EWA

Making inroads

Small businesses are moving from accounting solutions to ERP systems

Generally, EWA or enterprise wide application is the term that denotes an application used to automate and streamline processes across an enterprise. These systems are usually modular and scalable. This makes it possible to add application components as and when needed.

EWA can be classified into front office (customer-facing) applications such as CRM and back office applications such as ERP and SCM. In front office EWA, the application is used to automate or streamline communication between customers and the organisation. Back office EWA systems are used to automate backend processes such as material requisitions, billing, distribution and reporting.

Moving to ERP

ERP is a forerunner among EWAs, and has contributed significantly to the popularity of these applications. Although ERP systems were initially developed for manufacturing, they are available today for almost every industry vertical.

Basically, ERP is a centralised system to handle varied back office processes such as manufacturing, logistics, distribution, inventory, billing and accounting. A typical ERP system will have these features built-in as standard. Many solutions also offer options to add modules such as SCM to combine supply chain management functionality to the ERP system.

The prime reason for small businesses not implementing ERP systems is because most of them are family-run businesses. But now the small businesses are moving from accounting solutions to ERP systems as there are benefits to be gained by these organisations over home-grown solutions or manual processes.

Need for CRM

Over the last year in particular, the CRM market in the SMB segment has matured, and smaller companies can now take advantage of the same CRM functionality that larger competitors enjoy. Vendors, driven by more competition and consolidation, now package and price this functionality for the specific requirements of SMBs.

Since many SMBs in India are a part of the global supply chain, they want control over their customers and have to be well versed in their customers’ requirements. All customer requirements need to be recorded, and an assessment and analysis has to be done by SMBs regularly to create long-term relationships with customers. Keeping this in mind, the adoption of CRM solutions by SMBs is set to take off in a big way in India.

SMBs have complex sales processes in terms of products, sales methodology, information requirements and so on. The level of after-sales service and maintenance requirements in the industry or as demanded by their customers is another important factor that will drive the requirement of CRM solutions.

For many verticals, including manufacturing, CRM technologies are no longer a rarity for SMBs, and these companies now require such investments to remain in step with their competitors. Many SMBs have implemented CRM solutions that have reduced sales and service costs, increased sales productivity, and improved levels of customer satisfaction.

While there is hype, there is also no doubt that EWA has advantages; an organisation needs to decide what is relevant and then implement the same.

The market is flooded with offerings from vendors. A few things that need to be kept in mind are scalability and functionality. The other things are user friendliness and the extent to which an application can be customised to an organisation’s needs.

CRM

Oracle Siebel CRM Oracle’s Siebel solutions are customized to the specific needs of more than 20 industries. Oracle’s Siebel Customer Relationship Management applications help provide insight to the right person at the right time which leads to faster, better informed decisions. Siebel provides predictive analytics capabilities that deliver real-time intelligence, greater flexibility through support of both J2EE and .NET. This application provides a solution that includes all of the business processes and associated systems that touch a customer, including billing and delivery. The Siebel sales solution includes applications for sales force automation, sales order entry, mobile sales, and product configuration, for companies to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries. Siebel service solutions provide customer satisfaction by providing visibility into customer billing and order information. Price: Approx Rs. 1,43,000 onwards Contact: Vandana Shenoy Telephone: 080 40291180/78/76/73 E-mail: oracleindia_in@oracle.com Website: oracle.com

Talisma Sales Management Solution Talisma Multi-channel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is designed specifically for the financial services industry to streamline and automate customer service and support, marketing, and sales efforts. This industry-specific, end-to-end, suite augments existing systems and leverages the Internet to improve the reliability, quality, and consistency of each customer experience. Using Talisma Sales Management Solution, sales teams can manage opportunities (retail or corporate), set tasks and appointments, collaborate internally and with customers, share documents and proposals, and guide opportunities through pipeline stages. Price: Rs. 8,00,000 onwards Contact: K Nagarjun Telephone: 080 23613377 E-mail: knagarjun@talisma.com Website: talisma.com

