Advantages of CRM

Writen by Casey Gollan

There are several benefits attached with a properly managed and maintained CRM system, which has made it the buzzword in the business community.

In any business, it helps the organisation in lots of ways, both in terms of delivery more to the customers and also in terms of gaining more from them.

Using CRM, a business can:

Provide Better Customer Service

CRM systems give businesses many strategic advantages such as the ability to personalize relationships with customers regardless of which employee is service them.

Using CRM, a repository can be maintained on customer profiles, thereby treating each client as an individual and not as a group. This way, every employee can be better informed about each customer’s specific needs and transaction profile.

CRM also helps the organisation to easily adjust the level of service to reflect the customer’s importance or status.

Better customer service through improved responsiveness and understanding helps in building customer loyalty and decreases customer agitation. It also helps the company in getting continuous feedbacks from the customers on the product they have bought.

A good electronic company would always like to follow-up with its customers on the items they have bought, so as to rectify the problem (if any) even before it gets logged as a complaint.

Increase Customer Revenues

Using CRM data, marketing campaigns can be co-ordinated more effectively by ensuring that promotions do not target customers who have already purchased that particular products.

It also ensures higher customer retention by introducing loyalty programs. A business would never like to see a product to a customer who has just bought it recently.

Discover New Customers

CRM systems help the organisation in identifying potential customers. By keeping a track of the profiles of their existing clientele, the business can easily come up with a strategy to determine the kind of people they should target such that it returns them maximum clientage.

For example, if several students in a university sign up for a particular mobile service provider, the business can come up with a strategy to target rest of the community in the university.

“Cross Sell” and “Up Sell” Products More Effectively

CRM systems facilitate cross-selling (offering customers complimentary products based on their previous purchases) and up-selling (offering customers premium products in the same category).

It helps them to gain a better understanding of customers and anticipate their purchases (e.g. someone who purchases grass seed in the spring will need fertilizer later in the season).

Help Sales Staff Close Deals Faster

CRM helps the businesses in closing deals faster, through quicker and more efficient responses to customer leads and customer information. The turnaround time has decreased drastically for organisations that have been able to implement CRM systems effectively.

Make Call Centers More Efficient

With each employee having access to customer details and order histories, targeting clients becomes easier.

CRM helps the organisation’s workforce in knowing how to deal with each individual customer depending upon the customer’s archives available through CRM. The information can be accessed instantly from anywhere within the company.

Simplify Marketing And Sales Processes

CRM helps in developing better communication channels. Interactive Voice Response System, web sites, etc. have made life easy both for the organisation and also for its sales representatives.

It allows the business to give its customers the option of choosing how they want to communication with the business.

For more information visit CRM Software Center – All the general information and resources for everything CRM – Customer Relationship Management. Visit http://www.crmsoftwarecenter.com for more articles and info on CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics GP: Auto Dealership Implementation

Writen by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Dynamics GP, or Microsoft Great Plains is very popular mid-market generic ERP. It can be used as ERP platform for multiple vertical markets. In this small article we’ll describe typical auto dealership network automation.

Worldwide automaker has dealers across the USA and Canada and in their case they had Great Plains Dynamics 6.0 on MS SQL Server/MSDE. Each dealer is independent enterprise, so each has its own Great Plains license

Dealership proprietary software. Dealership is traditional business and it had several generations of computer business systems. Customer info, associated with the car and VIN, work done for the car, parts, associated with the specific model, works pricelist and technician availability – this information is stored in DOS based business management system.

