasm for discovering solutions
to complex problems using
technology leads to the benefits of its
customers with proven practices,
from different manufacture, in
different sections.
Vision to Fulfill Needs of Modern
Factories
Yakir Sabag is the Founder and
CEO of Capitán. He started the
company with the vision to have a
comprehensive platform specifically
for modern factories. While
mentioning about his vision he
asserts, “Throughout the years, I’ve
found that there is no modern system
which is able to fulfill a modern
factory needs. If it’s about the
technology used, the data structure,
the user interface, the depth of the
data collected and processed by the
system, the responsiveness for
manufacturing exceptions.”
Yakir was a graduate of science from
the University of Haifa. Prior to
Capitán, Yakir was the founder of
Mameer, a humor portal for people
diagnosed with cancer. He has also
been a CTO for production software
Solutions Company, for six years.
Maximizing Efficiency and Raising
Profitability
While the previous generation of
software lack functions on the
production floor, Capitán aims to fill
that hole with data, and different
tools to maximize efficiency, and
raise the profitability of the factory.
Its platform seamlessly
communicates with the factory’s ERP
system, sends relevant processed data
from the production floor. As a result,
Capitán empowers factories by
empowering their operative-class
human resources, to be a part of the
thinking process.
Capitán:Solidifying Innovative Manufacturing Processes
October 201822

Capitán has started from a house-office; at that point it
never believed that it would gain such trust from leading
companies and governments, which fuels the company
with motivation to keep up what the work. In its
periodically customers meetings, Capitán keeps traveling
its “Capitánized” production floors, the machine
operators actually enjoy working in the company. The
team in Capitán believes that working in the company is
a never-ending learning process. And it strives to keep
itself updated and obligated to provide the ideal solutions
in real time.
Determined to Deliver
With all its experience, Capitán believes that in the long
run, what keeps a company better are satisfied
customers. Hence, it is investing huge efforts in
communication with its customers, to learn about the
evolving needs, in order to develop and extend the
platform capabilities to support the industry needs. In
coming times, the company envisions providing its
customers subsequent best-in-class solutions and aims to
lead itself in the list of top 5 industrial IT company.
As an MES system being an operative decision-making
system, the company amplifies its users, with accurate
data regarding their manufacturing processes.
Eventually, Capitán transforms into the factory’s “know-
it-all” system, thanks to its knowledge preserving - of the
manufacturing facility. This is how it provides
operational intelligence and actionable information to its
platform-users, helping them make a measurable
difference in their manufacturing excellence.
Distinctive and Ahead
Capitán has precisely developed various features in its
platforms and according to the company, these features
are 20 years ahead of competition. The company
believes in innovation and learning a new thing every
day. Thus, it has developed a unique implementation
plan that reveals the platform ROI in a matter of weeks.
Throughout the process the company insures customers
can have an affordable, almost risk-free agile platform
that grows with the factory step-by-step.
Journey of Innovation
Capitán believes that its journey of innovation is not
going to end anytime soon. It is very enthusiastic about
the fact that it has faced and resolved the challenges in
such short period. The company has learned a lot from
these experiences. From different business cultures
around the world that that it’s dealing with, to the
technical issues that it is solving using its creativities, to
the startups the company is meeting with in order to
expand its platform features.
“Information,
Control, Automation.
Yakir Sabag
Founder & CEO
October 2018 23

The main reason for the invention of website,
Internet and technology devices that provides the
platform for software to run and connect with each
other is mainly to make networking of services, products
and people possible. Technology leaders such as Cisco,
Arista and Apple are dedicating their resources to provide
various business enterprises and the masses the ability to
communicate their values through technology mediums
called as Networking.
The works and provisions of these organizations are very
outstanding, and are believed to last for ages. This is
because the growth of technology is not going out of style
so soon, but rather it is believed to continue into the future.
Technology networking strategies is good, but to make it
more eﬀective there is the incessant need to incorporate
organic strategies.
You may be asking what I mean by Organic Networking or
Strategies. The organization that will survive in the market
in the near future, considering the increasing rate of
competition are the ones who take the necessary steps, to
develop more human connection for their business, more
than they do for machines such as provided by AI.
The Factors to Consider for an Eﬀective Organic
Networking:
Even as our age is encouraging more of technology
strategies, if we must survive the future of it all, then we
must connect more people, than we do for machines. As an
The
Impressive Impact of
Organic
Networking
October 201824
Editor’s Pick

