University of Crete Computer Science Department Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης Τμήμα Επιστήμης Υπολογιστών

Customer Relationship Management

Concepts and Systems

„ Channel Management“

Αμπατζίδης Κωνσταντίνος 1318 Καφούρος Σταύρος 1369 Κούτρας Γεώργιος 1237 Μπαργούθ Γιούλα 1392 Νουβάκη Αγγελική 1404 Σουρής Χαράλαμπος 1425 Χαλκιαδάκη Μαρία 1436

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Table of Contents

Page I. Effective Channel Strategy 4 A. Successful Channel Strategy: Starting Off on the Right Track 4 B. Six principles for channel development 4 C. Six steps of building a successful channel strategy 5 1. Define your offering 5 2. Align Internal Structure 5 3. Build Information Kits 6 4. Trust and Communication 6 5. Find Channel Architecture From Customer Preferances & Economics

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6. Follow Through 8 C. Also remember these “Don’ts” when forming a channel program 8 D. Five basic steps to a multi-channel customer strategy 9 1. Never let the customer tell you the same thing twice 9 2. Customer identification is a must across channels 9 3. Ask the right questions at the right time 9 4. All channels are not created equal 10 5. Integrate store systems 10 E. Research Example for multi-channel shopping 10 F. Research Example for customer marketing through channels 13 II. Which is the impact of the loss of “face to face interactions” by using direct channels on the customer relationships?

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A. The pros of “face-to-face interaction” 15 B. The cons of “face-to-face interaction” 15 III. Investing on a new channel, for example Internet may mean embracing technologies that will destroy the value of past investments. Discuss the impact of new distribution channels on existing channel revenue.

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A. The distinguishing characteristics between the “new” and the “old” channels of communication.

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B. Are the “traditional” channels (non-interactiveTV, print, telephone) for communication becoming methods of the past?

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C. There’s an old saw in advertising that 50% of anything you do has an impact; you just don’t know which 50%. Do these new channels of communication make this statement obsolete? How do we measure for results with these new channels? And how do we know whether the impact we’re having is positive or negative?

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D. Is enterprise data warehousing (EDW) essential to making these new channels effective? If so, why? And how can companies use EDW to get the most out of these new channels of customer communication?

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E. What are the top mistakes companies should take pains to avoid when using these new channels of customer communication?

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F. What are the first steps companies should take to embrace these new channels of customer communication?

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IV. Channel Integration Solutions. Creating A Single View for Singular Customer Relationships

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A. The Challenges of Channel Integration 20

B. Example of Roundarch Company 21 C. The Roundarch Difference 21

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Effective Channel Strategy

Successful Channel Strategy: Starting Off on the Right Track

Channel-partner selection is one of the most critical aspects of marketing today. Since the character of the indirect channel partner or direct field sales rep is indelibly imprinted in the customer's mind, affecting how the vendor is perceived in the marketplace. It's the channel's job to create and deliver value to the customer both before and after a sale.

The capabilities of the channel are as important to a vendor as its own capabilities, for the size of a channel and its sales capabilities determine how fast a product or service can be sold and absorbed by the target market. Likewise, the level of technical skill of a channel partner determines the level of technical value added to a vendor's product.

Lending support to a frequent reassessment of channel strengths is the fact that the cost of sustaining a large direct sales force is limiting profitability and flexibility at many high-tech firms. One of the reasons for retaining large sales forces is that channel managers within such companies tend to replicate what they have done before, perpetuating major account and territory models even when multi-channel operations are better, simply because they do not understand the indirect model. There are so many options today, too, that companies often select the channel du jour, rather than the one or few that fit best.

The solution is to develop a strategy for disparate markets, price points, and buyer segments with a consistent method of defining sales channel roles, responsibilities, and compensation. Management from several groups must work together to reconcile the proliferation of channels or contract types into a channel strategy for new offerings to customers, while rationalizing newly acquired companies. Six principles for channel development Attention to six principles can guide channel selection and development:

• Strategy integration • Technology adoption and life-cycle management • Solution complexity and regional mapping and tuning of the buying entity • Direct support of corporate objectives • Rebuilding of marketing/sales infrastructure • Adoption of an organizational change-management process

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Six steps of building a successful channel strategy In IT, a reseller or VAR channel can either make or break your organization.