Microsoft Dynamics GP – accounting back end. Each transaction financial information goes to be stored in Great Plains Standard. Natural choice to use standard accounting application as the backend – it can handle US and Canadian dollars variation, plus it can handle sales tax (USA) and VAT/GST (Canada, Australia, New Zealand)

Financial Reporting. Microsoft Great Plains has FRx financial reporting: Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss (P&L), Cash Flow Statement – all these reports should be coming from standard accounting package, such as Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Integration Technology. Great Plains Dynamics 6.0 had legacy VBA/Modifier integration, using ADO to connect to dealership proprietary database and integrate with it. For version 8.0 we recommended eConnect in combination with direct MS SQL Server stored procedures integration (eConnect has certain issues, dealing with multicurrency and other nuances). As we move to Microsoft Dynamics GP (or Microsoft Great Plains Standard 9.0) – the accent will be changed to Object Integration SDK (eConnect with XML web services connectors, so we can deploy Visual Studio.Net C# or VB, however the need for the SQL stored procedures should be expected).

Future Directions. Auto dealership is very conservative business. It will be tending to skip one or two versions upgrade, as we have in this case: client skipped upgrade from Great Plains Dynamics 6.0 to Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics 7.0 and Great Plains Standard 7.5. Current plan is to upgrade GP Dynamics 6.0 to Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 and then in 2007 or 2008 GP 8.0 to Microsoft Dynamics GP 10

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally. We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

Manage Your Assets Without the Paper

Writen by Brad Hole

The day will come when your boss will come to you with the task of finding software to keep track of your company’s assets. You will go to the web, scouring sites that will give you more information than you ever wanted to know regarding asset tracking. Asset tracking software requires a database to store this information, labels to scan or key in and a portable data collection device. The day of keeping tracking of assets (computers, desks, chairs, etc) around the office using pen, paper has gone by the wayside. Save yourself the time of having to keep track of this information, then having to key it all into Excel.

There are many Asset Tracking Software packages out on the market. Choosing which one is right for you depends on how detailed you want to get. Low cost packages start around $500.00 and can run several thousands of dollars. Choose a package that allows you to import and export information. Many software packages come with predefined reports built into the program. If you are company that currently has a list of your assets in a database, part of the work is already done for you. Many packages allow you to dump that information into their asset tracking software program. I would encourage everyone to use a preprinted barcode label for tracking. There is too much room for human error in keying in several numbers. Scanners these days can be inexpensive and save you a lot of time.

Many customers ask if they can use their current asset number in a barcode. This can be more confusing. Start with a roll of preprinted asset labels. Our company sells them in convenient rolls of 500 in sequence. Use your current asset id number with the barcode label. Think of your automobile; if your license plates fall off, the police can track your car by your VIN number. A barcode label and an existing asset id number can have the same relationship within the software.

Having a system for tracking your assets gives you a sense of security and gives your employees a sense of responsibility if they know that things are being accounted for.

Brad Hole is President of Eversio Technologies http://www.eversio.com; a Seattle based business specializing in automated data collection, barcoding, and labeling.

Business Software

Writen by Elizabeth Morgan

Business software has become an essential part of every business and corporation that operates under a big, competitive economic environment. Nowadays, there is no serious business that doesn’t employ computer software, and this is definitely a clear proof that business software is a must for every business.

Business software can have many types and forms; however, the purpose remains the same: to help the administration maintain and control the business. The above goals can be achieved through the use of business software. Every piece of software is linked to another in a custom way. The route of cooperation between the different file formats and strategies that each program uses is analyzed and arranged by the IT (Information Technology) chief of the corporation or the suppliers of the software.

In order to avoid the above custom routes, corporations often choose to implement their business management using general, business-oriented packs. A well-known example of general, yet business-oriented software is MS Office, specifically Excel. Excel is a business program that is used by millions of corporations worldwide. Excel’s popularity is mainly due to the fact that it is very flexible and modifiable.

Of course, the possibilities are endless and a corporation can choose to go about building its very own custom software. In this case, the corporation has to cooperate with the developer of the software and specify the way the software is supposed to be used. The development cycle of the software tends to be long and costly. The advantage of custom software is that it is designed from scratch for the operation purposes of the specific business. This approach guarantees lack of unwanted features as well as existence of preferred ones.