innovative networking solution
provider, it is going to pay more, when
you include human intelligence and
physicality in your networking
strategies over machines.
Imagine a day that the machines are
going to have a serious breakdown,
and the owner organization do not have
the capable persons to figure out the
cause of the breakdown and possibly
provide a feasible solution? What will
be the fate of the organization? This
means that, there will be a great loss of
value and possibly a strike off the
industry. I know you would never want
that to happen. So, plan from now, to
never pay for the loss in the future.
Balance Your People to machine
Deployment:
Social Medias are for networking,
Newspapers and various Medias are
also for networking, but there are
people behind the arc of this
innovation. The more you incorporate
AI and machine learning strategies,
always remember the need for Control
Engineers and those are human beings.
The most successful organizations
identify the major importance of
people networking and how best to
utilize human intelligence in their
business quest.
For example; if you write an article
and share it on a website, who do you
expect to read your article; human
beings or machines? It is obvious that
the organic networking aspect of
computing will never go out of style;
else, there will be a day in the future
that digital connection and values will
be measured on the number of bots that
read your articles and/or that paid for
your services. So, remember to balance
the rate of your people to machine
deployment, by acknowledging the
need of human networking over
technology networking.
The Need for Organic Sense in
Networking and the Future:
Technology is the miracle of our age,
Artificial Intelligence is a major
molding factor of this development,
IoT is the liberator from machine
isolation by providing the platform to
interconnect millions of them over the
virtual platforms, but humans make
these things possible.
Networking is an innovative concept
with high profile technology terms. If
one does not implore deep interest and
concentration while exploring this
realm, there may be a serious distortion
of original motive of indulgence, and
this can lead to serious breakdown of
enterprise infrastructure. Sometimes, it
maybe direct and other times, it will be
indirect, but in all, it will always have
an impact. The future of technology is
very bright, and that is mainly
dependent on how available we make
the resources to help manage what we
have today in the near future. For this
to be possible, the networking solution
providers must incorporate more of
organic sense in their solutions and
industry advancements.
Technology will advance, more
machines will be connected, devices
will be programmed to run
independently, but in all these things,
the humans in the network will still
rule the universe. The more organic
you make your networking strategies,
the lesser the fear of a disastrous future
for your organization.
October 2018 25

Omnichannel Agent
and Customer
Engagement Solutions
Simplify and personalize the customer experience,
empower agents and achieve business success
with one workspace for all channel interactions,
application integrations, and CX reporting.

Success, Camille El Hage,
Founder of Cirrus Shield, shares
his insights and experiences over
products and motto of the organization,
along with the organization’s future
goals in revolutionizing the CRM
industry.
Below are the highlights of the
interview conducted between Camille
and Insights Success:
customers?
Cirrus Shield was conceived as an
application platform as a service
(aPaaS) on top of which we
implemented various solutions, first of
which is our flagship Cirrus Shield
CRM. We also have a built-in library
of applications and CRM verticals that
could be installed in one click.
Within a single environment, small to
medium businesses could therefore
start with a CRM that is tailor built to
their vertical industry and benefit from
a whole set of ready-made applications
that they can install in one click. And
bigger companies leverage the power
of Cirrus Shield to deliver business
applications fast.
Give a detailed explanation
regarding the
Founder/CEO/Management’s
influence towards the industry and
the company?
I started getting interested in
computers and programming at the age
of 12 and used to develop software as a
hobby. After graduating from the
Lebanese American University in
2001, I began my career as a software
engineer. I then worked as a CRM
Consultant for a number of years
before launching Cirrus Shield. In
2011, I was named as one of the 12
influencers of CRM in France, and in
2013, I was selected as one of the top
350 consultants out of 80,000
worldwide.
As a consultant I gained a lot of
experience in deploying CRMs, both
for small to medium businesses and for
big groups. I had the opportunity to
work in more than 15 countries and
work on CRM deployments with more
than 10,000 users deployed so far in
my career.
have shaped the journey of Cirrus
Shield.
Building Cirrus Shield wasn’t easy;
there was little literature on how you
build such a solution. Our choice was
to hire from the very beginning some
of the best minds in the market and
convince them of the vision we were
trying to achieve.
Another challenge we had after
launching our software onto the market
was we had the chance to win a project
with one of the leading financial
companies in the world. Suddenly our
solution was to be able to support
thousands of users with millions of
records.
Considering the rising number of
CRM solutions providers, how does
Cirrus Shield stand out from its
competitors?
Although they are now coming in
different colors and flavors, today’s
CRMs are still a legacy of the past,
with little capacity in adapting to
specific user requirements. They also
Cirrus Shield:
The Next-Generation CRM Platform
October 201828

Give us a few testimonials of your clients that accurately
highlight Cirrus Shield’s position in the market.
“With Cirrus Shield CRM connected to both our marketing
and e-commerce platforms, we have been able to better
understand our customers, improve customer segmentation
and grow our sales.” – Charline Maillet, Web Marketing &
CRM at Cheval Energy
“Deployed in less than a month, our self-service customer
portal implemented with Cirrus Shield allows us to better
meet our customers’ expectations, anywhere in the world.”
– Laurent Joly, Vice President Worldwide Customer Care
and Cloud Production, InfoVista
About the Company
Cirrus Shield lets companies of all sizes drive their sales,
marketing and customer service. Cirrus Shield CRM offers
a turnkey approach with industry-specific built-in solutions.
Cirrus Shield Platform empowers users to create business
applications with visual configuration tools. Our
collaborative rapid application development and delivery
environment fosters innovation and new ideas across the
company.
have a monolithic approach of conducting business and are
therefore usually not adapted to specific verticals.
Cirrus Shield provides businesses with tailor made software
that is plug and play. Users can select the CRM for their
vertical and install it in one click. And for those who wish
to adapt or extend their CRM, Cirrus Shield offers a set of
visual tools that let users with no technical background
customize their CRM or even build business applications
with clicks.
There is also a marketplace where business solutions can be
downloaded and installed in the users’ environments. So
Cirrus Shield can also cater to HR, invoicing, project
management, etc.
Where does Cirrus Shield see itself in the long run
and/or what are its future goals?
There are a lot of things we would like to achieve in the
long run, but those can be summarized in two categories:
1. To our customers, we would like Cirrus Shield to be the
software platform on which they run and grow their
businesses.
2. As a product, Cirrus Shield’s objective is to change how
software will be used tomorrow, allowing users to build or
customize their CRM or any business solution as they
would play with a Lego™.
“With Cirrus Shield,
businesses can
attract and satisfy
customers in a
whole new way.
Camille El Hage
Founder
October 2018 29

