{"global":{"lastError":{},"locale":"de","locales":{"data":[{"id":"de","name":"Deutsch"},{"id":"en","name":"English"}],"loading":false,"error":false},"currency":{"id":49,"name":"EUR"},"currencies":{"data":[{"id":49,"name":"EUR"},{"id":124,"name":"RUB"},{"id":153,"name":"UAH"},{"id":155,"name":"USD"}],"loading":false,"error":false},"translations":{"implementationDetail":{"description":{"ru":"Описание","_type":"localeString","en":"Description"},"status":{"en":"Status","ru":"Статус","_type":"localeString"},"show":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Show more","ru":"Показать ещё"},"hide":{"ru":"Скрыть","_type":"localeString","en":"Hide"},"details":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Details","ru":"Подробности"},"categories":{"en":"Categories","ru":"Категории","_type":"localeString"},"additional-info":{"ru":"Дополнительная информация","_type":"localeString","en":"Additional information"},"project-was-put":{"ru":"Проект был сдан в срок","_type":"localeString","en":"The project has been delivered on schedule"},"budget-not-exceeded":{"ru":"Бюджет не был превышен","_type":"localeString","en":"The budget has not been exceeded"},"functionally-task-assignment":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Functionality complies with task","ru":"Функциональность соответствует задаче"},"similar-implementations":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Similar deployments","ru":"Схожие внедрения"},"source":{"en":"Source:","ru":"Источник:","_type":"localeString"},"price":{"ru":"Цена:","_type":"localeString","en":"Price: "},"pluses":{"ru":"Плюсы","_type":"localeString","en":"Advantages"},"raiting":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Raiting","ru":"Общая оценка"},"user":{"_type":"localeString","en":"User","ru":"Пользователь"},"vendor":{"en":"Vendor","ru":"Производитель","_type":"localeString"},"supplier":{"ru":"Поставщик","_type":"localeString","en":"Supplier"},"product":{"en":"Product","ru":"Продукт","_type":"localeString"},"canceled":{"en":"Canceled","ru":"Отменено","_type":"localeString"},"deal-canceled":{"en":"Deal canceled","ru":"Сделка отменена","_type":"localeString"},"deal-closed":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deal closed","ru":"Сделка закрыта"},"deal-in-progress":{"en":"Deal in progress","ru":"Сделка в процессе","_type":"localeString"},"deal-is-planned":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deal is planned","ru":"Сделка планируется"},"finished":{"en":"Finished","ru":"Завершено","_type":"localeString"},"in-process":{"_type":"localeString","en":"In Process","ru":"Ведется"},"planned":{"ru":"Планируется","_type":"localeString","en":"Planned"},"proof-of-concept":{"en":"Proof of concept","ru":"Пилотный проект","_type":"localeString"},"stopped":{"ru":"Остановлено","_type":"localeString","en":"Stopped"},"date":{"en":"Deployment date","ru":"Дата внедрения","_type":"localeString"},"roi":{"ru":"ROI","_type":"localeString","en":"ROI"},"not-yet-converted":{"ru":"Данные модерируются и вскоре будут опубликованы. Попробуйте повторить переход через некоторое время.","_type":"localeString","en":"Data is moderated and will be published soon. Please, try again later."}},"header":{"help":{"en":"Help","de":"Hilfe","ru":"Помощь","_type":"localeString"},"how":{"ru":"Как это работает","_type":"localeString","en":"How does it works","de":"Wie funktioniert es"},"login":{"en":"Log in","de":"Einloggen","ru":"Вход","_type":"localeString"},"logout":{"ru":"Выйти","_type":"localeString","en":"Sign out"},"faq":{"ru":"FAQ","_type":"localeString","en":"FAQ","de":"FAQ"},"references":{"ru":"Мои запросы","_type":"localeString","en":"Requests","de":"References"},"solutions":{"en":"Solutions","ru":"Возможности","_type":"localeString"},"find-it-product":{"ru":"Подбор и сравнение ИТ продукта","_type":"localeString","en":"Selection and comparison of IT product"},"autoconfigurator":{"ru":"Калькулятор цены","_type":"localeString","en":" Price calculator"},"comparison-matrix":{"ru":"Матрица сравнения","_type":"localeString","en":"Comparison Matrix"},"roi-calculators":{"ru":"ROI калькуляторы","_type":"localeString","en":"ROI calculators"},"b4r":{"en":"Bonus for reference","ru":"Бонус за референс","_type":"localeString"},"business-booster":{"ru":"Развитие бизнеса","_type":"localeString","en":"Business boosting"},"catalogs":{"ru":"Каталоги","_type":"localeString","en":"Catalogs"},"products":{"en":"Products","ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString"},"implementations":{"ru":"Внедрения","_type":"localeString","en":"Deployments"},"companies":{"ru":"Компании","_type":"localeString","en":"Companies"},"categories":{"en":"Categories","ru":"Категории","_type":"localeString"},"for-suppliers":{"_type":"localeString","en":"For suppliers","ru":"Поставщикам"},"blog":{"ru":"Блог","_type":"localeString","en":"Blog"},"agreements":{"ru":"Сделки","_type":"localeString","en":"Deals"},"my-account":{"ru":"Мой кабинет","_type":"localeString","en":"My account"},"register":{"ru":"Зарегистрироваться","_type":"localeString","en":"Register"},"comparison-deletion":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deletion","ru":"Удаление"},"comparison-confirm":{"en":"Are you sure you want to delete","ru":"Подтвердите удаление","_type":"localeString"},"search-placeholder":{"en":"Enter your search term","ru":"Введите поисковый запрос","_type":"localeString"},"my-profile":{"ru":"Мои данные","_type":"localeString","en":"My profile"},"about":{"_type":"localeString","en":"About Us"},"it_catalogs":{"en":"IT catalogs","_type":"localeString"},"roi4presenter":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Roi4Presenter"},"roi4webinar":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Pitch Avatar"},"sub_it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Find IT product"},"sub_b4reference":{"en":"Get reference from user","_type":"localeString"},"sub_roi4presenter":{"en":"Make online presentations","_type":"localeString"},"sub_roi4webinar":{"en":"Create an avatar for the event","_type":"localeString"},"catalogs_new":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Products"},"b4reference":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Bonus4Reference"},"it_our_it_catalogs":{"en":"Our IT Catalogs","_type":"localeString"},"it_products":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Find and compare IT products"},"it_implementations":{"en":"Learn implementation reviews","_type":"localeString"},"it_companies":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Find vendor and company-supplier"},"it_categories":{"en":"Explore IT products by category","_type":"localeString"},"it_our_products":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Our Products"},"it_it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"IT catalogs"}},"footer":{"copyright":{"ru":"Все права защищены","_type":"localeString","en":"All rights reserved","de":"Alle rechte vorbehalten"},"company":{"en":"My Company","de":"Über die Firma","ru":"О компании","_type":"localeString"},"about":{"de":"Über uns","ru":"О нас","_type":"localeString","en":"About us"},"infocenter":{"en":"Infocenter","de":"Infocenter","ru":"Инфоцентр","_type":"localeString"},"tariffs":{"de":"Tarife","ru":"Тарифы","_type":"localeString","en":"Subscriptions"},"contact":{"de":"Kontaktiere uns","ru":"Связаться с нами","_type":"localeString","en":"Contact us"},"marketplace":{"ru":"Marketplace","_type":"localeString","en":"Marketplace","de":"Marketplace"},"products":{"en":"Products","de":"Produkte","ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString"},"compare":{"en":"Pick and compare","de":"Wähle und vergleiche","ru":"Подобрать и сравнить","_type":"localeString"},"calculate":{"de":"Kosten berechnen","ru":"Расчитать стоимость","_type":"localeString","en":"Calculate the cost"},"get_bonus":{"de":"Holen Sie sich einen Rabatt","ru":"Бонус за референс","_type":"localeString","en":"Bonus for reference"},"salestools":{"ru":"Salestools","_type":"localeString","en":"Salestools","de":"Salestools"},"automatization":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Settlement Automation","de":"Abwicklungsautomatisierung","ru":"Автоматизация расчетов"},"roi_calcs":{"en":"ROI calculators","de":"ROI-Rechner","ru":"ROI калькуляторы","_type":"localeString"},"matrix":{"en":"Comparison matrix","de":"Vergleichsmatrix","ru":"Матрица сравнения","_type":"localeString"},"b4r":{"en":"Rebate 4 Reference","de":"Rebate 4 Reference","ru":"Rebate 4 Reference","_type":"localeString"},"our_social":{"de":"Unsere sozialen Netzwerke","ru":"Наши социальные сети","_type":"localeString","en":"Our social networks"},"subscribe":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Subscribe to newsletter","de":"Melden Sie sich für den Newsletter an","ru":"Подпишитесь на рассылку"},"subscribe_info":{"ru":"и узнавайте первыми об акциях, новых возможностях и свежих обзорах софта","_type":"localeString","en":"and be the first to know about promotions, new features and recent software reviews"},"policy":{"ru":"Политика конфиденциальности","_type":"localeString","en":"Privacy Policy"},"user_agreement":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Agreement","ru":"Пользовательское соглашение "},"solutions":{"ru":"Возможности","_type":"localeString","en":"Solutions"},"find":{"ru":"Подбор и сравнение ИТ продукта","_type":"localeString","en":"Selection and comparison of IT product"},"quote":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Price calculator","ru":"Калькулятор цены"},"boosting":{"ru":"Развитие бизнеса","_type":"localeString","en":"Business boosting"},"4vendors":{"ru":"поставщикам","_type":"localeString","en":"4 vendors"},"blog":{"ru":"блог","_type":"localeString","en":"blog"},"pay4content":{"_type":"localeString","en":"we pay for content","ru":"платим за контент"},"categories":{"_type":"localeString","en":"categories","ru":"категории"},"showForm":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Show form","ru":"Показать форму"},"subscribe__title":{"ru":"Раз в месяц мы отправляем дайджест актуальных новостей ИТ мира!","_type":"localeString","en":"We send a digest of actual news from the IT world once in a month!"},"subscribe__email-label":{"en":"Email","ru":"Email","_type":"localeString"},"subscribe__name-label":{"en":"Name","ru":"Имя","_type":"localeString"},"subscribe__required-message":{"ru":"Это поле обязательное","_type":"localeString","en":"This field is required"},"subscribe__notify-label":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Yes, please, notify me about news, events and propositions","ru":"Да, пожалуйста уведомляйте меня о новостях, событиях и предложениях"},"subscribe__agree-label":{"ru":"Подписываясь на рассылку, вы соглашаетесь с %TERMS% и %POLICY% и даете согласие на использование файлов cookie и передачу своих персональных данных*","_type":"localeString","en":"By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to the %TERMS% and %POLICY% and agree to the use of cookies and the transfer of your personal data"},"subscribe__submit-label":{"ru":"Подписаться","_type":"localeString","en":"Subscribe"},"subscribe__email-message":{"ru":"Пожалуйста, введите корректный адрес электронной почты","_type":"localeString","en":"Please, enter the valid email"},"subscribe__email-placeholder":{"ru":"username@gmail.com","_type":"localeString","en":"username@gmail.com"},"subscribe__name-placeholder":{"ru":"Имя Фамилия","_type":"localeString","en":"Last, first name"},"subscribe__success":{"ru":"Вы успешно подписаны на рассылку. Проверьте свой почтовый ящик.","_type":"localeString","en":"You are successfully subscribed! Check you mailbox."},"subscribe__error":{"ru":"Не удалось оформить подписку. Пожалуйста, попробуйте позднее.","_type":"localeString","en":"Subscription is unsuccessful. Please, try again later."},"roi4presenter":{"de":"roi4presenter","ru":"roi4presenter","_type":"localeString","en":"Roi4Presenter"},"it_catalogs":{"_type":"localeString","en":"IT catalogs"},"roi4webinar":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Pitch Avatar"},"b4reference":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Bonus4Reference"}},"breadcrumbs":{"home":{"ru":"Главная","_type":"localeString","en":"Home"},"companies":{"en":"Companies","ru":"Компании","_type":"localeString"},"products":{"en":"Products","ru":"Продукты","_type":"localeString"},"implementations":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deployments","ru":"Внедрения"},"login":{"ru":"Вход","_type":"localeString","en":"Login"},"registration":{"ru":"Регистрация","_type":"localeString","en":"Registration"},"b2b-platform":{"_type":"localeString","en":"B2B platform for IT buyers, vendors and suppliers","ru":"Портал для покупателей, поставщиков и производителей ИТ"}},"comment-form":{"title":{"en":"Leave comment","ru":"Оставить комментарий","_type":"localeString"},"firstname":{"_type":"localeString","en":"First name","ru":"Имя"},"lastname":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Last name","ru":"Фамилия"},"company":{"ru":"Компания","_type":"localeString","en":"Company name"},"position":{"en":"Position","ru":"Должность","_type":"localeString"},"actual-cost":{"en":"Actual cost","ru":"Фактическая стоимость","_type":"localeString"},"received-roi":{"en":"Received ROI","ru":"Полученный ROI","_type":"localeString"},"saving-type":{"ru":"Тип экономии","_type":"localeString","en":"Saving type"},"comment":{"ru":"Комментарий","_type":"localeString","en":"Comment"},"your-rate":{"ru":"Ваша оценка","_type":"localeString","en":"Your rate"},"i-agree":{"en":"I agree","ru":"Я согласен","_type":"localeString"},"terms-of-use":{"ru":"С пользовательским соглашением и политикой конфиденциальности","_type":"localeString","en":"With user agreement and privacy policy"},"send":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Send","ru":"Отправить"},"required-message":{"ru":"{NAME} - это обязательное поле","_type":"localeString","en":"{NAME} is required filed"}},"maintenance":{"title":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Site under maintenance","ru":"На сайте проводятся технические работы"},"message":{"en":"Thank you for your understanding","ru":"Спасибо за ваше понимание","_type":"localeString"}},"filters":{"from":{"_type":"localeString","en":"from","ru":"от"},"to":{"ru":"до","_type":"localeString","en":"to"},"filter-price-title":{"ru":"Фильтр по цене","_type":"localeString","en":"Filter by price"},"view-type-label":{"ru":"Вид","_type":"localeString","en":"View"},"sort-type-label":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Sorting","ru":"Сортировка"},"category":{"ru":"Категория","_type":"localeString","en":"Category"},"follow":{"en":"Follow","ru":"Следить","_type":"localeString"},"add-product":{"en":"Add Product","ru":"Добавить продукт","_type":"localeString"},"show-all":{"en":"Show all","ru":"Показать все","_type":"localeString"},"filter-toggle":{"ru":"Фильтр","_type":"localeString","en":"Filter"},"clear-button":{"ru":"Очистить","_type":"localeString","en":"Сlear"},"delivery-type-field":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Delivery type","ru":"Тип поставки"},"product-categories-field":{"ru":"категориz продуктаhjle","_type":"localeString","en":"product categories"},"providers-field":{"ru":"Поставщик, производитель","_type":"localeString","en":"Providers"},"business-tasks-field":{"ru":"Бизнес задачи","_type":"localeString","en":"Business tasks"},"problems-field":{"ru":"Проблемы","_type":"localeString","en":"Problems"},"with-discounts-checkbox":{"_type":"localeString","en":"With discounts","ru":"Со скидками"},"expert-price-checkbox":{"ru":"Конфигуратор","_type":"localeString","en":"Configurator"},"roi-calculator-checkbox":{"ru":"ROI-калькулятор","_type":"localeString","en":"ROI-calculator"},"apply-filter-button":{"en":"Apply filter","ru":"Применить фильтр","_type":"localeString"},"sorting-toggle":{"ru":"Сортировка","_type":"localeString","en":"Sorting"},"show-all-button":{"ru":"Показать все","_type":"localeString","en":"Show all"},"suggest-product-button":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Suggest product","ru":"Предложить продукт"},"with-projects-label":{"_type":"localeString","en":"With deployments","ru":"С внедрениями"},"bonus-4-reference":{"ru":"Бонус за референс","_type":"localeString","en":"Bonus 4 Reference"},"product-categories":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Product Categories","ru":"Категории продуктов"},"countries":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Countries","ru":"Страны"},"seller":{"en":"Seller","ru":"Продавец","_type":"localeString"},"vendors":{"ru":"Производители продуктов пользователя","_type":"localeString","en":"User products vendors"},"suppliers":{"ru":"Поставщики пользователя","_type":"localeString","en":"User suppliers"},"business-process":{"ru":"Проблемы","_type":"localeString","en":"Problems"},"business-objectives":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Business tasks","ru":"Бизнес задачи"},"branch":{"en":" Branch","ru":"Отрасль","_type":"localeString"},"users":{"en":"Users","ru":"Пользователи","_type":"localeString"},"status":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Status","ru":"Статус"},"info-source":{"ru":"Информационный ресурс","_type":"localeString","en":"Info source"},"with-reference-checkbox":{"ru":"С референсами","_type":"localeString","en":"With reference"},"show-deal-checkbox":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Show deal with noname","ru":"Показывать сделки с noname"},"roi-checkbox":{"ru":"ROI","_type":"localeString","en":"ROI"},"problems":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Problems","ru":"Проблемы"},"find":{"ru":"Выполнить поиск","_type":"localeString","en":"Find"},"deal-date":{"en":"Date","ru":"Дата","_type":"localeString"},"try-button":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Try AI (Beta)","ru":"Попробовать AI (Beta)"},"hide":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Hide","ru":"Скрыть"},"company-size":{"ru":"Размер компании","_type":"localeString","en":"Company size"},"add-company":{"en":"Add company","ru":"Добавить компанию","_type":"localeString"},"add-implementation":{"en":"Add deployment","ru":"Добавить внедрение","_type":"localeString"},"sort-title-asc":{"en":"From A to Z","ru":"От А до Я","_type":"localeString"},"sort-title-desc":{"en":"From Z to A","ru":"От Я до А","_type":"localeString"},"sellers-field":{"ru":"Поставщики, Производители","_type":"localeString","en":"Sellers"},"supply-types":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Supply type","ru":"Тип поставки"},"with-comments-checkbox":{"_type":"localeString","en":"With comments","ru":"С комментариями"},"supplier":{"ru":"Поставщик","_type":"localeString","en":"Supplier"},"vendor":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Vendor","ru":"Производитель"},"user":{"_type":"localeString","en":"User","ru":"Пользователь"},"company-type":{"en":"Company type","ru":"Тип компании","_type":"localeString"},"partners-field":{"en":"Partners","ru":" Партнеры","_type":"localeString"},"customers":{"en":"Customers","ru":"Покупатели","_type":"localeString"},"product-supplier":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Product supplier","ru":"Поставщик продукта"},"product-vendor":{"ru":"Производитель продукта","_type":"localeString","en":"Product vendor"},"implementation-date":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deployment date","ru":"Дата внедрения"},"canceled":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Canceled","ru":"Отменено"},"deal-canceled":{"ru":"Сделка отменена","_type":"localeString","en":"Deal canceled"},"deal-closed":{"ru":"Сделка закрыта","_type":"localeString","en":"Deal closed"},"deal-in-progress":{"_type":"localeString","en":"Deal in progress","ru":"Сделка в процессе"},"deal-is-planned":{"en":"Deal is planned","ru":"Сделка планируется","_type":"localeString"},"finished":{"ru":"Завершено","_type":"localeString","en":"Finished"},"in-process":{"_type":"localeString","en":"In Process","ru":"Ведется"},"planned":{"en":"Planned","ru":"Планируется","_type":"localeString"},"proof-of-concept":{"ru":"Пилотный проект","_type":"localeString","en":"Proof of concept"},"stopped":{"ru":"Остановлено","_type":"localeString","en":"Stopped"},"competencies":{"en":"Competencies","ru":"Компетенции","_type":"localeString"}}},"translationsStatus":{"implementationDetail":"success","filters":"success"},"sections":{},"sectionsStatus":{},"pageMetaData":{"implementationDetail":{}},"pageMetaDataStatus":{"implementationDetail":"success"},"subscribeInProgress":false,"subscribeError":false},"auth":{"inProgress":false,"error":false,"checked":true,"initialized":false,"user":{},"role":null,"expires":null},"products":{"productsByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null,"useProductLoading":false,"sellProductLoading":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{}},"filters":{"filterCriterias":{"loading":false,"error":null,"data":{"price":{"min":0,"max":6000},"users":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"suppliers":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"vendors":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}},"roles":{"id":200,"title":"Roles","values":{"1":{"id":1,"title":"User","translationKey":"user"},"2":{"id":2,"title":"Supplier","translationKey":"supplier"},"3":{"id":3,"title":"Vendor","translationKey":"vendor"}}},"categories":{"flat":[],"tree":[]},"countries":{"loading":false,"error":null,"ids":[],"values":{}}}},"showAIFilter":false},"companies":{"companiesByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"implementations":{"implementationsByAlias":{"cisco-ctm-and-cisco-ons-15454-for-kyivstar-jsc":{"id":887,"title":"Cisco CTM and Cisco ONS 15454 for Kyivstar JSC","description":"Description is not ready yet","alias":"cisco-ctm-and-cisco-ons-15454-for-kyivstar-jsc","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco CTM and Cisco ONS 15454 for Kyivstar JSC","keywords":"","description":"Description is not ready yet","og:title":"Cisco CTM and Cisco ONS 15454 for Kyivstar JSC","og:description":"Description is not ready yet"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":2540,"title":"Kyivstar","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Kievstar.png","alias":"kievstar","address":"","roles":[],"description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Kyivstar</span> – mobile operator No.1 and one of the best brands of Ukraine\r\n\r\nThe company's history started back in 1994, and on December 9, 1997, the first call in Kyivstar mobile network was made.\r\n\r\nToday Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian telecommunication operator providing communications and data services based on a broad range of mobile and fixed-line technologies, including 3G. Company's customer base amounts to over 24 million in mobile and over 1.1 million in broadband Internet.\r\n\r\nKyivstar is a part of VimpelCom Ltd., one of the world's largest integrated telecommunications companies, headquartered in Netherlands. The holding company owns telecom assets in the CIS countries, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and its shares are freely traded on the stock exchange (NASDAQ). Jean-Yves Charlier is CEO of VimpelCom Ltd.\r\n\r\nKyivstar is one of few companies in VimpelCom Ltd. that provides services under its own, exclusively Ukrainian brand. Every year international control of Kyivstar network parameters is held. According to its results, the company demonstrates better quality and productivity than on the average in the region and in the world.\r\n\r\nKyivstar has achieved big success thanks to investment into development of its own fiber-optic network which is an important link in the traffic exchange between Europe and Asia, and it is a reliable partner of Ukrainians in the connection with the other countries of the world. The company provides roaming services in 195 countries on 5 continents.\r\n\r\nFor more than 25 years of operation on the territory of Ukraine Kyivstar has been developing the technical infrastructure of telecom-market and has been faithfully performing its obligations to the country and the society. For many years the company has been the largest taxpayer to the state budget of Ukraine among the companies in the sector of transport and communications, as well as one of the best employers and most socially responsible business entities.\r\n\r\nKyivstar was the first company to provide the best telecommunications services of European markets for Ukrainian subscribers. For instance, in 1998 the company was the first to suggest SMS service to subscribers, and in 2000 – was the first to start providing access to Internet by WAP. After that Kyivstar was the first to massively introduce packet tariff plans with no charge for minutes and to cancel megabyte billing of Internet in the most of the tariff plans.\r\n\r\nThe company was the first among telecommunications operators of Ukraine to fully upgrade switched network to prepare for high-speed mobile data transmission technologies. In Kyivstar's network, MSC Server Blade Cluster, unique equipment for Ukraine, is installed. It is new-generation switchers that support technologies from 2.5G to LTE. In 2012 the process of base stations' equipment replacement for a full transition to IP architecture was started.\r\n\r\nKyivstar's team amounts to around 4,000 professionals working all over Ukraine. A system of continuing education and professional development, encouragement and protection of employees has been created in the company:\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Every year more than 50% of employees upgrade their skills at various courses and trainings organized by the company;</li><li> 40% of employees use flexible work schedule; when needed, any employee can work remotely through &quot;Virtual Office&quot; system.</li></ul>\r\nThe company's care about employees' health is an essential part of the social package. Kyivstar's workers can get medical service in more than 1,000 clinics, health institutions and pharmacies in 99 Ukrainian cities.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Information on the ownership structure of PJSC “Kyivstar”</span>\r\nThe sole shareholder of PJSC “Kyivstar” is the international telecom group of companies <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">VEON</span>, the headquarters of which is located in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. VEON shares are traded on the stock exchanges of the USA and the European Union, and among the owners of the shares there are thousands of people, including large investment funds of the USA, Great Britain, Italy, such as Exor NV, Shah Capital, Prosperity Capital, Kopernik Global Investors, etc. No shareholder has a majority stake and does not have a decisive influence on the activities of the VEON group and, accordingly, on the activities of Kyivstar.\r\nIn February 2022, the VEON Group excluded persons who have been subject to EU sanctions from the Board of Directors, their financial assets are frozen, and they themselves do not take any part in or have any influence on the management of the VEON Group. The group also decided to withdraw from the russian market and on May 30, 2023, reported on the completion of all legal formalities and procedures related to this initiative.\r\nPJSC “Kyivstar” is managed by the President (a citizen of Ukraine) and the Supervisory Board of Kyivstar PJSC, which includes citizens of Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and Turkey. Each of these citizens is a person with an exceptionally high reputation in the business environment with long experience of managerial work on the international market.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":6,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.kyivstar.ua/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Kyivstar","keywords":"Kyivstar, company, Ukraine, first, network, mobile, been, employees","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Kyivstar</span> – mobile operator No.1 and one of the best brands of Ukraine\r\n\r\nThe company's history started back in 1994, and on December 9, 1997, the first call in Kyivstar mobile network was made.\r\n\r\nToday Kyivstar is the l","og:title":"Kyivstar","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Kyivstar</span> – mobile operator No.1 and one of the best brands of Ukraine\r\n\r\nThe company's history started back in 1994, and on December 9, 1997, the first call in Kyivstar mobile network was made.\r\n\r\nToday Kyivstar is the l","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Kievstar.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":1392,"title":"S&T Ukraine","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/S_T_Ukraine.png","alias":"ehs-ehnd-ti-ukraina","address":"","roles":[],"description":"S&amp;T Ukraine was established in 1993 and today we are in TOP3 of Ukrainian systems integrators. We hold leading positions in the field of design and implementation of corporate integrated information systems, complex network and telecom solutions as well as provision of IT services in Ukraine.<br />There are more than 130 employees working at S&amp;T Ukraine now. We pay utmost attention to growing skills of our team. Not only we employ best experts around but also invest seriously into their further training and education.<br />S&amp;T Ukraine closely co-operates with a number of global IT vendors ans holds top partner statuses with them. Cisco, EMC, IBM, HPЕ, Microsoft, Oracle and many more are among them.<br />S&amp;T has subsidiaries in more than 18 countries of Central and Eastern Europe.<br /><br />","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":182,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":15,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":7,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.snt.ua/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"S&T Ukraine","keywords":"Ukraine, more, with, than, them, systems, also, around","description":"S&amp;T Ukraine was established in 1993 and today we are in TOP3 of Ukrainian systems integrators. We hold leading positions in the field of design and implementation of corporate integrated information systems, complex network and telecom solutions as well as","og:title":"S&T Ukraine","og:description":"S&amp;T Ukraine was established in 1993 and today we are in TOP3 of Ukrainian systems integrators. We hold leading positions in the field of design and implementation of corporate integrated information systems, complex network and telecom solutions as well as","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/S_T_Ukraine.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":170,"title":"Cisco","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png","alias":"cisco","address":"","roles":[],"description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, Cisco dominates the Internet Protocol (IP) -based network equipment segment, and also manufactures cybersecurity, video conferencing systems, and other network equipment and software. In addition, Cisco offers a number of cloud services. Cisco's primary customers are large enterprises and telecommunications service providers, but the company also sells products aimed at small businesses and the public sector. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco offers products and services in four categories. The company's infrastructure platforms generate more than half of its revenue. This includes switching devices, routing devices, wireless communications, and data processing solutions. Applications that account for over 10% of revenue are primarily software related to networking and data processing platforms. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Applications include collaboration tools (unified communications, Cisco TelePresence video conferencing) as well as AppDynamics and Internet of Things software. The cybersecurity product category generates more than 5% of the company's revenue and includes network security, email security, identity and access, advanced threat protection, and unified exposure management products. In addition, Cisco offers consulting services. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco's total revenue in fiscal 2020 was nearly $ 50 billion. The company is expanding its research and development (R&amp;D) investments in areas such as the cloud platform, remote collaboration platform, analytics and telecommunications technologies.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":29,"suppliedProductsCount":29,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":7,"vendorImplementationsCount":42,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":125,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.cisco.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Cisco","keywords":"Index, networking, Cisco, company, Russell, 1000, June, Average","description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:title":"Cisco","og:description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":4764,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cisco Transport Manager (CTM)","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"0.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cisco-transport-manager-ctm","companyTypes":[],"description":"Cisco Transport Manager is an intelligent, multitechnology, carrier-class element management system (EMS) for optical networks designed following the TMF MTNM principles. Cisco Transport Manager simplifies provisioning and network management and reduces overall costs by providing operators with:<br />● Single system to manage optical networks: Increases productivity by simplifying complex provisioning tasks of optical network elements<br />● Single repository for network information: Supports configuration, fault, performance, and security management to capture network information such as resources, alarms, and performance data<br />● Integration with operations support system (OSS): Foundation for northbound EMS-to-network management system (NMS) interfaces, with gateway options for CORBA, compliant with TMF 814 standard, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and direct SQL database access<br />Features and Benefits<br />Cisco Transport Manager increases user productivity through a powerful GUI-based management system that simplifies complex provisioning tasks. The Cisco Transport Manager northbound interfaces accelerate integration into the operations support system’s customer environment. <br /><br />","shortDescription":"Enhance Network Security and Service Continuity with Cisco Transport Manager (CTM)","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":7,"sellingCount":7,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco Transport Manager (CTM)","keywords":"","description":"Cisco Transport Manager is an intelligent, multitechnology, carrier-class element management system (EMS) for optical networks designed following the TMF MTNM principles. Cisco Transport Manager simplifies provisioning and network management and reduces overal","og:title":"Cisco Transport Manager (CTM)","og:description":"Cisco Transport Manager is an intelligent, multitechnology, carrier-class element management system (EMS) for optical networks designed following the TMF MTNM principles. Cisco Transport Manager simplifies provisioning and network management and reduces overal"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":4765,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":57,"title":"Engineering Applications","alias":"engineering-applications","description":"Specific segmentations of <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Engineering Applications</span> include software packages, such as 2D CAD, 3D CAD, engineering analysis, project software and services, collaborative engineering software, and asset information management. These tools are used not only for asset creation but also to manage data and information throughout the lifecycle of physical assets in both infrastructure and industry. Application of optimization techniques in engineering provides as-built information to owners for operations and maintenance requirements, as well as a document for any modifications to the facility.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Computer-aided design (CAD)</span> is the use of computers (or workstations) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Computer engineering and intelligent systems output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. \r\nIts use in designing electronic systems is known as electronic design automation (EDA). Application of CAD in mechanical engineering is known as mechanical design automation (MDA) or computer-aided drafting (CAD), which includes the process of creating a technical drawing with the use of computer software.\r\nCAD software for mechanical design uses either vector-based graphics to depict the objects of traditional drafting, or may also produce raster graphics showing the overall appearance of designed objects. However, it involves more than just shapes. As in the manual drafting of technical and engineering drawings, the output of CAD must convey information, such as materials, processes, dimensions, and tolerances, according to application-specific conventions.\r\nCAD is an important industrial art extensively used in many engineering applications, including automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, industrial and architectural design, electrical engineering app, prosthetics, environmental engineering applications, and many more. \r\nEngineering apps and software are: 2D layout and CAD software, 3D design and visualization systems, Pre-engineering and FEED applications, Engineering information management systems, Asset lifecycle information management systems, Asset performance management systems, P&amp;ID and piping layout design, 3D laser scanning and point cloud modeling, 3D augmented reality simulation systems, 3D virtual reality simulation based on other technologies (photometry, etc.), 3D virtual simulation for operator training, Electrical Engineering applications and HVAC design, Engineering analysis tools, Civil engineering design packages, Fabrication and construction management systems, Software implementation services, Software maintenance &amp; support services, Software as a service including deployment (Cloud, subscription, etc.), Collaborative software for engineering workflows, Associated databases and interfaces.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">2D and 3D CAD software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">General-purpose CAD software includes a wide range of 2D and 3D software. Before delving into the more specific types of CAD software, it’s important to understand the difference between 2D and 3D CAD and the various industries that leverage them.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">2D CAD software offers a platform to design in two dimensions. Since 2D CAD does not allow for the creation of perspectives or scale, it is often used for drawing, sketching and drafting conceptual designs. 2D CAD is often used for floor plan development, building permit drawing and building inspection planning. Since it is mainly used as a tool for conceptual design, it is also a great starting point for most 3D designs. This gives users a basic overview of dimension and scale before they move on to 3D design. 2D CAD typically runs at a significantly lower price since it does not provide the same scale of tools and breadth of features.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">3D CAD provides a platform for designing 3D objects. The main feature of this type of CAD software is 3D solid modeling. This lets designers create objects with length, width and height, allowing more accurate scaling and visualization. With this feature, users can push and pull surfaces and manipulate designs to adjust measurements. Once the 3D design is to your liking, you can transfer it to a 3D rendering software and place the designs in fully realized 3D landscapes.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">BIM software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">One of the more specific types of 3D CAD software is building information modeling software, also known as BIM software. BIM software is intended to aid in the design and construction of buildings specifically. BIM software provides users with the ability to break down building parts and see how they fit into a single finalized structure. Users can isolate walls, columns, windows, doors, etc., and alter the design. Engineers, architect, and manufacturers are just some of the professionals that use BIM software on a regular basis.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Civil engineering design software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Civil engineering design software allows users to design 3D models of municipal buildings and structures. This includes tools for railway modeling, highway design and city infrastructure planning. Similar to BIM, civil engineering design software helps in every stage of the design process by breaking it down to drafting, designing and visualizing the final product. Best app for civil engineering also helps designers determine building costs. Civil engineering design software is perfect for engineers working in public and civil departments including transportation, structural and geotech.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">3D printing software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">3D printing software facilitates the printing of real-life 3D objects. When users design an object, it can bу translated into a 3D printing software. The software then relays instructions on how to print that design to an actual 3D printer. The 3D printing software sends instructions to just print out certain parts of an object, or it can print out the entirety of an object. Some CAD software doubles as 3D printing software so you can seamlessly produce actual 3D objects all from one platform. 3D printing software can be used by manufacturers and architects to build machine or building parts. This greatly reduces production costs, as manufacturers no longer need offsite locations for manufacturing. It also gives companies a rapid test drive to see how a product would look if it were mass produced.</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Engineering_Applications.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":4766,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cisco ONS 15454 Series","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"0.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cisco-ons-15454-series","companyTypes":[],"description":"For over a decade, service providers and enterprises alike have relied on Cisco for metro, regional, long haul, and data center optical transport networks. These networks transport huge quantities of data at high rates over great distances, providing the foundation for all WANs.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Get fourth-generation innovation</span><br />\r\nCisco ROADM innovation continues into its fourth generation with the first Single Module ROADM. It combines multidegree wavelength switching functionality with optical amplification and spectrum analysis in a single slot line card.<br />\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Utilize new features</span><br />\r\nAlong with advanced features, the 15454 provides wavelength switched optical network functionality. This embeds optical layer intelligence directly into network elements to support wavelength-on-demand services and dynamic restoration.<br />\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gain flexible aggregation</span><br />\r\nCisco optical transport aggregation solutions integrate packet, SONET, and OTN aggregation and switching into the DWDM transport platform. Customers will enjoy efficient wavelength fill and tight communication among network layers.