Pharmaceutical

Adam Honig

Aging Population Presents New Pharma CRM Opportunities

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Living longer offers many upsides.

Good news: We’ve living longer lives, and with a better quality of life.

Researchers expect the number of people who are 65 years of age or older to increase — as a proportion of the population — in the United States from 12.9% in 2009 to 19% by 2030, and in the United Kingdom from 15.9% in 2002 to 23.5% in 2030.

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Mitch Lieberman

Is the Office of the CMO the Right Place to Drive Customer Engagement?

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Primary sourced research is valuable, adding one’s own interpretations (which I will) is the added benefit of blogging. The most recent IBM research “From Stretched to Strengthened – Insights from the Global Chief Marketing Officer Study” (URL) is a good read. Research based on CMO conversations is arguably meant for a CMOs. As usual, I found myself considering this from a different perspective. The question which kept popping into my head was whether the office of the CMO is the right place to drive the call to action suggested by the report. I am not sure it is, there, I said it. The CMO should be part of the team, but not the leader of the team. I believe that the research needs to be read by others within the organization as well.

The three imperatives identified by the report, in no particular order:

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Stellar appoints CEO to lead new Europe organisation

Melbourne, Montreal, Dallas and London, UK – 20th October 2011- Stellar, a leading global call centre and business process outsourcing provider today announced that Michael Lumsden has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (Europe) for Stellar effective January 2012.

“The new Stellar organisation in Europe will build on the success of Stellar in the UK where we have been servicing industry leading clients from the banking, insurance, telecommunications and utilities sectors for more than ten years. The creation of a European arm signals an expanded geographic mandate for Stellar and recognises the growing market demand for pan European services” said John Hollingsworth, Stellar’s global CEO.

Mr Lumsden will relocate from Australia where he currently holds the position of Chief Strategy Officer for Stellar. He has over 25 years of experience in leadership roles in general management, sales, strategy and client management with business process outsourcing, banking, and consumer products companies.

Mary Graham, Stellar CEO (UK) will maintain a critical role in the European organisation, assuming the new position of Chief Operating Officer Europe.

“The appointment of Michael and Mary to these new roles within our Stellar organisation reaffirms our focus on key global markets and is a major step forward in developing the Stellar brand and capability in Europe specifically. The changes in Europe follow on from the recent creation of Stellar’s North American organisation encompassing the USA and Canada, and comes at a time of unprecedented growth for Stellar globally” continued Mr Hollingsworth.

About Stellar
As a global expert in Managing Customer Relationships, Stellar provides quality customer interactions for a number of leading global brands. Stellar is privately owned and manages over 300 million customer interactions on behalf of its clients each year. Its offerings span front office services, such as Customer Service Support and Directory Assistance, to back office support services and solutions. For more information, visit www.stellarBPO.com

For further information please contact:
Anush Martins
Marketing & Sales Executive (Global)
Stellar
Tel: +61 3 8416 4009
Mob: +61 418 869 259
Fax: +61 3 8416 4099
Email: amartins@stellarBPO.com.au
Web: www.stellarBPO.com

eGain named to Software Magazine’s 29th Annual Software 500

Software Magazine ranks eGain as one of the world’s largest software companies for the ninth straight year

Mountain View, CA (October 13, 2011): eGain ( NASDAQ: EGAN), the leading provider of cloud and on-site customer interaction hub software, today announced its inclusion in Software Magazine’s Software 500 ranking of the world’s largest software and service providers, now in its 29th year.

“The 2011 Software 500 results show that revenue growth in the software and services industry was healthy, with total Software 500 revenue of $541.5 billion worldwide for 2010, representing approximately 10 percent growth from the previous year’s list,” said John P Desmond, editor of Software Magazine and Softwaremag.com.

“The Software 500 helps CIOs, senior IT managers, and IT staff research and create the short list of business partners,” Desmond said. “It is a quick reference of vendor viability. And the online version, to be posted soon at www.softwaremag.com, is searchable by category, making it what we call the online catalog to enterprise software.”

