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Technology Stocks : FirstWave Technologies (FSTW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Buddy M who wrote (6490)	11/8/2002 9:35:54 PM
From: TEDennis	Respond to of 9677

Some interesting material to review: MSFT's CRM demo: greatplains.com Aberdeen's writeup on Siebel's .NET usage and the recent Microsoft partnership: aberdeen.com Regards, TED

To: Buddy M who wrote (6490)	11/8/2002 9:58:06 PM
From: TEDennis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9677

From Brock Control Systems To Firstwave Customer interaction software really flourished in the latter part of the nineties but the eighties was the time when this category of software was invented. We used to call this category telemarketing software and there was a handful of leaders in this space back then. On the desktop, Telemagic was the runaway leader and SaleMaker was a close second. When it came to the enterprise, there was one undisputed leader: Brock Control Systems. To set the timeline appropriately, when Brock sold its software, users usually had dumb terminals and a UNIX-based server. The Informix relational database was the heart of Brock Control Systems and since we were in an age where databases didn’t talk to each other, the underlying data store was a make-or-break feature, so the software later became database agnostic. Brock had an amazing grip on the customer interaction software business. It literally crushed all of its competition. By March of 1993, after going public, Richard Brock, the company’s charismatic founder, became less involved with the running of the company. Around this time, a myriad of new companies invaded the space and raided talent and Brock Control rapidly lost its market dominance. A few years back, Richard Brock showed up at one of TMC’s trade shows and announced that he had transformed his company and made it better than ever. I was skeptical. After falling off the map for so many years, I thought it very difficult to get back into this space. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Richard, as dynamic as ever, came to my office and told me how his new company Firstwave is going to change the face of customer interactions. I am now a believer and I’ll tell you why. Richard reiterated what most of us already know — many CRM systems do not work as advertised. In Brock’s opinion the problem basically boils down to feature overload. So many companies are analyzing and weighing the features that customer interaction or CRM software has, they lose sight of finding the right product to fit their application. Typically, many companies choose the product with the most features. Being a scuba diver, Richard likened the feature overload problem to diving with multiple air tanks. Sure…the more air the better, until you come up and get hammered by the surf and try to stay high enough to get air through your snorkel while your extra empty tanks weigh you down. “Companies are drowning in features,” Brock exclaimed. Firstwave instead works with a company to determine its customer strategy: Do you want to retain customers or acquire new ones? What are your goals? How can we measure achievement? They then analyze and map out how you deal with your customers today and determine your top two or three problems and fix them. I asked for an example of how Firstwave software can be used for a typical business. In response, I was asked to imagine a gym that has high enrollment numbers but low retention. By focusing on customer experience management (a term that Brock is keen on) management can install an application that detects when a new member enters the gym. Whenever a trainer is freed up, an application tells that trainer to find the new member. To make life easier, a photo is sent to the trainer’s PDA. The trainer finds the customer and calls him or her by name and helps the new client get the hang of the equipment and personalizes the gym experience. For those of you that still want to know about features, Firstwave is XML-based and is finishing up a .NET version. It can provide service through an ASP model if necessary. It is not every day that someone who can be considered the founder of the CRM software space emerges after a decade, reinvents his company and redefines a market. If history is any guide, Brock’s determination, charm and unique way of differentiating his company will allow him to grow nicely in a market that has matured in the last decade but can always stand to improve some more. tmcnet.com