Amdocs' latest partner relationship management application, PRM 5, melds CRM and financial functions, with the goal of maximizing business partners' profits. Amdocs is well positioned on this front, particularly in the telecom sector, AMR Research senior analyst Louis Columbus told CRM Buyer. Howeve...

"Unleashing trapped profitability" may sound like a tall order in this tough economy, but it has become a mantra for executives at storage-systems maker StorageTek. Their strategy to invest in IT during the downturn included a supply-chain overhaul that enabled the company to slash its inventory in ...

Orchestrating business processes is key to running a well-tuned marketing operation, according to executives at Chordiant. The software vendor's new marketing and contact center suites were designed to be complementary. Integrated marketing automation and contact-center applications potentially coul...

Just as sophisticated navigation tools help aviators choose the right route through the skies, marketing-automation technology is a crucial component of CRM that enables users to analyze data and map out cost-efficient business strategies. In fact, analysts expect marketing automation to emerge as t...

"Flexibility" is the key word Onyx director of corporate marketing Patrick Angelel uses to describe the strategy behind his company's CRMExpress, which packages Onyx Enterprise CRM software licenses and implementation services for a single fixed fee. The goal is to provide easy entry into the CRM wo...

Although live chat has captured only a tiny share of contact-center interactions, some verticals have done well with this channel, according to a report from the Yankee Group. On the other hand, Yankee Group senior analyst Art Schoeller told CRM Buyer, chat is unlikely to gain much momentum in the n...

Onyx' new Portable CRM family of mobile applications for the mid-market is designed to allow field employees to access the specific information they need on any given day or business trip. Using the new suite, which features a light-footprint architecture, mobile professionals can access Onyx Enterp...

SAP is gunning for the top spot in the CRM market, and analysts and company executives say the company's new CRM release could help boost it toward that lofty position. Version 4.0 of mySAP CRM is an end-to-end suite targeting 23 verticals, including automotive, consumer goods, high-tech, profession...

DoubleClick, which took a giant step into the campaign-management business with its November 2002 acquisition of Protagona, is seeking to make major strides in marketing automation by adding analytics and real-time capabilities to its software. The goal is to increase marketing efficiency, improve c...

Chordiant is rolling out version 5.5 of its business process automation suite. The offering, which aims to help users manage an abundance of customer information, focuses on service-driven verticals, such as retail financial services. The new software allows users to manage business processes that a...

RightNow Hosting 2.0 is a multichannel customer-service offering designed to put customers in the driver's seat, allowing them to control when and how they upgrade the software. "Today, the customer has to be in control. CIOs and CFOs need new flexibility," RightNow CFO Susan Carstensen told CRM Buy...

SAP this month will begin shipping an updated version of its supplier relationship management (SRM) suite, which includes new features for live auctions, supplier portals and service procurement. By expanding its lineup, SAP is attempting to gain a leg up in the fast-growing SRM market. However, the...

SPSS is marrying its Web-analytics and predictive-modeling technologies with the launch of Predictive Web Analytics. Designed to vest organizations with the power to convert their Web data into deep customer intelligence, the new application promises to provide historical and predictive insights to ...

Epicor Software's Internet Component Environment (ICE) will make its debut with the late June release of Epicor for Service Enterprises, an enterprise service automation suite for mid-market applications. The ICE platform, which incorporates Microsoft's .NET architecture, is designed to make managem...

Computer Associates subsidiary ACCPAC is digging deeper into the CRM space with its rollout of CRM 5.5, an Internet and wireless system for small and mid-size businesses. The application incorporates a newly designed user interface, along with improved e-mail integration and sales forecasting featur...

ServiceWare Technologies is branching into the mid-market with a new suite of knowledge management tools for customer service and support. The offering, dubbed ServiceWare Express, includes Web self-service, e-mail response management, chat and agent-facing tools, such as case management and reporti...

PeopleSoft is combining its new enterprise service automation (ESA) application for IT with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young's IT benchmarking and process modeling services. The joint offering, called CIO OneSource, aims to lower IT costs by giving executives technology that can track and measure effect...

J.D. Edwards will go live in the next few weeks with its Supply Chain Business Modeler (SCBM) for manufacturers and distributors. Now in beta testing, the tool is designed to consolidate data from different applications into a single data warehouse. As such, it provides a single view of all supply-c...

NCR subsidiary Teradata plans to roll out version 5.0 of its CRM software in August. Now in the beta-testing stage, the new version -- geared toward the communications, financial services, government, insurance, manufacturing, retail, and travel and transportation industries -- is designed to trigge...

Contact-center efficiency is a hot topic in this era of tight budgets. An efficient operation can improve a company's customer service while at the same time boosting its financial performance. To help enterprises achieve this goal, Blue Pumpkin plans to upgrade two aspects of its Workforce Optimiza...