Explains the importance of flexible software architecture, and how the right CRM solution can support and even advance an organization’s ability to evolve in lock-step with changes as they occur—enabling them to attain and maintain a competitive advantage.
Pivotal CRM for Financial Services offers comprehensive, integrated, industry-specific capabilities that increase insight into operational performance, streamline processes across the firm, and improve responsiveness to client demands
PivotalCRM - Whitepaper _Pivotal intelligent internet architecturePivotal CRM
A CRM application’s total cost of ownership (TCO) extends well beyond just the initial licensing and implementation fees to include the cost of customizing, integrating, deploying, and administering CRM on an ongoing basis. As a result, today’s CRM buyers have expanded their evaluation focus to encompass platform and architecture criteria that have the greatest impact on total cost of ownership, namely flexibility, scalability,
and deployability.
Pivotal CRM6.0 meets the challenge. It’s a complete front-office solution built on the next-generation Pivotal CRM platform that not only adapts to the way you do business—it also ensures higher productivity and lower costs
Pivotal CRM for Financial Services offers comprehensive, integrated, industry-specific capabilities that increase insight into operational performance, streamline processes across the firm, and improve responsiveness to client demands
PivotalCRM - Whitepaper _Pivotal intelligent internet architecturePivotal CRM
A CRM application’s total cost of ownership (TCO) extends well beyond just the initial licensing and implementation fees to include the cost of customizing, integrating, deploying, and administering CRM on an ongoing basis. As a result, today’s CRM buyers have expanded their evaluation focus to encompass platform and architecture criteria that have the greatest impact on total cost of ownership, namely flexibility, scalability,
and deployability.
Pivotal CRM6.0 meets the challenge. It’s a complete front-office solution built on the next-generation Pivotal CRM platform that not only adapts to the way you do business—it also ensures higher productivity and lower costs
Customer relationship management continues to be a vital strategy for achieving higher profitability, improved productivity, lower costs, stronger customer retention, and greater insight into customer and prospect behavior. CRM technology and outcomes over the past two decades, it is also true that many companies still struggle to implement their CRM system effectively and achieve the results they expect from these powerful information systems. The critical nature of human factors at work in a CRM initiative demands that you focus as much attention on the people using the system as you do on the software.
Mobile CRM: a New Perspective Mobile sales teams are usually composed of a firm’s most valuable salespeople: the ones who close the most deals and are the most direct generators of new revenue.
Track Keynote for the Change and Release Management Track at the IBM Rational Software Conference 2009
Software change and release management, a key capability in modern software development, enables teams to accelerate the software and systems delivery lifecycle. This track is for practitioners, administrators, and advanced users who want to learn how IBM Rational change and release management solutions - IBM® Rational ® ClearCase®, IBM® Rational® ClearQuest®, IBM® Rational® Team Concert®, IBM® Rational® Build Forge® and IBM® Rational® Software Analyzer® - can empower organizations to improve productivity and team collaboration, gain better visibility into projects, automate processes, improve quality, manage distributed teams, and provide audit trails and traceability across the software development lifecycle for fast delivery of high-quality software.
Pivotal Upgrade Services brings together the tools, methodologies, and expertise necessary for a predictable, low-risk upgrade that protects your customization investment
Executive summary outlining the benefits of ARMnet Financial Product Management Solution for origination and servicing in the lending, mortgage and wealth management space.
Hadoop is the technology of choice for processing large data sets. At salesforce.com, we service internal and product big data use cases using a combination of Hadoop, Java MapReduce, Pig, Force.com, and machine learning algorithms.
In this webinar, you will learn about an internal use case and a product use case:
:: Product Metrics: Internally, we measure feature usage using a combination of Hadoop, Pig, and the Force.com platform (Custom Objects and Analytics).
:: Community-Based Recommendations: In Chatter, our most successful people and file recommendations are built on a collaborative filtering algorithm that is implemented on Hadoop using Java MapReduce.
Social CRM - Functional Architecture and Interactions FlowFabio Cipriani
Building long-lasting links with customer through innovative experience and co-generating value with them
Topics covered:
- Why Social CRM?
- Functional Architecture
- Flow and Value of Interactions
- What are CRM vendors doing to promote Social experience
- Pre-requisites and business questions
Customer relationship management continues to be a vital strategy for achieving higher profitability, improved productivity, lower costs, stronger customer retention, and greater insight into customer and prospect behavior. CRM technology and outcomes over the past two decades, it is also true that many companies still struggle to implement their CRM system effectively and achieve the results they expect from these powerful information systems. The critical nature of human factors at work in a CRM initiative demands that you focus as much attention on the people using the system as you do on the software.