<br />\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Streamline operations</span><br />\r\nSelected on a per card basis, a mix of Layer 1 services, time division multiplexing (TDM), and packet switching technologies can be deployed where needed. Meet customer and network requirements while simplifying operations. <br />\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scale to 100 Gb and beyond</span><br />\r\nCisco leads the optical transport industry as it moves toward coherent technology for DWDM transport of 100 Gb services. Powered by nLight Silicon, Cisco coherent technology will scale to even greater densities and higher bit rates.","shortDescription":"Cisco ONS 15454 Series Multiservice Transport Platforms","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":7,"sellingCount":10,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco ONS 15454 Series","keywords":"","description":"For over a decade, service providers and enterprises alike have relied on Cisco for metro, regional, long haul, and data center optical transport networks. These networks transport huge quantities of data at high rates over great distances, providing the found","og:title":"Cisco ONS 15454 Series","og:description":"For over a decade, service providers and enterprises alike have relied on Cisco for metro, regional, long haul, and data center optical transport networks. These networks transport huge quantities of data at high rates over great distances, providing the found"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":4767,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":852,"title":"Network security","alias":"network-security","description":" Network security consists of the policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. Network security involves the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users choose or are assigned an ID and password or other authenticating information that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security covers a variety of computer networks, both public and private, that are used in everyday jobs; conducting transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals. Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network security is involved in organizations, enterprises, and other types of institutions. It does as its title explains: it secures the network, as well as protecting and overseeing operations being done. The most common and simple way of protecting a network resource is by assigning it a unique name and a corresponding password.\r\nNetwork security starts with authentication, commonly with a username and a password. Since this requires just one detail authenticating the user name — i.e., the password—this is sometimes termed one-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, something the user 'has' is also used (e.g., a security token or 'dongle', an ATM card, or a mobile phone); and with three-factor authentication, something the user 'is' is also used (e.g., a fingerprint or retinal scan).\r\nOnce authenticated, a firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component may fail to check potentially harmful content such as computer worms or Trojans being transmitted over the network. Anti-virus software or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) help detect and inhibit the action of such malware. An anomaly-based intrusion detection system may also monitor the network like wireshark traffic and may be logged for audit purposes and for later high-level analysis. Newer systems combining unsupervised machine learning with full network traffic analysis can detect active network attackers from malicious insiders or targeted external attackers that have compromised a user machine or account.\r\nCommunication between two hosts using a network may be encrypted to maintain privacy.\r\nHoneypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, may be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools, as the honeypots are not normally accessed for legitimate purposes. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis may be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected by the honeypot. A honeypot can also direct an attacker's attention away from legitimate servers. A honeypot encourages attackers to spend their time and energy on the decoy server while distracting their attention from the data on the real server. Similar to a honeypot, a honeynet is a network set up with intentional vulnerabilities. Its purpose is also to invite attacks so that the attacker's methods can be studied and that information can be used to increase network security. A honeynet typically contains one or more honeypots.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Network Security?</span>\r\nNetwork security is any action an organization takes to prevent malicious use or accidental damage to the network’s private data, its users, or their devices. The goal of network security is to keep the network running and safe for all legitimate users.\r\nBecause there are so many ways that a network can be vulnerable, network security involves a broad range of practices. These include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying active devices:</span> Using software to block malicious programs from entering, or running within, the network. Blocking users from sending or receiving suspicious-looking emails. Blocking unauthorized use of the network. Also, stopping the network's users accessing websites that are known to be dangerous.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying passive devices:</span> For instance, using devices and software that report unauthorized intrusions into the network, or suspicious activity by authorized users.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Using preventative devices:</span> Devices that help identify potential security holes, so that network staff can fix them.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ensuring users follow safe practices:</span> Even if the software and hardware are set up to be secure, the actions of users can create security holes. Network security staff is responsible for educating members of the organization about how they can stay safe from potential threats.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Network Security Important?</span>\r\nUnless it’s properly secured, any network is vulnerable to malicious use and accidental damage. Hackers, disgruntled employees, or poor security practices within the organization can leave private data exposed, including trade secrets and customers’ private details.\r\nLosing confidential research, for example, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars by taking away competitive advantages it paid to gain. While hackers stealing customers’ details and selling them to be used in fraud, it creates negative publicity and public mistrust of the organization.\r\nThe majority of common attacks against networks are designed to gain access to information, by spying on the communications and data of users, rather than to damage the network itself.\r\nBut attackers can do more than steal data. They may be able to damage users’ devices or manipulate systems to gain physical access to facilities. This leaves the organization’s property and members at risk of harm.\r\nCompetent network security procedures keep data secure and block vulnerable systems from outside interference. This allows the network’s users to remain safe and focus on achieving the organization’s goals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Do I Need Formal Education to Run a Computer Network?</span>\r\nEven the initial setup of security systems can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the field. A comprehensive security system is made of many pieces, each of which needs specialized knowledge.\r\nBeyond setup, each aspect of security is constantly evolving. New technology creates new opportunities for accidental security leaks, while hackers take advantage of holes in security to do damage as soon as they find them. Whoever is in charge of the network’s security needs to be able to understand the technical news and changes as they happen, so they can implement safety strategies right away.\r\nProperly securing your network using the latest information on vulnerabilities helps minimize the risk that attacks will succeed. Security Week reported that 44% of breaches in 2014 came from exploits that were 2-4 years old.\r\nUnfortunately, many of the technical aspects of network security are beyond those who make hiring decisions. So, the best way an organization can be sure that their network security personnel are able to properly manage the threats is to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_security.png"},{"id":548,"title":"Web security - Appliance","alias":"web-security-appliance","description":"A security appliance is any form of server appliance that is designed to protect computer networks from unwanted traffic. Types of network security appliance:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Active devices</span> block unwanted traffic. Examples of such devices are firewalls, anti-virus scanning devices, and content filtering devices. For instance, if you want to make sure that you do not get pointless spam and other unnecessary issues, installing an active device might be a great idea. Active devices include anti-virus scanning devices, which will automatically scan throughout the network to ensure that no virus exists within the protected network. Then, there are web filtering appliances as well as firewalls, the purpose of both of which is to ensure that only useful content and traffic flows through the network and all pointless or harmful data is filtered.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Passive devices detect and report on unwanted traffic.</span> A common example is intrusion detection appliances, which are installed in order to determine whether the network has been compromised in any way. These devices usually work in the background at all times.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Preventative devices</span> scan networks and identify potential security problems (such as penetration testing and vulnerability assessment appliances). These devices are usually designed to 'prevent' damage to the network by identifying problems in advance. Common examples include devices that employ penetration testing as well as those devices which carry out vulnerability assessment on networks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unified Threat Management (UTM)</span> combines features together into one system, such as some firewalls, content filtering, web caching etc. UTM devices are designed to provide users with a one-stop solution to all of their network needs and internet security appliances. As the name clearly suggests, these devices provide the features of all of the other network devices and condense them into one. These devices are designed to provide a number of different network security options in one package, hence providing networks with a simple solution. Rather than installing four different devices, users can easily install one and be done with it. The market of UTM devices has exceeded the billion dollar mark already, which just goes to show how popular these devices have become amongst network users.\r\nOne of the most popular and accessible types of web security appliance tools is the hardware <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">keylogger.</span> This device is placed covertly between the case and keyboard with an output for the computer case and input for the keyboard. As hardware standards have changed over time, a USB hardware keylogger provides access on many devices.\r\nThe <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">web proxy appliance</span> is basically hardware you use to manage user web access. More to the point, it's the type of device that handles the blocking or controlling of suspicious programs. It's typically placed in between network users and the worldwide web; ergo, it's most popular application is serving as a central control hub over employee Internet use by corporations and enterprises. It's the in-between gateway that serves as a termination point of sorts for online communications within a network and is capable of applying a multitude of rule-based limitations on Internet traffic, web content, and requests before they even end up with end users.\r\nAnother commonly used hardware tool is the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">wireless antenna.</span> These can be used to surveil a wide variety of wireless communications, including local cellular and internet service networks. More mechanical and general devices may include lockpicks or portable probes and hijack chips for compromising electronic devices through the physical circuit.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Secure web gateway appliances</span> are solutions to prevent advanced threats, block unauthorized access to systems or websites, stop malware, and monitor real-time activity across websites accessed by users within the institution. Software and cloud-based platforms now perform this function as well.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the top Network Security Appliance brands?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Blue Coat Systems,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Blue Coat has been part of security powerhouse Symantec since 2016.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">F5 Networks,</span> the Seattle-based network application delivery vendor, sold about $17.6 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SonicWall.</span>Firewall power player SonicWall sold about $23.5 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Fortinet,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif., security software vendor Fortinet sold about $24.4 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cisco Systems,</span> Cisco Systems was the quarter's growth champion, posting $77.2 million in network security appliance sales through the channel in the period, beating the previous year’s quarterly total of $62.3 million by about 24 percent, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Palo Alto Networks.</span> With $94.2 million in network security appliance sales in the quarter, Palo Alto Networks was the best-selling network security appliance brand of the second quarter, according to NPD.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_security_Appliance.png"},{"id":513,"title":"Networking","alias":"networking","description":" Networking hardware, also known as network equipment or computer networking devices, are electronic devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network. Specifically, they mediate data transmission in a computer network. Units which are the last receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment.\r\nNetworking devices may include gateways, routers, network bridges, modems, wireless access points, networking cables, line drivers, switches, hubs, and repeaters; and may also include hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters, bridge routers, proxy servers, firewalls, network address translators, multiplexers, network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, ISDN terminal adapters and other related hardware.\r\nThe most common kind of networking hardware today is a copper-based Ethernet adapter which is a standard inclusion on most modern computer systems. Wireless networking has become increasingly popular, especially for portable and handheld devices.\r\nOther networking hardware used in computers includes data center equipment (such as file servers, database servers and storage areas), network services (such as DNS, DHCP, email, etc.) as well as devices which assure content delivery.\r\nTaking a wider view, mobile phones, tablet computers and devices associated with the internet of things may also be considered networking hardware. As technology advances and IP-based networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities, network hardware will become an ambiguous term owing to the vastly increasing number of network capable endpoints.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is network equipment?</span>\r\nNetwork equipment - devices necessary for the operation of a computer network, for example: a router, switch, hub, patch panel, etc. You can distinguish between active and passive network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an active network equipment?</span>\r\nActive networking equipment is equipment followed by some “smart” feature. That is, a router, switch (switch), etc. are active network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is passive network equipment?</span>\r\nPassive network equipment - equipment not endowed with &quot;intellectual&quot; features. For example - cable system: cable (coaxial and twisted pair (UTP/STP)), plug / socket (RG58, RJ45, RJ11, GG45), repeater (repeater), patch panel, hub (hub), balun (balun) for coaxial cables (RG-58), etc. Also, passive equipment can include mounting cabinets and racks, telecommunication cabinets.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main network components?</span>\r\nThe main components of the network are workstations, servers, transmission media (cables) and network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are workstations?</span>\r\nWorkstations are network computers where network users implement application tasks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are network servers?</span>\r\nNetwork servers - hardware and software systems that perform the functions of controlling the distribution of network shared resources. A server can be any computer connected to the network on which the resources used by other devices on the local network are located. As the server hardware, fairly powerful computers are used.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Networking.png"},{"id":172,"title":"WLAN - wireless network","alias":"wlan-wireless-network","description":"Unified Communications (UC) is a marketing buzzword describing the integration of real-time, enterprise, communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user-interface and user-experience across multiple devices and media-types.\r\n\r\nIn its broadest sense, UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via a network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one-to-one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.\r\n\r\nUC allows an individual to send a message on one medium, and receive the same communication on another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. If the sender is online according to the presence information and currently accepts calls, the response can be sent immediately through text chat or video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non-real-time message that can be accessed through a variety of media.\r\n\r\nSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WLAN_-_wireless_network.png"},{"id":475,"title":"Network Management - Hardware","alias":"network-management-hardware","description":" Your business is much more than just a machine that dispenses products or services in exchange for money. It’s akin to a living and breathing thing. Just as with the human body, in business, all the parts are interconnected and work together to move things forward.\r\nIf a company’s management is the brain, then its employees are the muscles. Muscles don’t work without the oxygen carried to them by the blood. Blood doesn’t pump through the body without the heart and circulatory system.\r\nData moves through your network like blood through veins, delivering vital information to employees who need it to do their jobs. In a business sense, the digital network is the heart and circulatory system. Without a properly functioning network, the entire business collapses. That’s why keeping networks healthy is vitally important. Just as keeping the heart healthy is critical to living a healthy life, a healthy network is a key to a thriving business. It starts with network management.\r\nNetwork management is hardware with a broad range of functions including activities, methods, procedures and the use of tools to administrate, operate, and reliably maintain computer network systems.\r\nStrictly speaking, network Management does not include terminal equipment (PCs, workstations, printers, etc.). Rather, it concerns the reliability, efficiency and capacity/capabilities of data transfer channels.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is Network Management?</span>\r\nNetwork management refers to the processes, tools, and applications used to administer, operate and maintain network infrastructure. Performance management and fault analysis also fall into the category of network management. To put it simply, network management is the process of keeping your network healthy, which keeps your business healthy.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Are the Components of Network Management?</span>\r\nThe definition of network management is often broad, as network management involves several different components. Here are some of the terms you’ll often hear when network management or network management software is talked about:\r\n<ul><li>Network administration</li><li>Network maintenance</li><li>Network operation</li><li>Network provisioning</li><li>Network security</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Is Network Management so Important When It Comes to Network Infrastructure?</span>\r\nThe whole point of network management is to keep the network infrastructure running smoothly and efficiently. Network management helps you:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Avoid costly network disruptions.</span> Network downtime can be very costly. In fact, industry research shows the cost can be up to $5,600 per minute or more than $300K per hour. Network disruptions take more than just a financial toll. They also have a negative impact on customer relationships. Slow and unresponsive corporate networks make it harder for employees to serve customers. And customers who feel underserved could be quick to leave.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Improve IT productivity.</span> By monitoring every aspect of the network, an effective network management system does many jobs at once. This frees up IT staff to focus on other things.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Improve network security.</span> With a focus on network management, it’s easy to identify and respond to threats before they propagate and impact end-users. Network management also aims to ensure regulatory and compliance requirements are met.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Gain a holistic view of network performance.</span> Network management gives you a complete view of how your network is performing. It enables you to identify issues and fix them quickly.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Are the Challenges of Maintaining Effective Network Management and Network Infrastructure?</span>\r\nNetwork infrastructures can be complex. Because of that complexity, maintaining effective network management is difficult. Advances in technology and the cloud have increased user expectations for faster network speeds and network availability. On top of that, security threats are becoming ever more advanced, varied and numerous. And if you have a large network, it incorporates several devices, systems, and tools that all need to work together seamlessly. As your network scales and your company grows, new potential points of failure are introduced. Increased costs also come into play.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_Management_Hardware__1_.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[{"id":217,"title":"Ukraine","name":"UKR"}],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":8,"title":"Reduce Production Timelines"},{"id":10,"title":"Ensure Compliance"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"},{"id":262,"title":"Support Customers"},{"id":263,"title":"Develop Sales Channels"},{"id":307,"title":"Enhance Competitive Ability"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":175,"title":"Aging IT infrastructure"},{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":354,"title":"Low bandwidth data channels"},{"id":400,"title":"High costs"}]}},"categories":[{"id":57,"title":"Engineering Applications","alias":"engineering-applications","description":"Specific segmentations of <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Engineering Applications</span> include software packages, such as 2D CAD, 3D CAD, engineering analysis, project software and services, collaborative engineering software, and asset information management. These tools are used not only for asset creation but also to manage data and information throughout the lifecycle of physical assets in both infrastructure and industry. Application of optimization techniques in engineering provides as-built information to owners for operations and maintenance requirements, as well as a document for any modifications to the facility.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Computer-aided design (CAD)</span> is the use of computers (or workstations) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Computer engineering and intelligent systems output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. \r\nIts use in designing electronic systems is known as electronic design automation (EDA). Application of CAD in mechanical engineering is known as mechanical design automation (MDA) or computer-aided drafting (CAD), which includes the process of creating a technical drawing with the use of computer software.\r\nCAD software for mechanical design uses either vector-based graphics to depict the objects of traditional drafting, or may also produce raster graphics showing the overall appearance of designed objects. However, it involves more than just shapes. As in the manual drafting of technical and engineering drawings, the output of CAD must convey information, such as materials, processes, dimensions, and tolerances, according to application-specific conventions.\r\nCAD is an important industrial art extensively used in many engineering applications, including automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, industrial and architectural design, electrical engineering app, prosthetics, environmental engineering applications, and many more. \r\nEngineering apps and software are: 2D layout and CAD software, 3D design and visualization systems, Pre-engineering and FEED applications, Engineering information management systems, Asset lifecycle information management systems, Asset performance management systems, P&amp;ID and piping layout design, 3D laser scanning and point cloud modeling, 3D augmented reality simulation systems, 3D virtual reality simulation based on other technologies (photometry, etc.), 3D virtual simulation for operator training, Electrical Engineering applications and HVAC design, Engineering analysis tools, Civil engineering design packages, Fabrication and construction management systems, Software implementation services, Software maintenance &amp; support services, Software as a service including deployment (Cloud, subscription, etc.), Collaborative software for engineering workflows, Associated databases and interfaces.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">2D and 3D CAD software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">General-purpose CAD software includes a wide range of 2D and 3D software. Before delving into the more specific types of CAD software, it’s important to understand the difference between 2D and 3D CAD and the various industries that leverage them.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">2D CAD software offers a platform to design in two dimensions. Since 2D CAD does not allow for the creation of perspectives or scale, it is often used for drawing, sketching and drafting conceptual designs. 2D CAD is often used for floor plan development, building permit drawing and building inspection planning. Since it is mainly used as a tool for conceptual design, it is also a great starting point for most 3D designs. This gives users a basic overview of dimension and scale before they move on to 3D design. 2D CAD typically runs at a significantly lower price since it does not provide the same scale of tools and breadth of features.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">3D CAD provides a platform for designing 3D objects. The main feature of this type of CAD software is 3D solid modeling. This lets designers create objects with length, width and height, allowing more accurate scaling and visualization. With this feature, users can push and pull surfaces and manipulate designs to adjust measurements. Once the 3D design is to your liking, you can transfer it to a 3D rendering software and place the designs in fully realized 3D landscapes.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">BIM software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">One of the more specific types of 3D CAD software is building information modeling software, also known as BIM software. BIM software is intended to aid in the design and construction of buildings specifically. BIM software provides users with the ability to break down building parts and see how they fit into a single finalized structure. Users can isolate walls, columns, windows, doors, etc., and alter the design. Engineers, architect, and manufacturers are just some of the professionals that use BIM software on a regular basis.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Civil engineering design software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Civil engineering design software allows users to design 3D models of municipal buildings and structures. This includes tools for railway modeling, highway design and city infrastructure planning. Similar to BIM, civil engineering design software helps in every stage of the design process by breaking it down to drafting, designing and visualizing the final product. Best app for civil engineering also helps designers determine building costs. Civil engineering design software is perfect for engineers working in public and civil departments including transportation, structural and geotech.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">3D printing software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">3D printing software facilitates the printing of real-life 3D objects. When users design an object, it can bу translated into a 3D printing software. The software then relays instructions on how to print that design to an actual 3D printer. The 3D printing software sends instructions to just print out certain parts of an object, or it can print out the entirety of an object. Some CAD software doubles as 3D printing software so you can seamlessly produce actual 3D objects all from one platform. 3D printing software can be used by manufacturers and architects to build machine or building parts. This greatly reduces production costs, as manufacturers no longer need offsite locations for manufacturing. It also gives companies a rapid test drive to see how a product would look if it were mass produced.</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Engineering_Applications.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":852,"title":"Network security","alias":"network-security","description":" Network security consists of the policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. Network security involves the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users choose or are assigned an ID and password or other authenticating information that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security covers a variety of computer networks, both public and private, that are used in everyday jobs; conducting transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals. Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network security is involved in organizations, enterprises, and other types of institutions. It does as its title explains: it secures the network, as well as protecting and overseeing operations being done. The most common and simple way of protecting a network resource is by assigning it a unique name and a corresponding password.\r\nNetwork security starts with authentication, commonly with a username and a password. Since this requires just one detail authenticating the user name — i.e., the password—this is sometimes termed one-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, something the user 'has' is also used (e.g., a security token or 'dongle', an ATM card, or a mobile phone); and with three-factor authentication, something the user 'is' is also used (e.g., a fingerprint or retinal scan).\r\nOnce authenticated, a firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component may fail to check potentially harmful content such as computer worms or Trojans being transmitted over the network. Anti-virus software or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) help detect and inhibit the action of such malware. An anomaly-based intrusion detection system may also monitor the network like wireshark traffic and may be logged for audit purposes and for later high-level analysis. Newer systems combining unsupervised machine learning with full network traffic analysis can detect active network attackers from malicious insiders or targeted external attackers that have compromised a user machine or account.\r\nCommunication between two hosts using a network may be encrypted to maintain privacy.\r\nHoneypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, may be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools, as the honeypots are not normally accessed for legitimate purposes. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis may be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected by the honeypot. A honeypot can also direct an attacker's attention away from legitimate servers. A honeypot encourages attackers to spend their time and energy on the decoy server while distracting their attention from the data on the real server. Similar to a honeypot, a honeynet is a network set up with intentional vulnerabilities. Its purpose is also to invite attacks so that the attacker's methods can be studied and that information can be used to increase network security. A honeynet typically contains one or more honeypots.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Network Security?</span>\r\nNetwork security is any action an organization takes to prevent malicious use or accidental damage to the network’s private data, its users, or their devices. The goal of network security is to keep the network running and safe for all legitimate users.\r\nBecause there are so many ways that a network can be vulnerable, network security involves a broad range of practices. These include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying active devices:</span> Using software to block malicious programs from entering, or running within, the network. Blocking users from sending or receiving suspicious-looking emails. Blocking unauthorized use of the network. Also, stopping the network's users accessing websites that are known to be dangerous.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying passive devices:</span> For instance, using devices and software that report unauthorized intrusions into the network, or suspicious activity by authorized users.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Using preventative devices:</span> Devices that help identify potential security holes, so that network staff can fix them.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ensuring users follow safe practices:</span> Even if the software and hardware are set up to be secure, the actions of users can create security holes. Network security staff is responsible for educating members of the organization about how they can stay safe from potential threats.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Network Security Important?</span>\r\nUnless it’s properly secured, any network is vulnerable to malicious use and accidental damage. Hackers, disgruntled employees, or poor security practices within the organization can leave private data exposed, including trade secrets and customers’ private details.\r\nLosing confidential research, for example, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars by taking away competitive advantages it paid to gain. While hackers stealing customers’ details and selling them to be used in fraud, it creates negative publicity and public mistrust of the organization.\r\nThe majority of common attacks against networks are designed to gain access to information, by spying on the communications and data of users, rather than to damage the network itself.\r\nBut attackers can do more than steal data. They may be able to damage users’ devices or manipulate systems to gain physical access to facilities. This leaves the organization’s property and members at risk of harm.\r\nCompetent network security procedures keep data secure and block vulnerable systems from outside interference. This allows the network’s users to remain safe and focus on achieving the organization’s goals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Do I Need Formal Education to Run a Computer Network?</span>\r\nEven the initial setup of security systems can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the field. A comprehensive security system is made of many pieces, each of which needs specialized knowledge.\r\nBeyond setup, each aspect of security is constantly evolving. New technology creates new opportunities for accidental security leaks, while hackers take advantage of holes in security to do damage as soon as they find them. Whoever is in charge of the network’s security needs to be able to understand the technical news and changes as they happen, so they can implement safety strategies right away.\r\nProperly securing your network using the latest information on vulnerabilities helps minimize the risk that attacks will succeed. Security Week reported that 44% of breaches in 2014 came from exploits that were 2-4 years old.\r\nUnfortunately, many of the technical aspects of network security are beyond those who make hiring decisions. So, the best way an organization can be sure that their network security personnel are able to properly manage the threats is to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_security.png"},{"id":548,"title":"Web security - Appliance","alias":"web-security-appliance","description":"A security appliance is any form of server appliance that is designed to protect computer networks from unwanted traffic. Types of network security appliance:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Active devices</span> block unwanted traffic. Examples of such devices are firewalls, anti-virus scanning devices, and content filtering devices. For instance, if you want to make sure that you do not get pointless spam and other unnecessary issues, installing an active device might be a great idea. Active devices include anti-virus scanning devices, which will automatically scan throughout the network to ensure that no virus exists within the protected network. Then, there are web filtering appliances as well as firewalls, the purpose of both of which is to ensure that only useful content and traffic flows through the network and all pointless or harmful data is filtered.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Passive devices detect and report on unwanted traffic.</span> A common example is intrusion detection appliances, which are installed in order to determine whether the network has been compromised in any way. These devices usually work in the background at all times.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Preventative devices</span> scan networks and identify potential security problems (such as penetration testing and vulnerability assessment appliances). These devices are usually designed to 'prevent' damage to the network by identifying problems in advance. Common examples include devices that employ penetration testing as well as those devices which carry out vulnerability assessment on networks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unified Threat Management (UTM)</span> combines features together into one system, such as some firewalls, content filtering, web caching etc. UTM devices are designed to provide users with a one-stop solution to all of their network needs and internet security appliances. As the name clearly suggests, these devices provide the features of all of the other network devices and condense them into one. These devices are designed to provide a number of different network security options in one package, hence providing networks with a simple solution. Rather than installing four different devices, users can easily install one and be done with it. The market of UTM devices has exceeded the billion dollar mark already, which just goes to show how popular these devices have become amongst network users.\r\nOne of the most popular and accessible types of web security appliance tools is the hardware <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">keylogger.</span> This device is placed covertly between the case and keyboard with an output for the computer case and input for the keyboard. As hardware standards have changed over time, a USB hardware keylogger provides access on many devices.\r\nThe <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">web proxy appliance</span> is basically hardware you use to manage user web access. More to the point, it's the type of device that handles the blocking or controlling of suspicious programs. It's typically placed in between network users and the worldwide web; ergo, it's most popular application is serving as a central control hub over employee Internet use by corporations and enterprises. It's the in-between gateway that serves as a termination point of sorts for online communications within a network and is capable of applying a multitude of rule-based limitations on Internet traffic, web content, and requests before they even end up with end users.\r\nAnother commonly used hardware tool is the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">wireless antenna.</span> These can be used to surveil a wide variety of wireless communications, including local cellular and internet service networks. More mechanical and general devices may include lockpicks or portable probes and hijack chips for compromising electronic devices through the physical circuit.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Secure web gateway appliances</span> are solutions to prevent advanced threats, block unauthorized access to systems or websites, stop malware, and monitor real-time activity across websites accessed by users within the institution. Software and cloud-based platforms now perform this function as well.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the top Network Security Appliance brands?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Blue Coat Systems,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Blue Coat has been part of security powerhouse Symantec since 2016.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">F5 Networks,</span> the Seattle-based network application delivery vendor, sold about $17.6 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SonicWall.</span>Firewall power player SonicWall sold about $23.5 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Fortinet,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif., security software vendor Fortinet sold about $24.4 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cisco Systems,</span> Cisco Systems was the quarter's growth champion, posting $77.2 million in network security appliance sales through the channel in the period, beating the previous year’s quarterly total of $62.3 million by about 24 percent, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Palo Alto Networks.</span> With $94.2 million in network security appliance sales in the quarter, Palo Alto Networks was the best-selling network security appliance brand of the second quarter, according to NPD.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_security_Appliance.png"},{"id":513,"title":"Networking","alias":"networking","description":" Networking hardware, also known as network equipment or computer networking devices, are electronic devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network. Specifically, they mediate data transmission in a computer network. Units which are the last receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment.\r\nNetworking devices may include gateways, routers, network bridges, modems, wireless access points, networking cables, line drivers, switches, hubs, and repeaters; and may also include hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters, bridge routers, proxy servers, firewalls, network address translators, multiplexers, network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, ISDN terminal adapters and other related hardware.\r\nThe most common kind of networking hardware today is a copper-based Ethernet adapter which is a standard inclusion on most modern computer systems. Wireless networking has become increasingly popular, especially for portable and handheld devices.