Software Futures is going to market with its range of FutureCall customer relationship management solution components. Developed over the past two years out of the group`s experience with call centres, customer relationship management (CRM) systems and object orientation (OO), FutureCall is leveraging its technology with development projects at BMW SA and the Department of Trade and Industry. In addition, the group is set to enter the US market for broad-based penetration of these components. "FutureCall is the natural consequence of the work we`ve been doing with customers across various projects, leveraged with the skills we`ve acquired," says Aletha Ling, MD of the Software Futures Group. FutureCall represents a fundamental change of direction for Software Futures. It is the first time the group, traditionally a representative and implementer of overseas principals` software offerings, is going to market with its own range of software applications. "These components address a market niche for third-party, independent applications that complement other vendors` CRM offerings," says Ling. "As such they represent a potentially huge market. "We have scanned the CRM market worldwide and have not been overly excited by what we have seen. That led us to initiate development of our own components, leveraging off our skills base and the very real excitement we feel about object technology." FutureCall is headed up by former IBM group executive Malcolm Taylor and CRM specialist Adrian Cuthbertson, who has pioneered Software Futures` work at such clients as BMW, Absa, Mercedes-Benz, The Internet Solution, Nissan and DTI. Some 20 software developers are at work creating components. FutureCall has been modelled using Cayenne ObjectTeam and makes extensive use of Microsoft object technology. The openness of the FutureCall architecture makes it to incorporate Java in future development. FutureCall addresses five areas: * FutureCall projects, where the team fulfil existing and future projects. * FutureCall products, which goes to market with FutureCall products and components. * Object warehouse, a repository for the FutureCall components created by the division. Existing components address such issues as customer support and database marketing. * Call centre operations/outsourcing, which executes and manages call centres on behalf of third parties. * International. "We are totally convinced that only an object-based approach can fully satisfy the need to rapidly develop components for today`s call centre and CRM market," says Ling. "Only objects satisfy the issues of configurability, ease of deployment and reuse. And only objects can fulfil the promise of the Internet." Malcolm Taylor, director of FutureCall, says: "CRM embraces a number of disciplines including customer support, sales and account management, call centres, database marketing, data mining, loyalty management, telemarketing, one-to-one marketing, Internet-enabled business and others. "In the past two years as we have worked in these markets we have evolved a component-based approach to providing CRM solutions. This includes a base set of generic business components that encapsulate the full business functionality of business processes typically executed in CRM solutions. "The components alone do not provide the complete solution," Taylor adds, "as there is still a need to achieve specific differetiation for each organisation that adopts the generic components. There is also the need to integrate with existing legacy systems to bring a complete view of the customer and all interactions with the customer. To this effect we have also developed a specific methodology for implementing and specialising components for each new project. The components and methodology together make up FutureCall."
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