206 Part II • Applying Information Technology
this list with its Microsoft Dynamics CRM product, which
is available as a traditional CRM or a hosted solution. A
few of these top 15 SMB vendors offer a Lotus
Notes–based product (more on Lotus Notes later in this
chapter), including Ardexus Mode (Canada) and Relavis
CRM. Other products in this top 15 SMB list include
FrontRange Solutions’ GoldMine, NetSuite’s CRM+
(which is a hosted solution), and StayinFront CRM.
We have already described one example of a CRM
project using a data warehouse in the box discussing
Harrah’s Entertainment. Other examples abound: BT
Group plc (formerly British Telecommunications) has
implemented a multimillion dollar CRM system to
upgrade its online customer service, based on software
from RightNow Technologies. The CRM application
includes a knowledge management system for use by
BT’s 10,000 call center staff members when dealing
with customer queries. It also incorporates an improved
call-handling system and a live IM-style service for
customers to have queries answered by support staff
(Ferguson, 2007).
Resurrection Health Care, a Chicago-based integrated
health care provider that operates eight hospitals, home
and occupational health services, free-standing medical
imaging centers, nursing homes, and more, has deployed
Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage and grow its
relationships with physicians. Resurrection’s CRM
system, which was customized by reseller Sonoma
Partners, is used by Resurrection’s sales staff to build rela-
tionships with physicians to encourage them to refer their
patients to Resurrection services such as rehabilitation,
home health services, and medical imaging. The software
enables capturing a variety of data about each physician,
including records of e-mails, telephone, and in-person
meetings, a list of personnel who work with the physician,
and even the physician’s concerns about Resurrection’s
services so that these concerns can be dealt with.
Resurrection sales staff is also using the CRM to manage
relationships with large, non-health-related companies in
order to build awareness of Resurrection’s drug testing
services for employees and occupational rehabilitation
services for workmen’s compensation cases. “The use of
CRM is moving into niches, like in health care to manage
physician relationships, and real estate management to
keep track of properties,” says Chris Fletcher, an analyst at
research firm AMR (McGee, 2009a).
Author Solutions, the market-share leader when it
comes to publishing books for individuals, created its CRM
system based on a hosted solution from Salesforce.com and
customization by Appirio, a consulting firm. Author
Solutions published about 24,000 titles in 2009, with
revenue close to $100 million; it has grown both from the
increased popularity of self-publishing and by acquisition
of other self-publishing companies. Kevin Weiss, the
President and Chief Executive Officer of Author Solutions,
knew that the company’s technology systems were anti-
quated and that it needed to prepare for explosive growth.
He also knew that he didn’t want to manage the new
technology himself, so he opted for a SaaS solution. As the
company has grown through acquisition, the new compa-
nies have been quickly migrated to Author Solutions’ CRM
system, named Gemini. Weiss believes that “The applica-
tions have made us able to move our customers through the
production process faster. Customer service has improved.
We have a world-class production system to serve our
authors and fulfill exactly what they want” (Weiss, 2009).
In recent years, many companies have publicly stated that
they were becoming more customer-focused—and some
companies are carrying through on such statements in a
very significant way by installing a CRM system.Office Automation
Office automationrefers to a far-reaching set of office-
related applications, including telephony (including
Internet telephony), voicemail, videoconferencing, elec-
tronic mail (and its variants), word processing, copying,
desktop publishing, electronic calendaring, and document
imaging, along with document preparation, storage, and
sharing. Like other areas in IT, office automation has its
buzzwords, and the newest buzzword in office automation
isunified communications (UC), which is the integration
of real-time communication services, such as telephony
and IM, with non–real-time communication services, such
as e-mail, voicemail, and facsimile. With UC, an individ-
ual can send a message on one medium and have it read on
another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail
message and choose to access it via e-mail (or vice versa).
The UC products are getting better and more “unified”
over time, with strong offerings from Avaya, Cisco,
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Microsoft, among others.
In Chapter 2 we discussed imaging, word process-
ing, and desktop publishing, and we will not repeat that
discussion here. Similarly, we discussed telephony, and
especially Internet telephony, in Chapter 3. We also
introduced e-mail in Chapter 3, but e-mail is so central to
office automation that we will pursue electronic mail and
its variants (as well as other features often related to
electronic mail, such as electronic calendaring) in more
detail in this section and the next. Before turning to e-mail,
we will discuss videoconferencing, which is one of the
newer office automation tools. At the end of this section
and the groupware section, you should have a good overall
picture of the office automation area.