Launched in 1988,
Commence Corporation is
a software manufacturer
specializing in CRM and Business
Process Automation. For more than
two decades, Commence has been
providing software solutions to the
growing needs of businesses. The
company offers a robust cloud based
CRM solution for managing
customer relationships, sales, leads,
marketing, help desk ticketing and
project management. Commence also
offers a highly customizable
windows based desktop solution for
those companies that prefer to
control and manage their CRM
system on premise.
Being a leading provider of CRM
solutions, Commence has created
business software solutions that are
affordable, easy to use and deliver
extensive value to its customers.
These solutions are targeted at
companies that require more than
basic functionality, but not the cost
and complexity of products designed
specifically for enterprise level
organizations. The company has
delivered innovative software
solutions that have helped thousands
of small & midsize business to
significantly improve how they
market, sell and provide service to
their customers. Commence products
are used in more than 25 industries
and more than a dozen countries
around the world.
An Inspiring Leader
Larry Caretsky is the CEO at
Commence Corporation. Caretsky
has served in executive level roles in
several top 100 software companies
and is considered an expert in the
CRM sector. He has written
numerous articles and white papers
on the subject and an e-book called
‘Leveraging Information to Achieve
Selling Results.’ He has also been a
participant on several radio podcast
where he discussed the use of CRM
software as a component for
implementing a successful sales
enablement program. In 2017,
Caretsky was nominated as an
inspiring leader in sales management
by the sales lead management
association. Under his leadership,
Commence has become one of the
most popular CRM solutions for
small to mid-size businesses.
The Marketing Strategy
Headquartered at Eatontown, New
Jersey; Commence describes itself as
“The Trusted Name in CRM’. For
more than two decades, the company
has earned a reputation for delivering
high quality products and services,
has completed several thousand
implementations and continues to
receive outstanding customer
testimonials about its products and
services. Coupled with the software
are two service oriented products for
sales and marketing enablement.
These value added services are
designed to assist those businesses
that need experienced resources to
help automate and streamline their
sales and marketing initiatives.
Commence Corporations
diversification stems from the
expansion of its product and service
offerings. Each year the company
introduces new products and
functional enhancements to the core
application and is engaged with other
Commence
Corporation:
Leading Provider of Customer Relationship
Management Software
October 201830

certain that the implementation and utilization of new
technology will require professional expertise, so it is
continuing to recruit and hire experts. The company’s
goal is to continue to wrap professional services with
new technology offerings. As such, it is ensuring its
growth coming by expansion and utilization of its
products and services.
initiatives in artificial intelligence, (AI) big data, and
digital marketing. Commence also continues to broaden
the value added services it provides in order to ensure
that customers realize the maximum value from its
products and get a rapid return on their investment.
Exploring Business Requirements
Commence CRM is targeted at companies of 10 to 100
users that require more functionality then that offered by
the myriad of low cost solution providers, but who do
not want the cost and complexity of expensive higher
end products. Commence feels that there is a significant
gap in the CRM sector and that their product is ideal for
those businesses that need robust functionality and
flexibility at an affordable cost.
Commence CRM’s functionality rivals that of enterprise
level products costing much more and includes, account
management, group calendaring, sales opportunity
management, lead management, marketing, customer
service and ticketing, a customer portal, project
management and more. In addition, the value added
support services that company offers is a differentiator in
the mid-market segment.
Future Expansion
In the upcoming years, Commence will maintain its
leadership position with regards to introducing new
products and services in the SMB sector. The company is
“We maintain
strategic alliances
with technology
partners, system
integrators, resellers
and business partners
throughout the world.
Larry Caretsky
CEO
Commence
A Trusted Name in CRM
October 2018 31

DIGITALDIGITALDIGITAL
Transformation
Shifting the Gears of Energy Sector
October 201832
Digi-Talk

he energy industry is undergoing a paradigm shift
Twith the disruptive changes in digital
transformation. Increased use of renewables, as
well as resiliency and sustainability concerns, is just a few
of the factors behind the industry’s need to make
encroachments. The digital age has not only brought us a
‘digital twin’ version of the physical power plant that
monitors every asset, but also provides an intelligent
response with analytics. Thus, it activates appropriate
actions from the maintenance and service perspective.
A few years ago, the Internet of Things (IoT) and its
potential impact on industry were the untouched concepts.
But now, it is transforming the way power plants and assets
are monitored, serviced, and managed which has bought
several advancements in the energy sector. However,
according to a recent survey, it has been observed that
improvements of as small as one percent in all of the
world's industrial assets increase the potential of over $60bn
over a period of fifteen years in terms of gains for the power
industry.
These changes in the energy sector are going hand-in-hand
with the implementation of Big Data analytics and the IoT.
Organizations in the energy industry are utilizing digital
transformations to their fullest. Real-time analytics and
wide range of connected devices are assisting energy
providers to transfigure the way power plants and assets are
managed, monitored, and facilitating them to determine
where efficiencies and values can be traced.
Adoption of Data Analytics and the IoT
Performance Tracing: In the process of performance
tracing, the information is recorded as well as digitally
captured for the engineers to study operations with a deep-
October 2018 33