\r\nOther networking hardware used in computers includes data center equipment (such as file servers, database servers and storage areas), network services (such as DNS, DHCP, email, etc.) as well as devices which assure content delivery.\r\nTaking a wider view, mobile phones, tablet computers and devices associated with the internet of things may also be considered networking hardware. As technology advances and IP-based networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities, network hardware will become an ambiguous term owing to the vastly increasing number of network capable endpoints.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is network equipment?</span>\r\nNetwork equipment - devices necessary for the operation of a computer network, for example: a router, switch, hub, patch panel, etc. You can distinguish between active and passive network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an active network equipment?</span>\r\nActive networking equipment is equipment followed by some “smart” feature. That is, a router, switch (switch), etc. are active network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is passive network equipment?</span>\r\nPassive network equipment - equipment not endowed with &quot;intellectual&quot; features. For example - cable system: cable (coaxial and twisted pair (UTP/STP)), plug / socket (RG58, RJ45, RJ11, GG45), repeater (repeater), patch panel, hub (hub), balun (balun) for coaxial cables (RG-58), etc. Also, passive equipment can include mounting cabinets and racks, telecommunication cabinets.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main network components?</span>\r\nThe main components of the network are workstations, servers, transmission media (cables) and network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are workstations?</span>\r\nWorkstations are network computers where network users implement application tasks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are network servers?</span>\r\nNetwork servers - hardware and software systems that perform the functions of controlling the distribution of network shared resources. A server can be any computer connected to the network on which the resources used by other devices on the local network are located. As the server hardware, fairly powerful computers are used.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Networking.png"},{"id":172,"title":"WLAN - wireless network","alias":"wlan-wireless-network","description":"Unified Communications (UC) is a marketing buzzword describing the integration of real-time, enterprise, communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user-interface and user-experience across multiple devices and media-types.\r\n\r\nIn its broadest sense, UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via a network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one-to-one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.\r\n\r\nUC allows an individual to send a message on one medium, and receive the same communication on another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. If the sender is online according to the presence information and currently accepts calls, the response can be sent immediately through text chat or video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non-real-time message that can be accessed through a variety of media.\r\n\r\nSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WLAN_-_wireless_network.png"},{"id":475,"title":"Network Management - Hardware","alias":"network-management-hardware","description":" Your business is much more than just a machine that dispenses products or services in exchange for money. It’s akin to a living and breathing thing. Just as with the human body, in business, all the parts are interconnected and work together to move things forward.\r\nIf a company’s management is the brain, then its employees are the muscles. Muscles don’t work without the oxygen carried to them by the blood. Blood doesn’t pump through the body without the heart and circulatory system.\r\nData moves through your network like blood through veins, delivering vital information to employees who need it to do their jobs. In a business sense, the digital network is the heart and circulatory system. Without a properly functioning network, the entire business collapses. That’s why keeping networks healthy is vitally important. Just as keeping the heart healthy is critical to living a healthy life, a healthy network is a key to a thriving business. It starts with network management.\r\nNetwork management is hardware with a broad range of functions including activities, methods, procedures and the use of tools to administrate, operate, and reliably maintain computer network systems.\r\nStrictly speaking, network Management does not include terminal equipment (PCs, workstations, printers, etc.). Rather, it concerns the reliability, efficiency and capacity/capabilities of data transfer channels.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is Network Management?</span>\r\nNetwork management refers to the processes, tools, and applications used to administer, operate and maintain network infrastructure. Performance management and fault analysis also fall into the category of network management. To put it simply, network management is the process of keeping your network healthy, which keeps your business healthy.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Are the Components of Network Management?</span>\r\nThe definition of network management is often broad, as network management involves several different components. Here are some of the terms you’ll often hear when network management or network management software is talked about:\r\n<ul><li>Network administration</li><li>Network maintenance</li><li>Network operation</li><li>Network provisioning</li><li>Network security</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Is Network Management so Important When It Comes to Network Infrastructure?</span>\r\nThe whole point of network management is to keep the network infrastructure running smoothly and efficiently. Network management helps you:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Avoid costly network disruptions.</span> Network downtime can be very costly. In fact, industry research shows the cost can be up to $5,600 per minute or more than $300K per hour. Network disruptions take more than just a financial toll. They also have a negative impact on customer relationships. Slow and unresponsive corporate networks make it harder for employees to serve customers. And customers who feel underserved could be quick to leave.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Improve IT productivity.</span> By monitoring every aspect of the network, an effective network management system does many jobs at once. This frees up IT staff to focus on other things.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Improve network security.</span> With a focus on network management, it’s easy to identify and respond to threats before they propagate and impact end-users. Network management also aims to ensure regulatory and compliance requirements are met.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Gain a holistic view of network performance.</span> Network management gives you a complete view of how your network is performing. It enables you to identify issues and fix them quickly.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Are the Challenges of Maintaining Effective Network Management and Network Infrastructure?</span>\r\nNetwork infrastructures can be complex. Because of that complexity, maintaining effective network management is difficult. Advances in technology and the cloud have increased user expectations for faster network speeds and network availability. On top of that, security threats are becoming ever more advanced, varied and numerous. And if you have a large network, it incorporates several devices, systems, and tools that all need to work together seamlessly. As your network scales and your company grows, new potential points of failure are introduced. Increased costs also come into play.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_Management_Hardware__1_.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"http://snt.ua/about_us/company/68618.ua.php","title":"Supplier's web site"}},"comments":[],"references":[],"referencesCount":0,"similarImplementations":[{"id":489,"title":"Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for 24 Hour Fitness","description":"<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) on Wednesday announced an agreement with 24 Hour Fitness, one of the nation’s largest privately owned and operated fitness chains, to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Adobe Experience Cloud across its network of more than 420 clubs nationwide. This will enable 24 Hour Fitness to dramatically enhance its ability to offer more personalized and unified digital experiences for members throughout every touch point in their fitness journey. With technology integrations across Microsoft business applications and Adobe Experience Cloud, 24 Hour Fitness is investing in a combined cloud platform to engage its members and prospects with highly personalized experiences.</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; \">“We have an opportunity to establish a new bar across the industry by delivering personalized digital interactions to our members that are available 24 hours a day, at home, on the road or in the gym,” said Frank Napolitano, president, 24 Hour Fitness. “It’s not an easy feat to achieve this with nearly 4 million members. Adobe is empowering us to create mass consumer personalization that scales, all utilizing the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. In doing so, we are better positioned to serve our members the workouts and health and fitness guidance they truly want and need.”</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">24 Hour Fitness is undertaking a journey to digitally transform its operations by combining functional departments to provide a single view of members and guests, messaging, and performance. Integrated cloud solutions from Adobe and Microsoft will help 24 Hour Fitness with scale, security and outreach along with AI and machine learnings to streamline its business and connect more deliberately to its members.</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; \">“Adobe and Microsoft are at the center of how we bring in relevant data, draw intelligent insights, and then how we act upon those insights across all our channels holistically,” said Tom Lapcevic, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, 24 Hour Fitness. “Our mission is to help people improve their lives every day through fitness, both inside and outside our clubs. So, whether it be email communications with a member, a mobile push notification or an SMS communication, we make sure that all our channels are in sync with what the needs of that individual are. It’s about giving every one of our members and guests a better and more personalized experience — and ultimately the results they desire.”</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">24 Hour Fitness already leverages Adobe Campaign for email, SMS and mobile push messaging, and Adobe Target for personalization across channels. Integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales will enable 24 Hour Fitness to leverage sales data for member and guest insights, providing a single view of the customer that can be used to personalize experiences. For example, 24 Hour Fitness can customize offers, such as personal training recommendations based on loyalty, interests and geography. In addition, the 24 Hour Fitness 24GO custom coaching platform, powered by Adobe Experience Manager for content management and delivery, combined with Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides custom workouts, at-home programming, progress and goal tracking, and class schedules — all within a single dashboard. As well, the monthly digital magazine 24Life offers experts to help you think, eat, move and recover better.&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; \">“24 Hour Fitness is at the forefront of delivering exceptional personalized customer experiences across new customer acquisition all the way through delivering ongoing member services,” said Alysa Taylor, general manager, Microsoft Business Applications &amp; Industry Group. “Together with Adobe, we’re dedicated to empowering digital transformation with 24 Hour Fitness and are proud to join them in their efforts to develop amazing experiences that can revolutionize their industry and further engage their members.”</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; \">“Delivering personalization at scale is the holy grail when it comes to how fitness companies engage with members,” said Dave Welch, vice president, Microsoft Solutions, Adobe. “24 Hour Fitness is able to achieve precisely this by harnessing the unique advantages of Adobe and Microsoft’s joint solutions. This can be a game-changer that truly transforms the member experience.”</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>\r\n<p style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \"><span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">At Adobe Summit 2018 last month, Microsoft and Adobe outlined new native technology integrations between Adobe Experience Manager and Microsoft Azure, Adobe Campaign and Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Adobe Analytics and Microsoft Power BI. The companies together serve more than 60 global brands today, empowering enterprises to compile customer insights, creating a single view of the customer that can be used to personalize experiences across marketing touchpoints. More information on these joint solutions can be found here.</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \"><br /></span>","alias":"adobe-experience-cloud-microsoft-dynamics-365-for-24-hour-fitness","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement","keywords":"Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Customer Engagement, Customer, Fitness, custom workouts, at-home programming, progress, goal tracking, class schedules, mobile push notification, SMS communication","description":"<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) on Wednesday announced an agreement with 24 Hour Fitness, one of the nation’s largest privately owned and operated fi","og:title":"Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement","og:description":"<span style=\"font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); \">Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) on Wednesday announced an agreement with 24 Hour Fitness, one of the nation’s largest privately owned and operated fi"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4254,"title":"24 Hour Fitness","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/24_Hour_Fitness.png","alias":"24-hour-fitness","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., we are a leading fitness industry pioneer with nearly four million members in more than 400 clubs across the U.S. For more than 30 years, we’ve held fast to our mission of helping people improve their lives through fitness.&nbsp;","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.24hourfitness.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"24 Hour Fitness","keywords":"than, fitness, more, years, we’ve, held, fast, across","description":"Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., we are a leading fitness industry pioneer with nearly four million members in more than 400 clubs across the U.S. For more than 30 years, we’ve held fast to our mission of helping people improve their lives through fitness.&","og:title":"24 Hour Fitness","og:description":"Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., we are a leading fitness industry pioneer with nearly four million members in more than 400 clubs across the U.S. For more than 30 years, we’ve held fast to our mission of helping people improve their lives through fitness.&","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/24_Hour_Fitness.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":8760,"title":"Hidden supplier","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/znachok_postavshchik.jpg","alias":"skrytyi-postavshchik","address":"","roles":[],"description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":76,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Hidden supplier","keywords":"","description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","og:title":"Hidden supplier","og:description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/znachok_postavshchik.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":181,"title":"Adobe","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/adobe_logo.png","alias":"adobe","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American multinational computer software company. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Adobe has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more recent foray towards rich Internet application software development. It is best known for Photoshop, an image editing software, Adobe Reader, the Portable Document Format (PDF) and Adobe Creative Suite, as well as its successor Adobe Creative Cloud.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":7,"suppliedProductsCount":7,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":6,"b4r":1,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.adobe.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Adobe","keywords":"Adobe, software, Creative, company, best, towards, known, rich","description":"Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American multinational computer software company. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Adobe has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more","og:title":"Adobe","og:description":"Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American multinational computer software company. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Adobe has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/adobe_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},{"id":163,"title":"Microsoft","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/ms_dshchpshch.png","alias":"microsoft","address":"Microsoft","roles":[],"description":"Microsoft Corporation is an multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup. As of 2011, it was the world's largest software maker by revenue, and one of the world's most valuable companies.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":39,"suppliedProductsCount":39,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":66,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":272,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"www.microsoft.com","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Microsoft","keywords":"Microsoft, software, world, products, hardware, Xbox, video, game","description":"Microsoft Corporation is an multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software pr","og:title":"Microsoft","og:description":"Microsoft Corporation is an multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software pr","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/ms_dshchpshch.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1568,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Adobe Experience Cloud","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"adobe-experience-cloud","companyTypes":[],"description":"Massive amounts of data, the explosion of different devices and screens, and skyrocketing customer expectations are forcing businesses to completely rethink their approach. This next wave of transformation will be all about experience. To keep customers engaged, leading brands are now reimagining their experiences to drive brand loyalty and growth. Adobe Experience Cloud is your one-stop shop for everything your business needs to deliver these amazing experiences.\r\nAdobe Experience Cloud gives you access to an integrated set of solutions to build campaigns, manage your advertising, and gain deep intelligence about your business. And it’s all unified through powerful core services that give you access to your customer profiles, centralized assets, powerful tagging, and an ecosystem of partners and developers to extend the value of all the solutions. It’s everything you need to orchestrate a great customer experience.\r\nTailored experiences for every industry:\r\n<ul><li>&nbsp;Financial Services</li><li>&nbsp;Government</li><li>&nbsp;High tech</li><li>&nbsp;Manufacturing</li><li>&nbsp;Media &amp; Entertainment</li><li>&nbsp;Retail</li><li>&nbsp;Telecommunications</li><li>&nbsp;Travel &amp; hospitality</li><li>&nbsp;Healthcare</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","shortDescription":"Adobe Experience Cloud gives you access to an integrated set of solutions to build campaigns, manage your advertising, and gain deep intelligence about your business. ","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Digital Marketing with Adobe Marketing Cloud","keywords":" Financial Services, Government, High tech, Manufacturing, Media, Entertainment, Retail, Telecommunications, Travel & hospitality, Healthcare, solutions, campaigns, advertising, intelligence, business, data, customer expectations, experience, customers, engaged, leading, brands, brand loyalty, business\r\n\r\n","description":"Adobe Experience Cloud gives you access to an integrated set of solutions to build campaigns, manage your advertising, and gain deep intelligence about your business. ","og:title":"Digital Marketing with Adobe Marketing Cloud","og:description":"Adobe Experience Cloud gives you access to an integrated set of solutions to build campaigns, manage your advertising, and gain deep intelligence about your business. "},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1568,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":69,"title":"Business Analytics","alias":"business-analytics","description":"Business Analytics is “the study of data through statistical and operations analysis, the formation of predictive models, application of optimization techniques, and the communication of these results to customers, business partners, and college executives.” Business Analytics requires quantitative methods and evidence-based data for business modeling and decision making; as such, Business Analytics requires the use of Big Data.\r\nSAS describes Big Data as “a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis.” What’s important to keep in mind about Big Data is that the amount of data is not as important to an organization as the analytics that accompany it. When companies analyze Big Data, they are using Business Analytics to get the insights required for making better business decisions and strategic moves.\r\nCompanies use Business Analytics (BA) to make data-driven decisions. The insight gained by BA enables these companies to automate and optimize their business processes. In fact, data-driven companies that utilize Business Analytics achieve a competitive advantage because they are able to use the insights to:\r\n<ul><li>Conduct data mining (explore data to find new patterns and relationships)</li><li>Complete statistical analysis and quantitative analysis to explain why certain results occur</li><li>Test previous decisions using A/B testing and multivariate testing</li><li>Make use of predictive modeling and predictive analytics to forecast future results</li></ul>\r\nBusiness Analytics also provides support for companies in the process of making proactive tactical decisions, and BA makes it possible for those companies to automate decision making in order to support real-time responses.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does Business Analytics (BA) mean?</span>\r\nBusiness analytics (BA) refers to all the methods and techniques that are used by an organization to measure performance. Business analytics are made up of statistical methods that can be applied to a specific project, process or product. Business analytics can also be used to evaluate an entire company. Business analytics are performed in order to identify weaknesses in existing processes and highlight meaningful data that will help an organization prepare for future growth and challenges.\r\nThe need for good business analytics has spurred the creation of business analytics software and enterprise platforms that mine an organization’s data in order to automate some of these measures and pick out meaningful insights.\r\nAlthough the term has become a bit of a buzzword, business analytics are a vital part of any business. Business analytics make up a large portion of decision support systems, continuous improvement programs and many of the other techniques used to keep a business competitive. Consequently, accurate business analytics like efficiency measures and capacity utilization rates are the first step to properly implementing these techniques.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Business_Analytics.png"},{"id":146,"title":"ECM - Enterprise Content Management","alias":"ecm-enterprise-content-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise content management (ECM)</span> extends the concept of content management by adding a time line for each content item and possibly enforcing processes for the creation, approval and distribution of them. Systems that implement ECM generally provide a secure repository for managed items, be they analog or digital, that indexes them. They also include one or more methods for importing content to bring new items under management and several presentation methods to make items available for use. The key feature of ECM that distinguishes it from &quot;simple&quot; content management is that an ECM is at least cognizant of the processes and procedures of the enterprise it is created for, and as such is particular to it. \r\nECM as an umbrella term covers enterprise document management system, Web content management, search, collaboration, records management, digital asset management (DAM), workflow management, capture and scanning. ECM is primarily aimed at managing the life-cycle of information from initial publication or creation all the way through archival and eventual disposal. ECM enterprise content management software is delivered in four ways:\r\n- on-premises software (installed on an organization's own network)\r\n- software as a service (SaaS) (Web access to information that is stored on a software manufacturer's system)\r\n- a hybrid composed of both on-premises and SaaS components\r\n- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (which refers to online services that abstract the user from the details of infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc.)\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">ECM provides</span> a centralized platform where content can be held and disseminated in a manner that meets regulatory compliance requirements and risk management guidelines. An ECM achieves the latter two benefits by eliminating ad hoc processes that can expose an enterprise to regulatory compliance risks and other potential problems. Full-function enterprise content management solutions include features such as content taxonomies, auditing capabilities, check-in/check-out and other workflow controls and security mechanisms.\r\nAn <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">effective ECM </span>can streamline access and business processes, eliminate bottlenecks by reducing storage, as well as paper and mailing needs, optimize security, maintain integrity and minimize overhead. All of these can lead to increased productivity. The first step is to document all the types of content that the organization deals with, the business processes its part of and who handles the content. \r\nECM software can be used to identify duplicate and near-duplicate content, allowing the organization to keep a few copies of a particular piece of content instead of hundreds. The best ECM software extends the reach of traditional ECM capabilities into previously isolated applications and information silos, such as ERP, CRM, SCM and HCM, to take the shape of a content services platform. Information can now flow across the enterprise to the people and processes—when, where and in whatever context it is needed.\r\nTo understand more specific ways it could help your company, consider these <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">three types of ECM</span> software solutions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web Content Management.</span> WCM puts control over the look and feel of a website in the hands of specific, key people. It’s used by organizations with relatively complex websites and strict brand guidelines, giving those key personnel the means to easily update, modify and publish content for the sites while adhering to the guidelines.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Collaborative Content Management.</span> CCM enables multiple people to access and modify a single document, such as a legal document. It’s ideal for organizations that must manage projects involving multiple stakeholders. CCM makes it easy to work together while keeping track of, and updating, the most-current version of the document.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Transactional Content Management.</span> This type of ECM document management is designed for organizations that repeatedly use varied types of content, including records, paper documents, and digital files. TCM solutions capture content from various channels, classify it, store it, create an automated workflow to ensure the right user receives the content at the right time, and even deletes documents when they’re no longer needed, all while working seamlessly with other apps and databases, ensuring all of that content is available throughout the company.<br /><br /><br />\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?</span></h1>\r\nEnterprise Content Management is the organization of structured and unstructured documents using technology and software that allows your organization to “work smarter, not harder.” As technology advanced and everything became digital, organizations needed a new way to store and access files, leading to the creation of ECM. \r\nECM document management system consists of four main points:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Capture:</span> Capturing information from hardcopy documents or online forms and transferring it into the system</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Manage:</span> Managing the captured data in a structured format that allows quick and easy retrieval</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Storing:</span> Securely storing files in a central repository that can be accessed from multiple locations</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Delivery:</span> Implementation of business process workflows to automatically move documents from one step to the next</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Five ways ECM software can benefit your organization</span></h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Basic file sharing and library services.</span> At its core, enterprise document management software begins with basic file sharing and library services managed within a networked repository. Individuals and groups with predefined access rights and permissions can access the repository and then create, read, update and delete files stored within it.\r\nMany ECM applications support Content Management Interoperability Services, an industry standard that allows different vendors' products to interoperate; this is an essential capability within large enterprises that maintain content management tools from multiple vendors.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Content governance, compliance and records management.</span> For many organizations, managing business documents or other content types is a critical use case for ECM. Companies subject to compliance or other industry regulations need document content management system software to capture, manage, archive and ultimately dispose of files after a predefined period.\r\nECM can ensure that only individuals with predefined permissions - determined by access controls - can update or view documents stored within a repository. An organization can thus manage document modification.\r\nIn addition, enterprise content management tools can log all actions, providing an organization with the capabilities to maintain an auditable record of all the changes to documents within the repository.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process management.</span> Companies also use ECM to establish workflows that span departments and geographies to support extended enterprise and inter-enterprise business processes.\r\nMost ECM software provides tools to help both technical and non-technical business users define business processes. Most applications provide audit controls to track each step of the process and analytic capabilities to help identify inefficiencies and streamline business procedures.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Content repositories linked to other enterprise applications.</span> Some companies use electronic content management software as a repository for documents created by other enterprise applications, including CRM, ERP, HR and financial systems. These enterprise systems can seamlessly access, view or modify content managed by the ECM.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enabling mobile and remote workforces.</span> Content management tools often include functionality to allow remote workers to access content from mobile devices. This is an increasingly important feature for many companies.\r\nMobile capabilities also enable new kinds of data capture and presentation functionalities. By combining content management capabilities with other data, for example, a political canvasser can use a tablet to enter new information about a political donor without having to start from scratch, as some of that information is already stored in a content management system. \r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ECM_-_Enterprise_Content_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":1575,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Microsoft Dynamics 365","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"microsoft-dynamics-365","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Sales</span></p>\r\n<p>Empower sellers with insights to personalize relationships, predict customer needs, and increase sales.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Retail</span></p>\r\n<p>Create personalized shopping experiences that unify digital, in-store, and back office operations.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Customer Service</span></p>\r\n<p>Exceed customer expectations across self and assisted support with empowered agents that deliver personalized experiences.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Field Service</span></p>\r\n<p>Serve customers better through proactive maintenance, predictive scheduling, and first-time fix.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation</span></p>\r\n<p>Deliver customer projects on-time, within budget, and become a trusted advisor.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations</span></p>\r\n<p>Modernize your business operations across finance, manufacturing, and supply chain to drive new growth.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Talent</span></p>\r\n<p>Attract the right people and seamlessly onboard, engage, and grow your talent.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Adobe Marketing Cloud</span></p>\r\n<p>Deliver personalized experiences throughout your marketing and sales engagements at scale with Dynamics 365 and Adobe.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Marketing</span></p>\r\n<p>Increase demand by automating tasks from multi-channel campaigns to events with an application built on the same platform as Dynamics 365 for Sales.</p>\r\n","shortDescription":"Microsoft Dynamics 365 is unified CRM and ERP capabilities — modern, intelligent cloud applications that help move your business forward.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":19,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Microsoft Dynamics 365","keywords":"","description":"\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Sales</span></p>\r\n<p>Empower sellers with insights to personalize relationships, predict customer needs, and increase sales.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Retail</span></p>\r\n<p>","og:title":"Microsoft Dynamics 365","og:description":"\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Sales</span></p>\r\n<p>Empower sellers with insights to personalize relationships, predict customer needs, and increase sales.</p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dynamics 365 for Retail</span></p>\r\n<p>"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1576,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"planned","statusLabel":"Planned","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":69,"title":"Business Analytics","alias":"business-analytics","description":"Business Analytics is “the study of data through statistical and operations analysis, the formation of predictive models, application of optimization techniques, and the communication of these results to customers, business partners, and college executives.” Business Analytics requires quantitative methods and evidence-based data for business modeling and decision making; as such, Business Analytics requires the use of Big Data.\r\nSAS describes Big Data as “a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis.” What’s important to keep in mind about Big Data is that the amount of data is not as important to an organization as the analytics that accompany it. When companies analyze Big Data, they are using Business Analytics to get the insights required for making better business decisions and strategic moves.\r\nCompanies use Business Analytics (BA) to make data-driven decisions. The insight gained by BA enables these companies to automate and optimize their business processes. In fact, data-driven companies that utilize Business Analytics achieve a competitive advantage because they are able to use the insights to:\r\n<ul><li>Conduct data mining (explore data to find new patterns and relationships)</li><li>Complete statistical analysis and quantitative analysis to explain why certain results occur</li><li>Test previous decisions using A/B testing and multivariate testing</li><li>Make use of predictive modeling and predictive analytics to forecast future results</li></ul>\r\nBusiness Analytics also provides support for companies in the process of making proactive tactical decisions, and BA makes it possible for those companies to automate decision making in order to support real-time responses.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does Business Analytics (BA) mean?</span>\r\nBusiness analytics (BA) refers to all the methods and techniques that are used by an organization to measure performance. Business analytics are made up of statistical methods that can be applied to a specific project, process or product. Business analytics can also be used to evaluate an entire company. Business analytics are performed in order to identify weaknesses in existing processes and highlight meaningful data that will help an organization prepare for future growth and challenges.\r\nThe need for good business analytics has spurred the creation of business analytics software and enterprise platforms that mine an organization’s data in order to automate some of these measures and pick out meaningful insights.\r\nAlthough the term has become a bit of a buzzword, business analytics are a vital part of any business. Business analytics make up a large portion of decision support systems, continuous improvement programs and many of the other techniques used to keep a business competitive. Consequently, accurate business analytics like efficiency measures and capacity utilization rates are the first step to properly implementing these techniques.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Business_Analytics.png"},{"id":146,"title":"ECM - Enterprise Content Management","alias":"ecm-enterprise-content-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise content management (ECM)</span> extends the concept of content management by adding a time line for each content item and possibly enforcing processes for the creation, approval and distribution of them. Systems that implement ECM generally provide a secure repository for managed items, be they analog or digital, that indexes them. They also include one or more methods for importing content to bring new items under management and several presentation methods to make items available for use. The key feature of ECM that distinguishes it from &quot;simple&quot; content management is that an ECM is at least cognizant of the processes and procedures of the enterprise it is created for, and as such is particular to it. \r\nECM as an umbrella term covers enterprise document management system, Web content management, search, collaboration, records management, digital asset management (DAM), workflow management, capture and scanning. ECM is primarily aimed at managing the life-cycle of information from initial publication or creation all the way through archival and eventual disposal. ECM enterprise content management software is delivered in four ways:\r\n- on-premises software (installed on an organization's own network)\r\n- software as a service (SaaS) (Web access to information that is stored on a software manufacturer's system)\r\n- a hybrid composed of both on-premises and SaaS components\r\n- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (which refers to online services that abstract the user from the details of infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc.)\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">ECM provides</span> a centralized platform where content can be held and disseminated in a manner that meets regulatory compliance requirements and risk management guidelines. An ECM achieves the latter two benefits by eliminating ad hoc processes that can expose an enterprise to regulatory compliance risks and other potential problems. Full-function enterprise content management solutions include features such as content taxonomies, auditing capabilities, check-in/check-out and other workflow controls and security mechanisms.\r\nAn <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">effective ECM </span>can streamline access and business processes, eliminate bottlenecks by reducing storage, as well as paper and mailing needs, optimize security, maintain integrity and minimize overhead. All of these can lead to increased productivity. The first step is to document all the types of content that the organization deals with, the business processes its part of and who handles the content. \r\nECM software can be used to identify duplicate and near-duplicate content, allowing the organization to keep a few copies of a particular piece of content instead of hundreds. The best ECM software extends the reach of traditional ECM capabilities into previously isolated applications and information silos, such as ERP, CRM, SCM and HCM, to take the shape of a content services platform. Information can now flow across the enterprise to the people and processes—when, where and in whatever context it is needed.\r\nTo understand more specific ways it could help your company, consider these <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">three types of ECM</span> software solutions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web Content Management.</span> WCM puts control over the look and feel of a website in the hands of specific, key people. It’s used by organizations with relatively complex websites and strict brand guidelines, giving those key personnel the means to easily update, modify and publish content for the sites while adhering to the guidelines.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Collaborative Content Management.</span> CCM enables multiple people to access and modify a single document, such as a legal document. It’s ideal for organizations that must manage projects involving multiple stakeholders. CCM makes it easy to work together while keeping track of, and updating, the most-current version of the document.