SAGE SALESLOGIX This CRM solution enables businesses to acquire, retain, and develop customer relationships by increasing sales and marketing performance and improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. It automates the key aspects of the selling cycle which maximises the team selling effectiveness with advanced sales tools and resources. The marketing module Identifies and targets the most profitable prospects, manages and tracks all aspects of campaigns in one place, and analyses campaign ROI to increase marketing efficiency to get most from the investment in your CRM solution. The Customer Service module resolves customer questions, issues, and requests quickly for better customer experience. It provides resolutions to issues effectively and efficiently which reduces the time and resources it takes to support your customers. Sage SalesLogix Mobile provides sales automation and CRM capabilities to both Blackberry and Pocket PC devices. Price: Rs 2,50,000 upwards for a five user license. Contact: Thomas Abraham Telephone: 011 41002488 E-mail: salesindia@sage.com Website: sage.com

SAP CRM SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) supports core business processes in the areas of marketing, sales, service, partner channel management, interaction center, and Web channel. It can analyse, plan, develop, and execute all marketing activities through all customer interaction points. It helps maintain focus on productive activity to acquire, grow, and retain profitable relationships with functionality for sales planning and forecasting, territories, accounts, contacts, activities, opportunities, quotations, orders, product configuration, pricing, billing, and contracts. Through partner channel management one can attain a more profitable and loyal indirect channel by managing partner relationships and empowering channel partners. Interaction center helps to maximise customer loyalty, reduce costs, and boost revenue by transforming your interaction center into a strategic delivery channel for marketing, sales, and service efforts across all contact channels. The Web channel turns the Internet into a valuable sales, marketing, and service channel. Price: On demand Contact: Nagaraj Bhargava E-mail: Nagaraj.bhargava@sap.com, Telephone: 080 41365555 Website: sap.com/india

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 From first contact through to purchase and post-sales this solution has modules for sales, marketing, and customer services. For companies with complex sales processes, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides -to-use features and capabilities to help improve the way sales and marketing organisations target new customers, manage marketing campaigns, and drive sales activities. This solution is a complete suite of powerful marketing, sales and service capabilities, with a familiar and consistent user experience based on Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Outlook. Price: On demand Telephone: 1800 111100 E-mail: connect@microsoft.com Website: microsoft.com

Others (Reporting solutions, Office Suites)

MAIA Intelligence 1KEY Business Intelligence Software 1KEY is a Business Intelligence software tool to build multi-dimensional, analytical and dynamic reports. Build on the Microsoft .NET technology, 1KEY connects with disparate databases (Oracle, DB2, SQL, Informix, FoxPro, Access, etc.). 1KEY allows IT users to create instant queries. It also gives a flexible report formatting tool to the business users who can analyse business data effectively using 1KEY cube, 1KEY view and 1KEY chart. 1KEY enables organisations to implement an operational business intelligence strategy with a lower total cost of ownership. It facilitates and streamlines the process of data to decision across an enterprise.  Price: Rs. 9,00,000 plus taxes Contact: Vikram Kole Telephone: 022 66888903, 9920235351  E-mail: vikram@maia-intelligence.com Website: maia-intelligence.com

Oracle - JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Supply Chain Management Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Supply Chain Management is the core for demand-driven manufacturing and distribution. These software modules promote revenue growth and cost reduction by improving fulfilment rates which allows better asset and capacity utilization and expands market dominance while reducing inventory, shrinking lead times, and achieving overall cost-of-goods improvements. Some of the benefits provided by this application include streamlining everything from the earliest sales forecasts to customers’ acknowledgements of orders received; Modelling complex supply chain scenarios, factoring in all relevant costs and all potential supply and demand constraints; Extending supply chain business processes to customers, suppliers, and partners, making it possible to adjust to unforeseen events in real time. Price: Approx Rs. 7,040 onwards Contact: Vandana Shenoy Telephone: 080 40291180/78/76/73 E-mail: oracleindia_in@oracle.com Website: oracle.com