neck analysis over time and to make improvements. This
approach can be enhanced through specialized software and
few of them can be automated through smart technology.
Also, knowing the performance of turbines at various points
of time allows service schedules to be updated which can
save on the engineering time.
Managing Remote Assets: This is an important aspect when
rural areas are managed by the localized power supplies.
With this aspect, power companies will explore more
opportunities that could further improve efficiencies using
data analytics. With the application of distributed
generation, companies can shift the power production closer
to the point of consumption via solar tiles or wind farms.
This all becomes possible because the technology is now
intelligent enough to plan, monitor, service, and manage the
remotest of assets.
Cloud-based IT: Generating performance data from
generators is more accessible that allows information to be
faster responded and the appropriate resources to be
deployed. Through data analytics, engineers can gain a
better understanding of a particular device which is likely to
get fail; helping to reduce the downtime. The top two
reasons for adopting this cloud-based IT technology are to
improve the agility as well as responsiveness and money-
saving.
Increased Automation: Here, computer controlled
automation is applied to turbines. The use of digital sensors
brings in fine-tuning which not only extract more power out
of the existing machinery but also keeps an eye on the
performance and potential failure if equipment. Hence, it is
all about making smart plans, capable of adapting the
change more efficiently, in terms of cost and capacity.
Values and Efficiencies at par with Tech-
Transformations
Recently, an electric firm has reported over 40% of
improved service reliability since the implementation of
data analytics. This shows that energy companies are
looking to gain value and efficiencies through the use of
new technology and to seek these key forms of
transformation. Also, one does not have to look far to find
industry trailblazers that are already implementing these
innovative methodologies. ‘Smart Grids’ are aiding utilities
to gain deeper views on capacity demand and to provide
power consumption more intelligently as per the business
and consumers.
For the power industry, digital transformation is combined
with IoT connected field service which offers both a short
as well as long-term solution. This solution would cope
with the varying regulatory and pricing demands of the
market along with dealing costs, uptime, and service more
probably. Digital transformation has opened new
opportunities for those who embrace them. Thus, digital
transformation is apparently increasing the pace of
innovation and broadening the competitive gap.
October 201834

The customer is usually the
most valuable asset for any
business. Hence, a business
strategy that enables organizations to
build long-lasting relationships with
their customers is of utmost
importance. Pipelinersales Inc., the
parent company of Pipeliner CRM, is
the next-generation CRM software that
uses unique visual tools to help
salespeople interact with and improve
their sales pipeline. Pipeliner is all
about sales. The company focuses on
pipeline management, sales process
and analytics and allows salespeople
make educated and informed decisions
about their business in real-time. It also
delivers a unique experience from
prospect to customer and on
throughout the whole customer
lifecycle - working in close
partnership. Pipeliner thereby ensures a
real impact for businesses that adopts it
and each user that leverages it.
A Highly Configurable System
One of the core strength of Pipeliner is
that it is a highly configurable system.
Unlike other systems that require
programmers or external consultants to
customize, Pipeliner provides drag and
drop and other tools designed for non-
technical users. This allows the system
to be adapted to whatever industry the
customer operates in as well as to their
specific sales processes. Indeed, the
company provides customers with the
ability to create multiple pipelines,
each with their own distinct processes
so customers can have processes for
lead nurturing, new business
development, account management,
and any other process they need to
systematize.
Pipeliner assists companies in reducing
their revenue risk and helps them
leverage opportunities. It aids them in
becoming increasingly more effective
and efficient in their processes by
empowering their team members to
sell and to manage sales better. By
doing so, companies can reduce
operating costs.
A Serial Entrepreneur
Pipeliner is continuously evolving
under the leadership of Nikolaus
Kimla, Founder and CEO. He
believes fervently that sales can be a
force for good and change within
society itself. As a follower of the
principles of the Austrian School of
Economics, Nikolaus believes that free
and fair trade is the greatest engine for
global peace and prosperity and that
salespeople can be the vanguard of this
movement. When people exchange
goods and services in a fair and
equitable manner creating win/win,
enjoyable and an economically
beneficial result for both parties, the
conditions for peace and cooperation
are created. By providing the best tool
to help facilitate this process, Nikolaus
is helping to change the world for the
better.
A Vision that Led the Inception
The leadership and strategic brains
behind Pipeliner have come from sales
and business backgrounds whether as
Entrepreneurs, frontline salespeople or
CEOs of global sales consulting
companies. Each in their own way
struggled in the past with CRM
systems that were not designed with
the reality of salespeople and sales
management in mind. This is what
united them in the vision to create a
CRM that would enable salespeople to
sell more effectively while delivering
all of the insights and intelligence
needed by sales management and
executive leadership to run their
business.
To create an effective CRM required
many years of investment of time,
resources and money to bring to reality.
In that time, Pipeliner witnessed that
many other solutions have been rushed
Pipelinersales:
A Valuable Sales Enablement Tool
October 201836