When you help these partners by providing easy access to information and the tools they need to represent your products, their success will become yours. Here are six key steps to building a successful channel strategy.

1. Define your offering

Before embarking on a channel recruitment plan, determine whether your product offering is a straight sell that can be part of an overall technology solution or if it needs customisation or integration involvement before being installed.

If your product is a straight sell with a certain price point, focus your efforts on distributors first and resellers second. IT distributors are masters at reaching large number resellers cost effectively. They also are adept at packaging such products with complementary wares that may be part of a networking, storage or security bundle.

For distributors, volume, pricing, availability and warranty support are key drivers for their carrying strategies. The financial stability of your organization can also be a determining factor.

If you are targeting VARs, integrators or resellers directly because your product is part of a bigger solution and can be integrated or customized to a specific customer’s needs, then a different focus will interest them in your offering. VARs and resellers are attracted to products that give them a service opportunity since that is where they make the most money. Any product that allows a channel partner to add to, customize, service and support will win out.

2. Align Internal Structure

Align your organization to make channel partners an extension of your company. Since your customers are resellers, your sales staff has to be dedicated to supporting the channel: assign sales personnel to specific channel partners and train them to call on end-user accounts to help your partner win business. Sales assignments can be broken down via product line, geographic region, partner size, vertical industry, or whatever makes sense for your particular structure. It is key that these internal sales reps meet the different needs of your reseller partners and provide them with educational, training and product material so they can best represent your offering. Also, lead generation should be passed through at this channel touch point.

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3. Build Information Kits

Information kits with material that tells VARs, integrators and resellers everything they need to know about your products along with hard-copy material they can give to prospective buyers will help them represent your product.

A kit for internal use should include product specs, dimensions, serial numbers and anything else a VAR may need to order or install the product. Any behind the scenes development challenges or specific vertical needs should be mentioned as well. The kit also should contain special promotions, specific marketing strategies and contact information including internal sales, finance and support.

When appropriate, this information can be made available via downloads from your Website through a sign-in reseller member section with all updated pricing, availability and product information.

The education kit should also contain material that can be passed to end user customers, such as colour photos, product specs and compatibility information.

4. Trust and Communication Keep communications with your channel partners open to ensure that issues are

addressed, participants are all kept in the loop and trust is built: • Assigned sales and support reps should regularly check in with partners via phone/email. They also should schedule in person visits. • Invite partners to your company headquarters for briefings on new products or programs on a regular basis. • Build support with your channel by forming Channel Advisory Council where partners can learn about and evaluate your company’s plans or programs before you roll them out. • Update channel partners on relevant internal company news, such as reorganizations, technology acquisition or change in a support representative. Channel partners do not want to first hear about news regarding their suppliers from sources other than the supplier itself.

When you encourage genuine open-ended dialogue among your VAR partners and take their opinions into account, you will develop a strong channel.

5. Find Channel Architecture From Customer Preferances & Economics

Customers may always be right, but allowing them to follow their own preferences often increases a company's costs while leaving untapped opportunities to boost revenues. Instead, customers must be guided to the right mix of channels for each product or service. How can a company determine this optimal mix? When should it dispatch salespeople to close deals face-to-face or use outbound telesales channels to generate leads? In what circumstances does it make sense to reach out to customers through the Internet? Which service inquiries from high-value customers merit the attention of sales

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representatives rather than a lower-cost interactive voice-response system? Companies can find answers to these thorny questions by rethinking the economics and customer channel preferences that together shape their channel architecture and by examining the incentives they employ to influence the behaviour of both customers and sales personnel.

Most companies have some understanding of the volumes and margins of their channels. Few, however, truly know the cost of serving customers in each of them or a channel's associated customer "quality" — that is, the value to the company of the products or services purchased through a particular channel. Even fewer grasp the economics of specific sales and service activities, such as the cost incurred to generate a lead, or which channels customers prefer. It is little wonder, then, that many corporations are unable to readily establish a channel architecture that retains customers (Exhibit 1), much less one that routes them effectively.

