New opportunities in economic crisis - how does the current economic crisis change the Chemical Industry sector? Thorsten Wenze

The economic crisis has also reached the Chemical Industry. The current situation will, therefore, accelerate change beyond consolidation and classical cost savings in purchasing, logistics and general sustainability. Product and technology cycles will continue to be reduced and innovation is and remains a pivot for successful development.

If we think about Research & Development in Chemicals throughout the last two centuries, we will find very few joint development approaches in the past. Since a couple of years this is changing. It started via co-operations within the chemical ecosystem between different chemical producers, also promoted via demerger and out-sourcing activities. A few chemical producers are ahead of this development. They are entering into the so called Hybrid Innovation Area, which can be described by joint or custom development activities crossing industry boundaries, developing new products and applications including stakeholders like universities, research institutes, other industries, customers and even competitors.

Especially the role of the sales representative is changing from a classical sales function towards a more customer process oriented application engineer. Appropriate IT infrastructures and processes are required to cover the need to exchange information and data between all parties involved.

Based on Service Oriented Architecture, product innovators are able to orchestrate alliances and intellectual capital. SAP is actively working on this topic together with our customers in order to shape a solution able to cover these complex IT requirements beyond the company boundaries.

We would be glad to welcome you for these discussions and opportunity to share experiences and expectations. Please contact me or simply provide a description of what you would like to see in this type of application on this site.

Thorsten Wenzel Director Business Development IBU Chemicals

CRM and its Nitty-Gritties

Competition is all set to reach alarming levels and the need of the hour is business models that are equipped with almost everything. From business management techniques that personify precision to customer management skills that epitomize perfection.

CRM is a term that covers a huge chunk of any business. Yes, the success of the business inadvertently relies on the relationship it maintains with its customers. Customer data which includes demographics, analytical data and statistics is the core of any successful CRM program. Today CRM is used widely in businesses.

Features

Ever since the term was first coined, it literally invaded the world of business. It completely changed the relationship that businesses shared with their customers and brought a degree of sharpness into it which was previously unseen or unheard of.

While companies found it extremely costly and difficult to maintain such a large customer database in the early 80’s and 90’s, CRM was largely successful once technology started to improve and newer techniques and software were developed. Today, a CRM platform is constantly fed with newer information about changing needs and habits of the customer. It is this real time updating that makes CRM so reliable.

Benefits

There are immense benefits of having a complete CRM platform in place. It gives businesses a new and fresh approach that makes decision making extremely easy. Every CRM tool differs from the other as every company has a different set of needs and goals.

1. CRM is used in long term and short term marketing related goals.
2. Marketing campaigns with specific objectives are the result of CRM data.
3. The sales process has improved vastly thanks to the CRM tools in place today.
4. Activity management and service have also reached an all time new high thanks to CRM.
5. When coupled with Business Intelligence, CRM tools have proven to be absolute successes.

For more info visit : CRM Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

SAP Business One - Implementing the Future - Version 2007A

SAP B1 is really innovative ERP, dedicated to small business with great ambitions: MRP, discrete manufacturing or production, CRM, advanced warehouse management and inventory (pack and ship), service contracts (including functionality for creative warranty contracts and even rentals), HR with its ability to track employee hiring and certification history, accrual to cash switch in financial reporting, great support for multi-currency and worldwide localizations. SAP staying behind with its accounting software reputation is worth to mention. These and other features make this ERP application to be included into ERP selection and evaluation worksheet. Let's come through some SB1 features on the executive level:

1. Sales Automation or Client Relation Management functionality. The modern competition dictates you the rule of non-solicitation, however if customer calls or contacts you - then you can register this call in your SAP BO CRM as the lead or opportunity to be your sales process indulgence. Of course indulging is not the only purpose of CRM module - the main idea is to organize your sales department and facilitate group work in presentation and sales cycle

2. Customer Vendor Consolidation. If you had previous experience working with mid-size ERP, then you probably remember that you would in the past have to pay extra bucks for such "large company" features as having business with partner, where it is in fact behaving both as customer and vendor. Good example is freight forwarding industry with monthly settlement report. SB1 has it out of the box, plus you can advance the reporting features to give you exactly what you or your transportation partners need

3. Light manufacturing. One of the popular demands is so called disassembly production order, when you get return from your customer and you would like to take pieces apart and place them back to your inventory warehouse bins

4. Self Implementation Pilots. Yes, SB1 is good fit for such risk free scenarios. If you have internal IT people with accounting background who are familiar with AR, AP, GL peculiarities or rather to say uniqueness of your business, then you can purchase one professional user license (around three thousand US dollars) and do it yourself with limited hourly rates based support from your SB1 partner or ISV.