knowledge, ideas, and services both locally and globally,
virtually and in-person to deliver on the vision of trade and
sales as a driving force for global peace and prosperity. It
does not see itself in the future solely as a CRM provider
but rather, in conjunction with Sales POP, its online sales
magazine, and Go Ahead! its in-person meeting and
networking platform, as the global platform for all things
sales.
Customers Expressing their Satisfaction
“The clarity of data and how easily visible it is has made a
huge difference in our process. It’s much easier to target
key opportunities, instead of trying to sort through tables
and tables of data. The visual representation was probably
the biggest selling point for Pipeliner as far as I was
concerned.”- Imran Jaferey, Vice President- Global Sales,
Headworks International
“At the beginning of 2016 we made a goal to increase sales
by 20 percent, which is a large increase for our business. As
of December 1st we are at 95 percent of that lofty goal with
31 days left to go. We really owe it to Pipeliner for helping
us get to where we are now.” - Luke Wittenbraker, Sales
and Marketing Director, Mactech On-Site
to market that lack the same quality and depth that Pipeliner
CRM possesses. Staying true to its goal of creating the
world’s most effective tool for sales has been the
company’s greatest achievement. Pipeliner never took
shortcuts, compromised on their principles or short-changed
its users.
One Step Ahead of the Competition
Pipeliner applies cybernetic principles within its CRM to
assist people in sales and business in squarely facing up and
dealing with today’s complexity. This is why Pipeliner is
completely visual in nature and thereby translates
complexity to simplicity. Cybernetics is not only evident in
Pipeliner’s visual user interface, but also the whole concept
of navigation. Its unified navigation concept allows the user
to navigate rapidly and easily through the application. This
is the reason that makes Pipeliner the only CRM that
delivers Real Dynamic Instant Visualization.
Cybernetics, the science of simplification, is applied in
many ways. Many companies complain that a CRM
application takes long time to implement. Pipeliner has
simplified CRM implementation to the point that it can be
done in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of
other CRM applications. The uniqueness of its design
comes out of a powerful combination of visual aesthetics
and extremely fast functionality. The core concept is that a
picture communicates 60,000 times faster than text, and
Pipeliner has visualized almost everything.
Upcoming Endeavors
Pipeliner aims to create a global sales community. A
community where anyone with an interest for sales can
come together with likeminded people to exchange
“Pipeliner CRM is All
about Sales - We are
a sales enablement
tool focusing on
pipeline management,
sales process & analytics
through Dynamic
Instant Visualization!
Nikolaus Kimla
Founder & CEO
October 2018 37

The concept of customer
relationship management
began in the 1970s and since
then has been an essential element in
business. One company in the CRM
industry which is making a name for
itself in the market is Salpo
Technologies. Salpo is a progressive
software company, focused on driving
innovation and creating versatile
software products to help businesses
realize their potential.
The company tackles complex
challenges with its modular CRM
platform, custom software solutions,
enterprise-grade apps and outsourced
development resource. Salpo helps its
clients to develop better business
processes, increase efficiency, improve
customer engagement and drive sales.
An Array of Solutions
Despite offering quick self-serve setup,
Salpo CRM is the antithesis of a one-
size-fits-all solution. While it can be
used ‘out of the box’ as a
straightforward contact management
tool, it’s fully customizable, with
tailored bolt-on modules, third-party
integrations and an open API which
can fit any organization. Data fields
and labels can be renamed to reflect
specific business language and industry
terms, with limitless custom fields to
store, monitor, filter and analyze
pertinent business information. Custom
modules can be added to mirror any
element – orders, products, projects,
support tickets, events, services and
properties with multi-layered
connections to individuals, companies
and other modules.
With Salpo’s business rules engine,
customers can design processes to fit
their workflow using pre-defined
triggers such as contact setup or status
changes and outputs such as document
creation or call scheduling.
A Passionate Management Team
Salpo’s CEO, Paul Lawrence and the
management team has a passion for
making customers lives better,
improving their experience and putting
emphasis on the relationship part of
CRM.
Management’s mantra is empowerment
which runs through everything they do,
how they do it and how they help their
customers form better relationships
with the company. Through many
years of combined experience using
business software available on the
market; the management team realized
that most of these were poorly
designed or focused only on
administration, rather than the ultimate
user experience. They have a zeal to
prove that great CRM software can
empower businesses to have a better
understanding of customers and
ultimately build better relationships.
Learning it the Hard Way
Over the last 10 years, Salpo has learnt
the hard way how to shape and build a
‘software as a service’ platform.
Companies cannot assume what a
customer wants. They must engage
with them, to prevent blindly
integrating software features that users
don’t need, want or use.
In light of this, Salpo has built a unique
solution from the ground up, taking its
experiences, feedback and future
visions into consideration.
Salpo has created something that will
change people’s perception of CRM
software, meaning they no longer view
this as an admin function.
Instead, it should interactively support
the user, automating processes and
empowering them in their role,
whether in customer service, sales,
marketing or management.
Salpo Technologies:
Pushing the Boundaries
October 201838