Mobile CRM: a New Perspective Mobile sales teams are usually composed of a firm’s most valuable salespeople: the ones who close the most deals and are the most direct generators of new revenue.
Track Keynote for the Change and Release Management Track at the IBM Rational Software Conference 2009
Software change and release management, a key capability in modern software development, enables teams to accelerate the software and systems delivery lifecycle. This track is for practitioners, administrators, and advanced users who want to learn how IBM Rational change and release management solutions - IBM® Rational ® ClearCase®, IBM® Rational® ClearQuest®, IBM® Rational® Team Concert®, IBM® Rational® Build Forge® and IBM® Rational® Software Analyzer® - can empower organizations to improve productivity and team collaboration, gain better visibility into projects, automate processes, improve quality, manage distributed teams, and provide audit trails and traceability across the software development lifecycle for fast delivery of high-quality software.
Pivotal Upgrade Services brings together the tools, methodologies, and expertise necessary for a predictable, low-risk upgrade that protects your customization investment
Executive summary outlining the benefits of ARMnet Financial Product Management Solution for origination and servicing in the lending, mortgage and wealth management space.
Hadoop is the technology of choice for processing large data sets. At salesforce.com, we service internal and product big data use cases using a combination of Hadoop, Java MapReduce, Pig, Force.com, and machine learning algorithms.
In this webinar, you will learn about an internal use case and a product use case:
:: Product Metrics: Internally, we measure feature usage using a combination of Hadoop, Pig, and the Force.com platform (Custom Objects and Analytics).
:: Community-Based Recommendations: In Chatter, our most successful people and file recommendations are built on a collaborative filtering algorithm that is implemented on Hadoop using Java MapReduce.
Social CRM - Functional Architecture and Interactions FlowFabio Cipriani
Building long-lasting links with customer through innovative experience and co-generating value with them
Topics covered:
- Why Social CRM?
- Functional Architecture
- Flow and Value of Interactions
- What are CRM vendors doing to promote Social experience
- Pre-requisites and business questions
Modern Architects are faced with the daunting challenge of mapping out the future while caring for the present application portfolio. Join Salesforce Enterprise Architects as they describe a fresh approach to Roadmapping that balances legacy and next-generation technologies, all within a business-focused context.
Please use the below URL to view recording of this webinar:
http://wso2.com/library/webinars/2015/02/connected-retail-reference-architecture/
The key focus areas of this session are
An overview of the retail IT landscape
What is a connected retail IT architecture
How the WSO2 middleware platform enables a connected retail business
Connected retail L0 architecture
Connected retail L1 architecture with WSO2
Social CRM - Concept, Benefits and Approach to adoptFabio Cipriani
A call for reviewing current CRM Strategy, Processes and Mindset throughout companies
- Concept
- Comparison with traditional CRM
- Benefits
- Approach for adoption
- How to put it to work
Pivotal CRM’s 3-tier architecture is based on the enterprise-strength Intel® and Microsoft® platforms; offers three types of clients, including a zero-footprint, zero-install client to facilitate deployment; and can seamlessly distribute customizations to all LAN and WAN-based satellite systems, mobiles, Web, Lotus Notes, and MS Outlook users via the Pivotal CRM synchronization solutions.
Navigating CRM Demos: A Comprehensive Guide From CRM Consulting ExpertsThinkCap Advisors LLP
A CRM demo offers a valuable opportunity to scrutinize the software's capabilities and its suitability for your business needs. As a CRM consulting services firm, we highly recommend leveraging this opportunity to assess both the product fit and the capabilities of the personnel who will be involved in the project.
Remember, investing time wisely during the demo stage will ensure the selection of the right CRM software, ultimately leading to a successful CRM implementation.
Commence CRM - 6 points to consider regarding CRMSiliconCloud
If picking suitable CRM software for your business, there are issues that you must look at apart from the expense alone. Actually, taking cost as the determining factor, it may cause issues and deficits eventually. Here are some of the issues that you must address previous to buying as well as implementing CRM software:
It is tough for businesses. Particularly small businesses, to survive in the current hyper-competitive digital environment. As a small business owner, you must juggle many responsibilities. Be it acquiring and managing leads or handling contracts and deals. There is a lot that you have to get done on a day-to-day basis.
https://dreamcyberinfoway.com/blog/crm-software-types-benefits-features-the-1-alternative/
With the right CRM comes the opportunity for Along the way, IT managers need an integratedcompanies to really get to know their customers, set of technologies—from websites to databasestheir needs, preferences and their buying and data mining tools—to make it work.patterns.
