Customer & Supplier Management

When the economy started heading south, vendors of CRM (customer relationship management) and SRM (supplier relationship management) products began to focus. Whereas the vendors once attempted to inflict stringent business processes on organizations, theyre now more flexible. Whereas solutions were once their own departmental silos, they are now integrated modules. Category judges considered these aspects of customer and supplier management software in their evaluation of the entries.

WINNER

Clientele Self-Service Portal 8.0

Empowering end users with access to their accounts is a sure-fire way of saving money. With Epicor Software Corp.s Clientele Self-Service Portal 8.0, customers no longer have to call in or e-mail to follow up on support calls, product information or other relevant data. The end result is that customers become more satisfied with their experience and become better customers. Self-Service Portal is built on .Net framework and utilizes the Microsoft Corp. Stack. Any change to any part of another Epicor CRM Suite module can flow to the self-service portal, ensuring that data is up-to-date. While wed expect tight integration with any portal solution, Self-Service Portals focus on customer retention and satisfaction helped make this product the clear winner.

FINALISTS

Salesforce.com

There is a reason that this dot-com is still thriving while many others have failed: Its called quality. And in the last year, Salesforce.com Inc. has greatly expanded the number of modules for its titular service, leading company officials to claim that it will take on Siebel Systems Inc. as a competitor. The judges wouldnt go that far, but Salesforce.com still has enormous potential. It provides customers with a quick and easy path to CRM without incurring large upfront capital expenditures. And at $65 to $125 per person per month, its far less expensive to maintain over time than other CRM solutions.

MySAP Supplier Relationship Management 2

A loosely controlled supply chain can easily lead to skyrocketing costs, mismanagement and, eventually, lost business. SAP AGs MySAP SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) 2 helps organizations more tightly control relationships with suppliers. MySAP SRM also automates business processes, which can reduce overall costs as well as the time it takes to get a product to market. MySAP SRM is focused mainly on larger organizations that use other modules from SAP, but the product can be integrated with a variety of supply chain management and back-office applications.

Excellence Awards Winners and Finalists: