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Startup Ardesic Corp. last month unveiled a CRM product designed for online marketplaces.
The eMarketMinder platform comprises modules that are hosted by an exchange and deliver standard customer relationship management features, including incident tracking and reporting, workflow, relationship and campaign analysis, and customer support.
The modules are built around a central content repository and database. The contents—product specifications, white papers, FAQs and other associated information—are stored in a relational database, which gives users advanced search-and-retrieval capabilities.
eMarketMinders architecture is meant to mirror the evolutionary growth process of a typical exchange. To that end, it can be deployed in three phases—Greenfield, Functional and Operational. The phases can be installed one at a time as the marketplace matures and needs more functions.
The architecture was also designed with the information and privacy requirements of the companies involved in business-to-business exchanges in mind. “With the amount and kind of information that goes back and forth between the companies involved in these exchanges, you have to take into account what a particular companys rights and privileges are with each customer,” said Steve Traplin, CEO of Ardesic, of Waterloo, Ontario. “Privacy is a big issue.”
To ensure a high level of security and privacy, Ardesic included a feature called Customer Context Engine. The engine enables each company using the exchange to automatically apply a set of business rules and logic to each company-customer relationship.
This tailored experience is what Ardesic hopes will attract the interest of marketplaces.
“We believe it is extremely important to incorporate relationship marketing into our marketplace from the beginning,” said Sean Flanagan, CEO of Medexonline Ltd., a London-based medical industry exchange that uses eMarketMinder. “This provides us with the tools to understand our customers needs and makes it easier for them to participate in the marketplace.”