The Pivotal CRM team at CDC Software is a leading provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. Pivotal CRM is the only CRM solution offering rich functionality, a full application suite, and best-in-class customization capabilities, all with a low total cost of ownership
Pivotal Mobile Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications provide a range of solutions that ensure a sale is never delayed because of limited access to critical data.
The Pivotal Service suite has been designed to drive improvements in customer service while reducing operating and maintenance costs throughout the customer lifecycle — while improving the quality of customer interactions.
Pivotal CRM for Home Building and Real Estate is a clear choice for single- and multi-family home builders and other real estate industry firms looking to increase operational efficiency, gain competitive advantage, and meet the challenges of a market slowdown.
Wird ein Social CRM Tool mit dem Anspruch implementiert, die ohnehin nur mäßig funktionierende CRM Installation zu verbessern, führt dies so gut wie sicher zu einer Enttäuschung. Die besten Projektergebnisse erzielt ein Social CRM als natürliche Erweiterung der bisherigen CRM-Tools und-Strategien
Implementing lead management best practices through marketing automation reduces the cost of marketing, fills the sales pipeline faster with better quality leads, and grows revenue
Pivotal SyndMail is a complete e-mail marketing solution that lets you segment your audience, send electronic communications, and analyze the success of your campaign.
Institutional asset managers need to become more customer-centric to differentiate themselves in the market and retain current clients. When institutional account contracts come up for renewal, client satisfaction plays a critical role in their decision-making.
Explains how businesses can use CRM to foster and implement customer-centric innovation, enhancing the customer experience and creating internal efficiencies to establish a clear competitive edge.
Explains the practical CRM tools that can help to introduce repeatable, proven process to your sales team. So you can help them figure out what works best.
Explains the real, practical advantages healthcare payer organizations can experience by using CRM technology to streamline and minimize paper-based processes.
From Complexity and Frustration to Simplicity and Effectiveness it is the most viable foundation for discovering new opportunities that build momentum and inspire growth.
How financial services companies are using customer relationship management to converge people, processes, and products more effectively to earn the position of valued partner, and embark on true relationship banking — with the end result of growing business momentum
Implementing lead management best practices through marketing automation reduces the cost of marketing, fills the sales pipeline faster with better quality leads, and grows revenue
The crm journey from productivity to profitPivotal CRM
How companies across a vast selection of industries are using customer relationship management to converge people, processes, and products more efficiently.
Addressing the contact center opportunity, discuss five important contact center trends, and explain how companies can embrace these trends to create a smart strategy that can improve the top and bottom line.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Designing Great Products: The Power of Design and Leadership by Chief Designe...
The executive Guide to CRM architechture
1. W H I T E
P A P E R
The Executive Guide to CRM Architecture
Why CRM Flexibility Will Impact Your Success
Executive Summary
Most businesses today are under increasing pressure to respond to change
expeditiously—to adapt to the ongoing needs and demands of their customers,
the changing competitive landscape, and the evolution of the marketplace. An
organization’s CRM system can either effectively support or hinder their business
agility and capacity to respond to change, affecting overall corporate performance
and customer satisfaction. This white paper explains the importance of flexible
software architecture, and how the right CRM solution can support and even
advance an organization’s ability to evolve in lock-step with changes as they
occur—enabling them to attain and maintain a competitive advantage.
2. The Executive Guide to CRM will accommodate their needs “out-of-the-box”, and that
the ability to adapt or mold the software to their way of
Architecture: Why CRM Flexibility doing business will be key to generating tangible results.
Will Impact Your Success The industry often uses the terms “customization” and
“configuration” interchangeably to mean “tailoring the
Most organizations have unique business processes software to meet unique business requirements”—but in
and rules—even businesses that operate in the same practice, these terms do not mean the same thing. There
industry or market. Whether your company’s unique traits are several areas of a CRM application that may require
include specialized processes that give you a competitive tailoring to meet an organization’s particular needs. Some
advantage or complex informational requirements due to of these changes are anticipated and provided for within
a diverse and multi-tiered customer set, understanding the software, which will offer easy ways to “configure”
the importance of flexibility in a CRM system’s architecture these options.
is key to avoiding implementation failure and to ensuring
the solution meets your organization’s requirements over Other more elaborate changes may require deeper
the long term. technical engagement with and alteration to the underlying
software—these are “customizations.” Examples of these
Most CRM vendors will claim their solution is two kinds of CRM tailoring include the following:1
customizable. Understanding what that really means,
however, can make the difference between attaining your Configuration:
organization’s goals and implementation disaster. In this
paper, you will learn about the different categories of • Creating rules (such as report filters, escalation levels,
“customization” and the role a flexible architecture plays and other business rules) that make the system behave
in being able to customize with ease, as well as flexibility’s in the manner you want and produce the information
importance in deploying, upgrading, and integrating your you need
CRM system successfully. • Adding fields, changing field names, and adding
or changing field values (that is, data options for
By understanding these factors and how they relate to populating the field) to capture required information
your organization’s needs and resources, you can ensure
the CRM solution you select enables you to operate as an • Formatting data elements on the screen, such as
adaptive enterprise, which is critical to maintaining changing the order in which fields appear, as well as
a competitive edge in today’s business climate. how they look (for example, bolding or putting required
fields of entry in a different-colored font)
“
Customization:
Pivotal CRM said that it could deploy almost • Scripting logic to drive process or workflow (for
immediately ‘out of the box’ and that would give example, if the credit department puts an account on
hold, an internal notice is automatically sent to the
our sales managers most of what they were account manager handling the account)
looking for. And it was customizable, which • Managing the application programming interface
was important because you want the system (API) to enable integration with other applications/
systems. (Although many CRM vendors will provide
to adapt to your business model, rather than tools to integrate their software with industry-standard
”
adapting your company to the software. applications, such as accounting packages, this form of
tailoring is still often required)
Bill Quinto To summarize, configuration changes are generally
CRM Applications Specialist those that can be accomplished by non-technical users,
Mikohn without the need for programming (though you may have
to consider your resources and the skill level of existing
staff—for example, a business analyst may be needed to
Understanding Customization configure more complex implementations that address
When searching for a CRM solution, many organizations end-to-end business processes). Engaging an external
will start assessing their needs by reviewing their consultant or the software vendor to make configuration
cutomer-facing business processes, as well as their changes will cost you both time and money—be sure you
internal information requirements. It is usually during this know what configuration options you need and
phase that companies realize that no software package whether they are provided in the CRM software you
are considering.
1 The information for four of the categories was derived from “Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing CRM Software,”
CRM Daily, April 11, 2006.
Pivotal CRM | White Paper 1
3. True customization changes are generally those that need A system’s inability to be adapted rapidly and reliably
to be made by technical users—actual modifications to meet the organization’s changing requirements is
to the application or template through system-level a top reason for CRM failure. As with most business
properties or programming code. For example, processes, the most effective CRM processes are not
a non-typical sales process to manage RFPs could devised once and then never revisited—they need to be
potentially be modeled by adding tables and code to continually analyzed in relation to changing customer
customize the sales module within a CRM application, but needs and expectations, as well as changes in the market
this would require programming experience. and competitive landscape. The most successful CRM
implementations are in organizations that are constantly
Today’s CRM vendors deliver systems with differing assessing their CRM practices, with the objective
degrees of configuration and customization capabilities, of creating a triumph for both their customers and
and enterprises need to clearly understand and themselves.
evaluate this functionality as it relates to their business
needs. By clearly defining your business processes Surprisingly, many CRM vendors today still focus on
and requirements, and understanding the important delivering support for standard business practices, hoping
differences between configuration and customization, you to cover a broad spectrum of functional requirements
will be well prepared to avoid implementation surprises out-of-the-box. However, as reported in The State of
that can result in substantial costs to your organization. Customer Relationship Management Software: 2003-2004
by Dick Lee and David Mangen,2 this can clearly have
repercussions when it comes to flexibility:
The Impact of a CRM Solution’s
Of particular concern to customers is the Tier-13 players’
Architectural Flexibility tendency to push customers to use their “out-of-the-box”
In their search for the optimal CRM solution, many functionality, rather than adapting to meet individual
organizations either put too much focus on assessing customer functional requirements. Unfortunately, having
which requirements the software will meet at the time of extensive, pre-built functionality appears to make
implementation (whether out-of-the-box or with tailoring) adaptation to specific customer needs more difficult for
or not enough—they are sold on a “best in class” notion Tier-1 systems than for some Tier-24 systems.
