Popular CRMs' Relationship to Cisco Products

CRM solutions are multifaceted. They span not only the typical spectrum of touch points or channels through which an SMB interacts with a customer (marketing, sales, service, and support) but can extend these channels of interaction to include contract management, file and document management, and analytics tools.

Analytics are a vital CRM component. They can include a variety of standard periodic reports as well as real-time snapshots of the various aspects of business operations. For a CRM solution to be most effective, all aspects of the CRM should be integrated to provide a uniform view of the customer from any point of interaction. Ideally, every interaction with a customer should result in the strengthening of the relationship and an opportunity to sell the SMB's product and/or service or to resolve the customer's problem. When the components of CRM are integrated into a cohesive whole (either as part of the initial package or through various integration techniques), the next step toward a seamless applications environment is to integrate them with the back office applications, which is discussed in Chapter 10, “Front and Back Office Integration Solutions.”

The relationship of Cisco products to CRMs is twofold:

• First, via the networking solutions (layers 1 through 4 infrastructure, wireless, security), which facilitate CRM deployments on the networks

• Second, via the IP communications solutions that include elements of IP Telephony, IP Contact Center (IPCC), and Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) software

Cisco IP communications solutions create strategic customer contact platforms that integrate with CRMs at the level of call routing and accessing the CRM database for selecting the most appropriate skills group to handle a particular contact. For the detailed specifics of each company's CRM features, I encourage you to contact that company's sales and technical support channels. Assuming that each company uses its own CRM solution, it might give you the perfect opportunity to experience that solution firsthand. Consider next some of the popular CRMs and their vendors' relationship to Cisco and its products.

E.piphany CRM

The E.piphany CRM solution encompasses marketing, sales, and service. Each of these customer contact channels, or E.piphany product lines, consists of a number of components. The interaction advisor is a component common to each of the three channels. Each product line is also equipped with customer analytics tools.

The unification of the customer data and processes across the contact channels takes place via the E.piphany Customer Relationship Backbone (CRB), which offers a set of services based on Sun Microsystems' Java 2 platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Based on open standards and supporting Web services, CRB also facilitates integration of the E.piphany CRM product lines with any existing legacy applications.

E.piphany has entered into different categories of partnership with different vendors. The partnership categories include platform, consulting, and business. Both Cisco and Sun Microsystems are E.piphany's platform partners. They both supply enabling technologies that enhance the capabilities of E.piphany's applications. The joint Cisco and E.piphany CRM solution integrates E.piphany's applications with the Cisco IPCC and its underlying capabilities of call routing and distribution.

SAP mySAP

mySAP CRM represents one of many elements in the mySAP Business Suite of solutions from the German software maker Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung—or Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing (SAP). SAP's mySAP solutions are designed to meet the operational needs of more than 20 industries. In addition to CRM, SAP's solutions include applications related to human resources, financials, supplier relationship management (SRM), supply chain management (SCM), product life cycle management, and the marketplace. Each solution can be deployed individually or in conjunction with others.

The viability of SAP's CRM solution hinges on three key activities and their enabling technologies:

• The capture of customer information (often via customer call centers)

• The warehousing of customer-related information (data warehousing relies on a viable network infrastructure and storage technologies such as storage-area network (SAN) or network-attached storage (NAS), as discussed in Chapter 3)

• The use of the Internet to enhance customer interactions via a high degree of self-help or self-serve capabilities

SAP integrates with IPCC and ICM from Cisco via the SAP adapter for ICM, which leads to data capture by providing routing capability and simultaneously enhances the customer contact support via the Internet.

PeopleSoft CRM

PeopleSoft's CRM solution is a component of its Enterprise and EnterpriseOne product lines. The underlying philosophy of PeopleSoft's CRM is to offer SMBs and major enterprises alike a product that makes customers continue to want to buy from them in the presence of competitive alternatives. It's a philosophy worth pondering for any SMB contemplating a CRM deployment, whether or not the PeopleSoft solution is used.

The PeopleSoft-specific CRM modules relate to field service, customer self-service, marketing, sales, mobile sales, and support. The CRM solution integrates through numerous points with other PeopleSoft applications, including the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and SCM suites. In that context, PeopleSoft refers to its expanded CRM solution as Customer Lifecycle Management (CLM).

The integration of Cisco products with PeopleSoft's CRM is at the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) platform level, which means integration with the IPCC and ICM product families. PeopleSoft also works with contact platform and telephony vendors such as Avaya, Concertro Software, Apropos, Genesys, and Interactive Intelligences, Inc.

Pegasystems Customer Process Manager

Pegasystems refers to its customer contact solution as the Customer Process Manager. Whereas the required networking infrastructure to support this application and its integration with IP communications are routine, the application uses a unique enabling technology to service customers.

Underlying the Pegasystems business solutions is the enabling technology of business process management (BPM), which relies on a business rules engine to automate the process of decision making as a function of organizational best practices and customer requirements. The effective use of the business rules engine through customization and addition of new processes (even by managers, rather than IT staff) facilitates one of the fundamental goals of any CRM solution: one-call or one-contact resolution of any customer issue. Pegasystems solutions span the spectrum of industries, including health care, financial services, retail, and insurance.

Not unlike other CRM and business software providers, Pegasystems partners with multiple vendors in categories of services, solutions, and technology. Partnership with Cisco falls into the category of technology because Cisco IP Communications solutions provide robust customer response platforms over which CRM applications operate.

Microsoft CRM

Although Microsoft CRM is a more recent addition to the CRM offerings than its aforementioned competitors, the product has been designed specifically for the SMB market, and it integrates well with Microsoft's e-mail, web browser, and OS platforms, which are already prevalent in SMB environments. The two major modules of the Microsoft CRM are Sales and Customer Service. Each module includes numerous components that are collectively designed to meet the SMB CRM objectives related to sales and customer service:

• Sales module components: management of leads, opportunities (qualified leads), orders, territories, and sales literature; competitor tracking; correspondence and mail merges; product catalog; workflow; and reporting

• Customer Service module components: case, e-mail, and contract management; service request association with cases; case queuing for future processing; routing and workflow; product catalog; searchable knowledge base; and reporting

Both modules integrate with Microsoft Business Solutions applications.

Cisco partnership with Microsoft is aimed at integrating several of its IP Telephony solutions with Microsoft CRM. The Cisco CRM Communications Connector (a middleware application) allows for Microsoft CRM to interoperate with the following:

• The Cisco CallManager Express (see Chapter 8, “IP Telephony Solutions”)

• The Cisco CallManager bundled with the Cisco IPCC or IPCC Express

• The Cisco CallManager standalone installation without IPCC

From the CRM user perspective, which you must always take into account, the specifics of the Microsoft CRM and Cisco IP Telephony solution integration include the following:

• Screen popups with customer information upon call arrival

• Click-to dial feature from within Microsoft Outlook or the CRM application based on a customer record

• Call timing and tracking for the purpose of internal management and performance evaluation

• Voice mail notification (planned as of the time of writing)

The support for IP phones in the combined preceding solution is extensive but remains a function of the call processing agent (CallManager Express or CallManager) and its version and/or model. Always check with the vendors on the latest specifications of any solution.