“As consumers go social and mobile, businesses are struggling to consistently manage interactions across the customer lifecycle,” said Ashu Roy, eGain Chairman and CEO. “Our Customer Interaction Hub platform enables businesses to deliver differentiated and consistent customer experiences across the web, social, and phone. We are pleased to be in the Software 500 list for the ninth straight year.”

The Software 500 is a revenue-based ranking of the world’s largest software and services suppliers, targeting medium to large enterprises, their IT professionals, software developers, and business managers involved in software and services purchasing.

Some 27 percent of the 2011 Software 500 companies are privately held. More than 100 companies are on the list in 2011 for the first time, a reflection of the dynamic nature of the industry.

Go to www.softwaremag.com/register to subscribe to be among the first to see the 2011 Software 500. It is being released first in the digital publication, to be distributed in late September.

The ranking is based on total worldwide software and services revenue for 2010. This includes revenue from software licenses, maintenance and support, training, and software-related services and consulting. Suppliers are not ranked on their total corporate revenue, since many have other lines of business, such as hardware. The financial information was gathered by a survey prepared by King Content Co. and posted at www.softwaremag.com, as well as from public documents.

About Digital Software Magazine and Softwaremag.com
Digital Software Magazine, the Software Decision Journal, has been a brand name in the high-tech industry for more than 35 years. Softwaremag.com, its Web counterpart, is the online catalog to enterprise software and the home of the Software 500 ranking of the world’s largest software and services companies. Software Magazine and Softwaremag.com are owned and operated by King Content Co.

About eGain
eGain (NASDAQ: EGAN) is the leading provider of cloud and on-premise customer interaction software for sales and service. For over a decade, eGain solutions have helped improve customer experience, grow sales, and optimize service processes across the web, social, and phone channels. Hundreds of global enterprises rely on eGain to transform fragmented sales engagement and customer service operations into unified Customer Interaction Hubs (CIHs). To find out more about eGain products, visit http://www.egain.com/products/index.asp

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, eGain has operating presence in North America, EMEA and APAC. To learn more about us, visit www.eGain.com or call our offices: +1-800-821-4358 (US), +44-(0)-1753-464646 (EMEA), or +91-(0)-20-6608-9200 (APAC). Also, follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/egain and Facebook at http://facebook.com/egain

eGain contact:
Jamie Abayan
Phone: 650-230-7532
Email: jabayan@egain.com

Software 500 contact:
Tracy Kunichika
Software 500 Project Leader
Email: Tracyk@softwaremag.com

SBS Group Strengthens Southeast Presence with Atlanta Expansion

Atlanta, Georgia — September 1, 2011 – SBS is proud to announce Enterprise Solutions Consultants as the newest addition to the SBS Group Partner Network. SBS Group, a leading technology consulting firm, provides accounting and business solutions to mid-sized companies through a network of regional offices across the United States. With over 25 years of successful experience in providing business management solutions, SBS has extensively expanded market reach through strategic opportunities in several major markets across the country.

With extensive professional services and accounting expertise, the SBS Atlanta team is comprised of industry experts that will assist SBS’ expanding customer base at all levels of operations. The Atlanta team brings a complete set of solutions including a Microsoft Dynamics GP Practice.

“We are excited to join the SBS Partner Network and further extend solution offerings to our clients. With over twelve years of experience and 100 + successful implementations, SBS Atlanta (formerly Enterprise Solutions Consultants) has been delivering Microsoft Dynamics solutions to professional services firms in the metro-Atlanta area,” states Bob O’Brien, Managing Director of SBS Atlanta.

“SBS Atlanta increases our presence in the Southeast region and brings vast industry knowledge, technical resources and Microsoft Dynamics solution expertise to SBS. I look forward to welcoming our new team members and clients, and extending our solution offerings to them,” states James R. Bowman, Jr., President and CEO of SBS Group.

About SBS Group
SBS Group provides business management solutions to mid-size companies across the country. SBS delivers its solutions and services with the industry’s top technology partners including Microsoft, Sage Software, Deltek, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Citrix and others. Focused on distribution, manufacturing, supply chain management, customer relationship management, financial management, project management, service management and accounting solutions, SBS Group has over 25 years of working with clients, not just for them.