and believe they will simply “make it work” (in other
Flexibility, which Lee and Mangen refer to as
words, they believe they can adapt their way of doing
“adaptability,” is a direct consequence of underlying
business to the software).
architecture. Simply put, businesses that purchase a CRM
The best CRM solution is one system built on an architecture designed for configurability
that is capable of supporting often find that customizations require significant time,
Mikohn Empowers your business model and resources, and cost to implement and upgrade. For this
Sales Team processes at the time of reason, many organizations think it is easier to adapt their
implementation, as well as on business processes to the software, rather than the other
Company Facts: Gaming Systems,
Manufacturing; $100M annual revenues an ongoing basis: it should way around. For example, SaskTel, the Saskatchewan
be flexible and adaptable, Telephone Company, “did not customize its Siebel sales
Business Problem: Steep growth curve force automation tool. Instead, the sales team changed
challenged the company to keep pace so that it can be altered and
scaled as your organization its methods to fit the tool.”5 While this strategy can result
with the needs of new customers.
changes and grows. All too in faster deployment time and easier upgrades, it can
Solution: Pivotal Sales seriously jeopardize business performance.
often, organizations make
a choice based on ease of
Being forced to exchange your existing business
accessibility or other perceived advantages, and then
processes for software-mandated ones also negatively
due to inflexible architecture find themselves being held
impacts user adoption. An intuitive and easy-to-use
ransom when the need arises to adapt the software.
interface that can be easily customized to reflect the way
Implementing a solution with underlying inflexibility can
your employees work—instead of the way a software
mean locking business processes in at the point in time
vendor thinks they should work—is key to end-user
of implementation, which can prove to be a significant
acceptance, which is critical to the success of your CRM
barrier to the organization’s ability to respond to change
implementation. When an organization has adapted its
as needed—something that is becoming an increasing
processes to the software, users often become frustrated
necessity for most businesses today—ultimately hindering
and create their own work-arounds to get the information
their performance.
2 The State of Customer Relationship Management Software: 2003-2004 by Dick Lee and David Mangen, HYM Press, November 2003
3 Tier 1 examples include SAP and Oracle/PeopleSoft/Siebel
4 Tier 2 examples include Pivotal and SalesLogix
5 “Siebel To Offer Build-to-Order CRM Apps,“ CRM Daily, November 15, 2004
Pivotal CRM | White Paper 2
4. Nonetheless, there is never a “perfect fit” that meets the
“
needs of every organization within an industry, and as
… [We are] using Pivotal CRM to further previously noted, companies within the same market or
differentiate ourselves from our competitors in industry will often have dramatically different business
processes, whose very differences may confer competitive
what is an increasingly high-growth, fast-paced, advantage. It is important to evaluate a solution that is
and competitive market … We have reduced touted as being industry-specific with the same objectivity
and criteria you would apply to a non-industry-specific one,
crucial response times, retained virtually all and to consider the highly probable need for customization
of our customers, and done so without [an despite the inclusion of “industry-specific” features.
increase] to our headcount. Pivotal CRM has Integration with existing and future systems is another
key area buyers need to consider when evaluating a
”
been the key factor in our rapid growth. CRM solution. Choosing a CRM system designed with
more inflexible architecture—such as an architecture
Craig Bray that binds data and processes together—can result in
Director of Operations costly and time-consuming customization for effective
SecureWorks integration with an organization’s existing infrastructure.
they need. The end result can be botched processes Traditional applications—or those that were designed
and redundancies that thwart potential productivity gains, to be more or less self-contained or standalone—are
and inevitably affect customer relations as well. Once especially expensive to integrate with, and often become
organizations realize they cannot operate without their cumbersome and problematic as IT attempts to integrate
key unique processes, many implement a “quick-fix” them using current enterprise integration applications,
by cobbling together databases that tie into the main middleware, and so forth. A CRM application whose
system, increasing overall database administration efforts. flexible architecture allows for ease of integration,
The organization can find itself once again gathering by contrast, not only improves compatibility with
information and performing customer-facing business pre-existing systems, but also makes it easier to
processes through a patchwork of systems that does enhance and extend functionality across systems.
not deliver the single data repository and “360-degree To be effective, the CRM vendor must supply an
customer view” that is the key strategic advantage integration framework that spans multiple data
of CRM. stores, applications, and business processes across
departmental and even enterprise boundaries.
