Calibre lowers entry barriers to CRM

Local Customer Relationship Management (CRM) specialist, Calibre Solutions, has signed several new agencies that it believes will significantly improve accessibility of this important technology by dropping the price barrier.

Gordon Fraser, MD of holding company, Calibre Holdings, believes slow market acceptance of CRM technology, locally, has been primarily due to the high cost of implementation. The company currently holds a distribution agreement with international CRM software vendor, Pivotal, that offers access to a comprehensive range of Microsoft BackOffice-based CRM products. "As local distributor of Pivotal software and with offices in Gauteng and the Western Cape, we`re well placed to provide a single point of contact for pre- and post-sales support," he says.

Other CRM-related agencies snapped up by the new company include the products of eHNC and Astea. "eHNC provides a suite of predictive CRM solutions targeted specifically at the service industries - products that deploy neural networking technology to provide real-time insight into customer relationships based on transaction-level data.

"Astea, on the other hand, offers customer management solutions in the specialised areas of field service automation, customer support/help desk automation, and sales and marketing automation."

Looking ahead Calibre is negotiating several other related agencies to extend its offering still further. Fraser comments: "CRM is maturing rapidly and, as with any such technology, once it begins to mature, the traditional deterrents are eliminated quite quickly.

"Hence, Calibre`s long-term strategy of seeking out and presenting the market with key emerging technologies that can assist in the inevitable technology transition to a CRM focus."