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum, http://www.albaspectrum.com - help@albaspectrum.com - Please visit our information portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com - serving ERP systems community since 1993, local service in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, remote support in CA, IL, IN, NY, FL, AZ, WA, NV, MI, WI, QC, ON, BC and the rest of USA and Canada. For 2008 we have SAP BO promotion campaign where we will send our sales engineer and implementation consultant free of charge to you if you are in USA or Canada country side. You will pay only for consulting hourly rates, and we will pay for travel and lodging.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Karasev

Getting Your Personnel Started With Microsoft Dynamics CRM For Outlook

Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Microsoft Office Outlook is an add-in that is installed on a desktop or laptop computer. CRM for Outlook brings Dynamics CRM into the every-day Outlook experience by displaying the CRM areas as sub-folders in the Outlook mail folders. With a few exceptions, all of the same functionality is available, including set-up and configuration features.
One of the biggest advantages is that, after the add-in is installed, Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook can send and receive CRM e-mail from Outlook, which simplifies your organization's e-mail setup for CRM. With one click, Outlook e-mail messages can be tracked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and linked to customer records.

To get your personnel started you'll need to do the following task:

1. Set up user records to manage e-mail with Outlook.

Your personnel then have two tasks to complete:

1. Install Dynamics CRM for Outlook on their computers.

2. Set up their personal options to allow Outlook to send e-mail on their behalf.

• In the Navigation Pane, click Settings, click Administration, and then click Users.

• Double-click a user record. The User form appears.

• Under E-mail Access Configuration, select MCRM for Outlook. E-mail is sent and received with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

• Click Save and Close.

After you set up your personnel to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, you need to inform them that they need to install Dynamics CRM for Outlook. If your organization uses workflow or mail merge, to send mail automatically on behalf of users, each person needs to set the personal option to allow Outlook to send e-mail with the personnel's name as the sender.

As a suggestion, create an e-mail template with the boilerplate. You can send direct e-mail to new users, which they will receive in Outlook. Step-by-step procedures on how to create e-mail templates and send direct e-mail are in the Help. You will need to provide your company URL [yourcompanyURL] for CRM in the e-mail message.

GT Kimberly is an ardent follower of IT Software News. He is a regular reader of news happenings of Big Companies like Microsoft, Google etc..

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Glenn_Tim_Kimberly

CRM Applications Are The Need Of Day For All Businesses

Why you need a CRM application to ensure the success of your business

Today, the world of business has its axis on CRM applications. CRM applications are the need of the day for all kinds of businesses, be it small or large.

They ensure better productivity and profit by bringing about a marked improvement in the performance of the business via customer centric services.

The fulcrum of every CRM application is the same. It aims at creating a better relationship with the customer with the help of carefully collected data. It is the higher interactivity provided via CRM applications that make them so effective.

With a CRM application in place, you can view a 360 degree view of the customers behavioral patterns with regards to the business.

Benefits

There are many benefits of a CRM application for any business.

• You can easily collaborate them with your existing applications sharing data across applications.
• You can collect, store and share data and access it from virtually anywhere in the world.
• Every CRM application can be further customized according to the needs of a business.
• Your marketing and sales program will never be the same again post CRM applications. It brings about a degree of precision in sales programs.
• You can now track the customers’ transactions with the help of real time updated data.
• Most CRM applications are designed in an easy to use format and no extra training is required to impart or use the CRM tools.
• Manage marketing, customers, sales and billing via one platform in which all that you need to do is click.

Get It today

If you are a business owner and you still have to try CRM applications, then stop procrastinating and act today. CRM applications will bring about a refreshing change from the norm and your business will become easier to manage, more customer centric and profitable.

For more info visit : CRM Application Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

The Benefits and the Dangers of CRM

"CRM" stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is a business strategy that is used to improve customer service, and increase customer satisfaction. Customer Relationship Management is designed to provide information a business need to develop and implement smarter customer strategies.