Economics. Developing a true picture of channel economics starts with understanding the cost of serving similar customers (or of providing similar products) across channels. It's vital to consider often-overlooked cost categories such as freight and returns; seemingly attractive channels may turn out to be less than desirable or vice versa (Exhibit 2). Building such an understanding can also reveal opportunities to reduce costs in some channels.

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6. Follow Through

The final leg of developing a strong channel strategy is follow through and making good on promises. If you promise to dedicate resources to support an individual VAR, then do so. If you say your executives are available for client visits, then make sure they are. Also remember these “Don’ts” when forming a channel program: -Don’t push outdated products because you have to get rid of them -Don’t make promises you can’t keep in terms of product developments, pricing and availability -Don’t keep changing support or customer contact personnel -Don’t build a direct sales force independent of the channel -Don’t lag in paying out rebates or market development fund credits

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Like all of us, your channel partners primarily are business operators trying to pay their mortgage and send their kids to college. Let common sense dictate your protocol: give your VARS one strong point of contact to answer their questions instead of several, if a shipment or development is late, then let them know ahead of time. Be upfront, help your VARs succeed and they will be your loyal allies. Five basic steps to a multi-channel customer strategy

The ability of master multi-channel marketing is becoming increasingly vital for

companies determined to be leading players in the New Economy. In both B2C and B2B sectors, McKinsey research indicates that within 2 to 3 years, over 50 percent of customers- and typically the highest value customers - will be using multiple channels for shopping and purchasing. These channels include store, telephone, ATM/kiosk, catalogue and online. Aware of this trend, incumbents and attackers in countless industry are moving to "bricks & clicks" distribution strategies to attract, grow, and retain these emerging multi-channel customers. Multi-channel customers spend 20 to 30 percent more money, on average, than single-channel ones do, and channels such as Internet and overseas call centres promise big cost savings. Yet multi-channel marketing is harder than it might appear. So, it's important to refer the basic steps for a multi-channel strategy. 1.Never let the customer tell you the same thing twice

That's the mantra of multi-channel integration. The entire enterprise should be so focused around customer data that if a customer buys a computer online on in the morning and has a question about it that afternoon, the contact centre should have all data available. And if that customer has a problem that needs in-store attention, the data should be accessible there as well. 2.Customer identification is a must across channels

This is the foundation of multi-channel integration. Customers must be identified and maintained on a common platform of data for all interactions. This information allows the company to learn incrementally about the customer across all touch points. 3.Ask the right questions at the right time

Effective multi-channel synchronization is a complex process. Many organizations fail here because they lack the right information to make decisions on prioritisation and implementation. In fact, in a recent report AMR Research claims that

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adoption of more efficient inventory controls has been slowed by bad data. Questions that companies might want to ask include: What multi-channel customer experience satisfies the needs, wants, and desires of our target customers? Is it the Internet experience? Is it personal contact with a sales rep? Is it more ordering capacity through the contact centre? How do we create momentum across the organization to drive a customer-centric focus? What business processes must be different for different channels?

4.All channels are not created equal

Consider the unique characteristics of each channel and how each influences the customer. Retail stores are at the forefront of channel prioritisation. For many companies, the in-store channel reflects many key attributes of the brand. But, according to Double-Click, channels are shifting. Catalogue order sizes have dropped. Online orders have gone from 10 % of total average retail revenue in 2000 to 32% last year. That's a positive development, if the retailer has the proper strategy for the proper channel. Cross-channel shoppers (across all product categories) purchase products 48% more frequently than single-channel shoppers, according to a Forrester Research study, and 65% of all the shoppers it surveyed researched a product online then purchased it offline. 5.Integrate store systems

Since the advent of the point of sale (POS) system and the integrated store system, sales transaction support is only one function of retail systems technology. These systems support sales transactions, inventory management transactions, and customer management. These functions may include profiling, cross-selling, and special ordering. With the advent of online purchasing, one challenge for many companies has been to integrate the Web with the stores and POS systems. Each touch point should have a common understanding of the organization's customer experience management strategy and access to a common base of knowledge. The goal is for all touch points to interact in an integrated and positive way throughout the customer life cycle.