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Transactional Content Management.</span> This type of ECM document management is designed for organizations that repeatedly use varied types of content, including records, paper documents, and digital files. TCM solutions capture content from various channels, classify it, store it, create an automated workflow to ensure the right user receives the content at the right time, and even deletes documents when they’re no longer needed, all while working seamlessly with other apps and databases, ensuring all of that content is available throughout the company.<br /><br /><br />\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?</span></h1>\r\nEnterprise Content Management is the organization of structured and unstructured documents using technology and software that allows your organization to “work smarter, not harder.” As technology advanced and everything became digital, organizations needed a new way to store and access files, leading to the creation of ECM. \r\nECM document management system consists of four main points:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Capture:</span> Capturing information from hardcopy documents or online forms and transferring it into the system</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Manage:</span> Managing the captured data in a structured format that allows quick and easy retrieval</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Storing:</span> Securely storing files in a central repository that can be accessed from multiple locations</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Delivery:</span> Implementation of business process workflows to automatically move documents from one step to the next</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Five ways ECM software can benefit your organization</span></h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Basic file sharing and library services.</span> At its core, enterprise document management software begins with basic file sharing and library services managed within a networked repository. Individuals and groups with predefined access rights and permissions can access the repository and then create, read, update and delete files stored within it.\r\nMany ECM applications support Content Management Interoperability Services, an industry standard that allows different vendors' products to interoperate; this is an essential capability within large enterprises that maintain content management tools from multiple vendors.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Content governance, compliance and records management.</span> For many organizations, managing business documents or other content types is a critical use case for ECM. Companies subject to compliance or other industry regulations need document content management system software to capture, manage, archive and ultimately dispose of files after a predefined period.\r\nECM can ensure that only individuals with predefined permissions - determined by access controls - can update or view documents stored within a repository. An organization can thus manage document modification.\r\nIn addition, enterprise content management tools can log all actions, providing an organization with the capabilities to maintain an auditable record of all the changes to documents within the repository.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process management.</span> Companies also use ECM to establish workflows that span departments and geographies to support extended enterprise and inter-enterprise business processes.\r\nMost ECM software provides tools to help both technical and non-technical business users define business processes. Most applications provide audit controls to track each step of the process and analytic capabilities to help identify inefficiencies and streamline business procedures.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Content repositories linked to other enterprise applications.</span> Some companies use electronic content management software as a repository for documents created by other enterprise applications, including CRM, ERP, HR and financial systems. These enterprise systems can seamlessly access, view or modify content managed by the ECM.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enabling mobile and remote workforces.</span> Content management tools often include functionality to allow remote workers to access content from mobile devices. This is an increasingly important feature for many companies.\r\nMobile capabilities also enable new kinds of data capture and presentation functionalities. By combining content management capabilities with other data, for example, a political canvasser can use a tablet to enter new information about a political donor without having to start from scratch, as some of that information is already stored in a content management system. \r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/ECM_-_Enterprise_Content_Management.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"http://news.adobe.com/press-release/experience-cloud/microsoft-dynamics-365-and-adobe-experience-cloud-selected-24-hour","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":637,"title":"Amazon Connect for bank","description":"Although the company’s previous-generation contact-center solution had served it well, Capital One wanted to further speed innovation by replacing it with a system that would integrate more easily with other company systems and support simpler, faster change processes. Sondhi’s team was researching possible candidates when they learned of an option, Amazon Connect, that would perfectly fit the company’s long-term goals of reducing its datacenter footprint, increasing its use of microservices, and building a more open, integrated architecture.\r\nAmazon Connect offers crystal-clear sound quality and lets even nontechnical users easily design flows, manage agents, analyze performance metrics, and serve intuitive interactive voice response (IVR) menus. It’s also simple to integrate Amazon Connect with other tools and services, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to store call recordings, Amazon Kinesis to stream metrics to data warehousing solutions like Amazon Redshift, and AWS Lambda to interact with backend systems and APIs. Speech-to-text transcription makes call content available for search and analysis by natural-language-processing tools. With no per-seat cost, Capital One only pays for Amazon Connect when its associates are taking calls.\r\nAlthough Sondhi was accustomed to easy deployments on AWS, he was impressed by how simple and fast it was to first pilot and then roll out Amazon Connect. \r\n<blockquote>&quot;In a proof-of-concept phase that lasted about three business days, I was able to bring Amazon Connect up, take a simple call flow, and seamlessly integrate with our CRM system,&quot; says Sondhi. &quot;Once we started putting Amazon Connect into production, we trained hundreds of associates in just 30 minutes each and achieved 100 percent adoption for our direct bank and fraud operations in just five months. That’s more than twice as fast as prior migrations of this magnitude have taken.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote>","alias":"amazon-connect-for-bank","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Connect for bank","keywords":"","description":"Although the company’s previous-generation contact-center solution had served it well, Capital One wanted to further speed innovation by replacing it with a system that would integrate more easily with other company systems and support simpler, faster change p","og:title":"Amazon Connect for bank","og:description":"Although the company’s previous-generation contact-center solution had served it well, Capital One wanted to further speed innovation by replacing it with a system that would integrate more easily with other company systems and support simpler, faster change p"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":5056,"title":"Capital One (User)","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Capital_One_01.png","alias":"capital-one","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Capital One Financial Corporation is a bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking and savings accounts headquartered in Capital One Tower in McLean, Virginia.\r\nCapital One is ranked 10th on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets. The bank has 755 branches including 30 café style locations and 2,000 ATMs. It is ranked 101st on the Fortune 500, 17th on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and conducts business in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The company helped pioneer the mass marketing of credit cards in the 1990s. In 2016, it was the 5th largest credit card issuer by purchase volume, after American Express, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup.<br />With a market share of 5%, Capital One is also the 2nd largest car finance bank in the United States, after Ally Financial.<br />In the fourth quarter of 2018, 75% of the company's revenues were from credit cards, 14% was from consumer banking, and 11% was from commercial banking. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.capitalone.com","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Capital One (User)","keywords":"","description":"Capital One Financial Corporation is a bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking and savings accounts headquartered in Capital One Tower in McLean, Virginia.\r\nCapital One is ranked 10th on the list of largest banks in the United St","og:title":"Capital One (User)","og:description":"Capital One Financial Corporation is a bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking and savings accounts headquartered in Capital One Tower in McLean, Virginia.\r\nCapital One is ranked 10th on the list of largest banks in the United St","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Capital_One_01.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1234,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Amazon Connect","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":3,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"amazon-connect","companyTypes":[],"description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world to power millions of customer conversations. The self-service graphical interface in Amazon Connect makes it easy for non-technical users to design contact flows, manage agents, and track performance metrics – no specialized skills required. There are no up-front payments or long-term commitments and no infrastructure to manage with Amazon Connect; customers pay by the minute for Amazon Connect usage plus any associated telephony services. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Amazon Connect Benefits</span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easy to set up and manage</span> \r\nSetting up Amazon Connect is easy. With only a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, agents can begin taking calls within minutes. The drag and drop Contact Flow Editor allows you to create contact flows that define effective and efficient customer interactions without any coding. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scalable and elastic</span> \r\nThere is no infrastructure to deploy or manage, so you can scale your Amazon Connect contact center up or down, onboarding up to tens of thousands of agents in response to business cycles and paying only for the time callers are interacting with Amazon Connect plus any associated telephony charges. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span> \r\nAs an on-demand service, you pay for Amazon Connect usage by the minute with no long-term commitments or upfront charges. There is no minimum monthly fee. You are charged based on the number of minutes you use Amazon Connect to engage with your end customers, at the specified per minute rate. Pricing is not based on capacity, agent seats, or maintenance. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliable</span> \r\nAmazon Connect runs on Amazon Web Services proven infrastructure operating 42 Availability Zones within 16 geographic regions around the world. This makes Amazon Connect more highly available, fault tolerant and scalable than would be possible if a contact center solution was run from a single data center. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Open platform</span> \r\nAmazon Connect is an open platform so it is easy to integrate with other systems such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions or the AWS platform. For example, you can use AWS Lambda to run code for a serverless application or backend service to build contact flow experiences that adapt to your customer needs in real time. And Amazon S3 can be used to store call recordings, where you can control access and lifecycle of the data.\r\n","shortDescription":"Amazon Connect - AWS Cloud. Simple to use, cloud-based contact center","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Connect","keywords":"Amazon, Connect, contact, customer, with, service, center, manage","description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates ","og:title":"Amazon Connect","og:description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates "},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1234,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":262,"title":"Support Customers"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/capital-one-amazon-connect/","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":635,"title":"Amazon Connect for IT company","description":"Rackspace uses its results-obsessed customer support to maintain a position as one of the world’s largest IT managed-services providers. However, its telephony solution was getting in the way. \r\n<blockquote>“The contact center has always been the lifeblood of customer support, which is our key differentiator,” says Kerry Bowley, product manager at Rackspace. “When we tried to modernize on top of our legacy system, we hit roadblock after roadblock.”</blockquote>\r\n<blockquote>Franco Lazzarino, software developer at Rackspace, concurs: “Our team’s development skillset was not highly aligned with the telecom niche. Even basic call control and monitoring required significant engineering effort.”</blockquote>\r\nThen, Rackspace discovered Amazon Connect—the self-service, cloud-based contact center service built on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world.&nbsp;&nbsp;","alias":"amazon-connect-for-it-company","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Connect for IT company","keywords":"","description":"Rackspace uses its results-obsessed customer support to maintain a position as one of the world’s largest IT managed-services providers. However, its telephony solution was getting in the way. \r\n<blockquote>“The contact center has always been the lifeblood of ","og:title":"Amazon Connect for IT company","og:description":"Rackspace uses its results-obsessed customer support to maintain a position as one of the world’s largest IT managed-services providers. However, its telephony solution was getting in the way. \r\n<blockquote>“The contact center has always been the lifeblood of "},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":5055,"title":"Rackspace","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Rackspace_logo.jpg","alias":"rackspace","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Since 1998, Rackspace has delivered enterprise-class hosting solutions and support for businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. Its proactive, results-obsessed approach to serving customers has been its cornerstone since its founding. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.rackspace.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Rackspace","keywords":"","description":"Since 1998, Rackspace has delivered enterprise-class hosting solutions and support for businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. Its proactive, results-obsessed approach to serving customers has been its cornerstone since its founding. ","og:title":"Rackspace","og:description":"Since 1998, Rackspace has delivered enterprise-class hosting solutions and support for businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world. Its proactive, results-obsessed approach to serving customers has been its cornerstone since its founding. ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Rackspace_logo.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1234,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Amazon Connect","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":3,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"amazon-connect","companyTypes":[],"description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world to power millions of customer conversations. The self-service graphical interface in Amazon Connect makes it easy for non-technical users to design contact flows, manage agents, and track performance metrics – no specialized skills required. There are no up-front payments or long-term commitments and no infrastructure to manage with Amazon Connect; customers pay by the minute for Amazon Connect usage plus any associated telephony services. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Amazon Connect Benefits</span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easy to set up and manage</span> \r\nSetting up Amazon Connect is easy. With only a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, agents can begin taking calls within minutes. The drag and drop Contact Flow Editor allows you to create contact flows that define effective and efficient customer interactions without any coding. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scalable and elastic</span> \r\nThere is no infrastructure to deploy or manage, so you can scale your Amazon Connect contact center up or down, onboarding up to tens of thousands of agents in response to business cycles and paying only for the time callers are interacting with Amazon Connect plus any associated telephony charges. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span> \r\nAs an on-demand service, you pay for Amazon Connect usage by the minute with no long-term commitments or upfront charges. There is no minimum monthly fee. You are charged based on the number of minutes you use Amazon Connect to engage with your end customers, at the specified per minute rate. Pricing is not based on capacity, agent seats, or maintenance. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliable</span> \r\nAmazon Connect runs on Amazon Web Services proven infrastructure operating 42 Availability Zones within 16 geographic regions around the world. This makes Amazon Connect more highly available, fault tolerant and scalable than would be possible if a contact center solution was run from a single data center. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Open platform</span> \r\nAmazon Connect is an open platform so it is easy to integrate with other systems such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions or the AWS platform. For example, you can use AWS Lambda to run code for a serverless application or backend service to build contact flow experiences that adapt to your customer needs in real time. And Amazon S3 can be used to store call recordings, where you can control access and lifecycle of the data.\r\n","shortDescription":"Amazon Connect - AWS Cloud. Simple to use, cloud-based contact center","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Connect","keywords":"Amazon, Connect, contact, customer, with, service, center, manage","description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates ","og:title":"Amazon Connect","og:description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates "},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1234,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":176,"title":"No unified address book"},{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/rackspace/","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":633,"title":"Amazon Connect for tourism","description":"The company’s contact center is the heart of its guest services operation, but it’s traditional phone-based solution was not able to meet its growing needs. \r\n<blockquote>“We were locked into proprietary hardware and paying for an expensive service that was not particularly robust,” says Tim Choate, CEO and founder of RedAwning. “We didn’t have the features such as call monitoring and tracking that we needed to drive efficiency, and our agents were tied down to a very limited number of locations.”</blockquote>\r\nThose are a few of the reasons that RedAwning moved to Amazon Connect, a self-service, contact center service that runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world to power millions of customer conversations, Amazon Connect enables RedAwning to deliver better customer service at lower cost\r\nUsing Amazon Connect, RedAwning has gained major new capabilities—including easy-to-deploy virtual agents powered by artificial intelligence—while cutting costs by 80 percent compared to its previous contact center solution. RedAwning pays by the minute for usage and has no infrastructure to manage, enabling it to scale without adding staff or incurring capital costs. Given that RedAwning has tripled in size annually since its founding, these benefits are critically important to its business success.&nbsp;&nbsp;","alias":"amazon-connect-for-tourism","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Connect for tourism","keywords":"","description":"The company’s contact center is the heart of its guest services operation, but it’s traditional phone-based solution was not able to meet its growing needs. \r\n<blockquote>“We were locked into proprietary hardware and paying for an expensive service that was no","og:title":"Amazon Connect for tourism","og:description":"The company’s contact center is the heart of its guest services operation, but it’s traditional phone-based solution was not able to meet its growing needs. \r\n<blockquote>“We were locked into proprietary hardware and paying for an expensive service that was no"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":5054,"title":"RedAwning","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/RedAwning_logo.png","alias":"redawning","address":"","roles":[],"description":"RedAwning is the world's largest branded collection of vacation properties offering a comprehensive layer of services and support with every stay including 24/7 guest and property manager support services, complete marketing, distribution, and reservations management solutions, and a full range of additional technology and service innovations. With over 140,000 unique properties in over 10,000 destinations, RedAwning continues to expand on being the broadest single point of access to the largest network in the world for alternative lodging and is the leading supplier of vacation rentals to every major online travel booking website including Booking.com, Expedia, HomeAway/VRBO, Flipkey/TripAdvisor, and Airbnb. RedAwning also operates an exclusive vacation property booking websites, including TravelPro Rentals, and RedAwning.com.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.redawning.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"RedAwning","keywords":"","description":"RedAwning is the world's largest branded collection of vacation properties offering a comprehensive layer of services and support with every stay including 24/7 guest and property manager support services, complete marketing, distribution, and reservations man","og:title":"RedAwning","og:description":"RedAwning is the world's largest branded collection of vacation properties offering a comprehensive layer of services and support with every stay including 24/7 guest and property manager support services, complete marketing, distribution, and reservations man","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/RedAwning_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1234,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Amazon Connect","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":3,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"amazon-connect","companyTypes":[],"description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world to power millions of customer conversations. The self-service graphical interface in Amazon Connect makes it easy for non-technical users to design contact flows, manage agents, and track performance metrics – no specialized skills required. There are no up-front payments or long-term commitments and no infrastructure to manage with Amazon Connect; customers pay by the minute for Amazon Connect usage plus any associated telephony services. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Amazon Connect Benefits</span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easy to set up and manage</span> \r\nSetting up Amazon Connect is easy. With only a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, agents can begin taking calls within minutes. The drag and drop Contact Flow Editor allows you to create contact flows that define effective and efficient customer interactions without any coding. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scalable and elastic</span> \r\nThere is no infrastructure to deploy or manage, so you can scale your Amazon Connect contact center up or down, onboarding up to tens of thousands of agents in response to business cycles and paying only for the time callers are interacting with Amazon Connect plus any associated telephony charges. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span> \r\nAs an on-demand service, you pay for Amazon Connect usage by the minute with no long-term commitments or upfront charges. There is no minimum monthly fee. You are charged based on the number of minutes you use Amazon Connect to engage with your end customers, at the specified per minute rate. Pricing is not based on capacity, agent seats, or maintenance. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliable</span> \r\nAmazon Connect runs on Amazon Web Services proven infrastructure operating 42 Availability Zones within 16 geographic regions around the world. This makes Amazon Connect more highly available, fault tolerant and scalable than would be possible if a contact center solution was run from a single data center. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Open platform</span> \r\nAmazon Connect is an open platform so it is easy to integrate with other systems such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions or the AWS platform. For example, you can use AWS Lambda to run code for a serverless application or backend service to build contact flow experiences that adapt to your customer needs in real time. And Amazon S3 can be used to store call recordings, where you can control access and lifecycle of the data.\r\n","shortDescription":"Amazon Connect - AWS Cloud. Simple to use, cloud-based contact center","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Amazon Connect","keywords":"Amazon, Connect, contact, customer, with, service, center, manage","description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates ","og:title":"Amazon Connect","og:description":"Amazon Connect is a self-service, cloud-based contact center service that makes it easy for any business to deliver better customer service at lower cost. Amazon Connect is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates "},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1234,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/red-awning/","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":326,"title":"amoCRM for media","description":"Description is not ready yet","alias":"amocrm-for-media","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"amoCRM for media","keywords":"","description":"Description is not ready yet","og:title":"amoCRM for media","og:description":"Description is not ready yet"},"deal_info":"","user":{},"supplier":{},"vendors":[{"id":4017,"title":"QSOFT","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/amoCRM.png","alias":"qsoft","address":"","roles":[],"description":"<span style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \">QSOFT</span>&nbsp;is a developer of online CRM-system.&nbsp;<span style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \">QSOFT</span>&nbsp;has two offices - in Moscow and San Francisco (California, USA). ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":1,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.amocrm.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"QSOFT","keywords":"AmoCRM, Moscow, California, Francisco, offices, developer, online, amoCRM","description":"<span style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \">QSOFT</span>&nbsp;is a developer of online CRM-system.&nbsp;<span style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \">QSOFT</span>&nbsp;has two offices - in Moscow and San Francisco (California, USA). ","og:title":"QSOFT","og:description":"<span style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \">QSOFT</span>&nbsp;is a developer of online CRM-system.&nbsp;<span style=\"background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); \">QSOFT</span>&nbsp;has two offices - in Moscow and San Francisco (California, USA). ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/amoCRM.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1112,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"amoCRM","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.70","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"amocrm","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easy-To-Love Interface - NO TRAINING WHEELS REQUIRED</span> Get your whole team on board from day one with the most intuitive CRM on the market. Engineered with the user in mind, amoCRM delivers you easy-to-understand functionality in a sleek design. To save your salespeople time, all important operations can be carried out in every screen, minimizing the need to click around. It’s also optimized for iPad — with an interface like this, there’s a reason amoCRM is easy to fall in love with. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead Grabbing - NEVER MISS A PROSPECT</span> Are you catching all the leads you’re generating? amoCRM grabs every single lead from across all your channels for never-fail lead capture that’s automatic. No matter what the first touch point is — web form, email, phone, social media, or live chat — every prospect is effectively added to the CRM. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile CRM - SCAN A CARD, LOG A LEAD INSTANTLY</span> Wherever you go, you’ve got the power of amoCRM behind you. Equipped with a business card scanner, our full-featured mobile app lets your team add leads like magic. Step into your next meeting completely prepared, and sync the results of each deal before the ink even dries. Mobile CRM gives you the freedom to roam, while keeping you connected. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Two-Way Email Sync - ALL EMAILS SYNCED, PERIOD</span> While other CRMs are stingy about email, amoCRM gives all users full email integration from the outset. That means you can connect any email address from any provider and use any app you want, and every message — sent and received — will be synced automatically and attached to the client’s amoCRM profile. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Built-In VoIP - CLICK TO CALL, NO DEVICE NEEDED</span> amoCRM offers a complete calling solution that's built right into your CRM. With one click, you can dial directly from the client’s profile with the crucial details right in front of you. And don’t worry if you forgot to jot something down during your talk — all phone calls are recorded and logged right in the event feed. amoCRM also keeps call statistics, so you can track your sales department’s calling habits. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Collaboration &amp; Messaging - BUILT-IN TEAM MESSAGING</span> Our built-in messenger lets your team communicate lightning-fast right in the interface, so there’s no more switching from one app to another just to send a message. And don’t worry if you’re away from your desk — alerts are sent to both the amoCRM notification center and to your phone. Now you’re always connected — never again miss a message from your teammates. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pipeline Automation - ENGAGE LEADS WITH DIGITAL ADS</span> amoCRM’s Digital Pipeline fully automates your lead nurture and follow-up sequences, sending emails and displaying targeted digital ads to engage prospects and keep them moving forward. Leads are guided effortlessly through your sales flow, so that when they’re passed to your salespeople, it’s a slam dunk. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Recurring Sales - TRACK CUSTOMERS ON A RENEWAL LOOP</span> In one screen, the customer pipeline delivers a bird’s eye view of your whole buying cycle in action. You can pinpoint the location of every single customer or see where clients are churning, and then take the right steps to get customers on a renewal loop. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">API &amp; Extensions - CUSTOMIZE AMOCRM TO FIT YOUR NEEDS</span> amoCRM is designed to play well with other pieces of software, so you can customize your CRM no matter what your level of technical knowledge is. Dozens of ready made extensions are available that you can get up and running right away. Or for those who prefer to build amoCRM into a completely tailormade solution, there’s also an open API for developers that’s absolutely free.\r\n","shortDescription":"amoCRM is an online CRM","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"amoCRM","keywords":"your, amoCRM, from, with, right, every, email, message","description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easy-To-Love Interface - NO TRAINING WHEELS REQUIRED</span> Get your whole team on board from day one with the most intuitive CRM on the market. Engineered with the user in mind, amoCRM delivers you easy-to-understand functio","og:title":"amoCRM","og:description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easy-To-Love Interface - NO TRAINING WHEELS REQUIRED</span> Get your whole team on board from day one with the most intuitive CRM on the market. Engineered with the user in mind, amoCRM delivers you easy-to-understand functio"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1112,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[{"id":180,"title":"Russia","name":"RUS"}],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":356,"title":"High costs of routine operations"},{"id":370,"title":"No automated business processes"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"http://www.amocrm.com.ua/cases/vedomosti","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":170,"title":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager, Avaya Call Management System (CMS), Avaya Aura® Experience Portal, Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel for Caesar Satellite","description":"In 2016, Caesar Satellite prevented over 30,000 robberies with approximately 25,000 lawbreakers arrested.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits</span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Increased Productivity</li><li>Improved Customer Service</li></ul>\r\nCAESAR SATELLITE SECURES AVAYA SOLUTIONS FOR CONTACT CENTER UPGRADE\r\nThe Avaya Aura® Platform facilitates the continuity of the company’s business with unified communications including disaster recovery capabilities.\r\n\r\nSecurity is one of the business areas which demand the strictest requirements for proper functioning of IT-systems. Promptness of data processing and response to emerging hazards is the key efficiency indicator of security systems for real estate and automobiles. Caesar Satellite protects hundreds of office premises, apartments, country houses and automobiles. Along with monitoring centers providing information 24/7, the contact center is another crucial element in ensuring reliable and efficient protection of the client's property. It operates 24 hours a day in all time zones and promptly handles alarm signals to prevent violations all over Russia.\r\n\r\nThe continuous growth of demand on the infrastructure load as well as the desire for service quality improvements, required enhancing the contact center performance and efficiency.\r\n\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CHALLENGES</span>\r\nLack of resilience, risk of downtime\r\nLarge volume of calls that need to be addressed immediately\r\n24/7/365 system with periods of heavy call volumes and alarm notifications\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">VALUE CREATED</span>\r\nAvaya solutions formed the basis for a high-performance contact center capable of serving over 135,000 clients with disaster recovery capabilities\r\nOperating 24/7, the contact center is now capable of processing over 14,000 calls and alarms from anywhere in Russia every day\r\nThe processes have been tuned to ensure immediate response to all calls during peak loads, in case of black outs and other emergencies\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Main Business Tasks</span>\r\nCaesar Satellite considers immediate processing all calls to be crucial for its success. This process directly depends on the fault-tolerant service structure, which is the cornerstone of business reliability and continuity. In order to create a new contact center meeting the defined performance and efficiency requirements, the company needed to solve the following tasks:\r\n\r\n<ul><li>upgrade the existing IT-infrastructure by implementing cutting-edge software</li><li>improve the performance of the remote customer service infrastructure</li><li>ensure disaster recovery of the contact center</li><li>integrate the new contact center with the client's existing systems</li><li>make working conditions more comfortable for the staff</li><li>develop and implement the client's own software tailored to business specific needs</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Avaya?</span>\r\nThe solution provider for the new contact center was selected based on such criteria as cost-effectiveness including cost of the solution and payback time, the solution’s functionality and reliability and the vendor's experience with similar projects. Avaya has been the leader in the contact center market in Russia for many years and employs a wide network of highly professional partners and integrators. The company has a reputation as a reliable provider of telecommunications equipment for various business areas and non-profit organizations. With its variety of solutions, Avaya is able to build and upgrade telecommunications infrastructures of any complexity. After careful investigation of the Caesar Satellite IT-infrastructure location in Moscow and Khimki town, the following Avaya solutions were chosen:\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Avaya Aura Communication Manager with call distribution software Avaya Aura Call Center Elite became the basis for the contact center providing work places for 200 operators</li><li>Avaya Call Management System was used to build the reporting system</li><li>Interactive voice platform Avaya Aura Experience Portal was implemented as a self-service platform</li><li>Avaya Elite Multichannel was used to create a single route for incoming calls via different channels and to integrate the contact center with existing IT systems.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project Implementation</span>\r\nThe project was implemented in the following stages:\r\n\r\nAssuring trouble-free operation&nbsp; - All components of the contact center were virtualized to ensure their synchronized and uninterrupted function. Backup of the virtualized contact center components, including core equipment, was installed on servers in data-processing centers located in different areas. Local implementation of redundant contact center functions to ensure off-line operation of subsidiaries in case of emergencies.\r\nUpgrade of the existing IT-infrastructure&nbsp; - All outdated components of the existing contact center (call routing and distribution systems, reporting, voice call center management, computer-integrated telephony server etc.) were updated to the latest versions of Avaya software.\r\nIntegration with business systems&nbsp; - The interactive voice response (IVR) system was transferred to the Avaya Experience Portal to ensure single routing of incoming calls and seamless integration with other elements of the contact center. To achieve this goal, the IVR logic was upgraded and integrated with the emergency calls processing system. The new contact center was integrated with the data base of Caesar Satellite, which made it possible to use existing client data without transferring to the new platform. The existing functions, such as automated call distribution, statistics generation, etc. were preserved.\r\nOptimization based on proprietary developments&nbsp; - The integrator developed and implemented their own solutions to improve the client's efficiency: pop-up info cards and a “Conversation template” application which are triggered automatically depending on the type of the customer's call.\r\n&quot;Caesar Satellite serves customers from various regions in Russia. Every year, the rapid response teams of Caesar Satellite respond to an average of 380,000 emergency calls from apartments, cottages and commercial premises. In 2016, we prevented over 30,000 robberies with approximately 25,000 lawbreakers arrested. The contact center is a key component of our business processes: it ensures immediate processing of emergency calls and effective prevention of violations. Taking into account its importance for our business, we entrusted this project to Asteros and made the right choice. Today we are proud owners of the most innovative and efficient contact center in our industry, which is bound to raise Caesar Satellite to a new quality level of customer service,” states Oganez Torosyan, Head of IT-Service Caesar Satellite\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">About Caesar Satellite</span>\r\nCaesar Satellite is the leader in the Russian market of security systems for real estate and automobiles. The operator protects office premises, apartments, country houses and automobiles. The company was founded in 1997 and started as a provider of satellite security systems for automobiles. In the early 2000s, the company began to develop its local networks and soon grew into a major national operator. In 2006, it was certified under ISO 9001 and became the first company in Russia to obtain Thatcham certification. Since 2013, Caesar Satellite has been a member of the GLONASS Non-Profit Partnership.\r\n\r\nCaesar Satellite possesses a reliable monitoring infrastructure processing 5 million signals every year. There are 4 monitoring centers which distribute the operating load in real time and ensure continuous functioning of the system 24/7/365.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SOLUTIONS</span>\r\nAvaya Aura® Communication Manager\r\nAvaya Aura® Call Center Elite\r\nAvaya Aura® Experience Portal\r\nAvaya Elite Multichannel\r\nAvaya Call Management System\r\n\r\nThe rapid response teams of Caesar Satellite respond to an average of 380,000 emergency calls.","alias":"avaya-aurar-communication-manager-avaya-call-management-system-cms-avaya-aurar-experience-portal-avaya-aurar-call-center-elite-multichannel-for-caesar-satellite","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager, Avaya Call Management System (CMS), Avaya Aura® Experience Portal, Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel for Caesar Satellite","keywords":"Avaya, contact, center, Caesar, Satellite, with, calls, business","description":"In 2016, Caesar Satellite prevented over 30,000 robberies with approximately 25,000 lawbreakers arrested.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits</span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Increased Productivity</li><li>Improved Customer Service</li></ul>\r\nCAESAR SATELLITE SECURE","og:title":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager, Avaya Call Management System (CMS), Avaya Aura® Experience Portal, Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel for Caesar Satellite","og:description":"In 2016, Caesar Satellite prevented over 30,000 robberies with approximately 25,000 lawbreakers arrested.