Irish software firm Expd8 has set itself the task of installing its client management software in 100 local legal firms in the next year.
The company, together with its local partner Coleso, unveiled the software AJS in Rosebank yesterday, at an event attended by Irish enterprise minister Miche'al Martin.
The software aims to collate every digital interaction with a client in a desktop-based interface that runs on Microsoft Windows. Coleso MD Digby Vickers says the 12 buttons used to run the software make it "idiot proof".
The software is easy to install, he adds, and when up and running, allows anyone in the firm to respond to a client`s queries.
Declan Branagan, MD of Expd8, says it captures "every moment of truth" in dealing with a client. He says communication is often digital in nature, but then is printed out and filed. This necessitates accessing the file before responding to the client.
"We are drowning in more paper today than ever."
The new software, used by 2 200 firms in Ireland, negates this need as it stores every digital communication, all the way through to accounting information, on the interface, he says.
In addition to document managing and archiving the software includes multiple diary access, SMS, e-mail, instant messaging, alarms and alerts, time and billing, fax integration, and issue reporting.
Huge market
Vickers says the company will first be marketing the product to its existing client base, and will then look at offering it to small legal firms, for which it has a streamlined version.
The target market, he says, is huge as there are 9 000 legal firms in SA. In addition, the software could also find application in insurance, architecture and government departments.
Over the past two or three months, the software has been presented to some of Coleso`s key clients and the response has been "great", states Vickers. "Customers are hungry for client-management, so it came at an ideal time."
Roll-out of the product, which took five years to develop at a cost of 1.5 million euros, will start in the next few months.
The Irish Examiner reports the deal is worth a million euros to the Dublin-based group, which is one of 30 Irish firms on an Enterprise Ireland mission to SA.
It says the Irish company has been in operation six years, employs 22 people and last year turned over 3.5 million euros.
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