The SBS team has earned an award-winning reputation, having been recognized as a Microsoft Gold Partner, Microsoft Partner of the Year (Dynamics SL), Microsoft Inner Circle Member 2011, New Jersey Best Places to Work Winner, NJBIZ Business of the Year Finalist, IBM Beacon Award recipient and Sage Software Leadership Academy member. The company is headquartered in Woodbridge, New Jersey and operates other offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Toledo, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. For more information, please visit SBS Group’s website at www.sbsgroupusa.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sbsgroup and find us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/SBSGroupUSA.

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Media Contact:
Kimberly A. Kohlhepp
732.476.5909
kkohlhepp@sbsgroupusa.com

Diamond Point International Becomes Premiere GridstorePartner To Offer Scale-Out NAS Storage For SMB Customers At Half The Cost Of Standalone NAS

Military, Manufacturing and Education Storage Value Added Reseller Expands Product Line to Deliver Enterprise-Class NAS Solutions with Gridstore to Eliminate Risk, Cost and Complexity of Silo-Based NAS

Mountain View, CA. – Gridstore™, the leader in scale-out NAS solutions for the SMB market, and Diamond Point International, a UK-based storage reseller, today announced that Diamond Point has joined the Gridstore Partner Program as a premiere partner and value added distributor (VAD). As an authorized Gridstore partner, Diamond Point now has a highly scalable NAS offering at half the price of traditional, silo-based NAS storage for its military, manufacturing and education customers.

The Diamond Point partnership with Gridstore enables the UK-based value added distributor to successfully capitalize on the expansive storage opportunity in the military, manufacturing, education and (SMB) markets. With access to innovative partner support programs and the Gridstore Scale-out NAS solution, Diamond Point is able to achieve a powerful NAS storage grid for its channel partners and customers that eliminates storage sprawl and multiple single points of failure. The Gridstore Scale-out NAS solution is designed to eliminate the risk, cost and complexity of silo-based storage with a simple, scalable offering that is based on a “Pay as you Grow” pricing model which eliminates the need to overprovision costly storage resources.

“Gridstore is changing the dynamics of scale-out NAS for the SMB market much like Equallogic did for iSCSI,” said Frank Sutton, director, Diamond Point. “This solution gives us a very turnkey, enterprise-class NAS product for our customers and is a no brainer for both VARs and systems integrators we support. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

“Diamond Point has a huge footprint in the UK market and is a leader in providing the channel and system integrators with best-of-breedsolutions,” said Kelly Murphy, CEO, Gridstore. “The Gridstore Scale-out NAS solution gives our mutual customers a turnkey, scalable, high performance storage solution that meets their 24 x 7 business demands for reliability and availability - while eliminating the need to over provision costly storage resources.”

The Gridstore Partner Program
Gridstore supports its NASg solution with a comprehensive partner program to fuel its partners’ success throughout the entire customer lifecycle. The Gridstore Partner Program has been designed to offer end-to-end support for MSPs and VARs looking to drive increased revenues by capitalizing on the increasing SMB customer demand for high availability storage solutions. Members of the Gridstore Partner Program receive innovative marketing and financialinitiatives including resources, tools and support for prospecting, recruiting, activating and growing new clients. Components of the program include deal registration and protection, co-funded demand generation opportunities and professional services. For more information, please visit: http://gridstore.com/partners.html.

Tweet this: @Gridstore Announces Diamond Point International as Premiere Gridstore Partner

Follow Gridstore on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gridstore

About Diamond Point International
Diamond Point International, part of an international group, has been established in the UK since 1983 and has been at the forefront of industrial computing technology, servicing a mix of OEMs and system integrators. Diamond Point is committed to the Open Systems philosophy and has maintained a portfolio of standards based products, both de facto and formally IEEE recognized. The company offers a prompt quality Technical Support service across all its products. Its engineering department integrates both hardware and software products, thereby offering total system solutions as required by our customers. For more information, please visit: http://www.dpie.com.