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits</span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Increased Productivity</li><li>Improved Customer Service</li></ul>\r\nCAESAR SATELLITE SECURE"},"deal_info":"","user":{},"supplier":{},"vendors":[{"id":2058,"title":"Avaya","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/avaya_logo.png","alias":"avaya","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Avaya is a recognized innovator leading business communications for the digital age. Avaya delivers smart global solutions and technologies for customer and team engagement, unified communications and collaboration, contact center and customer experience management, and networking. We provide related services to large enterprises, midmarket companies, small businesses, and government organizations around the world.\r\nAvaya Solutions bring people together with the right information at the right time in the right context, helping to enable a higher level of engagement among customers, teams, employees and partners to improve efficiency and quickly address critical business challenges. Designed to be highly scalable, reliable, secure and flexible, these solutions help reduce costs and simplify management while providing a platform for next-generation engagement and collaboration. They are available in a variety of deployment models including public, hybrid and private cloud as well as on a customer’s premises. All are supported by Avaya’s portfolio of professional and support services.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":5,"suppliedProductsCount":5,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":2,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":3,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.avaya.com/en/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Avaya","keywords":"Avaya, right, engagement, collaboration, services, management, customer, solutions","description":"Avaya is a recognized innovator leading business communications for the digital age. Avaya delivers smart global solutions and technologies for customer and team engagement, unified communications and collaboration, contact center and customer experience manag","og:title":"Avaya","og:description":"Avaya is a recognized innovator leading business communications for the digital age. Avaya delivers smart global solutions and technologies for customer and team engagement, unified communications and collaboration, contact center and customer experience manag","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/avaya_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":607,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"avaya-aurar-communication-manager","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\nThe Core of Your Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution\r\n<ul> <li>Start your move to unified communications and collaboration with Avaya Aura® Communication Manager. Voice, video, messaging, and customer contact applications converge on a single network, to spread intelligent and flexible communications throughout the organization.</li> <li>Enable employees to take care of business more easily and quickly—because your staff at headquarters, remote branch offices, and on the road will all be using the same enhanced communication capabilities.</li> <li>Extend conferencing, mobility, video, and collaborative applications to everyone in your organization. Avaya Aura® Communication Manager adapts to SIP, H.323, digital, and analog. And this means your current network won’t stop you from moving to unified communications and collaboration.</li> </ul>\r\n• Communicate and Collaborate with Anyone, Anywhere. Extend your collaborative communications across time zones and regions to mobile phones, conference rooms, contact centers, and more. • Reliability at Your Fingertips. All communications are consistent and reliable with configurable redundancy, virtualization, and fault tolerance. • Designed for IT and Employees. Common capabilities, features, applications, and administration make learning easy for IT and employees while reducing the cost of ownership.","shortDescription":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager software is the open, highly-reliable and extensible IP Telephony foundation on which Avaya delivers Unified Communications solutions to enterprises large and small.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager","keywords":"communications, your, Communication, applications, Manager, with, Avaya, Extend","description":"\r\nThe Core of Your Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution\r\n<ul> <li>Start your move to unified communications and collaboration with Avaya Aura® Communication Manager. Voice, video, messaging, and customer contact applications converge on a single n","og:title":"Avaya Aura® Communication Manager","og:description":"\r\nThe Core of Your Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution\r\n<ul> <li>Start your move to unified communications and collaboration with Avaya Aura® Communication Manager. Voice, video, messaging, and customer contact applications converge on a single n"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":607,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":609,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Avaya Call Management System (CMS)","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"avaya-call-management-system-cms","companyTypes":[],"description":"Built on the performance, reliability and flexibility of the Avaya Aura® platform, Avaya CMS delivers real-time monitoring and historical reporting for Avaya Call Center Elite solutions including Elite omnichannel information, custom reporting, task scheduling, exception notification, threshold warning, administration and configuration, and long term ACD data storage.\r\nIncrease the efficiency of your call center\r\nOptimize performance across multiple channels. Improve service levels and increase agent efficiency by monitoring and reporting response times across Avaya Aura® Call Center (CC) Elite systems and non-voice channels. A simple extension to your CC Elite system, Elite Multichannel enables response time reporting and monitoring that can increase agent efficiency for voice, e-mail, fax, web Chat, SMS text or social media customer contact.\r\nManage dynamic call volumes without adding staff. Monitor and analyze everything from wait times and average answer speeds to the percentage by which abandoned call times have decreased in the past year. CMS measures up to 24K trunks, providing administration ease and increases reporting accuracy.\r\nMake a well- informed decision based on real-time CMS data to redirect calls on-the-fly or to redistribute expensive human resources. Increase performance, minimize costs or develop new or improved procedures by leveraging historical data.\r\nEnhance productivity while controlling costs. Realize a quick return on your CMS investment. Easy to deploy, CMS helps maximize the success of marketing and customer service campaigns. Continue benefitting from your investment over time by leveraging historical data to analyze trends and to establish performance benchmarks.","shortDescription":"Avaya Call Management System (CMS) is an integrated analysis and reporting solution that keeps you in touch with virtually everything that’s going on in your contact center from evaluating the performance of a single agent or group of agents to managing a contact center with multiple locations worldwide.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Avaya Call Management System (CMS)","keywords":"reporting, Avaya, Elite, data, your, performance, historical, times","description":"Built on the performance, reliability and flexibility of the Avaya Aura® platform, Avaya CMS delivers real-time monitoring and historical reporting for Avaya Call Center Elite solutions including Elite omnichannel information, custom reporting, task scheduling","og:title":"Avaya Call Management System (CMS)","og:description":"Built on the performance, reliability and flexibility of the Avaya Aura® platform, Avaya CMS delivers real-time monitoring and historical reporting for Avaya Call Center Elite solutions including Elite omnichannel information, custom reporting, task scheduling"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":609,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":82,"title":"Unified Communications","alias":"unified-communications","description":"Unified communications (UC) is a framework for integrating various asynchronous and real-time communication tools. The goal of UC is to enhance business communication, collaboration and productivity. Unified communications do not represent a singular technology; rather, it describes a strategy for integrating interconnected systems of enterprise communication devices and applications that can be used in concert or successively.\r\nSome business communication tools - like Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and video conferencing - facilitate real-time communication, also called synchronous communication. Other enterprise communication tools, like email, facilitate asynchronous communication, which takes place at a person's convenience.\r\nIncreasingly, team collaboration tools have emerged to offer messaging-centric workflows and near-real-time communication. These tools also offer voice and video capabilities, API integrations and, ultimately, expound on instant messaging services by providing better UC features.\r\nThe goal of unified communications is to integrate the software that supports synchronous and asynchronous communication, so the end user has easy access to all tools from whatever device is in use.\r\nA unified communications environment is typically supported by one or more back-end systems, often referred to as UC platforms, that facilitate integration among services, as well as the front-end clients that provide access. For example, a web conferencing system would make use of an audio conferencing system - which, in turn, would be built on an underlying IP telephony platform - and a unified messaging client would allow click-to-talk (CTC), click-to-chat or click-to-video functionality.\r\nUC also supports users moving from one mode of communication to another within the same session. For example, a user may start communicating via email but then decide to escalate the interaction to real-time communication, transitioning the session to a voice call with one click and then to a video conference with another click without any disruption.\r\nUnified communications systems and their components can be deployed on premises, in a public or private cloud, or a combination of all three. Cloud-based unified communications is also called UC as a service (UCaaS). An open source project called WebRTC, for example, enables real-time communications to be embedded into web browsers.\r\nHistorically, single-vendor UC environments have demonstrated the tightest integration and compatibility. Interoperability among vendors remains an ongoing challenge in UC, but it has also been mitigated, in part, by partnerships, common protocols and open APIs.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What technology do unified communications have?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contrasting unified messaging</span></span>\r\nUnified communications are sometimes confused with unified messaging, but it is distinct. Unified communications refer to both real-time and non-real-time delivery of communications based on the preferred method and location of the recipient; unified messaging culls messages from several sources (such as e-mail, voice mail and faxes), but holds those messages only for retrieval at a later time. Unified communications allow for an individual to check and retrieve an e-mail or voice mail from any communication device at any time. It expands beyond voice mail services to data communications and video services.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Components</span></span>\r\nWith unified communications, multiple modes of business communications are integrated. Unified communications is not a single product but a collection of elements that include:\r\n<ul><li>Call control and multimodal communications</li><li>Presence</li><li>Instant messaging</li><li>Unified messaging</li><li>Speech access and personal assistant</li><li>Conferencing (audio, Web and video)</li><li>Collaboration tools</li><li>Mobility</li><li>Business process integration (BPI)</li><li>Software to enable business process integration</li></ul>\r\nPresence — knowing where intended recipients are, and if they are available, in real-time — is a key component of unified communications. Unified communications integrate all systems a user might already use, and helps those systems work together in real-time. For example, unified communications technology could allow a user to seamlessly collaborate with another person on a project, even if the two users are in separate locations. The user could quickly locate the necessary person by accessing an interactive directory, engage in a text messaging session, and then escalate the session to a voice call or even a video call.\r\nIn another example, an employee receives a call from a customer who wants answers. Unified communications enable that employee to call an expert colleague from a real-time list. This way, the employee can answer the customer faster by eliminating rounds of back-and-forth e-mails and phone-tag.\r\nThe examples in the previous paragraph primarily describe &quot;personal productivity&quot; enhancements that tend to benefit the individual user. While such benefits can be important, enterprises are finding that they can achieve even greater impact by using unified communications capabilities to transform business processes. This is achieved by integrating UC functionality directly into the business applications using development tools provided by many of the suppliers. Instead of the individual user invoking the UC functionality to, say, find an appropriate resource, the workflow or process application automatically identifies the resource at the point in the business activity where one is needed.\r\nWhen used in this manner, the concept of presence often changes. Most people associate presence with instant messaging (IM &quot;buddy lists&quot;) the status of individuals is identified. But, in many business process applications, what is important is finding someone with a certain skill. In these environments, presence identifies available skills or capabilities.\r\nThis &quot;business process&quot; approach to integrating UC functionality can result in bottom-line benefits that are an order of magnitude greater than those achievable by personal productivity methods alone.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Related concepts</span>\r\nUnified communications &amp; collaboration (UCC) is the integration of various communications methods with collaboration tools such as virtual white boards, real-time audio and video conferencing, and enhanced call control capabilities. Before this fusion of communications and collaboration tools into a single platform, enterprise collaboration service vendors and enterprise communications service vendors offered distinctly different solutions. Now, collaboration service vendors also offer communications services, and communications service providers have developed collaboration tools.\r\nUnified communications &amp; collaboration as a service (UCCaaS) is cloud-based UCC platforms. Compared to premises-based UCC solutions, UCCaaS platforms offer enhanced flexibility and scalability due to the SaaS subscription model.\r\nUnified communications provisioning is the act of entering and configuring the settings for users of phone systems, instant messaging, telepresence, and other collaboration channels. Provisioners refer to this process as making moves, adds, changes, and deletes or MAC-Ds.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Unified_Communications.png"},{"id":186,"title":"VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol","alias":"voip-voice-over-internet-protocol","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Voice over Internet Protocol </span>(Voice over IP, VoIP) is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. Other terms commonly associated with VoIP solutions are IP telephony, Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service.\r\nThe term Internet telephony specifically refers to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digital telephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding.\r\nInstead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, however, the digital information is packetized, and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network. Such transmission entails careful considerations about resource management different from time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the benefits of VoIP?</h1>\r\n VoIP technology can facilitate tasks and deliver services that might be cumbersome or costly to implement when using traditional PSTN: \r\n<ul><li>More than one phone call can be transmitted on the same broadband phone line. This way, VoIP system can facilitate the addition of telephone lines to businesses without the need for additional physical lines.</li><li>Features that are usually charged extra by telecommunication companies, such as call forwarding, caller ID or automatic redialing, are simple with voice over internet technology.</li><li>Unified Communications are secured with VoIP technology, as it allows integration with other services available on the internet such as video conversation, messaging, etc. </li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">VoIP programs </h1>\r\nThere are four main types of VoIP technology. Each option has varying levels of complexity which can impact ease of implementation and maintenance.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated Access</span>\r\nIntegrated access is the VoIP service that most mimics the traditional phone line. With integrated access VoIP, businesses integrate VoIP software and existing, legacy phone systems. This approach lets the business keep its old number and equipment while also gaining access to advanced telecommunications features. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SIP Trunks</span>\r\n Session Initial Protocol (SIP) transmits voice and video information across a data network, letting VoIP users take advantage of shared lines and increase their communications flexibility. Because all data is sent over a network, businesses can use SIP trunks to replace traditional analog phone networks or use a VoIP gateway to integrate SIP trunking with legacy phone systems. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Hosted IP PBX</span>\r\n What most people envision when they think of VoIP, this VoIP solution sees a vendor host and operate the private branch exchange, offering unified communications solutions. The business connects to a hosted cloud-based PBX network via its IP network. Phone system hardware is maintained off-site by the hosted IP PBX vendor, and all responsibility for the hardware, software, maintenance, security and upgrades all falls on the hosted PBX provider. \r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Managed IP PBX </span>\r\nSimilar to Hosted IP PBX, this version of the unified communication solution is outsourced to a third party that takes care of all management requirements, but instead of phone hardware being off-site, the equipment is housed on-premise by the business. \r\nUnderstanding these different services of VoIP communication can help a business determine the system that best suits its needs. SIP Trunks, for instance, are more attractive to those who want to install their own technology and manage it themselves, while still connecting to VoIP features.\r\n On the other hand, managed IP PBX is a good option for those who don’t have the resources to buy and operate their own VoIP systems. The Hosted IP PBX solution frees the business to select the VoIP management software that works for them and liberates them from the cost and administrative headache of maintaining both voice and data lines and the related carrier partnerships. ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/VoIP_-_Voice_over_Internet_Protocol.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":611,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Avaya Aura® Experience Portal","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"avaya-aurar-experience-portal","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Give Your Customers an Experience That No One Else Can</span>\r\n<ol> <li>Engage with your customers when and where they want on the devices of their choice. Every customer interaction holds the promise of making a positive impression and advancing your competitive advantage.</li> <li>Connect with customers in new ways, taking advantage of all the popular channels available with Avaya Aura® Experience Portal—including mobile, voice, video, email, and SMS text.</li> <li>Orchestrate a personalized interaction with each customer. Even when you have hundreds, thousands, or millions of customer connections, you can design and manage all the different interactions from a single multichannel application platform.</li> <li>Be as mobile as your customers. Deliver a seamless, persistent customer experience with mobile capabilities. Dynamic menus let customers check order status, connect with tech support, talk to a live agent. Customers hear estimated wait times and the option to receive a return call. Full context is provided to the agent, so the agent is always prepared to assist customers.</li> <li>Support self-service consumers through low-effort apps. Deliver contextual information to an agent so a customer can easily transition from one channel to another. Your agent sees all information that the customer already provided.</li> </ol>\r\n• Give Customers the Freedom to Choose. An omnichannel customer experience lets customers use their favorite channels and devices to connect with your agents. Give them options to connect by phone, mobile, email and SMS services. • Personalize Your Customer Interactions. Give your customers powerful, unique service experiences with multi-party conferencing, intelligent routing, and pre-identified customer preferences. • Upgrade Customer Experiences Without Upending Your Infrastructure. Your infrastructure investment is safe. Let customers have the experiences they crave by adding a standards-based platform that integrates with your existing infrastructure.","shortDescription":"Avaya Aura® Experience Portal is an Omnichannel Customer Engagement with a Personal Touch","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Avaya Aura® Experience Portal","keywords":"with, customer, customers, your, Your, agent, mobile, Give","description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Give Your Customers an Experience That No One Else Can</span>\r\n<ol> <li>Engage with your customers when and where they want on the devices of their choice. Every customer interaction holds the promise of making a positive imp","og:title":"Avaya Aura® Experience Portal","og:description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Give Your Customers an Experience That No One Else Can</span>\r\n<ol> <li>Engage with your customers when and where they want on the devices of their choice. Every customer interaction holds the promise of making a positive imp"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":611,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":615,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"avaya-aurar-call-center-elite-multichannel","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\nAvaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel is a Microsoft Windows-based software suite.\r\n\r\nCompanies can use this software suite to turn one-dimensional call centers into powerful multimedia contact centers. Call Center Elite Multichannel uses the phantom call capability of Communication Manager by which customers can make contact through phone, email, text message, or instant message.\r\n\r\nWhether your customers communicate on mobile, emails, or chat, their communication is routed by identifying the agent using a phone call. The emails, SMS, or chat messages are then directly forwarded to the agent identified using this call. The agent can also reply using the same method of communication.\r\n\r\nEasy to implement and simple to use, Call Center Elite Multichannel also delivers:\r\n\r\n• Out-of-the-box desktop applications for supervisors\r\n\r\n• Framework applications including intelligent routing, interaction data, and centralized configuration\r\n\r\n• Automated or agent-initiated outbound preview dialing\r\n\r\n• Powerful application development tools for complete customization and integration\r\n\r\n• Simple and fast wizards for desktop screen pop-ups and routing rules\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Call Center Elite Multichannel multimedia technology uses the phantom call capabilities of Communication Manager to deliver non-voice work items to contact center agents. Phantom calls are generated using the Computer-Telephony Integration (CTI) application. This application has no physical station as an originating point.\r\n\r\nThe multimedia suite blends emails, SMS, and web-based customer inquiries with inbound calls.","shortDescription":"Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel offers options for contact handling allowing customers to be treated in an efficient manner and allow for greater business effectiveness.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel","keywords":"call, Elite, Center, Multichannel, Call, using, contact, multimedia","description":"\r\nAvaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel is a Microsoft Windows-based software suite.\r\n\r\nCompanies can use this software suite to turn one-dimensional call centers into powerful multimedia contact centers. Call Center Elite Multichannel uses the phantom ca","og:title":"Avaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel","og:description":"\r\nAvaya Aura® Call Center Elite Multichannel is a Microsoft Windows-based software suite.\r\n\r\nCompanies can use this software suite to turn one-dimensional call centers into powerful multimedia contact centers. Call Center Elite Multichannel uses the phantom ca"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":615,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"},{"id":253,"title":"Expand Sales Geography"},{"id":262,"title":"Support Customers"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":356,"title":"High costs of routine operations"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"},{"id":400,"title":"High costs"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":82,"title":"Unified Communications","alias":"unified-communications","description":"Unified communications (UC) is a framework for integrating various asynchronous and real-time communication tools. The goal of UC is to enhance business communication, collaboration and productivity. Unified communications do not represent a singular technology; rather, it describes a strategy for integrating interconnected systems of enterprise communication devices and applications that can be used in concert or successively.\r\nSome business communication tools - like Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and video conferencing - facilitate real-time communication, also called synchronous communication. Other enterprise communication tools, like email, facilitate asynchronous communication, which takes place at a person's convenience.\r\nIncreasingly, team collaboration tools have emerged to offer messaging-centric workflows and near-real-time communication. These tools also offer voice and video capabilities, API integrations and, ultimately, expound on instant messaging services by providing better UC features.\r\nThe goal of unified communications is to integrate the software that supports synchronous and asynchronous communication, so the end user has easy access to all tools from whatever device is in use.\r\nA unified communications environment is typically supported by one or more back-end systems, often referred to as UC platforms, that facilitate integration among services, as well as the front-end clients that provide access. For example, a web conferencing system would make use of an audio conferencing system - which, in turn, would be built on an underlying IP telephony platform - and a unified messaging client would allow click-to-talk (CTC), click-to-chat or click-to-video functionality.\r\nUC also supports users moving from one mode of communication to another within the same session. For example, a user may start communicating via email but then decide to escalate the interaction to real-time communication, transitioning the session to a voice call with one click and then to a video conference with another click without any disruption.\r\nUnified communications systems and their components can be deployed on premises, in a public or private cloud, or a combination of all three. Cloud-based unified communications is also called UC as a service (UCaaS). An open source project called WebRTC, for example, enables real-time communications to be embedded into web browsers.\r\nHistorically, single-vendor UC environments have demonstrated the tightest integration and compatibility. Interoperability among vendors remains an ongoing challenge in UC, but it has also been mitigated, in part, by partnerships, common protocols and open APIs.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What technology do unified communications have?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contrasting unified messaging</span></span>\r\nUnified communications are sometimes confused with unified messaging, but it is distinct. Unified communications refer to both real-time and non-real-time delivery of communications based on the preferred method and location of the recipient; unified messaging culls messages from several sources (such as e-mail, voice mail and faxes), but holds those messages only for retrieval at a later time. Unified communications allow for an individual to check and retrieve an e-mail or voice mail from any communication device at any time. It expands beyond voice mail services to data communications and video services.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Components</span></span>\r\nWith unified communications, multiple modes of business communications are integrated. Unified communications is not a single product but a collection of elements that include:\r\n<ul><li>Call control and multimodal communications</li><li>Presence</li><li>Instant messaging</li><li>Unified messaging</li><li>Speech access and personal assistant</li><li>Conferencing (audio, Web and video)</li><li>Collaboration tools</li><li>Mobility</li><li>Business process integration (BPI)</li><li>Software to enable business process integration</li></ul>\r\nPresence — knowing where intended recipients are, and if they are available, in real-time — is a key component of unified communications. Unified communications integrate all systems a user might already use, and helps those systems work together in real-time. For example, unified communications technology could allow a user to seamlessly collaborate with another person on a project, even if the two users are in separate locations. The user could quickly locate the necessary person by accessing an interactive directory, engage in a text messaging session, and then escalate the session to a voice call or even a video call.\r\nIn another example, an employee receives a call from a customer who wants answers. Unified communications enable that employee to call an expert colleague from a real-time list. This way, the employee can answer the customer faster by eliminating rounds of back-and-forth e-mails and phone-tag.\r\nThe examples in the previous paragraph primarily describe &quot;personal productivity&quot; enhancements that tend to benefit the individual user. While such benefits can be important, enterprises are finding that they can achieve even greater impact by using unified communications capabilities to transform business processes. This is achieved by integrating UC functionality directly into the business applications using development tools provided by many of the suppliers. Instead of the individual user invoking the UC functionality to, say, find an appropriate resource, the workflow or process application automatically identifies the resource at the point in the business activity where one is needed.\r\nWhen used in this manner, the concept of presence often changes. Most people associate presence with instant messaging (IM &quot;buddy lists&quot;) the status of individuals is identified. But, in many business process applications, what is important is finding someone with a certain skill. In these environments, presence identifies available skills or capabilities.\r\nThis &quot;business process&quot; approach to integrating UC functionality can result in bottom-line benefits that are an order of magnitude greater than those achievable by personal productivity methods alone.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Related concepts</span>\r\nUnified communications &amp; collaboration (UCC) is the integration of various communications methods with collaboration tools such as virtual white boards, real-time audio and video conferencing, and enhanced call control capabilities. Before this fusion of communications and collaboration tools into a single platform, enterprise collaboration service vendors and enterprise communications service vendors offered distinctly different solutions. Now, collaboration service vendors also offer communications services, and communications service providers have developed collaboration tools.\r\nUnified communications &amp; collaboration as a service (UCCaaS) is cloud-based UCC platforms. Compared to premises-based UCC solutions, UCCaaS platforms offer enhanced flexibility and scalability due to the SaaS subscription model.\r\nUnified communications provisioning is the act of entering and configuring the settings for users of phone systems, instant messaging, telepresence, and other collaboration channels. Provisioners refer to this process as making moves, adds, changes, and deletes or MAC-Ds.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Unified_Communications.png"},{"id":186,"title":"VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol","alias":"voip-voice-over-internet-protocol","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Voice over Internet Protocol </span>(Voice over IP, VoIP) is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. Other terms commonly associated with VoIP solutions are IP telephony, Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service.\r\nThe term Internet telephony specifically refers to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digital telephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding.\r\nInstead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, however, the digital information is packetized, and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network. Such transmission entails careful considerations about resource management different from time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the benefits of VoIP?</h1>\r\n VoIP technology can facilitate tasks and deliver services that might be cumbersome or costly to implement when using traditional PSTN: \r\n<ul><li>More than one phone call can be transmitted on the same broadband phone line. This way, VoIP system can facilitate the addition of telephone lines to businesses without the need for additional physical lines.</li><li>Features that are usually charged extra by telecommunication companies, such as call forwarding, caller ID or automatic redialing, are simple with voice over internet technology.</li><li>Unified Communications are secured with VoIP technology, as it allows integration with other services available on the internet such as video conversation, messaging, etc. </li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">VoIP programs </h1>\r\nThere are four main types of VoIP technology. Each option has varying levels of complexity which can impact ease of implementation and maintenance.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated Access</span>\r\nIntegrated access is the VoIP service that most mimics the traditional phone line. With integrated access VoIP, businesses integrate VoIP software and existing, legacy phone systems. This approach lets the business keep its old number and equipment while also gaining access to advanced telecommunications features. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SIP Trunks</span>\r\n Session Initial Protocol (SIP) transmits voice and video information across a data network, letting VoIP users take advantage of shared lines and increase their communications flexibility. Because all data is sent over a network, businesses can use SIP trunks to replace traditional analog phone networks or use a VoIP gateway to integrate SIP trunking with legacy phone systems. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Hosted IP PBX</span>\r\n What most people envision when they think of VoIP, this VoIP solution sees a vendor host and operate the private branch exchange, offering unified communications solutions. The business connects to a hosted cloud-based PBX network via its IP network. Phone system hardware is maintained off-site by the hosted IP PBX vendor, and all responsibility for the hardware, software, maintenance, security and upgrades all falls on the hosted PBX provider. \r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Managed IP PBX </span>\r\nSimilar to Hosted IP PBX, this version of the unified communication solution is outsourced to a third party that takes care of all management requirements, but instead of phone hardware being off-site, the equipment is housed on-premise by the business. \r\nUnderstanding these different services of VoIP communication can help a business determine the system that best suits its needs. SIP Trunks, for instance, are more attractive to those who want to install their own technology and manage it themselves, while still connecting to VoIP features.\r\n On the other hand, managed IP PBX is a good option for those who don’t have the resources to buy and operate their own VoIP systems. The Hosted IP PBX solution frees the business to select the VoIP management software that works for them and liberates them from the cost and administrative headache of maintaining both voice and data lines and the related carrier partnerships. ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/VoIP_-_Voice_over_Internet_Protocol.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"http://www.asteros.ru/press/news/5098/","title":"Supplier's web site"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":240,"title":"AWS Snowball Edge for Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center","description":"With AWS Snowball Edge, The Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) at Oregon State University can collect and analyze 100 TB of real-time oceanic and coastal data with no intermediate steps, giving the organization the ability to analyze images immediately using onboard compute capabilities. HMSC is a leading marine laboratory and the campus for Oregon State University’s research, education, and outreach in marine and coastal sciences. Before using Snowball Edge, the organization had been collecting data on disk drives aboard its ship, which it would manually load on to servers in the university’s data center, requiring hours of manual labor. AWS Snowball Edge gives HMSC a portable, high-capacity device that it uses remotely to capture and pre-process collected data.","alias":"aws-snowball-edge-for-oregon-state-universitys-hatfield-marine-science-center","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"AWS Snowball Edge for Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center","keywords":"data, Snowball, Edge, Oregon, State, HMSC, marine, coastal","description":"With AWS Snowball Edge, The Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) at Oregon State University can collect and analyze 100 TB of real-time oceanic and coastal data with no intermediate steps, giving the organization the ability to analyze images immediately usin","og:title":"AWS Snowball Edge for Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center","og:description":"With AWS Snowball Edge, The Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) at Oregon State University can collect and analyze 100 TB of real-time oceanic and coastal data with no intermediate steps, giving the organization the ability to analyze images immediately usin"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":3368,"title":"Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Oregon_State_University_s_Hatfield_Marine_Science_Center.png","alias":"oregon-state-universitys-hatfield-marine-science-center","address":"","roles":[],"description":"About the MSI\r\nA new teaching and research model\r\nThe Marine Studies Initiative will increase understanding of coastal and ocean systems and promote sustainability on key issues including climate change, food security and safety, natural hazards, renewable energy production and natural resources management.\r\n\r\nLeveraging OSU’s international leadership\r\nThe MSI is an interdisciplinary effort that will cohesively involve each of Oregon State’s 12 colleges, the university’s Graduate School, the Hatfield Marine Science Center, the university’s Marine Experiment Station and Seafood Lab.\r\n\r\nA new framework of collaboration\r\nThe Marine Studies Initiative will create a new framework of collaboration – including students, faculty, government, industry partners and other institutions of higher education – tackle challenges facing the ocean, coastal communities and people who depend on a healthy, thriving marine environment.\r\n\r\nUnique experiential learning\r\nThe MSI will provide vital knowledge and unique experiential learning opportunities and launch an undergraduate degree program in marine studies.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://marinestudies.oregonstate.edu/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center","keywords":"Science, Center, Marine, Hatfield, State, University, Oregon","description":"About the MSI\r\nA new teaching and research model\r\nThe Marine Studies Initiative will increase understanding of coastal and ocean systems and promote sustainability on key issues including climate change, food security and safety, natural hazards, renewable ene","og:title":"Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center","og:description":"About the MSI\r\nA new teaching and research model\r\nThe Marine Studies Initiative will increase understanding of coastal and ocean systems and promote sustainability on key issues including climate change, food security and safety, natural hazards, renewable ene","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Oregon_State_University_s_Hatfield_Marine_Science_Center.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":176,"title":"Amazon Web Services","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png","alias":"amazon-web-services","address":"","roles":[],"description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud services deployed on the basis of more than a hundred of its own data centers located in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Services include computing power, secure storage, analytics, mobile applications, databases, IoT solutions, and more. Customers pay only for the services they consume, dynamically expanding or contracting cloud resources as needed.</span> \r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\"><span lang=\"en\">Through</span></span> cloud computing, companies do not need to pre-plan the use of servers and other IT infrastructure and pay for all this for several weeks or months in advance. Instead, they can deploy hundreds or thousands of servers in minutes and achieve results quickly.\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">&nbsp;</span>\r\n<span lang=\"EN-US\">Today, Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of organizations in every industry and government in nearly every country in the world.