The benefits of Customer Relationship Management CRM are clear: CRM ebables companies and organizations to build more profitable customer relationships and reduce operation spendings. Sales, mareketing personnels will have more customer information to work on. The business is able to know what customers want so that they can maximize their revenue by adverting the right products to the right people. CRM also enable business to monitor all the contacts between customers and companies.

However, study has shown that only 16% of businesses are satisfied with their CRM software. More than half of CRM initiatives fail. The biggest problem is that the collected data are not used. Most of the companies has spent tons of money to collect all kinds of information of their clients but never use this information to improve their business. Money spent on CRM software and implementations has been wasted. As a business owner, before you spend any money on CRM software and implementations, you need a complete planning that ensures your success. The ultimate goal is to improve your relationship with your customers, and boost your customer satisfaction.

For more information and resources related to CRM and CRM softwares,visit the one-stop online CRM solution website at http://www.crm-solution-web.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Song_Chengxiang

Is Hosted CRM The Best Option For Small Business?

Why hosted CRM for small business is the best option

Being a small business is no longer an excuse for being complacent. The internet has only aggravated the competition amongst small businesses and now, most small businesses are utilizing the best software and technology at their disposal to beat the competition.

If you are a small business CEO, and are still relying on age old software and business practices, then it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. CRM or customer relationship management is the name of the game. CRM is a strategy that emphasizes on building better relationships with the customer. It works by improving customer loyalty, enhancing customer satisfaction and thereby improving the profitability of the business. It will enable your small business to serve more customers in a much more efficient manner using fewer resources.

Cost constraints? Think again!

The one reason that had made CRM the domain of large scale enterprises is the cost of deploying it. The popular and prominent model of CRM software was the on-site version which required dedicated teams to manage it, hardware and software modifications and a flexible budget. But, small businesses cannot afford this luxury.

So, CRM vendors came out with a CRM software model custom designed to suit small businesses. It is called hosted CRM, web based CRM or CRM on demand.

The most important differentiating factor is that hosted CRM is delivered over the internet and is hosted by a third party (in most cases, the vendor). This eliminates a lot of hassles that are typical with on-site CRM. While reaping all the benefits of a traditional CRM software, small business no longer have to invest in dedicated servers, software experts to manage the software and upgrade costs.

Hosted CRM is flexible, scalable and easy to use. The only investment that a small business has to make is in a quality broadband internet connection and the entire team can work under one platform.

For more info on Hosted CRM visit: CRM Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

Does Small Business CRM Really Help Your Business

CRM is the most talked about software in today’s business world. CRM is an easy-to-use software tool suitable for any small business needing a complete, cost effective and hassle-free solution for managing sales, customers and bookkeeping as well as day to day invoicing.

The all-in-one sales and marketing CRM software program facilitates small businesses to double their sales at a faster pace. From lead generation, to placing an order or even the follow up of the same, CRM is the apt solution in efficiently managing your small business day to day operations.

However why do we require CRM software in the first place is what crosses our minds. The following will give you a better insight as to what you can expect when CRM is adopted in your small business.

• It helps in the automatic integration of the sales marketing and the customers data base,
• Ensures a faster access to vital customer information from any where any time.
• Inexpensive efficient marketing campaigning management system
• Next to zero maintenance costs
• No additional installation and infrastructural expenses
• Instant integration with the existing business procedures
• Easy to understand and use
• 100% customizable to suit your unique business requirements

CRM is very essential for all small businesses in order to have a successful ROI turn over. However choosing the right CRM product customized as per your business needs is the Key, as it helps to derive the real potential benefits when adopting CRM in your small business.

For more info visit : OfficeInteractive Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

SAP Business One Implementation - Customer Specific Pricing

SAP B1 ERP is targeted to small and mid-size businesses and the question about implementing new accounting application is this - which functionality is available in standard business logic, prior to considering adding third party modules or launching in-house customization. In this small article we would like to review SAP Business One pricing model.

1. Price Lists. As you expect, there are various price forming formulas: Last Evaluated Price, Last Purchase Price and then you can base one price list based on another price list with multiplication factor.

2. Special Prices for Business Partners. Here for specific price list you can define discount, applicable to the specific item for this business partner or customer.

3. Scenarios. For your several the most important customers, you would like to announce special program of discounting items, that they ordered last year, but for their internal reasons they stopped ordering these items from you for let's say six month ago. You would like to get their business back and go for really low prices for the items they you enjoyed to sell them in the past.