Always Focused
Salpo understands that the CRM marketplace is crowded,
with most companies investing in marketing over
innovation to attract customers.
The most basic and important mission, Salpo invests its
time in engaging with customers throughout their journey,
to truly understand their requirements and support them
through the configuration process. It also understands that
some customers prefer autonomy, so Salpo equip them with
all the tools to build a custom system from scratch. From
pre-configured industry templates, to quick-start modals,
how-to videos, and an extensive support team and
knowledge resource, it provides an environment that truly
supports its customers.
The result is a versatile platform that works for all
businesses, large and small; from complex organizations,
such as business improvement districts and growth hubs, to
simpler business models, needing leaner contact
management and sales pipeline solutions.
Salpo’s ultimate goal is to evolve the platform to meet its
expansive future roadmap, offering customers more insight,
information and automation; helping them to increase their
engagement rate, improve efficiency and drive sales.
The team often has to remind themselves that people ‘don’t
know what they don’t know.’ Just because the team knows
the product so well, they sometimes assume the customers
do too. Customers need guidance and direction to
appreciate what they can achieve with the software. Salpo
has realized that it needs to bring the platform to life and
guide them through the process to deliver a software
platform that meets customer needs.
Contribution towards the Industry
The Salpo platform is pushing the boundaries of what can
be achieved with customer relationship management
software, and impacting the industry as a result.
Salpo is the only CRM provider to build a truly integrated
GDPR compliance solution into its platform. The company
recognized this requirement early and developed integrated
tools, empowering its customers to quickly achieve GDPR
compliance. While its competitors claim to have addressed
the new regulation, no platform supports GDPR compliance
in this comprehensive way.
Salpo has also built upon its dynamic framework to deliver
bespoke best-in-class solutions, such as managing large
data sets and designing complex pricing and quote
comparison engines.
“Our platform connects
your people, data,
processes and systems
to achieve your goals.
Paul Lawrence
CEO
October 2018 39

Success, Thierry RACINAIS,
Founder and CEO of SPI
Software briefly mentions some of the
challenges the organization has faced
and strategies it has incorporated to
ensure its standing in the market. So,
let’s have a look at what the leader has
to say about the organization.
Give a brief overview of SPI
Software, its solutions and services?
From the outset, SPI Software have
provided solutions to furniture
retailers, dealers and manufacturers
that cover the entire sales process of
their customers. Today, that means
inspiring a potential consumer with
beautiful graphics during initial
discovery, configuring their future
kitchen together with them using the
full richness of product catalogues and
closing the sale, and then on to the
actual delivery and installation of the
kitchen in the consumer’s home
By leveraging all the data we’ve
collected together, we can support
them on business analysis, activity and
performance, help them improve
operational business practices both on-
line and in-store. Quite a performance,
given the complexity of some kitchens,
today!
customers?
We diversify everything we do in
CRM, according to furniture business
profiles! Kitchen designers, sales reps,
installers, after-sales service all need
their own diversification of CRM. The
Storemanager.online CRM component
provides that by directly integrating
into all areas of the sales funnel,
aggregating customer data &
preferences, product details and
pricing, end to end from discovery to
delivery. Starting with a gorgeous
customer discovery phase (using
inspirational applications) and flowing
across the entire sales process
(including the quotation, from the
initial consumer project design).
Beyond CRM, Storemanager.online
also includes a complete back-office
management system, including
purchasing, inventory and logistics. We
understand that CRM diversification is
the key to mastering the customer
lifecycle.
have shaped the journey of SPI
Software.
A key transformation has been the
emergence of mobility, with the arrival
of the iPhone. We all just suddenly
“got it” that we could have access to
the right information anywhere and at
any time, whatever the support. We
were no longer tethered to our desktop
PCs! This totally changed the way we
saw and used the Internet and allowed
us to develop a totally new set of Web
based applications. Our vast
experience as a major ERP provider in
the furniture industry, allowed us to
offer a complete online experience to
users from the very beginning, and to
drastically reduce the ramp-up time
required to create & deploy new
features, letting us spend more time on
all the ergonomics and usability
aspects of Storemanager.online.
How does the company contribute
towards making the industry better?
SPI Software has been serving the
furniture industry and business for over
25 years now, developing innovative
solutions that help the key actors in the
industry become more efficient at their
daily tasks, using the fantastic potential
of the Internet and related technologies
such as Big Data and Machine
Learning, SPI Software is now driven
by exploiting the increasing
importance of data and in raising
customer awareness of the immense
value of that data. We are currently the
#1 partner to the furniture business in
collecting rich consumer content and
managing retailer’s data.
Give a detailed explanation
regarding the
Founder/CEO/Management’s
influence towards the industry and
the company?
It’s an influence which has always been
driven by innovation, applying people
orientated management to developing
and retaining our ‘key knowledge’
resources, whilst nurturing new
resources for new technologies.
We began SPI Software right back in
1992 with a simple idea: PCs will
become the new standard for business
SPI Software:
Data for the Furniture Business
October 201842

