Calibre Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Calibre Holdings, has secured rights to distribute a range of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions thereby lowering the barriers to entry for the local market.
According to Calibre sales director, Devon Dalbock, Pivotal software is both Internet- and network-based and enables businesses to increase revenues by more effectively managing interaction with customers and partners. "These products are developed specifically for use with Microsoft BackOffice and Internet platforms," he explains.
Two key products are Pivotal Relationship 99/SQL7 and Pivotal eRelationship. The former enables business to focus efforts more productively on customer satisfaction and sales by facilitating more accurate targeting of prospects; decreased sales cycles; increased customer retention; and enabling effective customer support
Pivotal eRelationship introduces electronic CRM (eCRM) by bringing the Internet into the equation and extending the front office to the virtual enterprise and beyond.
"Pivotal eRelationship creates and manages Internet Relationship Hubs, which build enduring relationships by enabling web-based interactive collaboration between employees, business partners and customers," says Dalbock. "It creates a wealth of opportunities to improve the productivity of channel partners, cut communication and transaction costs, shorten sales cycles, and improve customer satisfaction."
Mark Inskipp, director of sales for EMEA at Pivotal, describes Pivotal`s business as a process of enabling eCRM by unifying the various messaging platforms, such as telephone, fax and the Internet to deliver services typically demanded by enterprise level customers.
"eRelationship provides an integrated solution that actively involves customers, partners, as well as sales and support representatives in the CRM process," he says.
"As can be seen in the rapid growth of call centres in this market, businesses in South Africa are starting to look at ways of using technology to maximise the relationship with their customers," comments Dalbock. "Companies are fast coming to the realisation that the use of Internet technology is central to the CRM cause and essential for incorporating partners and customers in the process. Extending solutions to include Internet technologies is an important step toward achieving long-term customer management and enhanced profitability."
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Calibre
Conceived out of the FrasMan Group in 1996, Calibre Holdings is the holding company for Calibre Solutions and Calibre Intellect. Calibre Solutions was formed for the purpose of supplying, implementing and supporting leading customer relationship management (CRM) software applications in sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of Calibre Intellect is to manage the strategic reconciliation of IT strategies against companies` business plans in order to best determine system requirements.
Pivotal
Named one of Upside`s Hot 100 Companies and Red Herring`s Top 50 Privately-Held Companies, Pivotal Corporation develops and markets integrated sales, marketing, and customer service solutions. Its flagship products, Pivotal Relationship 99 and Pivotal eRelationship, are the leading CRM software applications for companies standardised on Microsoft BackOffice and Internet platforms, with over 38,000 users licensed world-wide. In December 1998, Pivotal Relationship 99 earned Microsoft`s Best Overall Customer Management Industry Solution Award.
Pivotal is a privately held company with investor partners that include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Oak Investments, Integral Capital Partners and Ventures West. As of April 1, 1999, the company has over 240 employees and over 470 customers worldwide, including Hewlett-Packard, Kimberly-Clark, USG, Intel, The Principal Financial Group and Sun Healthcare Group. Pivotal is a global organisation with sales offices around the world and an international alliance network of value-added resellers, systems integrators and distributors. Pivotal products are sold through a worldwide network in 29 countries from more than 38 locations in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, China, Japan and Australia/New Zealand.