Research Example for multi-channel shopping

In the few short years the Internet has been available to the mainstream public, consumers have embraced it for its convenience and ability to deliver extensive information about both products and retailers. At the same time, the traditional brick-and-mortar store remains the channel of choice for most shopping occasions and will likely stay that way for the foreseeable future. It affords consumers the ability to touch and examine products, obtain advice from sales associates, and get immediate gratification from purchasing.

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Nonetheless, recent studies demonstrate how pervasive multi-channel shopping has become: According to research sponsored by Shop.org, an industry trade association, 78 percent of online shoppers also buy through a merchant’s physical stores, and 45 percent of them also buy using the catalog channel (that is, using phone, mail or fax). Similarly, 23 percent of catalog shoppers also make purchases on the company’s Web site. And while only 6 percent of store shoppers also buy online today, that figure is undoubtedly growing (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Incidence of cross-channel purchasing

Store Catalog 22%

36%

6% 23%

78% 45% Online

More significantly, consumers rely heavily on the Internet as a means of obtaining information about products and retailers, regardless of what channel they ultimately use to buy. Shop.org found that roughly half of catalogue shoppers and nearly three-quarters of store shoppers preferred to conduct their prepurchase research online — even though the vast majority of both groups still viewed offline channels as the primary means of making purchases (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2. Channel preferences for different shopper groups

Online shoppers Catalog shoppers Store shoppers

Research Online

Research Offline

Buy offline Buy online Buy offline Buy online Buy offline Buy online

Multi-channel consumers are also proving to be the most valuable within a retailer’s

customer base, tending to spend more and be more loyal. The Shop.org study, based on over 48 000 interviews of shoppers in all channels, found compelling evidence of the value of multi-channel shoppers to retailers’ bottom line:

• Store shoppers who also buy online from the same retailer spend an average of

US $600 more annually in-store than typical store shoppers of that retailer. • Tri-channel shoppers, who buy from a retailer’s store, online and catalog

channels, purchase from a retailer’s store 70 percent more frequently than the average store customer and 110 percent more frequently from the retailer’s catalog

14%

37%

25%

24%

15%

12%

55%

18%

5%

22%

55%

18%

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Identify candidates’ breadth of experience for key applicable roles. Outsource one-time system fixes Recruit Internet-experienced hire who have direct Web site strategy responsibility. Outsource select Web site support.

Research Example for customer marketing through channels Skill gaps are identified and filled at market pace with a combination of internal

development, external hiring, and outsourcing. Organizations performing at a superior level are continuously and proactively assessing where new skills are required to drive the customer view into the business. They recognize that repurposing existing talent may not always be effective, and they have built a creative set of approaches to develop needed customer-centric skills through training, hiring, and outsourcing. In these organizations, business units overcome internal resistance to skills acquisition and structure changes, and work together to enhance customer focus by systematically rounding out the skill levels in channel management. (See Table 1.)

Potential skill- acquisition approaches

Table1

Channel

Typical skill gaps in high performer s Internal Development

External Hiring Outsourcing

Managing contacts with customers across multiple channels – establishing and implementing business rules Broad understanding of channels (e.g., Internet)

Examples

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Which is the impact of the loss of “face to face interactions” by using direct channels on the customer relationships?

One of today's realities is that new communications media are hitting the market every year. We don't need to name the plethora of choices already on consumers' plates -- the Internet, the personal digital assistant (PDA), WebTV, the wireless application protocol (WAP) phone -- all of which appeared within the last decade.

Ten years ago, a media, or point-of-contact, plan was rather simple to comprehend

and construct. If human interaction was required, only two media channels were available: face-to-face or phone contact. In addition, of course, there were the monologic, one-way media: not as few in numbers but just as simple to quickly comprehend.

Well, the world has changed. Outdoor media channels are no longer confined to posters and billboards. They can include everything from mobile phones, PDAs, WAP, iMode, and short message service (SMS) as well as billboards. Dialogic, two-way interaction is no longer limited to face-to-face visits or phone calls: It encompasses almost every personal communication tool.

So given this complex communications fact, my question is: Have you optimized all your consumer touch points, or are your touch points relying on haphazard coincidence? In other words, what's your channel strategy?

