Johannesburg, 15 Aug 2002
Solely represented in southern Africa by Datacentrix, IXOS Software AG, provider of solutions for the management of business documents, has announced a new version of IXOS-eCONtext for Siebel. The product gives employees fast access to all customer-related documents, such as correspondence and orders - without having to leave their Siebel application.
"For customer relationship management (CRM) to be successful, a company needs to integrate its documents into its business processes," explains Rob Shaw, product marketing manager at Datacentrix. "For example, consider the scenario where a customer contacts a call centre to change the order. The employee needs access to the structured data in the CRM system, as well as have fast access to the customer`s original order form."
This new version of the IXOS product supports Siebel 7 and its new Smart Web Architecture and gives employees access to all customer-related documents directly from the Siebel application. This includes outgoing documents (such as offers and correspondence) as well as incoming documents (such as orders and complaint letters).
Paper documents are digitised using IXOS-eCONtext for Siebel. All documents are linked to their corresponding Siebel business object.
Says Shaw: "Employees can now quickly find the right information in Siebel 7 and promptly respond to customer requests. Best of all, they don`t even realise that they are using IXOS-eCONtext for Siebel. The IXOS software is so seamlessly integrated in the Siebel application that, to the user, it appears to be part of the Siebel product. This eliminates the need for any special training to use the product."
To handle a customer request, front office employees often need to check ERP data and documents such as invoices and orders. This is because SAP R/3 is frequently the source of these customer-related documents. The IXOS-eCONtext for Siebel connector gives users direct access from the Siebel user interface to the SAP documents.
An easy to use folder structure displays both e-mails and documents from SAP R/3. Users have a single interface for viewing all customer-related documents, eliminating the need to log on to several systems. "This immediate access to documents also assists in increasing employee productivity," says Shaw.