CRM - August 2008 - (Page 41)

Stratus Technologies, a 27-year-old company that makes fault-tolerant computers for financial institutions, 911 applications, stock exchanges, manufacturers, and telecommunications companies, outgrew its Thunderstone search system two years ago. That product could only index about 6,000 pieces of data, but the company’s requirements had increased to more than 100,000 pieces of information, according to Joe Graves, the company’s chief information officer. The Google Search Appliance’s simple deployment and familiar user interface appealed to Stratus, which has been using the system since the fall of 2006. Once a company purchases an enterprise search system, it has to decide what information to index. The usual starting point is applications generating the most data and therefore creating the most fruitless searches in the enterprise. Morrison & Foerster, for example, first used its enterprise search system to sift through email messages. At Ariba, which sells spend management software and services to help companies track their goods as they move through the supply chain, information is at the core of operations. At the turn of the millennium, Ariba sought an enterprise search system for use with its Vignette content management system and selected Thunderstone’s Texis product. Stratus started off by indexing information on its intranet, such as company policies and product documentation. Larochelle Groupe Conseil, a 60-person technology consultancy, purchased the Exalead system to help its human resources department, where employees used a mix of manual and automated techniques to sift through piles of resumes from potential full-time and part-time employees, according to Luc Landreville, Larochelle’s vice president of business intelligence. Although it is usually not at the top of the list of concerns when search products are purchased, CRM quickly rises to a prominent position, often in the top two to three, because such integration offers companies so many potential benefits. www.destinationCRM.com Coupling enterprise search and CRM can improve productivity. “Many individuals outside of the contact center are interested in using CRM data,” notes Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research. Also, according to Dave Haucke, vice president of global marketing at Isys Search Software, employees can pose much more targeted questions than those typically feasible with a plain CRM system: Do our field salespeople run into technology/repository X? What links have we had with partner Y? What contact has our company had with individual Z? There can also be performance improvements. A CRM system’s search function may be slow—especially if it’s hosted in a software-as-a-service model. Faster speeds are achieved when the content is indexed in one’s own search engine. Because of the potential benefits, a growing number of companies are now moving to integrate their enterprise search and CRM applications, with most at an early stage of the process. Stratus is ready to take the next step and plans to integrate its search and CRM systems. The company has been using an internally developed CRM system but plans to move to a packaged offering, with Salesforce.com as the likely solution. A few firms are well down the path toward the kind of “CRM on steroids” enjoyed by Morrison & Foerster, which integrated its CRM and enterprise search systems in 2006. Larochelle Groupe Conseil connected its enterprise search solution to its open-source CRM solution, SugarCRM, so employees can match contractors’ skills and availability to new and potential projects. Ariba’s enterprise search has been a boon to its professional services organization, a group of 400 customer service specialists. Initially, the group used the search system to find information about the company’s products and services. In 2004, the company connected Thunderstone’s Texis enterprise search system to Ariba’s Siebel CRM system. “We had a pretty basic implementation at first, basically tracking user Dare to Reach New Heights of Excellence! By Lior Arussy 240 pp/hardbound/$24.95 ISBN 978-0-910965-79-8 Lior Arussy skillfully illustrates how critical excellence is in corporate strategy and the significant role every employee plays in its delivery. Excellence Every Day is an important read for both executives and employees. — Jill Griffin Customer Loyalty Ask for Excellence Every Day in Your Local Bookstore or Order Direct from the Publisher www.infotoday.com http://Salesforce.com http://www.infotoday.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - August 2008

CRM - August 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Maximum Security A Code Win Doesn’t Blow Forming the Platform CRM on Twitter CRM Class Is in Session Making CRM Mandatory for University Administration Required Reading Cover Story: Calling it Quits Wouldja Look at That? 8 Enterprise Strategies That Stick CRM Searches for Search All Lines Are Not Busy UC: As Easy as A-B-C Even Contact Centers Have Room for Improvement Money Lying Around? Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - August 2008

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