4. What is nice about SB1 Implementation. From our experience we see that it is common when customer asks about specific custom business logic design and the in a few month of being in production we discover that instead of using custom business logic customer deploys flexible options in standard version to work around and find simple replacement to the customization.

5. SAP B1 Licensing model. Currently it is all-in-one. Meaning that you named user will have access to all the standard modules. However there are several paths for CRM only users, where they can have access to Sales, Service sides or CRM web access only, where license price is typically below 40% of all in one.

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum, http://www.albaspectrum.com, help@albaspectrum.com - Please visit our information portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com, serving ERP systems community since 1993, local service in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, remote support in CA, IL, IN, NY, FL, AZ, WA, NV, MI, WI, QC, ON, BC and the rest of USA and Canada. For 2008 we have SAP BO promotion campaign where we will send our sales engineer and implementation consultant free of charge to you if you are in USA or Canada country side. You will pay only for consulting hourly rates, and we will pay for travel and lodging.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Karasev

Selecting a CRM System

Due to the high level of competition between online businesses, more and more of them are choosing to use a CRM system to help with managing their customer relations. If you are thinking of incorporating a CRM system then you will find that generally speaking there are two types to choose from. They are on-site CRM systems and web-based or hosted CRM systems and there are significant differences between the two.

When the two are compared, online or hosted CRM solutions appears to show many obvious advantages over on-site CRM solutions, particularly for small to medium sized businesses. To start with on-site CRM can be difficult to access from some areas of the world, while online or hosted CRM solutions are easily accessed from anywhere.

All data for a hosted CRM solution is stored in a secure location for complete security with a hosted CRM system. Also, much of the work, such as upgrading data is done by the service provider, so this takes this burden off of your shoulders. Another great aspect of online CRM applications systems, is that communications is far more streamlined and efficient.

This means that if you have promotions people working working in one country, they can instantly connect with sales person ell working anywhere in the world by using the web based CRM. For small to medium sized businesses, hosted CRM applications are a life saver and can allow a company that is has a limited budget for customer relations management to play in the big leagues with regards to CRM.

Another great advantage of web based or hosted systems is that they are far easier to implement as compared to on-site CRM ones. This is because there is a wide selection of modules that allows you to select just what is best for your business applications.

Written by Alesandra Gibson. Find the latest information on CRM Requirements as well as Small Business CRM

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alesandra_Gibson

SAP Business One Customization Market - Review

SAP Business One has about 4 years of implementation history and very robust presence in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, plus it has strong positions internationally. Considering the fact of relatively young age – the design of the system, including object model enable advanced customization, integration with both legacy and new technologies. We see certain stake on Microsoft technologies, such as MS SQL Server and COM object model. Integrated CRM module allows you to deploy Microsoft Outlook client for messaging, just to name a few. In addition to the customizability – SAP Business One has transaction integration to high end SAP, which allows this product to consolidate mid-size and small subsidiaries across the USA or internationally to your SAP corporate ERP system – franchisees network, dealerships, manufacturing facilities, etc. In this small article we will give customization scenarios to IT managers, who are planning to deploy SAP Business One integration, customization, reporting, etc.

• SAP Business One SDK. SAP Business One Software Development Kit has User Interface API, Data Interface API, Java Connector. The recommended way of customization design is XML web services, which allows you integrate custom web portals with SAP Business One objects: Sales Orders, Inventory Items, Customers. Ecommerce or Web-based Extranet (collaboration with your permanent vendors and customers) would be a good example.

• Implementation Partners. SAP Business One has several licensing & certifications criteria. One path allows the SAP partner to provide installations and so-called functional consulting. This means that these companies are experts of tying your business processes to SAP Business One standard set of modules and standard features/functionality. In our opinion – SAP BO is not only for relatively small to midsize businesses, but also for mid-size to large and even corporate business (subsidiaries and branches). Large companies have combination of multiple systems, including legacy – often they combine several platforms: Windows, Unix/Linux, Lotus Notes Domino, Siebel CRM, Salelogix, IBM DB2 to name a few. In this situation you need partnership with technically-savvy and experienced partner

• Customization Partners. SAP Business One SDK is not an open technology and in order to get access to it SAP Partner should get SDK development training and pass certification exam. At the same time, SAP SDK uses open tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio, for example for coding itself. This leads to the common practice when Customization partners do not provide implementation and functional consulting services, but rather concentrate on development – offshore business location is also common. Some risk, however might be attributed to the fact that one organization does business processes specification and another one realizes them in custom coding.