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":36,"suppliedProductsCount":36,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":18,"vendorImplementationsCount":20,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":4,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://aws.amazon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Amazon Web Services","keywords":"Amazon, services, known, computing, also, tools, Services, than","description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:title":"Amazon Web Services","og:description":"&nbsp;<span lang=\"EN-US\">Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's largest cloud service provider. Since 2006, the company has been offering customers various elements of a virtual IT infrastructure in the form of web services. Today AWS offers about 70 cloud s","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/aws_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":3557,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"AWS Snowball Edge","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"aws-snowball-edge","companyTypes":[],"description":"AWS Snowball Edge is a data migration and edge computing device that comes in two options. Snowball Edge Storage Optimized provides both block storage and Amazon S3-compatible object storage, and 24 vCPUs. It is well suited for local storage and large scale-data transfer. Snowball Edge Compute Optimized provides 52 vCPUs, block and object storage, and an optional GPU for use cases such as advanced machine learning and full motion video analysis in disconnected environments. Customers can use these two options for data collection, machine learning and processing, and storage in environments with intermittent connectivity (such as manufacturing, industrial, and transportation) or in extremely remote locations (such as military or maritime operations) before shipping it back to AWS. These devices may also be rack mounted and clustered together to build larger, temporary installations.\r\nSnowball Edge supports specific Amazon EC2 instance types as well as AWS Lambda functions, so customers may develop and test in AWS then deploy applications on devices in remote locations to collect, pre-process, and return the data. Common use cases include data migration, data transport, image collation, IoT sensor stream capture, and machine learning.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">BENEFITS</span>\r\nEASY DATA MOVEMENT\r\nSnowball Edge moves terabytes of data in about a week. Customers use it to move things like databases, backups, archives, healthcare records, analytics datasets, IoT sensor data and media content, especially when network conditions prevent realistic timelines for transferring large amounts of data both into and out of AWS.\r\nSIMPLE TO USE\r\nJobs are created in the AWS Management Console. Once a job is created, AWS automatically ships a pre-provisioned Snowball Edge device to your location. When you receive the device, simply attach it to your local network and connect your applications. Once the device is ready to be returned, the E Ink shipping label automatically updates and your freight carrier transports it to the correct AWS facility where the upload begins. Job status can be tracked via Amazon SNS generated text or email messages or directly in the Console.\r\nPROCESS &amp; ANALYZE DATA LOCALLY\r\nRun EC2 AMIs and deploy AWS Lambda code on Snowball Edge to run local processing or analysis with machine learning or other applications. Developers and administrators can run applications directly on the device as a consistent AWS environment without network connectivity. This capability helps customers develop their machine learning and analysis tools and test them in the cloud but operate them in locations with limited or non-existent network connections before shipping the data back to AWS. Snowball Edge can capture the data from the remote site and any additional unrecognized data so the machine learning models can be refined and propagated.\r\nSTAND-ALONE STORAGE\r\nSnowball Edge devices can provide local storage to existing on-premises applications through a file sharing protocol (NFS) or object storage interface (the S3 API). Additionally, you can use on-board block storage volumes for applications running on Amazon EC2 instances on the Snowball Edge. You can also cluster Snowball Edge devices together into a single, larger, storage tier with increased durability. If a Snowball Edge needs to be replaced, it can be removed from the cluster and replaced with a new Snowball Edge.\r\nSECURE\r\nSnowball Edge devices use tamper-evident enclosures, 256-bit encryption, and industry-standard Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) designed to ensure both security and full chain-of-custody for your data. Encryption keys are managed with the AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and they are never stored on the device.\r\nSCALABLE\r\nSnowball Edge devices can transport multiple terabytes of data and multiple devices can be used in parallel or clustered together to transfer petabytes of data into or out of AWS. Snowball Edge is currently available in select regions and your location will be verified once you create a job in the AWS Management Console.","shortDescription":"AWS Snowball Edge – Petabyte-scale data transport with on-board storage and compute capabilities","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"AWS Snowball Edge","keywords":"","description":"AWS Snowball Edge is a data migration and edge computing device that comes in two options. Snowball Edge Storage Optimized provides both block storage and Amazon S3-compatible object storage, and 24 vCPUs. It is well suited for local storage and large scale-da","og:title":"AWS Snowball Edge","og:description":"AWS Snowball Edge is a data migration and edge computing device that comes in two options. Snowball Edge Storage Optimized provides both block storage and Amazon S3-compatible object storage, and 24 vCPUs. It is well suited for local storage and large scale-da"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":3557,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":513,"title":"Networking","alias":"networking","description":" Networking hardware, also known as network equipment or computer networking devices, are electronic devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network. Specifically, they mediate data transmission in a computer network. Units which are the last receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment.\r\nNetworking devices may include gateways, routers, network bridges, modems, wireless access points, networking cables, line drivers, switches, hubs, and repeaters; and may also include hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters, bridge routers, proxy servers, firewalls, network address translators, multiplexers, network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, ISDN terminal adapters and other related hardware.\r\nThe most common kind of networking hardware today is a copper-based Ethernet adapter which is a standard inclusion on most modern computer systems. Wireless networking has become increasingly popular, especially for portable and handheld devices.\r\nOther networking hardware used in computers includes data center equipment (such as file servers, database servers and storage areas), network services (such as DNS, DHCP, email, etc.) as well as devices which assure content delivery.\r\nTaking a wider view, mobile phones, tablet computers and devices associated with the internet of things may also be considered networking hardware. As technology advances and IP-based networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities, network hardware will become an ambiguous term owing to the vastly increasing number of network capable endpoints.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is network equipment?</span>\r\nNetwork equipment - devices necessary for the operation of a computer network, for example: a router, switch, hub, patch panel, etc. You can distinguish between active and passive network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an active network equipment?</span>\r\nActive networking equipment is equipment followed by some “smart” feature. That is, a router, switch (switch), etc. are active network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is passive network equipment?</span>\r\nPassive network equipment - equipment not endowed with &quot;intellectual&quot; features. For example - cable system: cable (coaxial and twisted pair (UTP/STP)), plug / socket (RG58, RJ45, RJ11, GG45), repeater (repeater), patch panel, hub (hub), balun (balun) for coaxial cables (RG-58), etc. Also, passive equipment can include mounting cabinets and racks, telecommunication cabinets.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main network components?</span>\r\nThe main components of the network are workstations, servers, transmission media (cables) and network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are workstations?</span>\r\nWorkstations are network computers where network users implement application tasks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are network servers?</span>\r\nNetwork servers - hardware and software systems that perform the functions of controlling the distribution of network shared resources. A server can be any computer connected to the network on which the resources used by other devices on the local network are located. As the server hardware, fairly powerful computers are used.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Networking.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[{"id":220,"title":"United States","name":"USA"}],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":8,"title":"Reduce Production Timelines"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":370,"title":"No automated business processes"}]}},"categories":[{"id":513,"title":"Networking","alias":"networking","description":" Networking hardware, also known as network equipment or computer networking devices, are electronic devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network. Specifically, they mediate data transmission in a computer network. Units which are the last receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment.\r\nNetworking devices may include gateways, routers, network bridges, modems, wireless access points, networking cables, line drivers, switches, hubs, and repeaters; and may also include hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches, protocol converters, bridge routers, proxy servers, firewalls, network address translators, multiplexers, network interface controllers, wireless network interface controllers, ISDN terminal adapters and other related hardware.\r\nThe most common kind of networking hardware today is a copper-based Ethernet adapter which is a standard inclusion on most modern computer systems. Wireless networking has become increasingly popular, especially for portable and handheld devices.\r\nOther networking hardware used in computers includes data center equipment (such as file servers, database servers and storage areas), network services (such as DNS, DHCP, email, etc.) as well as devices which assure content delivery.\r\nTaking a wider view, mobile phones, tablet computers and devices associated with the internet of things may also be considered networking hardware. As technology advances and IP-based networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities, network hardware will become an ambiguous term owing to the vastly increasing number of network capable endpoints.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is network equipment?</span>\r\nNetwork equipment - devices necessary for the operation of a computer network, for example: a router, switch, hub, patch panel, etc. You can distinguish between active and passive network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an active network equipment?</span>\r\nActive networking equipment is equipment followed by some “smart” feature. That is, a router, switch (switch), etc. are active network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is passive network equipment?</span>\r\nPassive network equipment - equipment not endowed with &quot;intellectual&quot; features. For example - cable system: cable (coaxial and twisted pair (UTP/STP)), plug / socket (RG58, RJ45, RJ11, GG45), repeater (repeater), patch panel, hub (hub), balun (balun) for coaxial cables (RG-58), etc. Also, passive equipment can include mounting cabinets and racks, telecommunication cabinets.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main network components?</span>\r\nThe main components of the network are workstations, servers, transmission media (cables) and network equipment.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are workstations?</span>\r\nWorkstations are network computers where network users implement application tasks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are network servers?</span>\r\nNetwork servers - hardware and software systems that perform the functions of controlling the distribution of network shared resources. A server can be any computer connected to the network on which the resources used by other devices on the local network are located. As the server hardware, fairly powerful computers are used.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Networking.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://aws.amazon.com/ru/solutions/case-studies/oregon-state-university-hatfield-marine-science-center/","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":658,"title":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway for global manufacturer","description":"Challenges\r\n<ul><li>Suffered Cryptolocker ransomware attack</li><li>Business-critical data encrypted</li><li>Risk of significant cost, lost business, and damaged corporate reputation</li></ul>\r\nResults\r\n<ul><li>Encrypted files identified and deleted</li><li>Affected files restored from backup</li><li>No ransom paid</li><li>Up and running again in one hour</li></ul>\r\nThe company’s three Barracuda Backup appliances are themselves backed up with Barracuda Cloud subscriptions, replicating local backups to Barracuda’s enterprise-grade datacenters for disaster recovery. \r\n<blockquote>“The Barracuda Cloud subscriptions give us extra peace of mind. Even if our on-site backups are somehow compromised or destroyed, our data will be completely secure and easy to restore,” says Murray.</blockquote>\r\nMurray’s appreciation for Barracuda products goes beyond Backup. He and his team also use Barracuda Web Security Gateway to secure web traffic and monitor web usage by Hayward Tyler’s users. \r\n<blockquote>“We had a SonicWall UTM product that we felt wasn’t performing as we had hoped. Since replacing it with the Barracuda Web Security Gateway, we’ve seen a marked improvement. It’s very powerful, but it’s also very easy to configure and manage.”</blockquote>\r\nHayward Tyler Group PLC has built its reputation over 200 years by delivering products and solutions that fulfill critical functions reliably and effectively in demanding, dynamic environments. Allowing that reputation to be put at risk by a ransomware attack is simply unacceptable. To protect the company’s reputation, data, business, and personnel, A.J. Murray relies on Barracuda Backup and Barracuda Web Security Gateway.","alias":"barracuda-web-security-gateway-for-global-manufacturer","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway for global manufacturer","keywords":"","description":"Challenges\r\n<ul><li>Suffered Cryptolocker ransomware attack</li><li>Business-critical data encrypted</li><li>Risk of significant cost, lost business, and damaged corporate reputation</li></ul>\r\nResults\r\n<ul><li>Encrypted files identified and deleted</li><li>Af","og:title":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway for global manufacturer","og:description":"Challenges\r\n<ul><li>Suffered Cryptolocker ransomware attack</li><li>Business-critical data encrypted</li><li>Risk of significant cost, lost business, and damaged corporate reputation</li></ul>\r\nResults\r\n<ul><li>Encrypted files identified and deleted</li><li>Af"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":5061,"title":"Hayward Tyler","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Hayward_Tyler.jpg","alias":"hayward-tyler","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Hayward Tyler designs, manufactures, and services fluid-filled electric motors and pumps for high-pressure, high-temperature applications and environments across the global energy sector. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://haywardtyler.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Hayward Tyler","keywords":"","description":"Hayward Tyler designs, manufactures, and services fluid-filled electric motors and pumps for high-pressure, high-temperature applications and environments across the global energy sector. ","og:title":"Hayward Tyler","og:description":"Hayward Tyler designs, manufactures, and services fluid-filled electric motors and pumps for high-pressure, high-temperature applications and environments across the global energy sector. ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Hayward_Tyler.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":8760,"title":"Hidden supplier","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/znachok_postavshchik.jpg","alias":"skrytyi-postavshchik","address":"","roles":[],"description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":76,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Hidden supplier","keywords":"","description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","og:title":"Hidden supplier","og:description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/znachok_postavshchik.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":183,"title":"Barracuda Networks","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/barracuda_logo.png","alias":"barracuda-networks","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Barracuda Networks, Inc. is the world leader in email and web security. In addition, the company develops solutions for IM security, server load balancing systems and message archiving.<br /><br />The company develops products for security, networking and storage based on network devices and cloud services. Security products include solutions to protect against spam, web surfing, hackers and threats from instant messaging services. The platform also successfully combats such threats as spam, spyware, Trojans and other malware. Barracuda solutions provide web traffic filtering, load balancing, message archiving, backup services, data protection, and more.<br /><br />Today, more than 50,000 companies and security organizations around the world use Barracuda Networks solutions. The main product list includes solutions such as Barracuda Spam Firewall, Barracuda Web Filter, Barracuda IM Firewall. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":11,"suppliedProductsCount":11,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":15,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":3,"b4r":1,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"www.barracuda.com","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Barracuda Networks","keywords":"products, company, Barracuda, include, protection, services, storage, security","description":"Barracuda Networks, Inc. is the world leader in email and web security. In addition, the company develops solutions for IM security, server load balancing systems and message archiving.<br /><br />The company develops products for security, networking and stor","og:title":"Barracuda Networks","og:description":"Barracuda Networks, Inc. is the world leader in email and web security. In addition, the company develops solutions for IM security, server load balancing systems and message archiving.<br /><br />The company develops products for security, networking and stor","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/barracuda_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1198,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"barracuda-web-security-gateway","companyTypes":[],"description":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway - easily and completely blocks spyware and other types of malware from the computers of employees of the organization without loss of performance. Barracuda Networks Barracuda Web Security Gateway is a powerful integrated content protection and analysis solution that is applicable to all business categories. Barracuda Web Security Gateway is very easy to install, has an intuitive management and monitoring interface and is automatically updated every hour through the Barracuda Central website. To install the solution, no additional software is needed, network settings are changed, and there is no need to purchase licenses for each additional user when the system is expanded. Barracuda Web Security Gateway combines proactive, reactive and proactive protection measures, ensuring complete network security: Prevent spyware downloads. Preventing viruses loading. Blocking access to Web sites with spyware. Determining the access of spyware to the Internet. Complete removal of spyware. Blocking malicious Web sites.","shortDescription":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway protect users from malware and saves bandwidth","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":11,"sellingCount":12,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":5,"seo":{"title":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway","keywords":"Barracuda, Gateway, spyware, Security, network, additional, solution, protection","description":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway - easily and completely blocks spyware and other types of malware from the computers of employees of the organization without loss of performance. Barracuda Networks Barracuda Web Security Gateway is a powerful integrated content","og:title":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway","og:description":"Barracuda Web Security Gateway - easily and completely blocks spyware and other types of malware from the computers of employees of the organization without loss of performance. Barracuda Networks Barracuda Web Security Gateway is a powerful integrated content"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1390,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":25,"title":"Web filtering","alias":"web-filtering","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web filtering</span> is a technology that stops users from viewing certain URLs or websites by preventing their browsers from loading pages from these sites. Web filters are made in different ways and deliver various solutions for individual, family, institutional or enterprise use.\r\nIn general, Web filters work in two distinct ways. They can <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">block content</span> as determined by quality of the site, by consulting known lists which document and categorize popular pages across all genres of content. Or, they can <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">evaluate the content</span> of the page live and block it accordingly. Many Web filter tools work off of a constantly updated URL database that shows which websites and domains are associated with hosting malware, phishing, viruses or other tools for harmful activities.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web Filtering Types.</span> <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Blacklist &amp; Whitelist Filters:</span>when using blacklists, an administrator (which might be a parent) manually enters all websites that are deemed inappropriate into the program, and those sites are subsequently blocked. Whitelists are used in exactly the same way, only in reverse – i.e. URLs are manually entered onto a whitelist, and all other websites are then off-limits.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Keyword And Content Filters: </span>this type of filtering is in many ways similar to black and whitelist filtering, though with a slightly broader scope. Keyword and content filters will filter out websites that contain specific keywords or predefined content (such as pornography, for example).\r\nSome website filtering software also provides reporting so that the installer can see what kind of traffic is being filtered and who has requested it. Some products provide soft blocking (in which a warning page is sent to the user instead of the requested page while still allowing access to the page) and an override capability that allows an administrator to unlock a page. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web Filtering Software for Business.</span> Most organizations have moved to cloud based-applications, making browsers a tool that employees use on a daily basis to access work. Browsers have become a conduit to not only the cloud, but also to immeasurable malware and distractions hosted on the web. In order to ensure that browsers do not bring in malicious traffic, web filtering software becomes necessary.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What is Enterprise Web Filtering Software?</h1>\r\nAntivirus and antimalware software are required to detect malicious programs that has been downloaded, but it is now important for enterprise web filtering software to be installed. Content filtering software is an invaluable protection against a wide range of web-borne threats. Rather than allowing malware and ransomware to be downloaded, it prevents end users from visiting websites that contain these malicious threats.\r\nInternet filtering software is also one of the most effective ways to neutralize the threat from phishing. Phishing is a technique used by cybercriminals to gain access to sensitive user information. Phishers trick end users into revealing login credentials or downloading malicious software onto their computers.\r\nPhishing involves sophisticated social engineering techniques to fool end users into visiting malicious websites. If employees can be convinced to reveal sensitive information or download ransomware or malware, cybercriminals can easily bypass even the most sophisticated of cybersecurity defenses.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What is URL Filtering?</h1>\r\nURL filtering is a type of network filtering software that helps businesses control their users’ and guests’ ability to access certain content on the web. If you’ve ever gotten a “block” page while surfing the internet at the office, then your company is using web filtering.\r\nSome employers may only be concerned about blocking access to websites that are known to spread malware or steal information. Other businesses may block content they find inappropriate, such as adult websites or sites that promote violence, or content that violates compliance regulations. They may also choose to activate web protection software to block social media or video streaming sites to minimize drains on productivity and network bandwidth.\r\nTypically, URL filtering software is provided by a cybersecurity service, firewall, or router. Each of these may use a variety of threat intelligence sources to determine which websites fit into their chosen acceptable and unacceptable categories. That’s where highly reliable web reputation services are most valuable. Sources that have extensive web histories and real-time active crawling services will provide the most accurate content determinations.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_filtering.png"},{"id":485,"title":"Web security","alias":"web-security","description":" Web security basically means protecting a website or web application by detecting, preventing and responding to cyber threats.\r\nWebsites and web applications are just as prone to security breaches as physical homes, stores, and government locations. Unfortunately, cybercrime happens every day, and great web security measures are needed to protect websites and web applications from becoming compromised.\r\nThat’s exactly what web security does – it is a system of protection measures and protocols that can protect your website or web application from being hacked or entered by unauthorized personnel. This integral division of Information Security is vital to the protection of websites, web applications, and web services. Anything that is applied over the Internet should have some form of web security to protect it.\r\nThere are a lot of factors that go into web security and web protection. Any website or application that is secure is surely backed by different types of checkpoints and techniques for keeping it safe.\r\nThere are a variety of security standards that must be followed at all times, and these standards are implemented and highlighted by the OWASP. Most experienced web developers from top cybersecurity companies will follow the standards of the OWASP as well as keep a close eye on the Web Hacking Incident Database to see when, how, and why different people are hacking different websites and services.\r\nEssential steps in protecting web apps from attacks include applying up-to-date encryption, setting proper authentication, continuously patching discovered vulnerabilities, avoiding data theft by having secure software development practices. The reality is that clever attackers may be competent enough to find flaws even in a fairly robust secured environment, and so a holistic security strategy is advised.\r\nThere are different types of technologies available for maintaining the best security standards. Some popular technical solutions for testing, building, and preventing threats include black and white box testing tools, fuzzing tools, WAF, security or vulnerability scanners, password cracking tools, and so on.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Malware?</span>\r\nThe name malware is short for ‘malicioussoftware’. Malware includes any software program that has been created to perform an unauthorised — and often harmful — action on a user’s device. Examples of malware include:\r\n<ul><li>Computer viruses</li><li>Word and Excel macro viruses</li><li>Boot sector viruses</li><li>Script viruses — including batch, Windows shell, Java and others</li><li>Keyloggers</li><li>Password stealers</li><li>Backdoor Trojan viruses</li><li>Other Trojan viruses</li><li>Crimeware</li><li>Spyware</li><li>Adware... and many other types of malicious software programs</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the difference between a computer virus and a worm?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Computer virus.</span> This is a type of malicious program that can replicate itself — so that it can spread from file to file on a computer, and can also spread from one computer to another. Computer viruses are often programmed to perform damaging actions — such as corrupting or deleting data. The longer a virus remains undetected on your machine, the greater the number of infected files that may be on your computer.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Worms.</span> Worms are generally considered to be a subset of computer viruses — but with some specific differences:\r\n<ul><li>A worm is a computer program that replicates, but does not infect other files.</li><li>The worm will install itself once on a computer — and then look for a way to spread to other computers.</li><li>Whereas a virus is a set of code that adds itself to existing files, a worm exists as a separate, standalone file.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Trojan virus?</span>\r\nA Trojan is effectively a program that pretends to be legitimate software — but, when launched, it will perform a harmful action. Unlike computer viruses and worms, Trojans cannot spread by themselves. Typically, Trojans are installed secretly and they deliver their malicious payload without the user’s knowledge.\r\nCybercriminals use many different types of Trojans — and each has been designed to perform a specific malicious function. The most common are:\r\n<ul><li>Backdoor Trojans (these often include a keylogger)</li><li>Trojan Spies</li><li>Password stealing Trojans</li><li>Trojan Proxies — that convert your computer into a spam distribution machine</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why are Trojan viruses called Trojans?</span>\r\nIn Greek mythology — during the Trojan war — the Greeks used subterfuge to enter the city of Troy. The Greeks constructed a massive wooden horse — and, unaware that the horse contained Greek soldiers, the Trojans pulled the horse into the city. At night, the Greek soldiers escaped from the horse and opened the city gates — for the Greek army to enter Troy.\r\nToday, Trojan viruses use subterfuge to enter unsuspecting users’ computers and devices.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Keylogger?</span>\r\nA keylogger is a program that can record what you type on your computer keyboard. Criminals use keyloggers to obtain confidential data — such as login details, passwords, credit card numbers, PINs and other items. Backdoor Trojans typically include an integrated keylogger.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Phishing?</span>\r\nPhishing is a very specific type of cybercrime that is designed to trick you into disclosing valuable information — such as details about your bank account or credit cards. Often, cybercriminals will create a fake website that looks just like a legitimate site — such as a bank’s official website. The cybercriminal will try to trick you into visiting their fake site — typically by sending you an email that contains a hyperlink to the fake site. When you visit the fake website, it will generally ask you to type in confidential data — such as your login, password or PIN.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Spyware?</span>\r\nSpyware is software that is designed to collect your data and send it to a third party — without your knowledge or consent. Spyware programs will often:\r\n<ul><li>Monitor the keys you press on your keyboard — using a keylogger</li><li>Collect confidential information — such as your passwords, credit card numbers, PIN numbers and more</li><li>Gather — or ‘harvest’ — email addresses from your computer</li><li>Track your Internet browsing habits</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Rootkit?</span>\r\nRootkits are programs that hackers use in order to evade detection while trying to gain unauthorised access to a computer. Rootkits have been used increasingly as a form of stealth to hide Trojan virus activity. When installed on a computer, rootkits are invisible to the user and also take steps to avoid being detected by security software.\r\nThe fact that many people log into their computers with administrator rights — rather than creating a separate account with restricted access — makes it easier for cybercriminals to install a rootkit.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Botnet?</span>\r\nA botnet is a network of computers controlled by cybercriminals using a Trojan virus or other malicious program.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a DDoS attack?</span>\r\nA Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is similar to a DoS. However, a DDoS attack is conducted using multiple machines. Usually, for a DDoS attack, the hacker will use one security compromised computer as the ‘master’ machine that co-ordinates the attack by other ‘zombie machines’. Typically, the cybercriminal will compromise the security on the master and all of the zombie machines, by exploiting a vulnerability in an application on each computer — to install a Trojan or other piece of malicious code.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/security-web-application-security.png"},{"id":487,"title":"Secure Web Gateway","alias":"secure-web-gateway","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Secure Web gateway</span> solutions protect Web-surfing PCs from infection and enforce company policies. A secure Web gateway is a solution that filters unwanted software/malware from user-initiated Web/Internet traffic and enforces corporate and regulatory policy compliance. \r\nThese gateways must, at a minimum, include URL filtering, malicious-code detection and filtering, and application controls for popular Web-based applications, such as instant messaging (IM) and Skype. Native or integrated data leak prevention is also increasingly included. Data leak prevention features are also essential. Let's take a look at some of these features in more detail:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-Time Traffic Inspection.</span> A secure web gateway inspects web traffic in real-time, analyzing content against corporate policies and ensuring any content that is inappropriate or which contravenes company policy is blocked. The majority of secure web gateways allow administrators to enforce common security policy templates straight off the shelf and also configure policies that are suited to their business model or compliance requirements.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Protection for Off-Grid Workers.</span> As workforces become more distributed, there is a need for security solutions to offer protection on an anywhere, anytime and any device basis. A secure web gateway allows roaming users to authenticate seamlessly and to have the same security policies applies to their devices as they would if they were in the office. The result is a protected connection no matter where they are working and total peace of mind that all internet traffic is secure.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Time and Content-Based Access.</span> Whether you need to restrict access to the internet at specific times, or you wish to control access to particular web content, your secure web gateway can be configured to suit your acceptable use policy and compliance requirements. Individual users can be allocated time quotas or schedules that ensure maximum productivity or only permitted access to websites that are relevant to their job roles.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data Leak Prevention.</span> As its name suggests, data leak prevention stops your corporate data from being leaked to or stolen by a third party. From detecting common business terms such as payment card industry (PCI) number patterns and phrases or personally identifiable information, a web security gateway coupled with data leak prevention software can be a very robust line of defense from both internal and external threats.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> Secure web gateway market</h1>\r\nThere are a variety of <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">secure web gateway vendors</span> operating - among them Symantec, iboss, F5, Check Point Software, zScaler, Barracuda, Forcepoint, McAfee and Cisco<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">. </span>Most of these companies are now emphasizing <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">cloud web gateway</span>. Although many still carry, maintain and market their on-premises versions, the competitive battleground has largely shifted to the cloud.\r\nAccording to Gartner, Symantec and Cisco are the market leaders in terms of revenue. Their efforts in this space give an indication of where the market is heading. Symantec favors proxy-based SWG appliances and services. Cisco, on the other hand, has concentrated on a hybrid of DNS and proxy capabilities. Both have acquired CASB technology and have been integrating it with their secure web gateway services. Cisco has also added DNS-based inspection into its package. This allows it to use DNS for most inspection traffic to raise performance. More involved content inspection of potentially risky websites can be done using HTTP/HTTPS proxying.\r\nCloud based secure web gateway offerings have been growing at around 30 percent per year for the last several years, according to Gartner. When coupled with growing integration with other security features, on-premises standalone secure web gateways are slowly giving way to larger cloud-based suites that incorporate gateway security. \r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Secure_Web_Gateway.png"},{"id":548,"title":"Web security - Appliance","alias":"web-security-appliance","description":"A security appliance is any form of server appliance that is designed to protect computer networks from unwanted traffic. Types of network security appliance:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Active devices</span> block unwanted traffic. Examples of such devices are firewalls, anti-virus scanning devices, and content filtering devices. For instance, if you want to make sure that you do not get pointless spam and other unnecessary issues, installing an active device might be a great idea. Active devices include anti-virus scanning devices, which will automatically scan throughout the network to ensure that no virus exists within the protected network. Then, there are web filtering appliances as well as firewalls, the purpose of both of which is to ensure that only useful content and traffic flows through the network and all pointless or harmful data is filtered.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Passive devices detect and report on unwanted traffic.</span> A common example is intrusion detection appliances, which are installed in order to determine whether the network has been compromised in any way. These devices usually work in the background at all times.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Preventative devices</span> scan networks and identify potential security problems (such as penetration testing and vulnerability assessment appliances). These devices are usually designed to 'prevent' damage to the network by identifying problems in advance. Common examples include devices that employ penetration testing as well as those devices which carry out vulnerability assessment on networks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unified Threat Management (UTM)</span> combines features together into one system, such as some firewalls, content filtering, web caching etc. UTM devices are designed to provide users with a one-stop solution to all of their network needs and internet security appliances. As the name clearly suggests, these devices provide the features of all of the other network devices and condense them into one. These devices are designed to provide a number of different network security options in one package, hence providing networks with a simple solution. Rather than installing four different devices, users can easily install one and be done with it. The market of UTM devices has exceeded the billion dollar mark already, which just goes to show how popular these devices have become amongst network users.\r\nOne of the most popular and accessible types of web security appliance tools is the hardware <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">keylogger.</span> This device is placed covertly between the case and keyboard with an output for the computer case and input for the keyboard. As hardware standards have changed over time, a USB hardware keylogger provides access on many devices.\r\nThe <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">web proxy appliance</span> is basically hardware you use to manage user web access. More to the point, it's the type of device that handles the blocking or controlling of suspicious programs. It's typically placed in between network users and the worldwide web; ergo, it's most popular application is serving as a central control hub over employee Internet use by corporations and enterprises. It's the in-between gateway that serves as a termination point of sorts for online communications within a network and is capable of applying a multitude of rule-based limitations on Internet traffic, web content, and requests before they even end up with end users.\r\nAnother commonly used hardware tool is the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">wireless antenna.</span> These can be used to surveil a wide variety of wireless communications, including local cellular and internet service networks. More mechanical and general devices may include lockpicks or portable probes and hijack chips for compromising electronic devices through the physical circuit.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Secure web gateway appliances</span> are solutions to prevent advanced threats, block unauthorized access to systems or websites, stop malware, and monitor real-time activity across websites accessed by users within the institution. Software and cloud-based platforms now perform this function as well.