iLAB eSolutions announces availability of Webridge

iLAB eSolutions, Webridge implementation partner of Internet-based sell-side B2B software built on the Microsoft platform, today announced the latest version of its packaged application suite, Webridge PX 4.0.

This latest offering is the first rapidly deployable solution that securely integrates key sell-side business components - collaborative portals, relationship management capabilities, and transactional commerce capabilities - in an online environment that is easily managed by individual business users.

Addressing the growing demand for integrated sell-side business solutions, this complete offering enables mid-size corporations and divisions of large enterprises to use the Web to integrate the marketing, sales and collaborative activities that support business transactions with valued customers and business partners. Webridge PX4.0 delivers this environment at a lower price point and in a fraction of the time required to assemble a similar solution from a series of point offerings.

In addition, Webridge PX 4.0 marks a departure from the paradigm for how e-business solutions are administered in an organisation. IT managers maintain security of the overall site, but now have the power to allow marketing and sales managers, and even their partners and customers, to manage and maintain complex business processes.

This ability for IT managers to "delegate" site administration at such a specific level empowers business managers to respond quickly and efficiently to a variety of changing circumstances -- improving cost savings and ultimately increasing revenue.

"We recognised the importance of enabling marketing and sales professionals to handle ongoing e-business relationships with valued customers and partners directly, without having to rely on the IT department for every little thing," said Dave Brinker, CEO, Webridge. "We specifically designed Webridge PX 4.0 so that it would be easy for the individuals responsible for project outcomes to delegate access, post new content for collaboration and add products to sophisticated, personalised catalogues."

Webridge PX 4.0 successfully addresses the technical challenges of integrating customer relationship management, collaborative portal and B2B e-commerce solutions - improving efficiencies and increasing revenue and profitability. Generally deployed in less than ninety days, this packaged, standards-based solution successfully addresses the time-to-market challenge faced by companies today. The extensible application suite also represents a long-term, strategic e-business solution - the easy-to-use development platform provides companies with the flexibility to further their solutions over time as their business needs grow.

"As mid-sized companies seek out Internet-based solutions to improve business processes that support the selling of products and services online, enthusiasm for complete management of the customer lifecycle is clearly trending toward out-of-the box suites that offer more integrated functionality and which can scale and extend as future needs change," said Sheryl Kingstone, Program Manager, Customer Relationship Practice, Yankee Group.

"To meet the needs of multi-channel selling, a complete online sell-side solution must easily integrate and grow with existing operational systems. By creating an easy environment for conducting business, companies will foster deeper relationships and improve the collaborative selling relationships with existing customers and partners to grow revenue."

Based on a powerful underlying application framework that combines sophisticated technologies and industry standards to deliver enterprise reliability, adaptability, integration infrastructure and scalability, the Webridge PX 4.0 platform provides a fully transactional Microsoft COM-based object application server and WYSIWYG tools for rapid development, a native XML infrastructure to enable data interoperability within and across enterprises, as well as a high-performance architecture with multi-level caching and distributed processing services to scale up or scale out. Webridge PX 4.0 also leverages the Microsoft Business Internet Analytics in Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server OLAP technology to enhance administration and reporting capabilities.

New and enhanced functionality in Webridge PX 4.0

This latest offering from Webridge includes the following feature additions and enhancements.

* Delegated administration. Enables the non-IT site manager to delegate the management of person, company, authority and other entities in a controlled way. Enterprise "owners" of a Webridge PX site can give partners the authority to create new users employed by that partner, or to add its own customers to the site, with extended authority to manage their own users. This can all be safely and securely conducted in a "private" online environment, even across different enterprises.

* Collaboration and content management. A secure, user-friendly portal layer provides employees, partners and customers with access to documents, brochures, price lists proposals and contracts, all of which can be accessed and edited according to the security setting. Additional collaborative tools include shared on-line calendars, surveys and event-driven discussions. Includes controlled document access with version management, publishing tools to segment by market and notification mechanisms to notify users of changes. Business managers determine what literature, products, Web services, cross-sell, promotions and prices are viewed by different users.

* Commerce. Enables enterprises, their partners and direct customers to conduct online transactions quickly and accurately with automated end-user order management. Supports multiple custom catalogue and pricing schemes, and features saveable shopping carts, split "ship-to" and "bill-to" address options and easy search capabilities. Additionally, Webridge PX 4.0 integrates a number of the new .Net servers from Microsoft, including Commerce Server 2000 and BizTalk Server.

* Relationship management. Allows users in marketing, sales, support and virtually anywhere in the company to collaborate on B2B projects at each stage in the customer lifecycle, from prospect capture information and lead qualification data to customer shipment details and satisfaction survey responses.