• Technology Partners. The best result in the custom solution in our opinion could be achieved with SAP Business One Partner, who does both sides: Implementation/Functional and Customization/Development. Considering less then 10,000 SAP Business One implementations worldwide – it might be difficult to find local technology partner in your area, in this case – the compromise is to use remote partner with the network of local independent contractors.

Happy implementing, customizing and modifying! If you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) – SAP Business One, 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 Ricor

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Karasev

The History of CRM

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a series of IT related processes employed by most major organisations in order to effectively manage their customer relations and communications.

They allow businesses to gain in-depth knowledge of their customers, allowing them to respond to the needs of their clients and market their products more effectively.

The concept behind CRM solutions is they allow businesses to integrate all aspects of their activities seamlessly, in order to create a united, professional image.

Early CRM systems can be more accurately described as database marketing. In simple terms, this involved the process of collecting specific client data for certain groups in order for companies to talk to their clients on an individual basis.

This proved to be more suitable and effective for the larger corporations than small businesses. This was due to the fact that the survey-like, repetitive data which was acquired was more suited to the mass market than the more tailored, specific requirements of smaller businesses. For some companies, the basic information of people's spending habits was suitable for effective marketing, for others, it was not nearly enough.

CRM solutions as we know them today, first arrived in the 1990's with grand promises of changing the way businesses talk to their clients forever. In the beginning, however, this was far from the case, as the concept proved to be far better in theory than in practice.

As time has progressed, new technology has made it possible for businesses to tailor CRM systems to the specific requirements of their clients and hence make them more effective and worthwhile. As a result, CRM systems have increasingly become a two-way process. This meant that businesses could now offer incentives for customer loyalty. One successful example of this is Tesco's Clubcard scheme which rewards shoppers with points for their shopping, which can then be exchanged for a variety of goods and services.

Traditionally, the CRM solutions market has been dominated by software companies such as Siebel, SAP and Oracle. Microsoft are a relative newcomer to the sector, however, MS CRM 4.0 is one of the most comprehensive CRM systems available. Its ability to fully integrate with the Microsoft Office Suite means that it already has a significant advantage over its competitors.

Hosted CRM 4.0 from Genesis is the most simple and effective way to implement a CRM system in your workplace. Click here to find out more.

Hosted Microsorf CRM 4.0 Genesis.co.uk Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Tymon

CRM Software System

CRM is the accepted purpose of Customer Relationship Management is to enable organizations to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. In today's competitive business environment, a successful CRM software solution cannot be implemented by only installing and integrating CRM software application designed to support CRM processes.

A holistic approach to CRM is vital for an effective and efficient CRM policy. This approach includes training of employees, a modification of business processes based on customers' needs and an adoption of a relevant IT CRM system (including software and maybe hardware) and/or usage of IT CRM Services that enable the organization or company to follow its CRM strategy. CRM Services can even replace the acquisition of additional hardware or CRM software application licences.

The term CRM "Customer Relationship Management" is used to describe either the "CRM software" or the whole business strategy (or lack of one) oriented on customer needs. The second one is the description which is correct. The main misconception of "CRM" is that it is only a software solution application, instead of whole business strategy. Major areas of CRM Software System Solutions focus on service automated processes, personal information gathering and processing, and self-service. It attempts to integrate and automate the various customer serving processes within a company.

A CRM software solution application can manage and run your entire business. From prospect and client contact tools to billing history and bulk email management. The software CRM Sosystem allows you to maintain all customer records in one centralized location that is accessible to your entire organization through password administration.

A front office CRM software system is set up to collect data from the customers for processing into the data warehouse. The data warehouse is a back office CRM Software system used to fulfill and support customer orders. All customer information is stored in the data warehouse. A back office CRM software application makes it possible for a company to follow sales, orders, and cancellations. Special regressions of this data can be very beneficial for the marketing division of a firm.A integrated CRM software system is often also known as "front office solutions." This is because they deal directly with the customer.

About the Author: CRM Software System information is brought to you by CMMS Systems.com, a place to find computerised maintenance managment software. You may ONLY freely print this article on your website as long as you provide and retain the active linkbacks in the author's box unchanged. We use copyscape to ensure active links.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Taylor_May

Small Business CRM - Benefits

When you decide to opt for CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for your small or medium sized business obviously you are seeking maximum returns on your investment. If you are still contemplating about whether or not to invest in small business CRM, we would like to highlight some benefits about small business CRM.