“
connected through the same cloud-based platform:
Storemanager.online!
All these elements will enable us to provide our customers
with a comprehensive set of data, allow them a constantly
richer level of understanding of their consumer and offer
better products and services!
Considering the rising number of CRM solutions
providers, how does SPI Software stand out from its
competitors?
StoreManager.online is more than a CRM, it is a CRM
combined with an advanced point of sales solution that
integrates all the information needed to transform a contact
into a successful furniture sale. As a companion to graphical
solutions used to design the project (e.g. kitchen project)
StoreManager.online centralizes all the information and
data related to a store or to a network of stores. Retailers’
management teams can access directly their dealer’s data to
help them improve their activity and business. Users roles
and rights management are at the heart of our system,
together with a powerful organization profile management,
to ensure a complete scalability of our services, from an
independent dealership to a complex multinational retailer
or franchise organization.
management. With Thierry Racinais, a young business
undergrad and a bit of a techno-geek meeting up with Jean-
Marc Lacombe, a production engineer and passionate
furniture designer both coming together to join forces and
develop a vertical ERP solution for the Furniture Industry,
based on the then new, emerging Windows platform, rather
than the more classic AS/400 or Unix world. With that, SPI
Software was born, and the two partners are still running
the company more than 25 years later! Even today, their
driving ambition is to bring new technologies and fresh
ideas to the Furniture Business!
In today’s world, that means Cloud based solutions, with
ubiquitous mobile access, leveraging cutting-edge
technologies such as Big Data and Machine Learning to
allow our customers the best user experience possible.
Where does SPI Software see itself in the long run
and/or what are its future goals?
SPI Software research is focusing on 2 fundamental pillars:
Ÿ Graphical Inspiration and Configuration applications
Ÿ Enhancing CRM Platforms
We’re looking to improve graphical configuration
capabilities in even the most complex environments in areas
such as Closets, Wardrobes, Kitchens and Bathrooms, to
bring the consumer a level of integration previously
unknown of graphical discovery using new algorithms
based on machine learning technology. All the initial
feedback from our customers confirms that this would be a
major evolution.
We’ll be delivering these innovations through an enhanced
solutions portfolio with brand new mobile apps, for
handling technical sales support functions, such as
inventory, delivery, installation, post-sales service, all
We connect our
customers (furniture
retailers & dealers) to
their consumers along the
entire sales process, from
the initial discovery stage, to
the complete delivery of their
customized home project.
Thierry RACINAIS
Founder & CEO
October 2018 43

An effective communication
plays a crucial role in the
overall management of the
organization. It also stimulates the
basic functions of the organizations
which enhance management stability
such as planning, leading, organizing,
and controlling. Voicent
Communication is a US-based
company aspires to eliminate the
communication gap between
companies and its management.
Through communication automation,
the firm makes its business operations
sustainable and efficient, also
improving operations from lead
generation and sales to customer
service. From last fifteen years, the
company has enhanced its products to
over 50 countries worldwide. Voicent
is headquarters in Mountain View, US.
The firm strongly believes in business
goals and design products that are
changing the ways for people to find
information, do business, communicate
and learn.
A Trailblazer with Software
Expertise
Joe Wu is the CEO at Voicent
Communication. He founded the
company in 2002. Joe believes in the
vision and leadership that keeps
Voicent focused on top-notch customer
value products. While explaining his
whims Joe asserts, "Voicent technology
should do more than simply work. It
should work wonders.”
Joe is a successful Silicon Valley
veteran whose expertise ranges from
chip design to large software systems.
He aided his skill in companies like
LSI Logic, Hewlett-Packard, and many
Silicon Valley startups. Joe holds a
Masters in Computer Science from UC
Santa Barbara and has consistently
delivered software solutions that
exceed expectations.
Simplifying CRM Solutions
Voicent products provide voice
communication, email communication
and text-message communication with
unparalleled levels of automation and
point-and-click ease. As a result,
Voicent’s platform goes well beyond a
CRM system. At the level where the
company’s solutions extend the basic
CRM functions with communication
tools in voice, email and text messages
and sensors as auto tracking customer
interactions.
Joe mentions, “The biggest challenge
many small and medium-sized
businesses (SMBs) have is choosing
tools from different vendors, and none
of the tools are data-centric. If you
look at communication solutions, most
are just to make and answer calls. On
the other hand, CRM solutions require
tons of manual work to collect
customer engagement data because
without data, CRM software is
virtually useless.”
Shaping Journey with Flagship
Products
In October 2003, Voicent has set its
first major milestone when it released
its flagship product, "Voicent Gateway
1.0". The successful product offered its
customers unlimited possibilities in
providing innovative communication
solutions. Since then, Voicent’s
Gateway has served as a springboard
for innovative products including its
automated appointment-reminder
software, phone, email and text-
message broadcasting software,
customer relationship management
software, computer-contained PBX
systems, and design software for
creating customized Interactive Voice
Recognition systems.
Joe also states that “Our experience
serving customers has led us to
understand the needs of SMBs like no
other CRM company out there. This is
why Voicent prioritizes creating
automated, easy-to-use, and
comprehensive solutions that address
the entire customer acquisition
process.”
Unique CRM Solutions
Voicent is the only company that
provides an all-in-one cloud service
focusing on customer acquisition, a
built-in CRM system for data
The effortless CRM
powered by
communication tools
October 201844

