PUBLIC MARKS from longhorn2000 with tags SaaS & crm

"The enterprise network is monetized differently, wherein all its users receive a paycheck to participate. To a great extent, the market economics required to generate widgets (with the Darwinist elimination of many failed concepts along the way, at no real cost to the network) can’t exist on the enterprise network. In-house IT can only create so many custom utilities. Both worlds need each other, and the corporate net can afford to buy the cream of the Web’s produce."

"For the owner of a Clarify™ system, the path is simpler, less politically complex, and branded by name: Dovetail Software. The headache disappears with proposing adoption of Dovetail CRM applications, because they’re specifically designed either to augment the existing install as additional seats, or to replace the Clarify applications across the board. In either case, Dovetail slips into the Clarify environment seamlessly, without a ripple of disturbance. Dovetail interfaces with the database with no change in look or feel, except for the many new features suddenly available."

"Those who have called Daylight Savings Time a folly from the beginning may snicker at the Congressional decision to alter the dates, but those who have anything to do with software aren’t laughing. Changing the dates of the Daylight Savings Time active period, for the first time in decades, will throw a lot of clocks out of sync."

crm, cs&s, customer service and support, soa, Amdocs Clarify, dovetail, dovetail software, knowledge management, KM, amdocs, clarify, saas, customer, customer service & support, service oriented architecture, software as a service, customer relationship manager, customer relationship management, first choice software, dovetail, dovetail software, daylight savings time

crm, cs&s, customer service and support, soa, Amdocs Clarify, dovetail, dovetail software, knowledge management, KM, amdocs, clarify, saas, customer, customer service & support, service oriented architecture, software as a service, customer relationship manager, customer relationship management, first choice software, dovetail, dovetail software

"Software-as-a-Service, SaaS, is driving – or perhaps riding shotgun with – an enormous, sea change in CRM. The model of “monolithic business function and application” is being broken down into smaller transaction sets and granular processes. The model is using easy-to-build interoperable services that further empower the customer-facing agent, and also deliver real-time analytics that personalize the customer experience.." "Software-as-a-Service, SaaS, is driving – or perhaps riding shotgun with – an enormous, sea change in CRM. The model of “monolithic business function and application” is being broken down into smaller transaction sets and granular processes. The model is using easy-to-build interoperable services that further empower the customer-facing agent, and also deliver real-time analytics that personalize the customer experience.."

"At Dovetail Software, the solutions we offer to the Clarify™ user’s installed base, and the scenarios and ramifications we encounter, generally mirror the larger world of SOA. This is a world of cross-platform integrations, and custom services creation that we see in the news feeds and blogs, which is why we’re so interested in events outside the Clarify box. We supply essentially the same revolution to the enterprise with our Web Services and huge library of APIs, and the Dovetail SDK (Software Development Kit) on the .NET platform."

"More than a decade ago Sun Microsystems proclaimed that “the network is the operating system.” Software developers are of course attuned to the development path and behavior of operating systems, since this is where their users and their applications will work together. It should be no surprise that the Internet, as the largest network ever created, demonstrates almost daily new and original uses of applications. Here at Dovetail we take note of these innovations."

"Collaboration between teams, departments, and individuals within the enterprise is a growing business goal. Enterprise-wide integration throughout the computing environment is the current IT lodestone, and it delivers the infrastructure for two huge benefits: collaboration, and resource sharing. Within this scenario, the sharing of “known” knowledge, and the discovery and subsequent propagation of “unknown” knowledge can occur."

"Yesterday we talked about the dictatorship of software, or hopefully, the liberating aspect of it. We described the euphoria that happens in the workplace when agents start exploring their new Dovetail CRM applications as replacements for their legacy Clarify™ applications. Ironically we often claim that new software doesn’t just pour out of the box like breakfast cereal, but we have to admit that for the agents on the front lines of customer service and support, their first days of working with Dovetail’s thin-client applications are a lot like unwrapping Christmas presents."