• Recent studies have shown that with the help of CRM the revenue of small businesses has shot up to over 40% per sales person.

• CRM also helps to decrease the sales cycle to a considerable extent. It also helps to improve your customer retention rates.

• The best benefit of small business CRM is that your marketing costs reduce to a great extent and so does your sales cost. And the end result is that you're over all profit margin increases with the help of implementing small business CRM.

• The most important benefit of CRM is that a company can gain about 100% profit just by retaining a considerably small part of their customers with the help of CRM.

• What you need to realize is that CRM is just not a business strategy; it 'itself' is the business strategy, which you need to utilize to the fullest. Most progressive businesses do not consider CRM as an option to choose or think about.

Nowadays CRM has become very essential for all sorts of business and organizations whether small, medium or large sized. Small businesses profit immensely from effective CRM as they can now attract more prospective customers, can manger their sales more efficiently and effectively.

And above all they are able to retain all their customers, which is the main factor why they will, do well in future and present as well.

For more info visit: Small Business CRM Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

SAP Business One Implementation Highlights

SAP B1 is relatively new ERP and MRP on the US and international accounting application market for small and mid-size businesses. SBO can also serve to large corporation in spoke-and-hub environment where your branch deploys SB1 with upstream integration to mySAP/R3 or in non-SAP ERP. As you probably feel, being IT professional, that technology is a "bottleneck", or at least it should be considered seriously, when you are talking about mid-size business with unique business processes, and making the story more dramatic - all modern mid-size businesses probably see their business processes as unique and proprietary

1. SB1 Sales Demos, Presentations. Sales cycle is simple with SB1 as its interface is very intuitive and such often complex business processes as rentals, warranty contracts, discrete manufacturing, pick and pack in inventory control, CRM, HR, eCommerce - if you see Sap Business One demonstration, you probably feel that you trust this modern ERP

2. SAP Business One Licensing. At this time, 2008 SB1 has full named user, which is just below three thousand dollars, plus it has variations of CRM user licenses: web based only, service and sales, costing eight and nine hundred per named user respectively

3. Installation and Data Conversion. It is relatively simple to install SB1 on your own, however we recommend you to entrust this to professionals, who will also take care about data massage and migration. You should read about SB1 Work Bench module, which allows you to import SBO data in the form of Excel work templates

4. Add-Ons. These are SAP B1 ISV products or also referred as third parties or satellites

5. Analytical or drag-and-relate. This is unique SB1 technology, probably expired by Data Mining and Data warehousing ideas

6. SAP Business One version 2007. It should be released in a matter of weeks, as we are writing these lines. This version, again in our opinion should be crucial to turn around sales in USA and Canada

7. Competition. We think that the closest competitor is Microsoft Dynamics GP and its scaled down version Microsoft Small Business Financials. In essence both are relatively established ERP applications sharing the same technology background - Great Plains Dexterity. SB1 has more encouraging interface, and GP has larger number of installations across the USA and better integration to Microsoft Office, Outlook and Sharepoint.

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group, http://www.albaspectrum.com | help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, if you would like to contribute with original article, please visit and submit news on our information portal Pegas Planet: http://www.pegasplanet.com Serving Great Plains community since 1994, customers in IL, CA, FL, MI, NY, KS, AZ, NV, WA, UT, SC, GA, LA, TX, IN, WI, , local service in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, San Diego, Miami, Dallas.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Karasev

Key Features of CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

CRM (Customer Relationship management) is all about the theory used by companies to administer and manage their customers, partners, vendors and other stakeholders efficiently.

Features of CRM

CRM is made up of three key features, which are Operational CRM, Collaborative CRM and Analytical CRM.

• Collaborative CRM is to directly communicate with customers without inclusion of any sales or service representatives.
• Analytical CRM is to investigate customer data for a vast range of reasons and functions.
• Operational CRM deals with providing complete front office support to sales, marketing and similar services.

The communication with the customers is recorded and added to the customer’s contact history database and can be easily retrieved for future reference. The biggest benefit about maintaining this contact history is that the customers can easily contact with the service personnel without having to repeat any of the earlier communication or information.