Just as airlines deploy "yield management" to optimize the value of every seat; your channel management strategy should be built on yield-management principles. There is one "but" to this parallel. Optimized channel management reflects two principles: cost-effectiveness and branding. By "branding" I don't mean a company's ability to vociferate its name as many times as possible; I mean a company's ability to create the strongest possible relationship with the consumer while exposing its identity.

And that's the tricky bit. You might claim that any interaction between the consumer and the brand would be a fine way to create brand loyalty. This may be possible for some brands and for some consumers but certainly not for all brands and all consumers. And this is where your channel strategy justifies itself.

Let us give you an example from Charles Schwab, arguably the world's largest discount broker. It has been a pioneer in managing and optimizing consumer touch points. When other companies were closing down their branch offices in favor of online trading, Schwab established storefronts. And the results were amazing: 80 percent of all new accounts were opened face to face, in Charles Schwab offices. Having established that contact, 70 percent of these new customers were comfortable with having their accounts managed via the Internet -- from their very next contact with the company.

You see, it was important for these customers to make initial contact with the company via a real face. Human interaction with a real person in a real store established

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requisite consumer trust. This trust, developed early on, and then enabled Internet transactions to take place right away; the trust made the convenience and cost- and time-effectiveness of the online medium mutually beneficial to the consumer and Charles Schwab.

As a conclusion, in order to reveal the impact of the lose of “face-to-face” interaction with the customer we have to analyze these channel’s pros and cons.

The pros of “face-to-face interaction” are:

I. Direct communication with the customer, in which the company could easily win the trust of the customer by giving him the perception of personal interest. As a result of this perception a strong relationship among customer and company is created. Moreover, the “face-to-face” communication gives the opportunity to the salesman to successfully promote his products.

II. This method is more efficient in approaching people who face difficulties to use of new technologies and do not trust impersonal communication channels, for instance elder people. The cons of “face-to-face interaction” are:

I. High cost which can be analyzed into two subcategories: Firstly the personnel’s occupation may lead to high economical cost. The other subcategory is the cost of time, meaning the time that both customers and companies should spent. As a consequence, companies are unable to serve a great deal of customers.

II. There is a need of occupying personnel with special abilities and skills into human to human communication, such as strong personality, fluency of speech, ability to persuade etc.

Finally, new models can overlap the advantages of this method and contemporaneously avoid the disadvantages of this method.

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Investing on a new channel, for example Internet may mean embracing technologies that will destroy the value of past investments. Discuss the impact of new distribution channels on existing channel revenue.

The distinguishing characteristics between the “new” and the “old” channels of communication.

The new channels are all interactive and digital – those characteristics change the dynamic of communications to enable real-time interaction with millions of people, simultaneously, on an individual level. Those characteristics also provide for almost limitless re-purposing of media content.

The other valuable characteristic is that these new channels are highly track able.

Traditional channels are significantly less so – they can only push messages out, not receive feedback on those messages and thus build a dialogue. Broadcast TV and print are examples of this one-way communication.

The new channels allow companies to build more personalized interactive

relationships with their customers, and that’s why they’re so powerful. In some sense it’s like re-creating the dynamic of the old local merchant that remembered your name and things about you.

Today, a company can, for example, track browsing behavior on the web, responses to e-mail messages, or responses to content delivered on wireless media. Another developing new channel is the evolution of TV into iTV, or interactive TV. iTV enables viewers, for example, to click on icons presented during a commercial. The viewer can click on a menu of options to download more detailed information and actually make a purchase.

Another example is the ability of digital cable to offer real-time advertising insertion into programming. Thus cable TV providers will be able to tailor advertising more locally, down to the set-top box level. For example, in a vacation commercial, the cable providers would be able to insert frames into the commercial that show the fares from the closest airport from your home. Taking this example further, the cable companies would be able to insert frames into the commercial depending on the type of household.

Using the same commercial example, a retired household would get frames in the

commercial that show activities such as golf and romantic dinners, while a household with children may, using the same commercial, see frames of children in the pool or mom relaxing in a spa. This last example is dependent on the choice of households to “opt-in.” Privacy is a very sensitive issue, generally, with these new channels. This interactivity means that individuals can respond to advertising or messaging content, in real-time. And companies can tailor their offerings to individuals based on those responses. Interactivity

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is very powerful for both parties – individuals can fine-tune the messaging they wish to receive through these new channels, while companies can focus their messaging in a much more efficient and effective way. Are the “traditional” channels (non-interactiveTV, print, telephone) for communi-cation becoming methods of the past?