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the top Network Security Appliance brands?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Blue Coat Systems,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Blue Coat has been part of security powerhouse Symantec since 2016.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">F5 Networks,</span> the Seattle-based network application delivery vendor, sold about $17.6 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SonicWall.</span>Firewall power player SonicWall sold about $23.5 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Fortinet,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif., security software vendor Fortinet sold about $24.4 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cisco Systems,</span> Cisco Systems was the quarter's growth champion, posting $77.2 million in network security appliance sales through the channel in the period, beating the previous year’s quarterly total of $62.3 million by about 24 percent, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Palo Alto Networks.</span> With $94.2 million in network security appliance sales in the quarter, Palo Alto Networks was the best-selling network security appliance brand of the second quarter, according to NPD.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_security_Appliance.png"},{"id":550,"title":"Web filtering - Appliance","alias":"web-filtering-appliance","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">A web filter appliance</span> is a device that allows the user to filter all online content for censorship purposes, such that any links, downloads, and email containing offensive materials or pornography is outright blocked or removed. Web filtering appliance can also help you prevent malware infection because, more often than not, malware is usually hidden within links that promise porn or controversial content. Moreover, because the number of online hazards is un stopped increasing every day, it's always prudent to get a web filter appliance that can adapt to the changing times and the ever-evolving hazards posed by the Internet.\r\nAt any rate, content filtering appliance has a distinct advantage over their software counterparts in terms of stable restriction features, unrestricted monitoring, no platform-based limitations, easy upgrades and improvements, and so on. That's because the best web filters are fully integrated software and hardware systems that optimize their hybrid attributes when it comes to content filtering by gaining full, unmitigated control over online usage through well-defined policies as mandated by the owner of the network or the IT security administrator.\r\nGetting a web content filtering appliance that has a list of premium-grade and detailed content analysis with predefined categories (which includes keywords for pornography, game downloads, drugs, violence, adult content, offensive content, racist content, controversial content, and the like) is a must for any major network. All of the items you'll ever need to block should be easily selectable with a click of your mouse as well; after all, sophisticated technology aside, a good web filter appliance should also be intuitive and practical to use as well.<br />&nbsp;","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">How a Web Content Filter Appliance Works</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Typically a web content filter appliance protects Internet users and networks by using a combination of blacklists, URIBL and SURBL filters, category filters and keyword filters. Blacklists, URIBL and SURBL filters work together to prevent users visiting websites known to harbor malware, those that have been identified as fake phishing sites, and those who hid their true identity by using the whois privacy feature or a proxy server. Genuine websites have no reason to hide their true identity.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In the category filtering process, the content of millions of webpages are analyzed and assigned a category. System administrators can then choose which categories to block access to (i.e. online shopping, alcohol, pornography, gambling, etc.) depending on whether the web content filter appliance is providing a service to a business, a store, a school, a restaurant, or a workplace. Most appliances for filtering web content also offer the facility to create bespoke categories.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Keyword filters have multiple uses. They can be used to block access to websites containing specific words (for example the business name of a competitor), specific file extensions (typically those most commonly used for deploying malware and ransomware), and specific web applications; if, for example, a business wanted to allow its marketing department access to Facebook, but not FaceTime. Effectively, the keyword filters fine-tune the category settings, enhance security and increase productivity.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Are there any home web filter appliance?</h1>\r\nFor children today, the Internet has always existed. To them, it’s second nature to pop online and watch a funny video, find a fact, or chat with a friend. But, of course, the Internet is also filled with a lot of dark corners (It’s a hop, skip, and a click to adult content). Parents, then, are presented with the daunting task of not only monitoring what sites their children visit but also their screen time consumption. There are a number of home content filtering appliance that allow parents to do just this. The best parental control apps and devices, be they hardware or software, not only put parents in command of such things as the content their children can view and the amount of time they can spend online but help restore a parent’s sense of control. With them, parents, from can restrict access to only specific sites and apps, filter dangerous or explicit web-content, manage time, and even track their location.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_filtering_Appliance.png"},{"id":552,"title":"Secure Web Gateway - Appliance","alias":"secure-web-gateway-appliance","description":"Secure web gateways are generally appliance-based security solutions that prevent advanced threats, block unauthorized access to systems or websites, stop malware, and monitor real-time activity across websites accessed by users within the institution.\r\nA secure web gateway is primarily used to monitor and prevent malicious traffic and data from entering, or even leaving, an organization’s network. Typically, it is implemented to secure an organization against threats originating from the Internet, websites and other Web 2.0 products/services. It is generally implemented through a hardware gateway device implemented at the outer boundaries of a network. Some of the features a secure Web gateway provides include URL filtering, application-level control, data leakage prevention, and virus/malware code detection.\r\nA Secure web gateway (SWG) protects users against phishing, malware and other Internet-borne threats. Unlike traditional firewalls, SWGs are focused on layer 7 web traffic inspection, both inbound and outbound. As web security solutions, they apply no protection to WAN traffic, which is left to the corporate next generation firewalls. In recent years, SWGs appeared as a cloud service. The cloud instances enable secure web and cloud access from anywhere – including outside the office by mobile users. The traffic coverage and solution form factor remain the key distinctions between SWGs and next generation firewalls, which often provide a very similar level of security capabilities.\r\nA converged, cloud-based network security solution converges the capabilities of a next generation firewall (WAN and Internet traffic inspection) and the extended coverage for mobile users of SWGs.\r\nA converged approach eliminates the need to maintain policies across multiple point solutions and the appliance life cycle.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is a secure web gateway important?</span>\r\nSecure web gateways have become increasingly common as cybercriminals have grown more sophisticated in embedding threat vectors into seemingly innocuous or professional-looking websites. These counterfeit websites can compromise the enterprise as users access them, unleashing malicious code and unauthorized access in the background without the user's knowledge. These fake, criminal websites can be quite convincing.\r\nSome of these scam websites appear to be so authentic that they can convince users to enter credit card numbers and personal identification information (PII) such as social security numbers. Other sites require only the connection to the user to bypass web browser controls and inject malicious code such as viruses or malware into the user's network. Examples include fake online shopping sites posing as brand-name sellers, sites that appear to be legitimate government agencies and even business-to-business intranets. Secure web gateways can also prevent data from flowing out of an organization, making certain that restricted data is blocked from leaving the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does a secure web gateway work?</span>\r\nSecure web gateways are installed as a software component or a hardware device on the edge of the network or at user endpoints. All traffic to and from users to other networks must pass through the gateway that monitors it. The gateway monitors this traffic for malicious code, web application use, and all user/non-user attempted URL connections.\r\nThe gateway checks or filters website URL addresses against stored lists of known and approved websites—all others not on the approved lists can be explicitly blocked. Known malicious sites can be explicitly blocked as well. URL filters that maintain allowed web addresses are maintained in whitelists, while known, off-limits sites that are explicitly blocked are maintained in blacklists. In enterprises, these lists are maintained in the secure gateway's database, which then applies the list filters to all incoming and outgoing traffic.\r\nSimilarly, data flowing out of the network can be checked, disallowing restricted data sources—data on the network or user devices that are prohibited from distribution. Application-level controls can also be restricted to known and approved functions, such as blocking uploads to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications (such as Office 365 and Salesforce.com). Although some enterprises deploy secure web gateways in hardware appliances that filter all incoming and outgoing traffic, many organizations use cloud-based, SaaS secure web gateways as a more flexible and less costly solution to deploy and maintain. Organizations with existing hardware investments often combine the two, using hardware at their larger physical sites and cloud-based gateways for remote locations and traveling workers.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are some features of secure web gateways?</span>\r\nBeyond basic URL, web application control and data filtering, secure web gateways should provide additional controls and features that enhance network security.\r\n<ul><li>Encrypted traffic analysis. The gateway should compare all traffic to local and global threat lists and reputation sources first, then also analyze the nature of the traffic itself to determine if any content or code poses a threat to the network. This should include SSL-based encrypted traffic.</li><li>Data Loss Prevention. If, for example, a website accepts uploaded documents or data, the documents should first be scanned for sensitive data before being uploaded.</li><li>Social media protection. All information to and from social media should be scanned and filtered.</li><li>Support for all protocols. HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP internet protocols must be supported. While HTTPS is the industry standard now, many sites still support HTTP and FTP connections.</li><li>Integration with zero-day anti-malware solutions. Threats will be discovered, and integration with anti-malware solutions that can detect zero-day (never seen before) threats deliver the best prevention and remediation.</li><li>Integration with security monitoring. Security administrators should be notified of any web gateway security problems via their monitoring solution of choice, typically a security information and event management (SIEM) solution.</li><li>Choice of location. Choose where your secure web gateway best fits in your network—the edge, at endpoints, or in the cloud.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Secure_Web_Gateway_Appliance.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":1312,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Barracuda Backup","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":2,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"barracuda-backup","companyTypes":[],"description":"Barracuda Backup is a unified, cost-effective data protection solution for your physical, virtual, and SaaS environments. It’s a complete backup solution with remote storage that is easy to buy, install, and manage.\r\nPhysical and Virtual\r\nMost businesses today have a mixed environment of physical and virtual servers. Barracuda Backup is a single solution to protect physical servers and virtual machines (VMware &amp; Hyper-V) with snapshot and granular file recovery—all with unified management for replication and retention.\r\nAll-in-One Backup Solution\r\nBarracuda Backup is a complete solution that comes from one vendor. It combines software, in-line deduplication, and offsite cloud or private replication without perserver or per-application licensing fees.\r\nFlexible Deployment\r\nBarracuda Backup is available as an all-inone physical appliance or a virtual appliance software offering for those wanting to leverage existing storage and compute infrastructures. Barracuda Backup can replicate data securely and efficiently from an on-premises physical or virtual backup appliance to Barracuda Cloud, a remote physical appliance, a remote virtual appliance, or Amazon Web Services (AWS).","shortDescription":"Barracuda Backup unified, cost-effective data protection solution for your physical, virtual environments. It’s a complete backup solution with remote storage that is easy to buy, install, and manage.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":12,"sellingCount":1,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":5,"seo":{"title":"Barracuda Backup","keywords":"Barracuda, Backup, physical, virtual, appliance, solution, with, remote","description":"Barracuda Backup is a unified, cost-effective data protection solution for your physical, virtual, and SaaS environments. It’s a complete backup solution with remote storage that is easy to buy, install, and manage.\r\nPhysical and Virtual\r\nMost businesses today","og:title":"Barracuda Backup","og:description":"Barracuda Backup is a unified, cost-effective data protection solution for your physical, virtual, and SaaS environments. It’s a complete backup solution with remote storage that is easy to buy, install, and manage.\r\nPhysical and Virtual\r\nMost businesses today"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1393,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":46,"title":"Data Protection and Recovery Software","alias":"data-protection-and-recovery-software","description":"Data protection and recovery software provide data backup, integrity and security for data backups and it enables timely, reliable and secure backup of data from a host device to destination device. Recently, Data Protection and Recovery Software market are disrupted by innovative technologies such as server virtualization, disk-based backup, and cloud services where emerging players are playing an important role. Tier one players such as IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, EMC Corporation, Symantec Corporation and Microsoft Corporation are also moving towards these technologies through partnerships and acquisitions.\r\nThe major factor driving data protection and recovery software market is the high adoption of cloud-based services and technologies. Many organizations are moving towards the cloud to reduce their operational expenses and to provide real-time access to their employees. However, increased usage of the cloud has increased the risk of data loss and data theft and unauthorized access to confidential information, which increases the demand for data protection and recovery solution suites.","materialsDescription":" \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Data recovery?</span>\r\nData recovery is a process of salvaging (retrieving) inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a normal way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS).\r\nThe most common data recovery scenario involves an operating system failure, malfunction of a storage device, logical failure of storage devices, accidental damage or deletion, etc. (typically, on a single-drive, single-partition, single-OS system), in which case the ultimate goal is simply to copy all important files from the damaged media to another new drive. This can be easily accomplished using a Live CD or DVD by booting directly from a ROM instead of the corrupted drive in question. Many Live CDs or DVDs provide a means to mount the system drive and backup drives or removable media, and to move the files from the system drive to the backup media with a file manager or optical disc authoring software. Such cases can often be mitigated by disk partitioning and consistently storing valuable data files (or copies of them) on a different partition from the replaceable OS system files.\r\nAnother scenario involves a drive-level failure, such as a compromised file system or drive partition, or a hard disk drive failure. In any of these cases, the data is not easily read from the media devices. Depending on the situation, solutions involve repairing the logical file system, partition table or master boot record, or updating the firmware or drive recovery techniques ranging from software-based recovery of corrupted data, hardware- and software-based recovery of damaged service areas (also known as the hard disk drive's &quot;firmware&quot;), to hardware replacement on a physically damaged drive which allows for extraction of data to a new drive. If a drive recovery is necessary, the drive itself has typically failed permanently, and the focus is rather on a one-time recovery, salvaging whatever data can be read.\r\nIn a third scenario, files have been accidentally &quot;deleted&quot; from a storage medium by the users. Typically, the contents of deleted files are not removed immediately from the physical drive; instead, references to them in the directory structure are removed, and thereafter space the deleted data occupy is made available for later data overwriting. In the mind of end users, deleted files cannot be discoverable through a standard file manager, but the deleted data still technically exists on the physical drive. In the meantime, the original file contents remain, often in a number of disconnected fragments, and may be recoverable if not overwritten by other data files.\r\nThe term &quot;data recovery&quot; is also used in the context of forensic applications or espionage, where data which have been encrypted or hidden, rather than damaged, are recovered. Sometimes data present in the computer gets encrypted or hidden due to reasons like virus attack which can only be recovered by some computer forensic experts.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a backup?</span>\r\nA backup, or data backup, or the process of backing up, refers to the copying into an archive file of computer data that is already in secondary storage—so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is &quot;back up&quot; (a phrasal verb), whereas the noun and adjective form is &quot;backup&quot;.\r\nBackups have two distinct purposes. The primary purpose is to recover data after its loss, be it by data deletion or corruption. Data loss can be a common experience of computer users; a 2008 survey found that 66% of respondents had lost files on their home PC. The secondary purpose of backups is to recover data from an earlier time, according to a user-defined data retention policy, typically configured within a backup application for how long copies of data are required. Though backups represent a simple form of disaster recovery and should be part of any disaster recovery plan, backups by themselves should not be considered a complete disaster recovery plan. One reason for this is that not all backup systems are able to reconstitute a computer system or other complex configuration such as a computer cluster, active directory server, or database server by simply restoring data from a backup.\r\nSince a backup system contains at least one copy of all data considered worth saving, the data storage requirements can be significant. Organizing this storage space and managing the backup process can be a complicated undertaking. A data repository model may be used to provide structure to the storage. Nowadays, there are many different types of data storage devices that are useful for making backups. There are also many different ways in which these devices can be arranged to provide geographic redundancy, data security, and portability.\r\nBefore data are sent to their storage locations, they are selected, extracted, and manipulated. Many different techniques have been developed to optimize the backup procedure. These include optimizations for dealing with open files and live data sources as well as compression, encryption, and de-duplication, among others. Every backup scheme should include dry runs that validate the reliability of the data being backed up. It is important to recognize the limitations and human factors involved in any backup scheme.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Data_Protection_and_Recovery_Software__1_.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":282,"title":"Unauthorized access to corporate IT systems and data"},{"id":336,"title":"Risk or Leaks of confidential information"},{"id":344,"title":"Malware infection via Internet, email, storage devices"},{"id":386,"title":"Risk of lost access to data and IT systems"}]}},"categories":[{"id":25,"title":"Web filtering","alias":"web-filtering","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web filtering</span> is a technology that stops users from viewing certain URLs or websites by preventing their browsers from loading pages from these sites. Web filters are made in different ways and deliver various solutions for individual, family, institutional or enterprise use.\r\nIn general, Web filters work in two distinct ways. They can <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">block content</span> as determined by quality of the site, by consulting known lists which document and categorize popular pages across all genres of content. Or, they can <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">evaluate the content</span> of the page live and block it accordingly. Many Web filter tools work off of a constantly updated URL database that shows which websites and domains are associated with hosting malware, phishing, viruses or other tools for harmful activities.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web Filtering Types.</span> <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Blacklist &amp; Whitelist Filters:</span>when using blacklists, an administrator (which might be a parent) manually enters all websites that are deemed inappropriate into the program, and those sites are subsequently blocked. Whitelists are used in exactly the same way, only in reverse – i.e. URLs are manually entered onto a whitelist, and all other websites are then off-limits.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Keyword And Content Filters: </span>this type of filtering is in many ways similar to black and whitelist filtering, though with a slightly broader scope. Keyword and content filters will filter out websites that contain specific keywords or predefined content (such as pornography, for example).\r\nSome website filtering software also provides reporting so that the installer can see what kind of traffic is being filtered and who has requested it. Some products provide soft blocking (in which a warning page is sent to the user instead of the requested page while still allowing access to the page) and an override capability that allows an administrator to unlock a page. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Web Filtering Software for Business.</span> Most organizations have moved to cloud based-applications, making browsers a tool that employees use on a daily basis to access work. Browsers have become a conduit to not only the cloud, but also to immeasurable malware and distractions hosted on the web. In order to ensure that browsers do not bring in malicious traffic, web filtering software becomes necessary.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What is Enterprise Web Filtering Software?</h1>\r\nAntivirus and antimalware software are required to detect malicious programs that has been downloaded, but it is now important for enterprise web filtering software to be installed. Content filtering software is an invaluable protection against a wide range of web-borne threats. Rather than allowing malware and ransomware to be downloaded, it prevents end users from visiting websites that contain these malicious threats.\r\nInternet filtering software is also one of the most effective ways to neutralize the threat from phishing. Phishing is a technique used by cybercriminals to gain access to sensitive user information. Phishers trick end users into revealing login credentials or downloading malicious software onto their computers.\r\nPhishing involves sophisticated social engineering techniques to fool end users into visiting malicious websites. If employees can be convinced to reveal sensitive information or download ransomware or malware, cybercriminals can easily bypass even the most sophisticated of cybersecurity defenses.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What is URL Filtering?</h1>\r\nURL filtering is a type of network filtering software that helps businesses control their users’ and guests’ ability to access certain content on the web. If you’ve ever gotten a “block” page while surfing the internet at the office, then your company is using web filtering.\r\nSome employers may only be concerned about blocking access to websites that are known to spread malware or steal information. Other businesses may block content they find inappropriate, such as adult websites or sites that promote violence, or content that violates compliance regulations. They may also choose to activate web protection software to block social media or video streaming sites to minimize drains on productivity and network bandwidth.\r\nTypically, URL filtering software is provided by a cybersecurity service, firewall, or router. Each of these may use a variety of threat intelligence sources to determine which websites fit into their chosen acceptable and unacceptable categories. That’s where highly reliable web reputation services are most valuable. Sources that have extensive web histories and real-time active crawling services will provide the most accurate content determinations.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_filtering.png"},{"id":485,"title":"Web security","alias":"web-security","description":" Web security basically means protecting a website or web application by detecting, preventing and responding to cyber threats.\r\nWebsites and web applications are just as prone to security breaches as physical homes, stores, and government locations. Unfortunately, cybercrime happens every day, and great web security measures are needed to protect websites and web applications from becoming compromised.\r\nThat’s exactly what web security does – it is a system of protection measures and protocols that can protect your website or web application from being hacked or entered by unauthorized personnel. This integral division of Information Security is vital to the protection of websites, web applications, and web services. Anything that is applied over the Internet should have some form of web security to protect it.\r\nThere are a lot of factors that go into web security and web protection. Any website or application that is secure is surely backed by different types of checkpoints and techniques for keeping it safe.\r\nThere are a variety of security standards that must be followed at all times, and these standards are implemented and highlighted by the OWASP. Most experienced web developers from top cybersecurity companies will follow the standards of the OWASP as well as keep a close eye on the Web Hacking Incident Database to see when, how, and why different people are hacking different websites and services.\r\nEssential steps in protecting web apps from attacks include applying up-to-date encryption, setting proper authentication, continuously patching discovered vulnerabilities, avoiding data theft by having secure software development practices. The reality is that clever attackers may be competent enough to find flaws even in a fairly robust secured environment, and so a holistic security strategy is advised.\r\nThere are different types of technologies available for maintaining the best security standards. Some popular technical solutions for testing, building, and preventing threats include black and white box testing tools, fuzzing tools, WAF, security or vulnerability scanners, password cracking tools, and so on.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Malware?</span>\r\nThe name malware is short for ‘malicioussoftware’. Malware includes any software program that has been created to perform an unauthorised — and often harmful — action on a user’s device. Examples of malware include:\r\n<ul><li>Computer viruses</li><li>Word and Excel macro viruses</li><li>Boot sector viruses</li><li>Script viruses — including batch, Windows shell, Java and others</li><li>Keyloggers</li><li>Password stealers</li><li>Backdoor Trojan viruses</li><li>Other Trojan viruses</li><li>Crimeware</li><li>Spyware</li><li>Adware... and many other types of malicious software programs</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the difference between a computer virus and a worm?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Computer virus.</span> This is a type of malicious program that can replicate itself — so that it can spread from file to file on a computer, and can also spread from one computer to another. Computer viruses are often programmed to perform damaging actions — such as corrupting or deleting data. The longer a virus remains undetected on your machine, the greater the number of infected files that may be on your computer.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Worms.</span> Worms are generally considered to be a subset of computer viruses — but with some specific differences:\r\n<ul><li>A worm is a computer program that replicates, but does not infect other files.</li><li>The worm will install itself once on a computer — and then look for a way to spread to other computers.</li><li>Whereas a virus is a set of code that adds itself to existing files, a worm exists as a separate, standalone file.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Trojan virus?</span>\r\nA Trojan is effectively a program that pretends to be legitimate software — but, when launched, it will perform a harmful action. Unlike computer viruses and worms, Trojans cannot spread by themselves. Typically, Trojans are installed secretly and they deliver their malicious payload without the user’s knowledge.\r\nCybercriminals use many different types of Trojans — and each has been designed to perform a specific malicious function. The most common are:\r\n<ul><li>Backdoor Trojans (these often include a keylogger)</li><li>Trojan Spies</li><li>Password stealing Trojans</li><li>Trojan Proxies — that convert your computer into a spam distribution machine</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why are Trojan viruses called Trojans?</span>\r\nIn Greek mythology — during the Trojan war — the Greeks used subterfuge to enter the city of Troy. The Greeks constructed a massive wooden horse — and, unaware that the horse contained Greek soldiers, the Trojans pulled the horse into the city. At night, the Greek soldiers escaped from the horse and opened the city gates — for the Greek army to enter Troy.\r\nToday, Trojan viruses use subterfuge to enter unsuspecting users’ computers and devices.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Keylogger?</span>\r\nA keylogger is a program that can record what you type on your computer keyboard. Criminals use keyloggers to obtain confidential data — such as login details, passwords, credit card numbers, PINs and other items. Backdoor Trojans typically include an integrated keylogger.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Phishing?</span>\r\nPhishing is a very specific type of cybercrime that is designed to trick you into disclosing valuable information — such as details about your bank account or credit cards. Often, cybercriminals will create a fake website that looks just like a legitimate site — such as a bank’s official website. The cybercriminal will try to trick you into visiting their fake site — typically by sending you an email that contains a hyperlink to the fake site. When you visit the fake website, it will generally ask you to type in confidential data — such as your login, password or PIN.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Spyware?</span>\r\nSpyware is software that is designed to collect your data and send it to a third party — without your knowledge or consent. Spyware programs will often:\r\n<ul><li>Monitor the keys you press on your keyboard — using a keylogger</li><li>Collect confidential information — such as your passwords, credit card numbers, PIN numbers and more</li><li>Gather — or ‘harvest’ — email addresses from your computer</li><li>Track your Internet browsing habits</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Rootkit?</span>\r\nRootkits are programs that hackers use in order to evade detection while trying to gain unauthorised access to a computer. Rootkits have been used increasingly as a form of stealth to hide Trojan virus activity. When installed on a computer, rootkits are invisible to the user and also take steps to avoid being detected by security software.\r\nThe fact that many people log into their computers with administrator rights — rather than creating a separate account with restricted access — makes it easier for cybercriminals to install a rootkit.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is a Botnet?</span>\r\nA botnet is a network of computers controlled by cybercriminals using a Trojan virus or other malicious program.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a DDoS attack?</span>\r\nA Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is similar to a DoS. However, a DDoS attack is conducted using multiple machines. Usually, for a DDoS attack, the hacker will use one security compromised computer as the ‘master’ machine that co-ordinates the attack by other ‘zombie machines’. Typically, the cybercriminal will compromise the security on the master and all of the zombie machines, by exploiting a vulnerability in an application on each computer — to install a Trojan or other piece of malicious code.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/security-web-application-security.png"},{"id":487,"title":"Secure Web Gateway","alias":"secure-web-gateway","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Secure Web gateway</span> solutions protect Web-surfing PCs from infection and enforce company policies. A secure Web gateway is a solution that filters unwanted software/malware from user-initiated Web/Internet traffic and enforces corporate and regulatory policy compliance. \r\nThese gateways must, at a minimum, include URL filtering, malicious-code detection and filtering, and application controls for popular Web-based applications, such as instant messaging (IM) and Skype. Native or integrated data leak prevention is also increasingly included. Data leak prevention features are also essential. Let's take a look at some of these features in more detail:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-Time Traffic Inspection.</span> A secure web gateway inspects web traffic in real-time, analyzing content against corporate policies and ensuring any content that is inappropriate or which contravenes company policy is blocked. The majority of secure web gateways allow administrators to enforce common security policy templates straight off the shelf and also configure policies that are suited to their business model or compliance requirements.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Protection for Off-Grid Workers.</span> As workforces become more distributed, there is a need for security solutions to offer protection on an anywhere, anytime and any device basis. A secure web gateway allows roaming users to authenticate seamlessly and to have the same security policies applies to their devices as they would if they were in the office. The result is a protected connection no matter where they are working and total peace of mind that all internet traffic is secure.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Time and Content-Based Access.</span> Whether you need to restrict access to the internet at specific times, or you wish to control access to particular web content, your secure web gateway can be configured to suit your acceptable use policy and compliance requirements. Individual users can be allocated time quotas or schedules that ensure maximum productivity or only permitted access to websites that are relevant to their job roles.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data Leak Prevention.</span> As its name suggests, data leak prevention stops your corporate data from being leaked to or stolen by a third party. From detecting common business terms such as payment card industry (PCI) number patterns and phrases or personally identifiable information, a web security gateway coupled with data leak prevention software can be a very robust line of defense from both internal and external threats.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> Secure web gateway market</h1>\r\nThere are a variety of <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">secure web gateway vendors</span> operating - among them Symantec, iboss, F5, Check Point Software, zScaler, Barracuda, Forcepoint, McAfee and Cisco<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">. </span>Most of these companies are now emphasizing <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">cloud web gateway</span>. Although many still carry, maintain and market their on-premises versions, the competitive battleground has largely shifted to the cloud.\r\nAccording to Gartner, Symantec and Cisco are the market leaders in terms of revenue. Their efforts in this space give an indication of where the market is heading. Symantec favors proxy-based SWG appliances and services. Cisco, on the other hand, has concentrated on a hybrid of DNS and proxy capabilities. Both have acquired CASB technology and have been integrating it with their secure web gateway services. Cisco has also added DNS-based inspection into its package. This allows it to use DNS for most inspection traffic to raise performance. More involved content inspection of potentially risky websites can be done using HTTP/HTTPS proxying.\r\nCloud based secure web gateway offerings have been growing at around 30 percent per year for the last several years, according to Gartner. When coupled with growing integration with other security features, on-premises standalone secure web gateways are slowly giving way to larger cloud-based suites that incorporate gateway security. \r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Secure_Web_Gateway.png"},{"id":548,"title":"Web security - Appliance","alias":"web-security-appliance","description":"A security appliance is any form of server appliance that is designed to protect computer networks from unwanted traffic. Types of network security appliance:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Active devices</span> block unwanted traffic. Examples of such devices are firewalls, anti-virus scanning devices, and content filtering devices. For instance, if you want to make sure that you do not get pointless spam and other unnecessary issues, installing an active device might be a great idea. Active devices include anti-virus scanning devices, which will automatically scan throughout the network to ensure that no virus exists within the protected network. Then, there are web filtering appliances as well as firewalls, the purpose of both of which is to ensure that only useful content and traffic flows through the network and all pointless or harmful data is filtered.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Passive devices detect and report on unwanted traffic.</span> A common example is intrusion detection appliances, which are installed in order to determine whether the network has been compromised in any way. These devices usually work in the background at all times.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Preventative devices</span> scan networks and identify potential security problems (such as penetration testing and vulnerability assessment appliances). These devices are usually designed to 'prevent' damage to the network by identifying problems in advance. Common examples include devices that employ penetration testing as well as those devices which carry out vulnerability assessment on networks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unified Threat Management (UTM)</span> combines features together into one system, such as some firewalls, content filtering, web caching etc. UTM devices are designed to provide users with a one-stop solution to all of their network needs and internet security appliances. As the name clearly suggests, these devices provide the features of all of the other network devices and condense them into one. These devices are designed to provide a number of different network security options in one package, hence providing networks with a simple solution. Rather than installing four different devices, users can easily install one and be done with it. The market of UTM devices has exceeded the billion dollar mark already, which just goes to show how popular these devices have become amongst network users.\r\nOne of the most popular and accessible types of web security appliance tools is the hardware <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">keylogger.</span> This device is placed covertly between the case and keyboard with an output for the computer case and input for the keyboard. As hardware standards have changed over time, a USB hardware keylogger provides access on many devices.\r\nThe <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">web proxy appliance</span> is basically hardware you use to manage user web access. More to the point, it's the type of device that handles the blocking or controlling of suspicious programs. It's typically placed in between network users and the worldwide web; ergo, it's most popular application is serving as a central control hub over employee Internet use by corporations and enterprises. It's the in-between gateway that serves as a termination point of sorts for online communications within a network and is capable of applying a multitude of rule-based limitations on Internet traffic, web content, and requests before they even end up with end users.\r\nAnother commonly used hardware tool is the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">wireless antenna.</span> These can be used to surveil a wide variety of wireless communications, including local cellular and internet service networks. More mechanical and general devices may include lockpicks or portable probes and hijack chips for compromising electronic devices through the physical circuit.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Secure web gateway appliances</span> are solutions to prevent advanced threats, block unauthorized access to systems or websites, stop malware, and monitor real-time activity across websites accessed by users within the institution. Software and cloud-based platforms now perform this function as well.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the top Network Security Appliance brands?