The Consortium goes live in just four weeks on new CRM system from Geac
06 Februar 2006 - 3:15PM
PR Newswire (US)
Return on investment achieved within one month STUDLEY, U.K., Feb.
6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Consortium for Purchasing and
Distribution, a GBP 40m national procurement and fulfillment
organisation, has taken just four weeks from start to finish to
implement a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system from
enterprise software supplier Geac(R) (TSX:GAC, NASDAQ:GEAC). The
CRM system, Opportunity Management, is already helping 50 sales and
customer support staff to better manage 30,000 UK customers (60,000
contacts) which range from schools, colleges, local authorities,
care homes, nurseries to many private companies. The new system is
integrated with The Consortium's existing enterprise resource
planning (ERP) software called System21 Aurora from Geac, which
operates on an IBM iSeries model 820. Joe Caddell, Business Systems
Director for The Consortium, said: "We were using an old version of
the Talent CRM system and had evaluated the cost of upgrading to
the current version. The decision to switch to Opportunity
Management was clear-cut. Not only was it significantly cheaper and
a low risk migration, it allowed us to have a consolidated customer
and prospect view across our whole business. As well as the obvious
benefits in understanding our customers better, we were able to
simplify processes that had been prone to introduce data errors.
The system has already paid for itself in the first month of
operation." The Consortium is already using the system to great
effect. Marketing lists are being loaded into Opportunity
Management as prospects. As soon as prospects are converted to
customers it is easy to switch a prospect record to a customer
account as all the information resides within the combined Geac
system. Previously, this required an overnight batch process and
then subsequent manual changes to both systems to keep them
synchronised. Customer support staff can now deal with customer
enquiries without having to toggle between two different systems.
Prior to the implementation, there was no online interface between
the systems which could delay the process of answering customer
queries or result in decisions being made with incomplete
information. Val Kirby, Business Systems Development Manager at The
Consortium, said: "We had sales people using Talent and the
customer services team using System21 limiting the aggregation of
knowledge about our customers. Some key documents were being held
in paper form and so weren't available from either system - now we
attach them to the customer record. We have also simplified our
system infrastructure - with fewer interfaces there is minimal
scope for things to go wrong." Joe Caddell again: "Such a rapid
change in the run up to Christmas was not something we took
lightly. The sales team use this period to restructure their
customer accounts. Opportunity Management was evaluated with the
sales team and the decision had their full support. The
implementation went smoothly and our users are delighted with their
new system." Since going live in December 2005 The Consortium has
been dedicated to rolling the system out. It has trained up three
'power users' who are now instrumental in teaching others within
the organisation. There have been a series of internal training
sessions to introduce the system to all users, and enhanced
training sessions to spread the knowledge of the system's many
advanced features. About Geac Geac (TSX: GAC, NASDAQ:GEAC) is a
global enterprise software company that addresses the needs of the
Chief Financial Officer. Geac's best-in-class technology products
and services help organisations do more with less in an
increasingly competitive environment, amidst growing regulatory
pressure, and in response to other business issues confronting the
CFO. Further information is available at http://www.geac.com/ or
through e-mail at . This press release may contain forward-looking
statements of Geac's intentions, beliefs, expectations and
predictions for the future. These forward-looking statements often
include use of the future tense with words such as "will," "may,"
"intends," "anticipates," "expects" and similar conditional or
forward-looking words and phrases. These forward-looking statements
are neither promises nor guarantees. They are only predictions that
are subject to risks and uncertainties, and they may differ
materially from actual future events or results. Geac undertakes no
obligation to update or revise the information contained herein.
Important factors that could cause a material difference between
these forward-looking statements and actual events include, among
other things: our ability to increase revenues from new license
sales, cross-sell into our existing customer base and reduce
customer attrition; whether we are able to deliver products and
services within required time frames and budgets to meet
increasingly competitive customer demands and performance
guaranties; risks inherent in fluctuating international currency
exchange rates in light of our global operations and the
unpredictable effect of geopolitical world and local events;
whether we are successful in our continued efforts to manage
expenses effectively and maintain profitability; our ability to
achieve revenue from products and services that are under
development; the uncertain effect of the competitive environment in
which we operate and resulting pricing pressures; and whether the
anticipated effects and results of our new product offerings and
successful product implementation will be realized. These and other
potential risks and uncertainties that relate to Geac's business
and operations are summarized in more detail from time to time in
our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange
Commission and with the Canadian Securities Administrators. Please
refer to Geac's most recent quarterly reports available through the
website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov/ and through
the website maintained by the Canadian Securities Administrators
and the Canadian Depository for Securities Limited at
http://www.sedar.com/ for more information on risk factors that
could cause actual results to differ. Geac is a registered
trademark of Geac Computer Corporation Limited. All other marks are
trademarks of their respective owners. DATASOURCE: Geac Computer
Corporation Limited CONTACT: Media Contacts: Crawford Warnock,
Citigate Dewe Rogerson, +44 (0)1604 232223, ; Richard Moore, Geac,
+44 (0) 1527 496189, ; Investor Contact: Alys Scott, Geac, (781)
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