Not at all. These traditional channels will continue to be effective for marketing programs that need to reach a broad audience, such as brand marketing. And brand marketing will definitely always be an important part of the marketing mix. In brand marketing, enterprises are not as interested in tracking. The objective is to get the brand message to as many people as possible. And the traditional channels are perfect for cost-effectively reaching a broad audience with a brand message.

But the key here is to realize that a marketing mix is crucial to a company’s

marketing success. Targeted marketing that focuses messaging on the needs, concerns and interest of specific groups is also essential. Generally, people respond most positively to advertising when they are getting the appropriate messages at the time they are most interested. Using traditional channels for this type of marketing is just not as cost-effective or efficient as using the new, interactive channels. Getting out messages that positively impact retention, up selling, or cross-selling can best be done through the new channels –for example, follow up e-mails that thank recent purchasers of a cell phone and suggest appropriate accessories are opportunities for up-sell. The more targeted and timed such messages are, the more successful they are. And the new, interactive channels are the only conduits that allow for such tight targeting. There’s an old saw in advertising that 50% of anything you do has an impact; you just don’t know which 50%. Do these new channels of communication make this statement obsolete? How do we measure for results with these new channels? And how do we know whether the impact we’re having is positive or negative?

There’s a new push in business to make marketing more scientific, to track results, to

track ROI on the marketing investment, so I think that that adage is going to have less and less relevance. The new, interactive channels lend themselves to tracking; thus, ROI will be easier to calculate, and it will be easier to know what does work and what doesn’t work. For example, these channels allow companies to do much more retention marketing, to understand purchasing trends or demographic attributes, to track responses and make decisions about what those responses mean, to test one set of messages with a control group, and then fine-tune future messaging based on all this input. Companies can also know if e-mail messages have been opened, if they’ve been responded to, if links have been clicked on. This kind of knowledge enables enterprises to determine how successful their messaging is in attracting attention as well as responses. And this kind of trackability is possible and highly efficient with the new, interactive channels.

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Is enterprise data warehousing (EDW) essential to making these new channels effective? If so, why? And how can companies use EDW to get the most out of these new channels of customer communication?

In response to your first question – Yes! In response to your second question, the only

way to leverage the most value – and the drive the highest ROI – from the new communication channels is to turn the all that detailed data gathered from these new channels into actionable knowledge. To do that, an enterprise must be able to manage the massive quantities of data it will gather, day after day, from these channels along four key dimensions. First, an enterprise must be able to easily develop an integrated view of its customers and its business. This integrated view of the customer may include life-time value, channel interaction profiles, usage and behavior profiles, purchase history, and preferences and interests profiles, to name a few. With these new channels, it is critical to load this data quickly to obtain maximum value, as it has temporal value. For example, studies show that 90% of people who will respond to e-mail offers do so within the first 48 hours of receiving the e-mail, so it’s important to be able to quickly track responses and then use that data to refine the communication. Thirdly, the company’s data must be of high quality. The new channels require that more than ever, to be effective, the company must have up-to-date, correct and rich profiles of the people they are targeting. That may require that companies supplement their in-house data with third party enrichment data. Additionally, because targeted and personalized communications require that you do not send incorrect or inappropriate communications to an individual, it is imperative that data on individuals is absolutely correct. And finally, a company should institutionalize closed-loop tracking of all communications. Closed-loop tracking does require a discipline around collecting and analyzing responses from all interaction channels for all communications, and then leveraging that information to optimize future marketing and communications interactions. What are the top mistakes companies should take pains to avoid when using these new channels of customer communication?

Do not try to use the new channels in the same way as the traditional channels! The

new channels really serve a different purpose – focused, interactive messaging and communication with very specifically segmented groups of customers or prospects. Privacy is a big concern and companies need to ensure that their privacy policies are well thought out and are being implemented and audited, as appropriate.

What are the first steps companies should take to embrace these new channels of customer communication?