That is why CRM software is used popularly in call centers or BPOs for supporting the call center staff.

Direct interaction is carried out with collaborative CRM that includes feedback from the customers and reporting of issues if any. This interaction can be carried out through a variety of channels like email, phone, SMS, etc. The main objective behind going in for collaborative CRM can be reducing the company costs and improving the services provided.

Analytical CRM finds multiple uses such as taking management decisions, predicting future trends, analyzing customer behavior, planning and executing marketing campaigns and much more.

Operational CRM is mainly concerned with automating customer processes and providing appropriate support to these services.

CRM is not just a mere technology; it is in fact the move towards handling your customers better and more efficiently. The top management should tap CRM’s complete potential to maximize the benefits for their respective organization.

For more info visit : CRM Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna

Innovation Of SAP Programs

Today, SAP finds a development in technology advancement and more innovation has been done in this SAP. With the advancement of technology, more new SAP programs have been initiated. SAP investment is a profitable investment and more information is created for the organization. SAP helps to interpret and implement information to the organization properly and correctly. Most of the people will invest in any of the SAP program and then implement in any of the SAP program. SAP implementation helps to make appropriate report with SAP development, native connections and overall integration. SAP programs like SAP BW, SAP R/3 is used as data query for crystal resources.

SAP BW is used as a data source for reports and queries. Generally, most of the people finds difficult to differentiate complex query with simple reports and simple query with complex reports. Most of the people build their structure as per their complexity in skill and report. Understanding the implementation of different SAP programs, helps to recognize the difference from the data collection and sourced. When SAP programs are implemented properly and find the data in the infoprovider correctly, then SAP provides a best outsource to the user. Analyzing the query and preparing the report for the user, helps the user to obtain effective outsource. Designing the SAP BW query evaluates the key figures and determines the data arrangement for filtering.

Query filtering reduces the data processing time and reduces the data. Effective SAP BW helps to optimize the performance of BW query and report. Preparing crystal report for the enterprise application formats the report effectively. Formatting and designing the SAP gives an effective report for the business enterprise. Today, more number of business enterprises is using the SAP to prepare an effective report with processed data. With different formula and processed data, effective and efficient report can be made for the query. It is essential to be noted in SAP programs are that all factors to be considered to process data and prepare report for the business enterprise. There are many numbers of factors available to calculate the crystal report.

When SAP data sources are retrieved properly for processing then the user gets the correct report for the organization. SAP innovation has provided more useful services to the business enterprise to get a proper outsourcing from the data. SAP programs have been innovated to make the users benefited from the different programs. With the advancement of technology in SAP, more new programs will be innovated.

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SAP Business One XML Connector: eCommerce and EDI Integration

Typical example would be when you need your ecommerce web site be powered by ERP application with sales order execution login: inventory item allocation and shipping to the customer. In some cases you would like automatic invoice posting (in SAP B1 terminology adding) to General Ledger and so automatic order execution – when your items are downloadable applications or media files. In other cases you would start with Sales Order and entrust order execution login, with potentially light production/manufacturing or bill of material assembly to backend MRP – SAP BO.

• Technology. From SAP B1 connector side – it is realized as SOAP web service. From your legacy ecommerce or other application side you can deploy either staging SQL tables approach, or direct SQL data pulling with transactions marking as being send for integration to SAP Business One.

• Web Service. SOAP XML web service with inbound (from ecommerce, EDI or your business partners extranet) data stream to create or update SAP B1 customer object and then create sales document. Outbound XML stream reports you the success of the action and if required gives you created object parameters.

• SAP Business One SDK – this is the heart of the connector, it logins to SAP BO company with the credentials provided (completely validating SBO business application logic), then it initializes new customer and sales order/invoice or updates existing business partner/customer information.

• Fields of application. Connector if this type proved to be on demand for other ERP applications, Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains for example, where it is mostly used in e-commerce and business partner automatic ordering spheres. If can be successfully deployed for the service business, when you need to log technician daily time logs and bill out your customers. Very nice combination for service business is Microsoft Dynamics CRM Service module with time logging logic against contract line budget and then sending resolved cases time to SAP B1 in the form of sales orders.

