Sybase Mobile South Africa has announced the next generation of iAnywhere Mobile Sales, a solution which provides sales professionals with quick, easy access to business information using handheld devices.
Mobile Sales helps organisations accelerate the adoption of existing customer relationship management (CRM) solutions such as Siebel by enabling sales professionals to access these systems anywhere, at any time.
New features include workflow configuration capabilities to simplify navigation and key performance indicators that enable businesses to measure the usage and effectiveness of their mobile deployments.
"A significant contributing factor to successful CRM deployment is user acceptance," says Steve Bonadio, senior programme director, Enterprise Application Strategies at META Group. "Acceptance issues are particularly important for mobile workers, who are increasingly demanding support for handheld-based solutions. To be effective, these solutions must be accessible, user-friendly, and ergonomically optimised for the user's needs."
"Companies have invested significantly in CRM solutions but they still face the challenge of extending them to customer-facing employees," says Caroline Scofield, Sybase mobile product manager. "Mobile Sales puts information in the hands of mobile sales professionals when they need it, whether in the car or at a customer's office. The enhancements in this version will fuel sales force adoption by providing an application that is even easier to use, along with important tools for management to measure their return on investments in handheld deployments."
Mobile Sales provides handheld access to key sales tools at the point of customer interaction, minimising downtime by providing access to multiple data resources such as CRM, ERP, intranet and legacy systems. The next generation of Mobile Sales includes significant enhancements designed to accelerate the adoption of CRM solutions:
* Workflow configuration: New capabilities enable the configuration of the user interface to match an organisation's sales process and work rules, simplifying navigation and making the most of the available screen space on handheld devices. As a result of these enhancements, mobile sales professionals can find the information they need and complete call reports quickly, with the fewest steps possible.
* Key performance indicators: The addition of key performance indicators (KPIs) - such as the average number of records submitted by each sales professional per day - enable businesses to measure the adoption and effectiveness of their deployments. This information can be used to determine the return on current handheld investments and to build business cases for future projects.
"After years of relatively slow adoption, mobile is finally coming into its own," comments Scofield. "It is due in part to the availability of compelling applications such as iAnywhere Mobile Sales."
* iAnywhere is a company in the Sybase group.
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