Companies should take an honest look at how these new channels really fit in their overall marketing mix and adjusting the marketing mix as appropriate. Then, companies should reevaluate their marketing processes and make sure they are using the new channels both appropriately and to full advantage. Where are you misusing the new

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channels? Where are you missing opportunities to use them appropriately to develop important, key relationships? Finally, companies really need to take a look at how the data from the usage of these new channels is being or not being used. Because these are new channels the usage data generated by these channels may not be being leveraged fully. Not fully understanding the nuances of these new channels could lead a company to miss out on identifying key opportunities that could make important strategic differences to its competitive advantage, its bottom line, and its future prospects.

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Channel Integration Solutions Creating a Single View for Singular Customer Relationships

For today's customers, the ability to access personalized information and transactional functionality through any channel at any time has become a fundamental expectation. Channel integration enables companies to meet this expectation and build successful customer relationships, as well as deliver compelling business benefits by:

• Providing a consistent experience to your customers, delivering a single view of your business, no matter what their point of entry

• Providing a single view of your customers across your entire connected enterprise.

Through these single views, channel integration:

• Increases business efficiency by shortening transaction times, automating processes, and reducing costs

• Strengthens customer loyalty by driving personalization of service over timePan investment, that will be lost if the customer's business is taken elsewhere.

The consensus is clear: Forrester Research finds that 92% of companies rate a single

view of the customer as very important or critical while 82% of Fortune 2500 companies surveyed have started or will initiate a multi- channel CRM project.

The simple reason for this strong interest in integration is that it can have a major impact on your business. It improves customer value. At the same time, it reduces sales and service costs. Integration also drives process efficiencies, reducing operational costs. And overall, it helps you achieve business agility.

The Challenges of Channel Integration

While the idea is simple, the execution is far more complex. Typically, the systems already in place were never designed to work together, each taking a siloed view of the company's system architecture that makes integration costly and time-intensive. There is no substitute for experience in order to make channel integration work for you. Organizational barriers aside, technology challenges alone are daunting:

• Defining common data objects and transformation rules across systems to facilitate information sharing

• Determining the appropriate interface mechanisms for various applications • Developing common integration services for error handling, notification, and

resolving data conflicts • Defining integration processes that complement existing systems • Designing a services-oriented architecture that can evolve and adapt to new

systems and processes • Implementing repeatable processes and a center of excellence.

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In addition to these technical challenges, you also need experience in resolving the business-driven issues in such a major undertaking, carefully planning and testing before rollout, managing complex interdependencies among all constituencies, and helping organizations adapt to support integration efforts. Example of Roundarch Company

Roundarch has extensive experience integrating enterprise portals and content management applications with leading CRM and ERP applications such as SAP, Siebel, Netegrity, and Documentum, as well as custom applications. We have helped major organizations like HP, DIRECTV, Target, Hallmark, npower, Holderbank, Kraft, and others integrate their enterprises. We've helped our clients improve customer satisfaction and enjoy additional revenue across channels, by reducing order cycle time and improving order accuracy and status notification. We've also helped them increase enterprise visibility and lower development costs.

So you can count on our experience in developing integration strategy, architecture, development, and management across a number of leading J2EE, XML, EAI, and Web Services integration technologies. The Roundarch Difference

We bring solid expertise in enterprise-scale integration architecture, design, development, and deployment to every project. In the process, we've developed integration accelerators, which provide a set of proven baseline architectures for developing multi-channel integration solutions. Using these proven integration patterns as the foundation for your integration solution, we can lower the risk associated with integration projects. We start with best practices for portal, content management, directories, CRM, and enterprise systems, then customize them to your needs; so we can accelerate the timeframe of your project by as much as 40%. And with our considerable experience, we can proactively anticipate issues and workarounds even before problems arise.

Just as important, we take a user-centered approach to channel integration. We know how to work with business users and application owners to map, prioritize, and plan effective solutions. Solutions your customers and your employees will actually use.

Channel integration is a complex challenge; it's also crucial to your success. The good news is, at Roundarch, we've already helped organizations just like yours. We know how to make it work. So call us. We're ready.

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Roundarch channel integration services help organizations move towards a flexible,

services-oriented architecture upon which they can evolve as needs change over time.