About Gridstore
Gridstore is the innovation leader in scale-out Network Attached Storage (NAS) products. The Gridstore NASg solution provides unlimited storage capacity and reliability at a fraction of the cost of traditional storage solutions. NASg is designed for small-to-mid-sized businesses and Managed Service Providers who struggle with the risk, cost and complexity of storage sprawl and who need enterprise class storage without the cost and complexity. Founded in 2007, Gridstore is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. and has development facilities inDublin, Ireland. For more information, please visit: http://www.gridstore.com.

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Media Contact:
Sabrina Sanchez
Ventana Public Relations
(540) 253-5060
sabrina.sanchez@ventanapr.com

Acosta Sales & Marketing Automates Migration From SharePoint 2003 To 2007 With Zero Downtime With Metalogix

Leading Sales and Marketing Agency Takes the Pain Out of Their SharePoint Migration Project with Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint

WASHINGTON, DC, – Metalogix Software, the leading provider in content lifecycle management (CLM) solutions for Microsoft® SharePoint®, Exchange®, and legacy environments, announced today that Acosta Sales & Marketing (Acosta) has successfully migrated from SharePoint 2003 to 2007 with Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint with zero downtime or disruption to its business. Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint uses a familiar copy-and-paste-style user interface so Acosta can easily optimize its data before migrating it. They can also migrate at their own pace while maintaining full fidelity and preserving views, version chains, metadata and user-edit information.

Acosta has grown from a local food broker to become the leading outsourced sales and marketing agency serving consumer packaged goods companies and retailers across North America. With this rapid growth, the company had several hundred gigabytes of document files and found that theyneeded to use many of the advanced features in SharePoint 2003 to manage them. But, when it came time to migrate to SharePoint 2007, moving the data they were using in the earlier version was problematic. The Acosta team began to evaluate third-party SharePoint migration solutions to help automate their migrationprocess, but found that few offered the ease of use and features it discovered in the Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint solution.

“Our options were to do the migration manually, or leverage a solution that only handled a fraction of the content. Neither approach was viable for us because they invited risk of lost data and business disruption to our collaboration environment,” said John Morales, collaboration technology manager and platform support services, Acosta Sales & Marketing. “The Metalogix solution was very successful in handling the more advanced parts of our SharePoint content migration and we just felt at ease with Metalogix. The implementation and deployment of the product is dead simple. We deployed it in our production environment in a matter of minutes with absolutely no downtime.”

Acosta uses Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint as a core component of its SharePoint management process. The company finds the product to be a tremendous productivity saver, making what was once a time consuming and error ridden task of migrating their SharePoint data, painless and error free.

“Working with innovative firms like Acosta is a real win/win and we are pleased to work with firms that want to implement advanced SharePoint management solutions that enhance and add value to their existing and future content management practices,” said Steven Murphy, CEO of Metalogix. “Acosta had such a positive and easy experience migrating from SharePoint 2003 to 2007 with Migration Manager for SharePoint that they have come back to us to migrate to SharePoint 2010. We strive to offer the most advanced functionality and user-friendly migration solutions in the market that make even the most tedious tasks effortless–all without disruption or downtime for our customers.”

Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint

Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint (formerly SharePoint Site Migration Manager) is the industry’s de facto standard for upgrading, consolidating, reorganizing and transforming SharePoint environments. Whether your organization is moving content to Office 365; upgrading from SharePoint 2003 or 2007 to SharePoint 2010; moving between SharePoint servers; managing a hybrid cloud environment, or managing the ongoing organization of your SharePoint content, Migration Manager for SharePoint is an easy-to-use and convenient way of managing the lifecycle of your SharePoint data. Using a familiar copy-and-paste-style user interface, Metalogix Migration Manager enables users to quickly migrate content silos to a common SharePoint system. All data libraries, lists, web parts and permissions can be moved while preserving views, version chains, metadata and user-edit information. Furthermore, customers can use Migration Manager for SharePoint – File Share Edition, to easily migrate large repositories of files to Office 365. Metalogix Migration Manager for SharePoint is the only migration product to pass Microsoft SharePoint Online Code Analysis Framework (MSOCAF) testing and be deployed by customers in Microsoft data centers for Office 365 and BPOS.