Novell Open Workgroup Suite The Novell Open Workgroup Suite provides organizations of all sizes with a secure, flexible and cost-effective IT infrastructure and a set of workgroup services. Unlike a proprietary, Windows-centric solution, the Novell Open Workgroup Suite is made up of open, standards-based software. This suite offers a low-cost, open alternative which includes a complete infrastructure and productivity solution from the desktop to the server and includes the components such as Novell Open Enterprise Server—an enterprise networking services, Novell GroupWise—collaboration solution, Novell ZENworks Suite—cross-platform systems-management tool, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop—open source desktop, and OpenOffice for Linux and Windows—open source productivity suite. Price: Rs 9,805 for a one user license with one year of maintenance Contact: Khushal Bhansali  Telephone: 022 28342244  E-mail: kbhansali@novell.com  Website: novell.com

Riverbed Technologies Steelhead 2020 Steelhead appliances are built on an application-independent architecture that optimises all TCP traffic for bandwidth and TCP behaviour. On top of this architecture, Riverbed has built a series of application streamlining modules that further optimise applications like Windows, Exchange, HTTP, NFS, and MS SQL. Steelhead appliances do not require any client or server reconfiguration in standard deployment mode. All applications will continue to work just as they did before Steelhead appliances were deployed. There is no proxy configuration required, nor do any routing tables need to be adjusted. The boxes can be preconfigured at the factory to your requirements. Once deployed, Steelhead appliances can use auto-discovery to automatically find all other Steelhead appliances on the network. Steelhead appliance can be managed through a GUI or command-line interface. All Steelhead appliances can report traffic and network optimisation, and segment reports by port, protocol, or IP address range. Enterprises can also deploy the optional Central Management Console (CMC) appliance, which allows you to configure and manage many Steelhead appliances simultaneously. The default state for Steelhead appliances is to intercept and optimize all WAN traffic. However, administrators have the option to restrict or specify optimisation by protocol, port, or IP address range. Price: Rs 2,00,000 onwards Contact: Sajitha Mummanei Telephone: 080 41800771 E-mail: Sajitha.Mummanei@riverbed.com Website: riverbed.com

Talisma Knowledgebase It enables customer Service representatives to capture, create, and refine knowledge information as a part of the agent workflow. It helps agents provide accurate, consistent, and relevant answers to customer questions in a quick and cost-effective manner.Talisma Knowledgebase streamlines the entire documentation process for companies to share information with employees, customers, and partners. The knowledge base captures and presents current, relevant information to customers, in a Web self-service mode, and to agents through a flexible portal within the single screen agent interface. The knowledge base is completely integrated across Talisma’s assisted and self-service channels which improve service quality and increases first contact resolution. It offers a powerful search and retrieval methodologies; reporting tool indicating which articles users seek and what information is unavailable. Price: Rs. 6,00,000 onwards Contact: K Nagarjun Telephone: 080 23613377 E-mail: knagarjun@talisma.com Website: www.talisma.com

SAP –Product Lifecycle Management. The SAP PLM application provides integrated product life-cycle management software —a single source of all product-related information needed for collaborating with business partners and supporting processes including product innovation, design and engineering, quality and maintenance management, and control of environmental issues. The SAP PLM application can help organization to support strategic sourcing by interfacing with supplier relationship management software; provide role-specific, context-driven access for internal and external users to relevant information, tools, and services; improve decision-making through insight into projects; flexible reporting; and analytics for portfolio management, occupational health, product safety, and product quality; increase strategic and operative control by monitoring product and production changes affecting timelines, costs, and resources; provide an open-technology framework that delivers up-to-date data required by enterprise processes for demand planning, manufacturing, purchasing, and sales. Price: On Demand Contact: Nagaraj Bhargava E-mail: nagaraj.bhargava@sap.com Telephone: 080 4136 5555 Website: sap.com/india