CRM system allows users to see the whole picture

By ADAM GIFFORD

StayinFront chief technology officer Tony Bullen turns to his computer to demonstrate how users can design their customer relationship management (CRM) system on screen.

The user specifies how each field should relate and the properties it should have or libraries it should call on.

"Then you hit a button and you've got an application, no programmer in the middle, no coding."

He's showing off the new version of the Ponsonby-based company's flagship product, Visual Elk 9.

"It's like having an architect design a house, then press a button and the building is built without a builder, a plumber and all the other people required."

Visual Elk 9 eliminates coding by supporting Universal Modelling Language (UML), which allows users to model their business processes.

Mr Bullen said there were two revolutionary pieces of technology in Visual Elk 9, component delivery - allowing tiny bits of Visual Elk to be embedded in other applications and encapsulated data integration

He used the example of an airline system to explain: "When you check in, wouldn't it be nice if they know something about you, such as that your last five flights with them didn't go well. It might change that service encounter."

But to achieve that, the system needs to know things such as what flight the passenger was really on.

"A company with data in three or four different back-end systems can collect data from them all for a seamless view of the customer. It's like having a middleware application integrated into a CRM package."

Mr Bullen said the strength of Visual Elk 9 would be the ease with which things could be changed.

"You have to customise to survive. If you go to market exactly the same way as another company with similar products or services and similar ways of engaging customers and you have no differentiation, eventually you will probably lose."

While the CRM package, originally called Great Elk, is a New Zealand creation, the company merged with a US software company and now has headquarters in New Jersey.

Mr Bullen said the purpose of the merger, to bulk up for the global market, had proved successful.

"In the US we're going head to head with companies such as Siebel, Vantive and Clarify.

"In Australia it's more Onyx and Pivotal, for the size of that market."