EDS an e-business and information technology services vendor, yesterday debuted a suite of digital Customer Relationship Management services–and seven strategic alliances to power them — aimed at the $35 billion CRM market.
EDS, Plano, TX, made the announcement at the Electronic Commerce World Conference in Orlando, FL.
The CRM solutions consist of strategic and solutions consulting services in addition to the seven turnkey and outsourced services that enable companies to plan, design, manage and operate a successful, sustained customer-centric approach to business. To address this market, EDS has aligned itself with an array of “best-of-breed” partners to provide key components of the company's digital CRM offerings.
“These new digital CRM offerings and alliances recognize that customer intimacy is critical to establishing the trust consumers need for the digital economy to grow,” said Dick Brown, EDS Chairman/CEO.
The solutions are:
• Enterprise CRM Strategy Consulting: A.T. Kearney, EDS' management consulting subsidiary provides customer touch-point assessments, enterprise CRM strategies, business cases and program plans that are integrated across all digital CRM services.
• eCRM Services: Services aimed at establishing and maintaining relationships between businesses and their customers by providing multiple communications channel integration, automated marketing, sales and customer care.
• Business Intelligence Services: Services that allow clients to analyze customer interactions, segment the customer base, target profitable customers for up-sell and cross-sell efforts, and personalize interactions for improved customer loyalty, satisfaction, retention and profitability.
• Knowledge Management Services: Web-enabled, self-service knowledge management solutions, together with implementation and integration services.
• Customer Interaction Center Services: Direct and immediate communications channels — e-mail, web, text chat fax, phone, mail, for example–for clients and their customers, in both the business-to- business and business-to-consumer market spaces. The range of
(CIC) services offered includes base CIC services; customer relations; roadside and emergency services; technical product support and lead generation to sales.
• Customer Intelligence Services: Tracking and analysis of individual customer behavior over time and customer-interaction touch points using fine-tuned segmentation techniques.
• Fulfillment and Distribution Services: Outsourced order management, payment processing/billing, letter shop, inventory and warehousing management, distribution and returns management.
EDS previously established strategic relationships with Chordiant Software and Xchange Inc. EDS uses Chordiant software to integrate customer transactions by uniting a variety of “front office” and “back office” functions of marketing and business activities. EDS also hosts Xchange Dialogue, an eCRM solution that helps click-and-mortar businesses plan, execute and measure personalized online and offline customer communications.
“META Group research shows that CRM is an ongoing journey for most customers, not simply a destination,” said Mark Coggin, vice president, Meta Group, Inc., Stamford, CT. “Once a CRM vision is established, core components like contact management and sales force automation are implemented first, with a strategy for augmenting the solution over time. In order to cope with this stepwise lifecycle, firms looking to implement CRM must engage a strategic services partner who has strengths along the entire CRM lifecycle – from vision and strategy, through integration and implementation, to operation and outsourcing of specific CRM-related business processes.”
For these solution, EDS is partnering with the following companies: Avaya, Basking Ridge, NJ; McHugh Software International, Waukesha, WI; NCR Corporation, Dayton, OH, Retek Inc., Minneapolis, MN; Servicesoft Inc., Natick, MA; ServiceWare Technologies, Inc, Oakmont, PA; and Siebel Systems Inc., San Mateo, CA.
