SA, SmartSales, could be the next Infowave - check them out at smartsales.com
OVERVIEW
SmartSales Inc. (CDNX: SA) $0.61 (March 10, 2000)
Product: OutSmart, an ?opportunity management? application in the rapidly growing sales force automation marketplace
Shares Outstanding: 11.8 million
Shares Fully Diluted: 24.5 million
The Biz
SmartSales Inc. is positioned to capture a significant share of the sales automation market by targeting and leveraging off of the estimated 30 million Microsoft Outlook user base. SmartSales? opportunity management application, which seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Outlook, significantly enhances the generic contact management capabilities of Outlook by adding sales cycle management capabilities that Outlook does not possess. To date, when a sales professional or sales enterprise needed more substantial sales force automation, they were forced to consider applications ranging from Multiactive?s low-end Maximizer to the higher-end solutions from Siebel, Pivotal, Onyx and SalesLogix. Outlook, as part of Microsoft Office, is the most prevalent contact manager in North America, with over 10 million registered users and an estimated twice that many unregistered users; an estimated 1 - 1.5 million new Outlook users are added every month! Yet there does not exist a low-priced, simple application that easily integrates with Outlook to leverage that user base into a compelling business. SmartSales will capitalize on this opportunity.
OutSmart lets a salesperson or team of salespeople customize and automate their sales cycle management. A salesperson can manage sales or business opportunities and generate sales forecasts through the complete sales cycle of each new prospect. The software is easy to install and learn, yet is highly configurable to meet the specific needs of the client?s market and sales needs.
Customer relationship management and salesforce automation continue to be a large and rapidly growing market. High end applications from Siebel, Pivotal and Onyx can cost many thousands of dollars per ?seat? or user. Even the relatively more modest capabilities of Maximizer come at a cost exceeding $500 per seat once all customization and installation is completed. Yet most sales professionals are not using the sophisticated, tailored capabilities of these software applications. Many are still relying on the generic capabilities of contact managers such as Outlook and ACT!
OutSmart is expected to be installed in enterprises for a couple of hundred dollars per seat; it offers configurability to meet the needs of a particular enterprise or user, but from an enterprise-wide point of view requires much less of the expensive customization and integration required by other solutions in the market. As the growing base of enterprises and individuals that are now comfortable, avid users of Outlook begin to look beyond Outlook?s generic contact management capabilities in search of more sophisticated sales opportunity management capabilities, an extension to Outlook will be a logical and much preferred alternative to a completely new and much more expensive software application. SmartSales management believes that the addressable market in the Outlook user base numbers 4 ? 6 million people - a significant, untapped opportunity.
Product Development
OutSmart is a new product, with limited sales, but a previous 16-bit opportunity management application did achieve a modest user base and committed, satisfied customers. SmartSales? just-released 32-bit, single-user version can now be downloaded via the web (www.outsmartsoftware.com) for free for use by individuals or assessment by enterprises. Initial response has been excellent, with over 20,000 downloads in the first two months. Different ?flavours? of an enterprise version will be released over the next months. The enterprise versions will be the real revenue-generators for the business.
Marketing
SmartSales will in the immediate term pursue direct sales opportunities to build reference accounts, obtain product feedback, and garner initial sales dollars. But it will implement and emphasize a strategy that leverages off of word-of-mouth with the Outlook user base as well as build a motivated, competent reseller channel. For the foreseeable future, the company will continue to give away its single-user version of the software to seed the market and build attention.
Management
SmartSales is still light on its feet in terms of its management and staffing. CEO Don Parker has a marketing and sales background. A majority of the 10 staff are development people. With new funding, management and marketing and sales capabilities will be expanding in the near term.
The company has had a couple of key assets in two of its directors. The Chairman of SmartSales, Nigel Stokes, is the founder and CEO of DataMirror (TSE: DMC), a technology company that is achieving significant growth and market recognition. Mr. Stokes owns over 25% of the company on a fully diluted basis. SmartSales is based out of DataMirror?s offices in Toronto.
Gail Mourant is CFO of Roman Corporation. Roman Corporation and Roman International own almost 25% on a fully diluted basis. Both Mr. Stokes and Ms. Mourant are committed supporters of the company.
Financial
With the imminent exercising of $0.45 warrants, the company will have just over $500,000 in its treasury. I believe the enterprise version will be released in stages during the second quarter, with revenue generation beginning during that time. The company believes it can generate around Cdn $5 million in revenue in 2000.
Another 2 million warrants, expiring in July 2000, will likely inject $480,000 in new capital. An additional million warrants at $0.29 expire in March 2001.
Outlook
Amidst the continuing significant growth of customer relationship management and sales force automation software and services and the market?s positive recognition of these markets, OutSmart is a product with an obvious appeal ? a easy-to-use, well-priced application targeting a market consisting of the millions of users of Microsoft Outlook. It has already had many sales enquiries and excellent feedback from existing and potential customers for the enterprise version. Sales have only one direction to go.
Within the current market conditions, this story is well-positioned to become recognized. Irrespective of the current enthusiastic market conditions, the company has a solid foundation upon which to build a rapidly growing and lucrative business. |