"Customers, stakeholders, and other departments notice as agents provide faster and better answers, close cases, and convert problems to repeat business. All this comes from access to knowledge that always existed but couldn’t be retrieved, and the empowerment to forward newly processed data to other agents – as in cases moving from support to sales with satisfied customers interested in additional offerings. Software liberates or enslaves. We like the kind we create (the liberating kind)."

“Forrester in its latest survey of the CRM field provides useful analysis of the Amdocs position, and also of Microsoft. We watch the development paths of both companies of course, since Dovetail Software provides long-running extensibility to Clarify™ databases, and the Dovetail CRM system, developed for Microsoft’s .NET platform, which opens up the options for legacy Clarify owners."

“Flexible software that enables the enterprise to integrate its CRM system end to end is where IT budgets are trained nowadays. This is satisfying to us at Dovetail: our open design philosophy exposes virtually all our software components to extensibility across the enterprise computing environment. For users with Clarify™ CRM systems – which are not known for their flexibility – our open design gives them back a development path."

“Historically, CRM has a bias toward technical control rather than technical freedom at the process end. There was always the expectation at the sales transaction level that the new software would bolt on to the enterprise and “solve” everything. As the IT department knows only too well, nothing ever works like that."

“A recruiter’s ability to hone in on the right match for a job quickly ensures that the recruiter and the client will have a better chance of bringing in top talent. In order to do this, the recruiter needs a system that allows candidates access to information on the culture of a company, the full nature of the job, and how they can bset make an immediate impact on the bottom line."

“Knowledge is power, but only to the extent that it can be wielded like a sword, and brought into the realms of judgment, decision-making, and execution. Corporate effort is awash with data, and one serious concern of every enterprise is to find better ways to turn raw data into actionable information, and subsequently into its knowledge repository."

As we’ve often said, CRM success comes from the ability of the agent to work efficiently and productively. Customization requires integration with existing systems, which is the greatest demand made of CRM software, in our view. This is especially true in the area of Customer Service and Support.

“Decision-Management consultant James Taylor recently handed down a good strategy rule concerning the speed with which the enterprise responds to business opportunity. He had seen an ad proclaiming that “Those who know first, win” – he disagreed . . .'Those who act first, win (provided the action is smart enough)'"

“Every day in countless ways, the theme of business process coming up against software constraints (and the resolution of that situation) plays out in enterprises all over the world. It’s all done in an attempt to provide better service and support to customers. With regard to Clarify databases, Dovetail Software strives daily to play its part in this ongoing drama, and this has been another happy story from the annals of success."

“Technology for its own sake is a seductive slip. It may be happening with over-enthusiasm in the technological innovations of today’s changing CRM, but this will eventually self-correct. Technological innovations by their very brilliance will of course carry the field to the extent that they match bottom-line imperatives, but at the end of the game it’s business process that tallies the final score."

“Through all of its evolution, Dovetail Software’s family of CRM products has embraced open standards in the process of bringing extensibility to Clarify’s proprietary code. Open-standard scripting languages such as JavaScript simplify and energize extension and integration throughout the enterprise computing environment. These languages are readily recognized by many applications, and freely employed by in-house IT departments."

“We had a customer who needs to be able to manually setup our WebServices under IIS6 so I thought it would be best to share this with everyone. This guide will take you through setting up a virtual web directory under IIS version 6 on Windows Server 2003. It will also show you how to set the security on your files to make sure the web service will work..."

"SOA is the big paradigm change that signals more flexibility in market offerings and IT departments, with the emergence of what we’ve called “democratic software”. The formidable rise in adoption of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) as a successful design philosophy foreshadows its reign as the totally dominant paradigm within two to three years."

“Enterprises nowadays are spending more to upgrade the systems that their agents use, recognizing that information at the agent’s fingertips results in credibility and confidence with the customer, and cleaner disposition and resolution of each case. The net nominal result to the enterprise is a measurable boost in the productivity of customer-facing workers."