Elimination of Time-Consuming but Important
Administrative Tasks: The platform is used for 24/7
monitoring and tracking web activity and also handles
scheduled marketing or customer-service tasks, and the
automation process.
Solidifying Future through Technology Advancements
With its cloud service, Voicent eliminates the loss of
information and lags that result from integrating
communication tools and CRM system across different
vendors and platforms. Voicent provides a tested and
durable cloud platform that has unified following features to
serve diversified business needs:
Its ‘Communication Tool’ is a full array of enterprise-grade
such as phone, SMS, email, web, chat, and social media.
With a unified ‘CRM’ platform, it generates automated data
collection, campaign management, and real-time display of
customer information anytime anywhere. Additionally, the
‘Workflow Engine’ platform enables any business process
to be executed through automation. And, ‘Interface’
dashboard is a platform that has been exceptionally used for
high work efficiency and productivity.
In the long run, Voicent’s goal is to be concerning solution
for acquiring customer efficiency. And to achieve this,
Voicent is harnessing the power of cutting-edge technology
and also incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its
platform and makes it even more effective and durable.
management. It also enhances the workflow engine for
process automation, and a full suite of communications
tools for voice, text, email, chat, and web. Voicent unique
platform are best known for.
Extraordinary Ease-of-Use: It nearly works for all tasks
which are accomplished within an intuitive dashboard with
minimal training or technical expertise, even marketing
campaign design and management.
Automated Data Collection and Recording: It
automatically saves all customer interactions from phone
calls, to emails, to text into CRM for both inbound and
outbound communication.
Automated One-to-One Customer Engagement: It tracks all
customer activities while visiting the company’s website
and generates automated email, text, or phone messages to
ascertain buyer interest levels.
Integrated Sales and Marketing Campaigns: This platform
shares CRM data and campaign data which can be easily
launched, measured and managed. One campaign can be
easily created and launched based on a previous campaign’s
results.
Customer-centric Business Process Automation: Through
Voicent processes customer contact preferences can be
collected and honored automatically were initiated
connection can be routed to specific departments or
individuals.
Customer Information Readily Available Anytime and
Anywhere: It holds well-designed remote-agent capabilities
and browser-based controls enable effective and efficient
use in centrally-located or remote settings.
“Empowering
businesses
sustainable and
efficient growth with
communication automation.
Joe Wu
CEO
October 2018 45

The Future of
CRMis in your
Inbox
Aleem
Co-founder
Streak
October 201846
Benchmarking Future

At Streak, we built a CRM with
the idea of a deep and
embedded integration where
salespeople have access to relationship
management from their primary work
surface—their email inbox. The deep
integration with Gmail and the rest of
G Suite is a result of our close
relationship with the Google team.
While it takes a moment to wrap users’
heads around the fact that a CRM
could actually be run inside their
email, it makes perfect sense. It means
that salespeople will actually use
their CRM, a problem that has
plagued the industry for years.
The future is where salespeople
don’t use two different tools to
communicate with their leads
and manage those leads in a
pipeline.
Unfortunately, even in today’s
age of technology, salespeople
spend the majority of their day
on administrative tasks and not
enough time actually selling. At
Streak, we believe that the next
most effective CRM will aim to
flip that ratio by having the CRM
do all the basic follow-ups:
updating the status of a deal,
scheduling next steps, or even
sending documents to customers.
Streak accomplishes this by
using hundreds of millions of data
points from their customers.
By making the input of data easy and
integrated with the inbox, we’re able to
use these data points to build and train
a machine-learning AI engine that will
do the administrative work for our
users. We also realize, however, that no
algorithm is ever perfect, so the
automation interface we’re building
will always ask the salesperson for
confirmation before taking action.
This lets a salesperson finish all their
administrative tasks in minutes as
opposed to hours and also helps us
learn from any mistakes the algorithm
might make. The future is where
humans spend time on what they do
best—building relationships,
understanding their customers business
and closing deals—while all the
administrative work is handled by the
machine.
Another major problem we think
CRM’s need to solve, is helping sales
teams work together. Often times a
salesperson would not even know that
a teammate has a relationship with a
customer they are trying to partner
with. At Streak, we’re solving this by
letting teams selectively share their
emails with customers in an automated
fashion.
Salespeople can easily see who on their
team has talked to a customer before.
The future is where every salesperson
has the collective customer knowledge
of their entire company at their
fingertips.
The future of CRM lives in your inbox
but there are customers today who are
living that future today. One Streak
customer—a company delivering
physical products to SaaS industry
leaders at tremendous scale— was
confident that the tool was saving them
each, on average, ten hours a week.
Those hours would have been spent
looking for missed orders, historical
conversations, and tracking down
details that should already be available.
Streak simplified that. By living inside
their inbox, their whole team has been
able to collaborate and track
interactions with leads—providing
newfound clarity to the sales cycle. As
a result, orders have stopped falling
behind and the team has been
collaborating more effectively than
ever. The future is where your sales
team has clarity on what’s happened
before and what’s happening next.
Being a thought-leader in the CRM
space means that we’re always looking
to the future. At Streak, we’re already
leveraging big data in our automation
efforts but we have more exciting
initiatives ahead of us. By bringing the
benefits of machine-learning to the
sales inbox, we’re hoping to enable
more sales teams to close more deals,
more efficiently.
About the Company
Streak is a next-generation CRM that offers spreadsheet-style
tracking capabilities built directly into the inbox. With over 4500
customers, Streak is disrupting the CRM space to offer a system
of engagement different from their competitors’ systems of
record.
Aleem is the Co-founder at Streak. Prior to Streak, Aleem was a
PM at Google. He studied Software Engineering at the University
of Waterloo and received an MBA from Harvard. Aleem was
legally allowed to fly before he could drive.
About the Author
October 2018 47

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The 10 most disruptive crm solution providers 2018

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