If you need help, please give us a call US/Canada: 1-866-528-0577, Worldwide: 1-630-961-5918, Brazil: +55-11-3444-4949, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group (http://www.albaspectrum.com http://www.enterlogix.com.br), serving SAP B1 customization, integration, software development projects to customers in Brazil, US and other countries. In Brazil we implement SBO in Sao Paulo and Goiania and support integrations and customizations nation-wide. In US we provide functional consulting form SBO in Chicago and Houston and we support customizations nation-wide.

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What You Need to Know About CRM

1. It’s all about the customer. Some companies focus too much on expensive CRM programs and elaborate IT departments and not enough on what is at the core of CRM. CRM programs need to be designed to appeal to the business’ customers. The best Call Centers are the ones which customers find easy to navigate. The best CRM vendors have the customer satisfaction in mind when designing their CRM applications.

2. On-demand is the way to go. Many vendors offer traditional CRM programs and service. I believe, however, that On-demand CRM is the way to go. On-demand CRM is different from traditional methods in that instead of requiring companies to hire new IT people, and use extensive resources to implement elaborate CRM programs, the software comes with support. On-demand CRM is no longer the “bring your own IT department” approach. Many vendors like Salesforce.com, Siebel, and NetSuite offer On-demand solutions that are great for businesses just getting into the CRM market.

3. Customer Relationship Management is not just software. Some businesses would like it to be simply software, but it will never be as simple as that. Customer Relationship Management is an ongoing learning process. The business must learn from the customer and change accordingly. The closer a business gets to its customer, the better. CRM applications and strategies are the methods through which the business can access, analyze, and learn from customer Data. Knowing what CRM applications are actually for is a very important step in understanding how to be successful when implementing CRM practices.

4. It is important to understand that there are hundreds of CRM vendors out there. Many of the vendors claim to be number one, but if you look closely, they may be number one in only one category. Other companies say that they are number one in CRM, but there is no basis for their statement. It is important for companies to choose the right vendor that will attend to all of their CRM needs. This may not always be the most expensive, “number one” company. On the contrary, some simple companies offer CRM solutions that are highly effective. Some of the major CRM providers are Siebel, Salesforce.com, NetSuite, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP.

5. The best CRM technology can be very helpful for any business. Some CRM applications can now be accessed via BlackBerry devices. Major vendors are constantly updating their software and improving their service. It is a good idea to stay as current as possible in terms of CRM technology. However, always remember to balance technology with customer service. There is no substitute for old-fashioned customer service, the most basic of all CRM ideals.

Customer Relationship Management can be very beneficial for a business if it is carried out properly. It is important to keep the customer in mind at all times when you are implementing CRM practices into your business. Remember that there are quite a few CRM vendors out there, and it is important to choose the vendor that is best for your company. Customer Relationship Management seems like a very daunting idea for someone who has never used it before, but if you follow these steps, you will surely see the benefits of successful CRM.

Frank Dazerton is very interested in Customer Relationship Management and writes for CRM Lowdown.

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Update on Current CRM Market

The CRM marketplace continues to flourish as more and more companies are waking up to the realization that CRM is imperative to their success.

CRM applications are amongst the fastest growing applications in the market with a growth rate of 10% in 2006 and up to 17% in 2007. The strong overall growth is expected to continue for the next few years. Newer trends are evolving according to the ever changing needs of the marketplace.

However, not all of them are significant enough to have a massive impact on the market. Here we take a look at two recent trends that have made a difference to the working of CRM globally.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

• CRM software has taken a new form with software as a service or SaaS. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is growing like a wild fire.
• There are several reasons for this sudden spurt in SaaS.
• They are easy to use, easy to deploy, have a much lower risk rate when compared to client/server implementations and also have lower upfront costs.
• These benefits have not only redefined the rules for the SMB (small to medium sized business) market but also for the large enterprise market.
• It has been predicted that the SaaS phenomenon will lead to a 24% growth rate in the coming years.
• Top vendors like SAP and Microsoft have announced their SaaS CRM applications in the coming year.

Service Oriented Architecture ( SOA )

• CRM vendors have also started to release Service Oriented Architecture or SOA products.
• SOA is the new face of CRM and has features like Multi tenancy and combining resources throughout the enterprise.
• A lot of applications are bundled into a single suite making it easier for most companies to manage them.
• If a new business rule is implied, then it is simultaneously implied across the whole SOA platform.
• So you no longer have to keep buying software upgrades every year. You simply buy, use and reuse it again.
• There is a prediction that SOA based services will touch $34 billion by the year 2010.

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