Having realized that
their industry-specific By giving the same consideration to a CRM solution’s
SecureWorks Uses architecture as to its features, and gaining an
requirements will not be
Pivotal CRM to Maintain met by a CRM vendor that understanding of your organization’s ability to manipulate
a Competitive Edge offers solutions for “general” this architecture for adaptability and integration, you will
Company Facts: The market leader in business, some organizations mitigate deployment issues and ensure the successful
managed security service providers and turn to industry-specific CRM implementation of a CRM system that can meet your
the maker of iSensor, a unique information systems, believing that these ongoing requirements and scalability needs. Ultimately,
security appliance; $9.7M revenue (2004) are tantamount to this will strengthen your organization’s ability to deliver on
Business Problem: Growing at an “customized” solutions. internal business objectives, while responding quickly and
extremely rapid rate, the company Indeed, industry-tailored intelligently to customer and market opportunities.
needed to ensure a high service level solutions may offer
with rapid customer response times, and features that more closely
easy and secure access to customer fit a company’s business
Deployment and Upgrades
data across the organization. Automating Many CRM implementations fail in the deployment stage
processes with their partner channel and
processes and data models,
reducing the extent of due to an organization’s overreach in its installation
reducing operating costs were also key
goals. customization needed. But plans.6 Striving to implement every possible “wish-list”
industry-specific applications customization out of the gate can be overwhelming for
Solution: Pivotal CRM Suite the implementation team, as well as for users. Businesses
are not the same as
customized applications. that choose a flexible solution have the option of
Industry-specific applications are a vendor’s attempt to deploying in phases, knowing that further customizations
approximate the processes and data models broadly and configuration changes can be deployed at any time.
required within an industry. If a significant change in business processes is taking
place in conjunction with the deployment of a CRM
system, a phased approach may be advisable to ensure
implementation success.
6 “Pitfalls to Avoid When Choosing CRM Software,” CRM Daily, April 11, 2006
Pivotal CRM | White Paper 3
5. Whether customizations are phased in or deployed at to be adapted as business models change in response to
the outset, a CRM solution must continue to evolve in competitive pressures, and in order to take advantage of
lock-step with an organization’s growth and development, new opportunities.
as business goals and processes change or are refined in
response to the changing marketplace and competition. The best CRM solutions mitigate deployment and
It must be implemented with the foresight to allow for upgrade risks by offering flexible architecture at their
post-implementation configurations and/or customizations core—architecture that saves customizations in a
without disruption to day-to-day business. And since manner that allows administrators to deploy the original
effective CRM architecture today must cross multiple system and ongoing upgrades to all users seamlessly,
databases, applications, and business functions and regardless of the user’s access method. Furthermore,
support evolution at each of those layers, the necessity of CRM vendors must be able to support offline test and
post-implementation changes has become a potentially development systems so that organizations can create,
challenging and risky undertaking. implement, and test customizations and configurations
offline before moving them into production. (CRM buyers
“
should be careful to clarify how changes created in the
Customization is the strength of Pivotal CRM testing environment are moved into production across the
extended enterprise to ensure total cost of ownership is
—that’s why we chose it. It’s the fact that minimized.) If these elements are an intrinsic part of the
Pivotal CRM offers a rapid development CRM solution, rolling out the system and upgrades to
LAN-based systems during off-peak hours should rarely
environment and highly customizable pose a problem.
”
system.
Jeff Peters
The Pivotal CRM Approach
Director of Sales Operations, ESRI The Pivotal CRM team believes that an organization’s
ability to tailor a CRM solution to meet its needs on an
Systems that have a more rigid architecture—such as ongoing basis is critical to its performance. Accordingly,
those that save customizations in the software code the Pivotal CRM system has been developed in
or inflexible table extensions—create a sizable ordeal a manner that ensures companies can operate with the
when it comes time to deploy the solution and follow-on highest level of agility. The Pivotal CRM solution stands
upgrades. This is particularly true for organizations with apart from other CRM software in delivering a complete
remote and mobile users—implementing customizations suite of CRM products that are built on a sensible
across distributed enterprises can be time-consuming technology foundation, and highly flexible architecture.
and geographically challenging (in some cases requiring Our technology architecture ensures enterprises gain
laptops to be sent to a central office for upgrades). a flexible, scalable, and easily deployable solution that
Depending on the size and facilitates the richest levels of collaboration and interactivity
complexity of the organization, to increase revenues, margins, and customer loyalty.
ESRI Chooses Pivotal deployment could take
CRM for Its Customization anywhere from days to
Capability several months to complete, Configuration and Customization
inflating administration costs Architectural flexibility is about making CRM software,
Company Facts: World’s leading
and creating confusion while and thus CRM processes, work the way the organization
producer of geographic information
systems (GIS) software; $427M different parts of the business sees fit. A flexible CRM application is one that is both
annual revenues operate with different sets of easy to customize and easy to integrate with internal
business processes. and external enterprise applications and data sources.
Business Problem: Customer
information stored in a variety of The architectural flexibility in the Pivotal CRM solution
This is why, traditionally, is grounded in the three separate component areas
departmental and individual databases
created delays in response time, highly customized CRM of its CRM suite: the platform (which defines data
inaccuracies in information, loss of systems are viewed as access/output); the application (the forms tied to
productivity, and redundant points of “un-upgradable”—that is, too business processes); and the graphical toolkit, which
contact with the customer. costly and risky to upgrade facilitates modification of the application. These flexible
Solution: Pivotal CRM Suite on a regular basis. This is components allow organizations to optimize their
another reason that some agility and responsiveness—a key to maintaining their
organizations think it best to competitive edge.
deploy an uncustomized system, believing the ability to
easily upgrade outweighs the downsides of changing Pivotal CRM’s metadata-driven architecture separates
their business processes to match those supported customer data from business rules, which makes it easier
by an out-of-the-box CRM solution. However, most to quickly customize the solution to match business
organizations are putting the future of their business at processes. This results in an architecture that facilitates
risk by refusing to customize; business processes need
Pivotal CRM | White Paper 4
6. the implementation of changes at all levels of the suite,
with the ability not only to modify the user interface
and business processes, but also the unique ability to
customize the data model. Pivotal CRM customers can
change the underlying database entities or business
objects to more closely model the way they do business.
This includes the ability to change and create data
elements and relationships between the data entities
as required.
“ […Pivotal CRM’s] architecture allows us to
more quickly adapt our technology to ever-
changing business needs…Centra [now
Figure 1: The Pivotal CRM Toolkit Graphical UI
has] the most maintainable and extensible
architecture to move our CRM application To ensure customizations could be easily implemented,
the Pivotal CRM team created a graphical customization
forward. As business rules change, we now toolkit: an easy-to-use visual tool that enables rapid
have the lowest total cost of development and customization to meet the organization’s ongoing needs.
Familiar elements such as forms, tables, lists, and
administration environment with which to grow queries—the main areas that customizers interact with—
”
our internal systems and processes. are designed to be intuitive for customizers to use and
learn. Pivotal CRM provides an elegant, uncomplicated
Todd Williamson framework for determining how these elements interact
Senior Business Systems Manager with each other to create functionality.
Centra Software Customizers work with forms, which are the visual
representation of CRM data, business processes, and
Through a combination of configuration and workflow that the user sees on their client. Forms contain
customization, complex business processes can be the database structure; every field on a form is by default
implemented in Pivotal CRM by business analysts, linked to a table in the database. To modify a form to
without requiring extensive programming resources. meet the needs of users, customizers lay out the form
For example, configuration can be as straightforward as directly using point-and-click buttons and other screen
allowing a sales manager to change the sales process by elements. Customizations are then saved as metadata,
easily editing a milestone. not as code or rigid table extensions.
Customization can also
Centra Software Streamlines be accomplished in a For example, creating a customer contact form requires
Delivery to Its Customers straightforward manner the customizer simply to link the new form to the
Company Facts: World’s leading global by, for example, changing corresponding database element, lay out the form using
provider of enterprise software and services or adding tables within the the embedded Microsoft Visual Studio Forms Designer,
for eLearning and business collaboration; Pivotal CRM data model and register the new form with the navigation menu. All
$24M annual revenue to more closely align with this is done without needing to write a single line of code.
Business Problem: Customers had to interact a company’s business If a new table is required for the form, Pivotal CRM has
directly with account managers and call center model. graphical tools to allow the customizer to quickly build
representatives to obtain product and technical new tables into the system.
information, including software updates.