Tweet this: @AcostaSales automates migration from #SharePoint 2003 to 2007 with zero downtime using @Metalogix http://bit.ly/qhajDB

Follow Metalogix at http://www.twitter.com/metalogix

About Acosta Sales & Marketing

Acosta Sales & Marketing is the sales and marketing powerhouse behind thousands of the biggest brands you see every day, with aclient roster that includes the majority of #1 and #2 brands sold in most grocery stores. With more than 80 years of experience, Acosta provides a range of outsourced sales, marketing and retail merchandising services to effectively move products off shelves and into shoppers’ baskets, ensuring clients are achieving their true sales potential. Acosta is based in Jacksonville, Fla., with approximately 20,000 associates in 65 offices throughout the United States and Canada. For more information, visit www.acosta.com.

About Metalogix

Metalogix is a leading provider of content lifecycle management solutions for Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Exchange, andlegacy enterprise content environments. We enable organizations to scale and cost-effectively manage, migrate, store, archive and protect enterprise content whether on-premises or in the cloud. The company is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, privately held, and backed by Insight Venture Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners. For more information, please visit: http://www.metalogix.com.

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Metalogix, and the Metalogix logo are trademarks of Metalogix Software. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Sabrina Sanchez
Ventana Public Relations for Metalogix
(540) 253-5060
sabrina.sanchez@ventanapr.com

Janet Spirer

Medical sales - why do physicians switch?

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A few months ago we were meeting with some Regional VPs of Sales in a medical device company. While the conversation is always interesting, two of the VPs brought up a key question: in addition to the traditional questions included in pre-call planning, it’s critical for medical device sales people to have a good understanding of not only what the customer currently is using, but why they use the product they currently implant. Too often sales people know the what – but not the why.

They identified four drivers behind why a physician uses a specific product:

1. Money – This product provides personal gain for themselves, a consultant or contract compliance for a hospital or standalone surgery center.
2. Comfort – This is the product that the physician used during residency and/or the doc is just comfortable with it. It is easy for the physician and doesn’t require much relearning.
3. Sales Rep – The physician has a relationship with a rep in and/or out of the OR or Lab. Comfort, trust, and dependability play a big part here.
4. Company Opportunities – The physician has a relationship with the company where he/she has opportunities for practice building, podium opportunities, etc.
This means that before a doc will switch the business from a favorite company and sales rep, and thus leave his/her comfort zone with the product, the physician needs to be able to justify the switch in his/her own mind and to the sales rep pal.

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Janet Spirer

Medical device sales - the networking challenge

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We recently looked at networking in B2B sales. Let’s take a deeper dive into networking in medical device sales. A key to successful medical device sales, as in most sales situations, is getting the right message, to the right person, at the right time. Successfully networking in medical device sales requires knowing who’s who and having relationships characterized by superior access and credibility.

To execute, medical device sales people must be able to answer three questions:

1. Who will be involved in the buying decision?
2. What’s the importance of the role each will play – is Dr. Pat Harris the key decision maker or simply an influencer?
3. What are the players’ opinions of your company – are they internal champions, adversaries or do they have a neutral position?

Let’s take a closer look at each …

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Janet Spirer

Medical devices - physicians share how new sales reps can establishing credibility

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When asked what their top concerns are about medical device sales, interacting one-on-one with physicians usually tops most sales people’s list. And it’s very understandable. No matter how much clinical training they receive, interacting one-on-one with a physician terrifies most new sales people. Horror stories become folklore within companies, at hospitals, and in physician practices about medical device sales people who have made an initial misstep. Avoiding the misstep is a key to building credibility.

So, we asked implanting physicians about this concern and to share their advice to new medical devices sales people on how to begin building credibility. Of course, clinical competence is expected. And, physicians know that clinical competence will grow over time with experience.

What else did they say was critical for a new medical device sales person? The initial three points they shared focus on accountability.

If you don’t know, don’t pretend – There is no shame in saying “I don’t know”, or “I’ll find out and get back to you”. The problem is when a sales person pretends and ends up “dancing” around an answer. It’s quite obvious to everyone that the sales person is “dancing” – and that’s when the sales person’s credibility sinks.

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