In conclusion, business software is a must for all corporations today. The choices regarding what type of software to use are numerous, and the corporation can never feel restricted because it can arrange the development of custom software that includes all features that need to be implemented.

Business Software provides detailed information on Business Software, Small Business Software, Business Card Software, Business Plan Software and more. Business Software is affiliated with Construction Contract Management Software.

Accounts Payable: A Powerful Document Management and Workflow Solution

Writen by David Coxell

Accounts payable is just one area of office management where problems arise because of the sheer complexity of transactions, and the vast amount of paperwork that is generated.

A disproportionate amount of time and administrative resources is consumed just getting invoices approved for payment. The problem becomes compounded when invoices are lost when being circulated for clearance and even more time is then lost in the retrieval process.

Typically these documents include purchase invoices from suppliers, sales invoices to customers and purchase orders generated by customers.

Even if missing documentation is successfully recovered from the system, the delay will have caused major inconvenience. If it is not recovered, the effects on business are routinely disruptive, and in extreme cases, disastrous.

TokOpen is a powerful document management and workflow software solution that goes far beyond conventional document capture and storage. Uniquely flexible, the package allows systems to be configured to meet customers’ specific needs.

How TokOpen works

Automated data entry allows invoices to be scanned, indexed and stored in the system, avoiding time-consuming manual entry. Automated reading can take two forms: either header reading (reference number, client name and amount); or full line item reading. Alternatively, invoice information can still be entered manually if required.

Once in the system, invoices are electronically routed through a workflow process that includes notifying all authorised staff when an invoice is waiting for their approval. Online reports are automatically generated where invoices awaiting approval are delayed or missing. These reports are configurable, so they can be set up to cover other factors critical to successful payment completion.

Internal security is built into the system, and access controls ensure that only authorised staff can open invoices or related documents. Audits are automatically maintained on all documents as they progress through the system, so each time they are accessed or amended, time, date, identity and activity details are logged.

Where associated documents are in the system, these are stored in the same file alongside invoices so they can be located quickly and easily. Access can be gained from other systems, in which case folders and documents are displayed in a standard Web browser.

Invoice approval is integrated with the rest of the accounts payable process, and invoices can be accessed via systems like SAP or JDE.

TokOpen in action – a case study

TokOpen is currently being used by a major Japanese multi-national, with multiple office locations in the UK. One office processes purchase invoices for all the other offices in the UK, and they are initially processed using the Oracle Financials system. For all new invoices, a barcode is generated and attached to each document.

An Accounts Clerk then scans all documentation into TokOpen. This is carried out from a dedicated scanning and indexing workstation, using TokOpen Sorting Office.

All documents are stored here and then uploaded on a daily basis to the TokOpen server, which is at another UK office location. Sorting Office reads the barcode and then looks up the original data in Oracle to extract additional index data such as invoice number, supplier number and site code.

Standard browser access

Most documents are retrieved via the users’ standard Web browser, using TokOpen Web, and a total of 260 staff use this means of access. A restricted number of users also have access to the TokOpen Desktop, and access is provided to individuals based on an approval hierarchy.

Invoices are handled using an efficient electronic workflow process. Once scanned, Invoice Status is set to Invoice Received. TokOpen ensures that users can only view documents that have been assigned to them in a particular workflow.

A strict authorisation hierarchy is in place, based on the size of the invoices being handled. So if a member of staff attempts to authorise an invoice that exceeds their authorisation limit, TokOpen automatically routes it to a staff member at the next authorisation level. This continues up the authorisation hierarchy until the invoice reaches a member of staff who has had clearance to sign off that invoice value, and payment is completed.

TokOpen brings together powerful and efficient document management, with easy-to-use, Web-based access.

Tokairo is an international provider of Document Management (TokOpen) and Education systems solutions (TokAM). Tokairo has its headquarters in the UK, with a sister company in the USA responsible for the Americas. http://www.tokairo.com REF=TO2EZ