Solution: Pivotal CRM Suite, including Pivotal This powerful WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
CRM, including CDC Software's customer model for both configurations and customizations makes
self-service portal, Pivotal eService. the tailoring process rapid and intuitive. The Pivotal CRM
solution provides out-of-the-box form templates with logic
and rules built in, and additional logic and workflow can
also be attached. Because of this, the customizer role can
be filled by a business analyst, as no code-level changes
are required.
However, if internal programmers are available,
Pivotal CRM does provide a comprehensive library
of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for
application developers to customize against, using
Pivotal CRM | White Paper 5
7. .NET programming languages, such as C# or VB.NET. effectively diagnosing a current system’s position
In this way, the organization is given the choice of how so customers can better understand exactly which
they wish to work—customization performed at the more customized functionality they can safely bring over to
technical level by a developer is faster and can save the new system. These tools siginificantly decrease the
on costs, but many companies prefer to have analysts, time and effort associated with any upgrade.
who are more closely aligned with business operations, • Preserving most integrations to other applications.
perform customizations. As a general rule, Pivotal CRM maintains backward
compatibility with integration APIs from release to
release. In this way, Pivotal CRM ensures existing
“ As a company whose very purpose is to develop
enterprise-wide solutions for our customers,
integration solutions created using best practices (such
as indirection, layers, and encapsulation) will continue
to function post-upgrade.
we were in the strongest position to know what • Delivering extensive upgrade documentation in
conjunction with automated upgrade scripts. The
we wanted from our applications infrastructure. Pivotal CRM system uses automated agents that move
Pivotal CRM's technology met all our both enterprise customer data and metadata into new
structures to take advantage of the features delivered in
expectations in terms of speed of deployment, the new version.
ability to customize, mix of functionality, open
Integration
”
architecture, and flexibility.
To ensure integration ease, Pivotal CRM utilizes a
Sangeev Garg framework that leverages middleware components,
Director of Worldwide Business Systems, Micro Focus International, Ltd. third-party adapters, and Web Services to provide
a standards-based approach that can significantly
decrease the time and effort needed to integrate CRM
with enterprise applications and data, both within and
Deployment and Upgrades across business boundaries.
To ensure customers can deploy easily, quickly, and
reliably, the Pivotal CRM system uses a push-button
deployment method: customizers centrally modify the Conclusion
system and then move customizations from an offline All CRM systems are flexible to a greater or lesser
development system into degree. Some organizations—especially businesses
production with a single with simple and standard business practices—may find
Micro Focus International command called a UFO that an out-of-the-box CRM solution with the ability to
Improves Response Times (Upgrade From Offline). configure specific business processes can accommodate
and Reduces Costs After customizers have
their needs. But more established organizations, with
complex requirements, unique business processes, and/
Company Facts: U.K.-based provider of implemented a UFO, changes
world-class solutions for developing and or a differentiated business model cannot be so easily
made to the metadata
deploying COBOL applications; $151M accommodated with a standard solution that does not
repository are compressed
annual revenue provide for a wide breadth of customizations to be made
in a message and placed
Business Problem: Disparate methods cost-effectively.
into the web server outbound
of managing customer information queue, thereby distributing
slowed the company’s ability to generate Upon assessing their business processes, most
all application changes to the organizations find that they deviate from standard
new business and compromised
customer service.
extended enterprise, including practices. After all, “Virtually every company’s sales
mobile and sattelite systems. processes—both formal and informal—contain unique
Solution: Pivotal CRM Suite This ensures all users are elements that help to differentiate that firm from
always operating with the competitors. If the … sales processes are not aligned
latest business processes, with the assumptions built into [the] CRM system, then
which avoids confusion, eliminates lost productivity, and implementation of that system simply automates chaos.”7
minimizes disruption.
Ultimately, the ability to both configure and customize
Pivotal CRM further ensures ongoing upgradability of all at multiple levels of a CRM system (from the data
aspects of the system by: model to business processes to the user interface) in a
• Preserving all configurations and customizations already straightforward manner yields the application with the
selected/created. Pivotal CRM makes available tools greatest flexibility—an application that can be easily
that compare an existing implementation to the new transformed to address whatever market pressures
version, as well as to the original out-of-the-box system, dictate. And to control upgrade costs and risks, the CRM
7 “Sales Process Is the Essential Success Ingredient for CRM” by Keith Eades, CRM Magazine, November 15, 2004
Pivotal CRM | White Paper 6