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Blue Coat Systems,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Blue Coat has been part of security powerhouse Symantec since 2016.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">F5 Networks,</span> the Seattle-based network application delivery vendor, sold about $17.6 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SonicWall.</span>Firewall power player SonicWall sold about $23.5 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Fortinet,</span> Sunnyvale, Calif., security software vendor Fortinet sold about $24.4 million in network security appliances through the channel in the second quarter, NPD said.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cisco Systems,</span> Cisco Systems was the quarter's growth champion, posting $77.2 million in network security appliance sales through the channel in the period, beating the previous year’s quarterly total of $62.3 million by about 24 percent, according to NPD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Palo Alto Networks.</span> With $94.2 million in network security appliance sales in the quarter, Palo Alto Networks was the best-selling network security appliance brand of the second quarter, according to NPD.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_security_Appliance.png"},{"id":550,"title":"Web filtering - Appliance","alias":"web-filtering-appliance","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">A web filter appliance</span> is a device that allows the user to filter all online content for censorship purposes, such that any links, downloads, and email containing offensive materials or pornography is outright blocked or removed. Web filtering appliance can also help you prevent malware infection because, more often than not, malware is usually hidden within links that promise porn or controversial content. Moreover, because the number of online hazards is un stopped increasing every day, it's always prudent to get a web filter appliance that can adapt to the changing times and the ever-evolving hazards posed by the Internet.\r\nAt any rate, content filtering appliance has a distinct advantage over their software counterparts in terms of stable restriction features, unrestricted monitoring, no platform-based limitations, easy upgrades and improvements, and so on. That's because the best web filters are fully integrated software and hardware systems that optimize their hybrid attributes when it comes to content filtering by gaining full, unmitigated control over online usage through well-defined policies as mandated by the owner of the network or the IT security administrator.\r\nGetting a web content filtering appliance that has a list of premium-grade and detailed content analysis with predefined categories (which includes keywords for pornography, game downloads, drugs, violence, adult content, offensive content, racist content, controversial content, and the like) is a must for any major network. All of the items you'll ever need to block should be easily selectable with a click of your mouse as well; after all, sophisticated technology aside, a good web filter appliance should also be intuitive and practical to use as well.<br />&nbsp;","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">How a Web Content Filter Appliance Works</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Typically a web content filter appliance protects Internet users and networks by using a combination of blacklists, URIBL and SURBL filters, category filters and keyword filters. Blacklists, URIBL and SURBL filters work together to prevent users visiting websites known to harbor malware, those that have been identified as fake phishing sites, and those who hid their true identity by using the whois privacy feature or a proxy server. Genuine websites have no reason to hide their true identity.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In the category filtering process, the content of millions of webpages are analyzed and assigned a category. System administrators can then choose which categories to block access to (i.e. online shopping, alcohol, pornography, gambling, etc.) depending on whether the web content filter appliance is providing a service to a business, a store, a school, a restaurant, or a workplace. Most appliances for filtering web content also offer the facility to create bespoke categories.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Keyword filters have multiple uses. They can be used to block access to websites containing specific words (for example the business name of a competitor), specific file extensions (typically those most commonly used for deploying malware and ransomware), and specific web applications; if, for example, a business wanted to allow its marketing department access to Facebook, but not FaceTime. Effectively, the keyword filters fine-tune the category settings, enhance security and increase productivity.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Are there any home web filter appliance?</h1>\r\nFor children today, the Internet has always existed. To them, it’s second nature to pop online and watch a funny video, find a fact, or chat with a friend. But, of course, the Internet is also filled with a lot of dark corners (It’s a hop, skip, and a click to adult content). Parents, then, are presented with the daunting task of not only monitoring what sites their children visit but also their screen time consumption. There are a number of home content filtering appliance that allow parents to do just this. The best parental control apps and devices, be they hardware or software, not only put parents in command of such things as the content their children can view and the amount of time they can spend online but help restore a parent’s sense of control. With them, parents, from can restrict access to only specific sites and apps, filter dangerous or explicit web-content, manage time, and even track their location.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Web_filtering_Appliance.png"},{"id":552,"title":"Secure Web Gateway - Appliance","alias":"secure-web-gateway-appliance","description":"Secure web gateways are generally appliance-based security solutions that prevent advanced threats, block unauthorized access to systems or websites, stop malware, and monitor real-time activity across websites accessed by users within the institution.\r\nA secure web gateway is primarily used to monitor and prevent malicious traffic and data from entering, or even leaving, an organization’s network. Typically, it is implemented to secure an organization against threats originating from the Internet, websites and other Web 2.0 products/services. It is generally implemented through a hardware gateway device implemented at the outer boundaries of a network. Some of the features a secure Web gateway provides include URL filtering, application-level control, data leakage prevention, and virus/malware code detection.\r\nA Secure web gateway (SWG) protects users against phishing, malware and other Internet-borne threats. Unlike traditional firewalls, SWGs are focused on layer 7 web traffic inspection, both inbound and outbound. As web security solutions, they apply no protection to WAN traffic, which is left to the corporate next generation firewalls. In recent years, SWGs appeared as a cloud service. The cloud instances enable secure web and cloud access from anywhere – including outside the office by mobile users. The traffic coverage and solution form factor remain the key distinctions between SWGs and next generation firewalls, which often provide a very similar level of security capabilities.\r\nA converged, cloud-based network security solution converges the capabilities of a next generation firewall (WAN and Internet traffic inspection) and the extended coverage for mobile users of SWGs.\r\nA converged approach eliminates the need to maintain policies across multiple point solutions and the appliance life cycle.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is a secure web gateway important?</span>\r\nSecure web gateways have become increasingly common as cybercriminals have grown more sophisticated in embedding threat vectors into seemingly innocuous or professional-looking websites. These counterfeit websites can compromise the enterprise as users access them, unleashing malicious code and unauthorized access in the background without the user's knowledge. These fake, criminal websites can be quite convincing.\r\nSome of these scam websites appear to be so authentic that they can convince users to enter credit card numbers and personal identification information (PII) such as social security numbers. Other sites require only the connection to the user to bypass web browser controls and inject malicious code such as viruses or malware into the user's network. Examples include fake online shopping sites posing as brand-name sellers, sites that appear to be legitimate government agencies and even business-to-business intranets. Secure web gateways can also prevent data from flowing out of an organization, making certain that restricted data is blocked from leaving the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does a secure web gateway work?</span>\r\nSecure web gateways are installed as a software component or a hardware device on the edge of the network or at user endpoints. All traffic to and from users to other networks must pass through the gateway that monitors it. The gateway monitors this traffic for malicious code, web application use, and all user/non-user attempted URL connections.\r\nThe gateway checks or filters website URL addresses against stored lists of known and approved websites—all others not on the approved lists can be explicitly blocked. Known malicious sites can be explicitly blocked as well. URL filters that maintain allowed web addresses are maintained in whitelists, while known, off-limits sites that are explicitly blocked are maintained in blacklists. In enterprises, these lists are maintained in the secure gateway's database, which then applies the list filters to all incoming and outgoing traffic.\r\nSimilarly, data flowing out of the network can be checked, disallowing restricted data sources—data on the network or user devices that are prohibited from distribution. Application-level controls can also be restricted to known and approved functions, such as blocking uploads to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications (such as Office 365 and Salesforce.com). Although some enterprises deploy secure web gateways in hardware appliances that filter all incoming and outgoing traffic, many organizations use cloud-based, SaaS secure web gateways as a more flexible and less costly solution to deploy and maintain. Organizations with existing hardware investments often combine the two, using hardware at their larger physical sites and cloud-based gateways for remote locations and traveling workers.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are some features of secure web gateways?</span>\r\nBeyond basic URL, web application control and data filtering, secure web gateways should provide additional controls and features that enhance network security.\r\n<ul><li>Encrypted traffic analysis. The gateway should compare all traffic to local and global threat lists and reputation sources first, then also analyze the nature of the traffic itself to determine if any content or code poses a threat to the network. This should include SSL-based encrypted traffic.</li><li>Data Loss Prevention. If, for example, a website accepts uploaded documents or data, the documents should first be scanned for sensitive data before being uploaded.</li><li>Social media protection. All information to and from social media should be scanned and filtered.</li><li>Support for all protocols. HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP internet protocols must be supported. While HTTPS is the industry standard now, many sites still support HTTP and FTP connections.</li><li>Integration with zero-day anti-malware solutions. Threats will be discovered, and integration with anti-malware solutions that can detect zero-day (never seen before) threats deliver the best prevention and remediation.</li><li>Integration with security monitoring. Security administrators should be notified of any web gateway security problems via their monitoring solution of choice, typically a security information and event management (SIEM) solution.</li><li>Choice of location. Choose where your secure web gateway best fits in your network—the edge, at endpoints, or in the cloud.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Secure_Web_Gateway_Appliance.png"},{"id":46,"title":"Data Protection and Recovery Software","alias":"data-protection-and-recovery-software","description":"Data protection and recovery software provide data backup, integrity and security for data backups and it enables timely, reliable and secure backup of data from a host device to destination device. Recently, Data Protection and Recovery Software market are disrupted by innovative technologies such as server virtualization, disk-based backup, and cloud services where emerging players are playing an important role. Tier one players such as IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, EMC Corporation, Symantec Corporation and Microsoft Corporation are also moving towards these technologies through partnerships and acquisitions.\r\nThe major factor driving data protection and recovery software market is the high adoption of cloud-based services and technologies. Many organizations are moving towards the cloud to reduce their operational expenses and to provide real-time access to their employees. However, increased usage of the cloud has increased the risk of data loss and data theft and unauthorized access to confidential information, which increases the demand for data protection and recovery solution suites.","materialsDescription":" \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Data recovery?</span>\r\nData recovery is a process of salvaging (retrieving) inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a normal way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS).\r\nThe most common data recovery scenario involves an operating system failure, malfunction of a storage device, logical failure of storage devices, accidental damage or deletion, etc. (typically, on a single-drive, single-partition, single-OS system), in which case the ultimate goal is simply to copy all important files from the damaged media to another new drive. This can be easily accomplished using a Live CD or DVD by booting directly from a ROM instead of the corrupted drive in question. Many Live CDs or DVDs provide a means to mount the system drive and backup drives or removable media, and to move the files from the system drive to the backup media with a file manager or optical disc authoring software. Such cases can often be mitigated by disk partitioning and consistently storing valuable data files (or copies of them) on a different partition from the replaceable OS system files.\r\nAnother scenario involves a drive-level failure, such as a compromised file system or drive partition, or a hard disk drive failure. In any of these cases, the data is not easily read from the media devices. Depending on the situation, solutions involve repairing the logical file system, partition table or master boot record, or updating the firmware or drive recovery techniques ranging from software-based recovery of corrupted data, hardware- and software-based recovery of damaged service areas (also known as the hard disk drive's &quot;firmware&quot;), to hardware replacement on a physically damaged drive which allows for extraction of data to a new drive. If a drive recovery is necessary, the drive itself has typically failed permanently, and the focus is rather on a one-time recovery, salvaging whatever data can be read.\r\nIn a third scenario, files have been accidentally &quot;deleted&quot; from a storage medium by the users. Typically, the contents of deleted files are not removed immediately from the physical drive; instead, references to them in the directory structure are removed, and thereafter space the deleted data occupy is made available for later data overwriting. In the mind of end users, deleted files cannot be discoverable through a standard file manager, but the deleted data still technically exists on the physical drive. In the meantime, the original file contents remain, often in a number of disconnected fragments, and may be recoverable if not overwritten by other data files.\r\nThe term &quot;data recovery&quot; is also used in the context of forensic applications or espionage, where data which have been encrypted or hidden, rather than damaged, are recovered. Sometimes data present in the computer gets encrypted or hidden due to reasons like virus attack which can only be recovered by some computer forensic experts.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a backup?</span>\r\nA backup, or data backup, or the process of backing up, refers to the copying into an archive file of computer data that is already in secondary storage—so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form is &quot;back up&quot; (a phrasal verb), whereas the noun and adjective form is &quot;backup&quot;.\r\nBackups have two distinct purposes. The primary purpose is to recover data after its loss, be it by data deletion or corruption. Data loss can be a common experience of computer users; a 2008 survey found that 66% of respondents had lost files on their home PC. The secondary purpose of backups is to recover data from an earlier time, according to a user-defined data retention policy, typically configured within a backup application for how long copies of data are required. Though backups represent a simple form of disaster recovery and should be part of any disaster recovery plan, backups by themselves should not be considered a complete disaster recovery plan. One reason for this is that not all backup systems are able to reconstitute a computer system or other complex configuration such as a computer cluster, active directory server, or database server by simply restoring data from a backup.\r\nSince a backup system contains at least one copy of all data considered worth saving, the data storage requirements can be significant. Organizing this storage space and managing the backup process can be a complicated undertaking. A data repository model may be used to provide structure to the storage. Nowadays, there are many different types of data storage devices that are useful for making backups. There are also many different ways in which these devices can be arranged to provide geographic redundancy, data security, and portability.\r\nBefore data are sent to their storage locations, they are selected, extracted, and manipulated. Many different techniques have been developed to optimize the backup procedure. These include optimizations for dealing with open files and live data sources as well as compression, encryption, and de-duplication, among others. Every backup scheme should include dry runs that validate the reliability of the data being backed up. It is important to recognize the limitations and human factors involved in any backup scheme.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Data_Protection_and_Recovery_Software__1_.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.barracuda.com/resources/Barracuda_Backup_CS_Hayward_Tyler_US","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":328,"title":"Base CRM","description":"Groupon partners with Base to improve pipeline visibility &amp; process management\r\n\r\nGroupon is a global mobile and online marketplace dedicated to increasing consumer buying power and driving more business to local merchants.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Challenge</span>\r\nGroupon connects and powers real-time commerce across an expanding range of categories including consumer products, travel destinations, local businesses and live events.\r\n\r\nBefore Base, Groupon tried a number of sales tools and even built its own internal sales platform on top of Salesforce. However, none of these solutions were able to help Groupon establish a formalized sales process or provide visibility into its sales pipeline.\r\n\r\n“We were looking for a way to help reps contain and manage their days, and on top of that give managers a tool to help coach instead of manage via email,” says Jay Klauminzer, VP of Sales and Merchant Operations at Groupon. “We evaluated several solutions and ultimately we needed something that was really, really easy to use.” Adds Senior Sales Operations Manager Ashley Mattis, “We also needed a good partner that would work with and support us.”\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Solution</span>\r\nAfter making the decision to move forward with Base’s All-in-One Sales Platform, Groupon welcomed the Base team to its Chicago HQ. The team spent two months learning about Groupon’s sales teams and processes, mapping and scoping out the implementation, conducting on-site tests and rolling the platform out to the team. “Making sure that we had a company that we could partner with and had our interest at heart really made me feel that we were setting ourselves up for success,” says Ashley.\r\n\r\nOne Base feature used frequently by the Groupon team is Smart Lists. Smart Lists make it possible to build and filter custom lists using real-time data like time zone, industry, solutions in use, etc. The ability to quickly and easily sort through thousands of prospects helps the team better organize their outreach and accounts. For example, rather than simply calling down a list, Groupon reps use Smart Lists to identify which leads are more likely to close than others, and call these first. “I love that you can go in strategically and prospect someone who is very specific to certain criteria with Smart Lists,” says Groupon Sales Trainer Alicia Babich.\r\n\r\nTo achieve greater pipeline visibility and measure rep success, Groupon managers turn to Base reports like Pipeline Development, Stage Duration, Deal Loss Reasons, Activity Outcomes and more. “Base reporting is very robust,” tells Phil Quackenboss, Regional Sales Director at Groupon. “You can easily answer any of your questions by simply clicking on a report. A lot of times with CRMs, you have to pick through the data to tell your own story, but Base presents this information in a very visual and insightful way.”\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The Results</span>\r\nBecause the Base platform is so easy to use and Groupon’s implementation was mapped to its unique processes and needs, adoption has been fast and furious. “Usage was less than 20% with our old tool. Now nearly 100% of our reps use Base – even our seasoned reps. Base has gotten full adoption across our sales team,” boasts Jay.\r\n\r\nThanks to this level of adoption, the team has been able to put a formalized sales process in place that is followed closely by all reps. With tools like Smart Lists, lead prioritization and automated communication tracking, reps are able to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time selling. “Reps used to spend so much time making checklists and Google docs trying to keep everything organized,” says Josh Goldstein, BDR Manager. “Being able to replace those couple hours each day with a tool that does those things for us has been amazing. Now we can’t imagine our world without Base.”\r\n\r\nWith so much information being captured around rep activities and processes in Base, managers are able to easily track performance and identify key coaching opportunities. In addition to monitoring reports, managers also receive real-time notifications when important events occur. For example, if Base detects that a prospect has replied to a rep’s email with negative sentiment, the manager receives an alert. He or she can then quickly identify the attributes of that email and coach the rep on how to approach the communication differently, rather than having to wait to discover this issue and provide feedback during a 1:1.\r\n\r\n“Managers get a ton of insight into how healthy a rep’s pipeline is, so they can see where they’re having issues, where things are being held up in their funnel, and take that information and coach to it,” explains Phil. Lauren Futris, Groupon’s Senior Sales Operations Project Manager, elaborates, “Base has been able to offer us a one-stop-shop of clear insights to understand where reps’ deals and contracts are sitting, what stage they are in and how they are being progressed through each stage of the funnel—and that’s something our managers didn’t have before.”\r\n\r\nGroupon Logo &quot;As our business needs evolve, I see Base being right there beside us, able to iterate and adjust as we need and move forward into the future.&quot; - Dan Summers, Regional Sales Director at Groupon","alias":"base-crm","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Base CRM","keywords":"Base, Groupon, that, with, sales, able, Sales, team","description":"Groupon partners with Base to improve pipeline visibility &amp; process management\r\n\r\nGroupon is a global mobile and online marketplace dedicated to increasing consumer buying power and driving more business to local merchants.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bol","og:title":"Base CRM","og:description":"Groupon partners with Base to improve pipeline visibility &amp; process management\r\n\r\nGroupon is a global mobile and online marketplace dedicated to increasing consumer buying power and driving more business to local merchants.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bol"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4027,"title":"Groupon","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Groupon.png","alias":"groupon","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Groupon is an American worldwide e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in more than 28 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched in November 2008, and the first market for Groupon was Chicago, followed soon thereafter by Boston, New York City and Toronto. By October 2010, Groupon was available in 150 cities in North America and 100 cities in Europe, Asia and South America, and had 35 million registered users By the end of March 2015, Groupon served more than 500 cities worldwide, nearly 48.1 million active customers and featured more than 425,000 active deals globally. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.groupon.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Groupon","keywords":"Groupon, cities, than, more, worldwide, active, Chicago, million","description":"Groupon is an American worldwide e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in more than 28 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched in November 2008, and the first market for ","og:title":"Groupon","og:description":"Groupon is an American worldwide e-commerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering activities, travel, goods and services in more than 28 countries. Based in Chicago, Groupon was launched in November 2008, and the first market for ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Groupon.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{},"vendors":[],"products":[{"id":1120,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Base CRM","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"base-crm","companyTypes":[],"description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gain Unprecedented Pipeline Visibility</span>\r\nBase's intuitive user interface removes the friction from deal updates so reps and management are always able to access, analyze and collaborate on up-to-date and relevant deal data.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Prioritize Leads and Opportunities</span>\r\nNot all leads and opportunities are created equally. Keep your sales team focused on the highest value leads and deals through automated scoring rules informed by Base's full-funnel analytics.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Turn Customers into Advocates</span>\r\nHappy customers not only buy more but also promote your product or service to others. Base provides the foundation for managing relationships and delivering customer happiness at scale.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enable a Mobile Sales Team</span>\r\nBase's #1 rated mobile sales application pairs enterprise-grade functionality with a consumer-grade user interface to deliver the best mobile sales experience available today.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Drive Sales Actions with Data</span>\r\nImprove your sales process with Base insights that are easily accessible to all levels of the organization. Answers to questions like, &quot;Which deals will close this month?” and, &quot;What deals am I about to lose?” are now at your fingertips.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Capitalize on Leads</span>\r\nBase integrates with your website and a host of marketing automation tools to instantaneously deliver leads to the sales team, while funnel tracking informs prioritization so reps can allocate time effectively.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Explain the Past and Predict the Future</span>\r\nBase automatically tracks over half a million data points for every customer and turns them into cutting edge reports that bring a scientific approach to the way you analyze and forecast your business.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Alleviate Administrative Burden</span>\r\nBase's consumer-grade user interface makes it easy to navigate with ease, while native productivity features remove the burden of administrative tasks and enable reps to focus on their deals.\r\n","shortDescription":"Base CRM is a simple system of customer relationship management (CRM): lead management, contact management, transaction tracking, a large selection of tools for communication and much more.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":14,"sellingCount":5,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Base CRM","keywords":"Base, your, sales, with, deals, reps, user, leads","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gain Unprecedented Pipeline Visibility</span>\r\nBase's intuitive user interface removes the friction from deal updates so reps and management are always able to access, analyze and collaborate on up-to-date and relevant deal dat","og:title":"Base CRM","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Gain Unprecedented Pipeline Visibility</span>\r\nBase's intuitive user interface removes the friction from deal updates so reps and management are always able to access, analyze and collaborate on up-to-date and relevant deal dat"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1121,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"},{"id":260,"title":"Generate Business Reports"},{"id":262,"title":"Support Customers"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":356,"title":"High costs of routine operations"},{"id":377,"title":"Separate communications channels"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"},{"id":391,"title":"Customer fraud"},{"id":396,"title":"Low speed of report generation"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://getbase.com/customers/groupon/","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":335,"title":"Bitrix24 for TV and radio company","description":"Description is not ready yet","alias":"bitrix24-for-tv-and-radio-company","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Bitrix24 for TV and radio company","keywords":"","description":"Description is not ready yet","og:title":"Bitrix24 for TV and radio company","og:description":"Description is not ready yet"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4047,"title":"Teleradiocompany \"Lux\"","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/TRK___Ljuks__.jpg","alias":"trk-ljuks","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Broadcasting Company &quot;Lux&quot; (Broadcasting Company &quot;Lux&quot;) is a Ukrainian media holding, founded in 2005. The chief editor and director are Roman Andreiko.\r\nSource: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ТРК_«Люкс»","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Teleradiocompany \"Lux\"","keywords":"Люкс, Львов, Zaxid, Телеканалы, Интернет-газета, Радио, Football24, lviv24","description":"Broadcasting Company &quot;Lux&quot; (Broadcasting Company &quot;Lux&quot;) is a Ukrainian media holding, founded in 2005. The chief editor and director are Roman Andreiko.\r\nSource: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ТРК_«Люкс»","og:title":"Teleradiocompany \"Lux\"","og:description":"Broadcasting Company &quot;Lux&quot; (Broadcasting Company &quot;Lux&quot;) is a Ukrainian media holding, founded in 2005. The chief editor and director are Roman Andreiko.\r\nSource: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ТРК_«Люкс»","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/TRK___Ljuks__.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{},"vendors":[],"products":[{"id":1144,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Битрикс24","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"bitriks24","companyTypes":[],"description":"Омниканальна CRM\r\nБитрикс24.CRM работает незаметно и становится частью вашей компании.\r\nБитрикс24.CRM объединяет все каналы коммуникаций с клиентами: звонки, письма, обращения через соцсети, с сайта, через веб-формы, оплату в 1С и другие.\r\nВам достаточно подключить Email-трекер, Открытые линии, телефонию, CRM-формы, 1С-трекер - и все данные (контакты, история звонков, переписки в чате, веб-формы сайта, оплаты и т.д. автоматически будут сохраняться у вас в CRM. Менеджерам не нужно будет ничего переносить вручную.\r\nПо этим данным CRM построит единственный профиль клиента с историей всех его обращений в вашу компанию.\r\nСтатистика позволит вам анализировать и контролировать нагрузку и качество обслуживания.\r\n\r\nПродавать больше с Битрикс24\r\nВ центре любого бизнеса сегодня - клиент. Важно использовать весь комплекс инструментов:\r\nучет всех потенциальных клиентов и преимуществ ваших постоянных клиентов (Битрикс24 CRM)\r\nотслеживание заказов, коммерческих предложений, оплат (соглашения в CRM и воронка продаж)\r\nудобные инструменты для коммуникаций с клиентами (Виртуальная АТС)\r\nавтоматизация работы менеджеров (Бизнес-процессы)\r\nконтроль (Задачи и отчеты) и планирования (Календари)\r\nдоступ из любой точки мира (Мобильный приложение)\r\nВ Битрикс24 все необходимые инструменты есть и тесно взаимосвязаны с CRM онлайн, что значительно упрощает работу с клиентами и процесс продажи. В этом - одно из преимуществ Битрикс24 перед другими системами.\r\n\r\nУчет потенциальных клиентов\r\nВ CRM ведется учет всех ваших клиентов и не только. Любая «зацепка» (в Битрикс24 - это «лед»), которая в будущем может стать реальным клиентом, фиксируется. Это может быть email, пропущенный звонок, событие.\r\nЗадача менеджера по продажам - выяснить, кто это и каким из ваших товаров или услуг интересуется этот потенциальный клиент. Когда эта информация появляется, лед конвертируется в контакт и компании (если клиент представляет юридическое лицо), а затем в соглашение (когда намечается продажа).\r\nРабота по такому сценарию (от лида контакт и до операции) в CRM системе Битрикс24 позволяет максимально «дожать» все потенциальные зацепки и проанализировать эффективность работы отдела продаж.\r\n\r\nEmail-трекер в CRM\r\nВы общаетесь с клиентом в почте, Email-трекер незаметно для вас фиксирует переписку в CRM. В CRM всю переписку с клиентами по электронной почте хранится в истории. Даже если сотрудник уволится, информация останется в CRM.\r\nБыстрое подключение к CRM почтового ящика для каждого сотрудника (IMAP)\r\nТрекинг входящих и исходящих писем в CRM\r\nАвтоматическое создание лидов по новым входными и выходными письмами\r\nСохранение переписки с известными контактами в карточке клиента\r\nЯщики @ bitrix24 и со своим доменом подключаются к CRM автоматически\r\n\r\n1С-трекер в CRM\r\nОбогащайте свою CRM данными. 1С-трекер - это дополнительный источник информации о ваших клиентов. 1С-трекер работает незаметно для вас и связывает офлайн-продажи с онлайн-CRM в режиме реального времени.\r\nБыстрое и простое подключение 1С в Битрикс24.CRM\r\nВыгрузка всей истории продаж и клиентов с 1С: Управление торговлей, 1С: ERP и всех торговых систем на платформе 1С: Предприятие\r\nВыгрузка любых документов и клиентов по 1С: Бухгалтерии и всех учетных систем на платформе 1С: Предприятие (название, номер, сумма, ответственный, ссылку на документ в 1С)\r\nИдентификация клиента и поиск дубликатов по ФИО, телефон, email, идентификатором контрагента\r\nПодключение любого количества 1С к одному Битрикс24\r\n\r\nТелефония в CRM\r\nВсе звонки клиентов можно учитывать в облачной CRM-системе. Работа со звонками строится в CRM с телефонией.\r\nЕсли клиент звонит впервые, менеджер сможет сразу во время звонка добавить новый контакт в CRM и указать, каким товаром или услугой интересовался клиент.\r\nВсе звонки записываются без ограничения их количества (такая возможность есть, вы всегда можете ее отключить). Это полезно и руководителям (проверить, как менеджеры общаются с клиентами, выявить лучшие сценарии продаж), и самим менеджерам (подробно восстановить все договоренности с клиентом). Это почти CRM call центр.\r\n\r\nЗвонки от постоянных клиентов\r\nКогда ваш постоянный клиент звонит вам, звонок попадает сразу нужном менеджеру. Клиенту не нужно ждать, пока его переключат.\r\nМенеджер на экране видит карточку клиента фото, имя и фамилия, предварительные заказы, предпочтения. Он не переспрашивает клиента, он заказывал - вся информация уже есть. Если менеджера нет рядом с компьютером, с CRM IP телефония перенаправляет звонок на его мобильный телефон.\r\n\r\nЕсли звонок пропущенный\r\nДаже если звонок пропущен, возможности CRM-системы позволяют учесть его. Менеджер, отвечающий за этого клиента или все новые входящие звонки (если поступил звонок с неизвестного номера), получит уведомление и сможет перезвонить клиенту. Ни один звонок не потеряется.\r\n\r\nВаши клиенты\r\nВ облачной CRM системе у вас два списка клиентов: контакты и компании.&nbsp;\r\nБорьба с дубликатами\r\nВозможно, в списке ваших контактов есть дубликаты: или менеджер добавил клиента повторно, или с тем же клиентом когда-то работал другой сотрудник и уже внес его в CRM облако. В «Битрикс24» вы легко проверите имеющуюся базу и объедините дубликаты. У вас 4 варианта работы с дублями: пропустить, восстановить, дополнить, создать новый.\r\nВ дальнейшем CRM Битрикс24 предотвратит самом появлении дубликатов. Система обнаружит дубли сразу же при создании нового лида, контакта или компании, а также при импорте.\r\nПланирование дел\r\nПланируйте работу с клиентами в простой CRM: ставьте задачи коллегам, назначайте встречи с клиентами, планируйте звонки, присылайте письма. Определяйте приоритетные направления в работе, за которым многие запланированные срочных дел. Отбирайте однотипные дела с помощью фильтра, например, все звонки на сегодня.\r\nПисьма клиентам\r\nОтправьте групповой письмо прямо из списка лидов, контактов или компаний. Просьба одному или сразу многим адресатам. Прикрепите к письму или изображения.\r\nДля составления стандартных писем используйте шаблоны-заготовки. Подставьте в шаблоны информацию с CRM, чтобы ваши письма стали персонифицированными.\r\nУправление соглашениями\r\nСоглашение - конечная цель и желаемый результат работы. Отмечайте в CRM, на каком этапе сейчас сделка: в обработке, в ожидании дополнительной информации, на стадии переговоров, коммерческого предложения или уже заключена.\r\nЕсли у вас несколько направлений бизнеса, вы можете создать мультиворонкы с различными стадиями соглашения и различными полями (например, Продажа автомобилей и Сервисное обслуживание).\r\nКанбан\r\nВсе ваши сделки и лиды можно представить в виде карточек на Канбан-доске. В этих карточках вы планируете дела (звонки, письма, задания) и выполняете их. Затем перемещении карточку на новый этап. Сразу видно: в каком статусе находятся ваши сделки, что нужно сделать и когда - вы ничего не пропустите.\r\nВ карточке можно не только планировать, но и сразу выполнять дела: звонить, отправлять письма, писать клиентам в мессенджер.\r\nЖурнал доступа к данным и восстановления\r\nCRM фиксирует каждое действие со всеми документами в журнале доступа. Вы легко отследите, кто, когда и что делал в CRM (например, кто просматривал карту клиента, кто экспортировал).\r\nИз истории изменений в CRM вы сможете при необходимости восстановить вручную предыдущие значения (если, например, работник ошибочно изменил номер телефона клиента, в истории можно найти предыдущий вариант и сохранить правильный номер).\r\nСвязи в CRM\r\nЛюбые ваши действия с сущностями CRM (соглашениями, контактами и т.д.) фиксируются и сохраняются в истории.\r\nВ любой момент вы получите подробную информацию обо всех процедурах работы с этой сущностью и быстро поймете, чтобы было сделано вами или другими менеджерами.\r\nУмный поиск по CRM\r\nВ CRM встроенный собственный поисковый механизм, который выводит информацию только по базе CRM. «Умный» поиск экономит время, сильно сужая поиск и освобождая менеджера от перебора лишней информации.\r\nБизнес-процессы: Работы и триггеры\r\nСнижайте влияние человеческого фактора - автоматизироваться стандартные действия сотрудников.\r\nРаботы. Создавайте сценарии, по которым CRM будет вести соглашение вперед: ставить задачи, планировать встречи, запускать рекламу и выставлять счета. Работы подскажут менеджеру, что нужно сделать на каждом этапе операции - он ничего не забудет и докажет операцию до конца.\r\nРаботы автоматически запускают таргетированную рекламу на контакты с CRM. Это дает уникальные возможности для увеличения конверсии в продаже или для повторных продаж.\r\nТриггеры - автоматически реагируют на действия клиентов (например, на посещение, комментарий в соцсети, звонок) и запускают робота, который поможет «дожать» лед к соглашению.\r\nАналитические отчеты\r\nОценивайте эффективность менеджеров, прогнозируйте доход. Проявляйте критические точки и своевременно корректируйте работу. Руководитель видит полную картину, менеджер - отчет по данным своих клиентов.\r\nОтчеты доступны в разрезе по сделкам, лидами, контактам, компаниям, счетам и предложениям.\r\nСпециальный сводный отчет включает в себя все важные отчеты по каждому разделу CRM. Чтобы быстро информацию и оценить ситуацию в разделе CRM, достаточно переключить представления - из обычного списка данных на страницу с аналитическими отчетами.\r\nЧто такое воронка продаж? Это главный отчет в CRM. Воронка продаж CRM строится онлайн, как и другие отчеты. Этапы воронки продаж - это сделки на различных стадиях. Построение воронки продаж основывается на данных о том, какой процент сделок завершено, которые пока в работе.\r\nЕсли вам не хватает готовых отчетов, создайте их под задачи отдела или компании.\r\nСтартCRM\r\nЕдинственная «точка» доступа ко всем каналам: телефонии, почте, открытым линиям. Здесь вы можете подключить нужный канал и следить за его эффективностью.\r\nДанные автоматически собираются на одной странице, где вы видите: нагрузка по каждому каналу, количество необработанных возможностей (лидов) и суммы операций за различные периоды. Легко понять - канал приносит деньги, а какой не работает.","shortDescription":"Битрикс24 - это бесплатная онлайн CRM (для компаний до 12 сотрудников).","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":15,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Битрикс24","keywords":"Битрикс24, клиентов, продаж, клиента, звонок, звонки, клиентами, клиент","description":"Омниканальна CRM\r\nБитрикс24.CRM работает незаметно и становится частью вашей компании.\r\nБитрикс24.CRM объединяет все каналы коммуникаций с клиентами: звонки, письма, обращения через соцсети, с сайта, через веб-формы, оплату в 1С и другие.\r\nВам достаточно подкл","og:title":"Битрикс24","og:description":"Омниканальна CRM\r\nБитрикс24.CRM работает незаметно и становится частью вашей компании.\r\nБитрикс24.CRM объединяет все каналы коммуникаций с клиентами: звонки, письма, обращения через соцсети, с сайта, через веб-формы, оплату в 1С и другие.\r\nВам достаточно подкл"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":7052,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":66,"title":"BPM - Business Process Management","alias":"bpm-business-process-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process management (BPM)</span> is a discipline in operations management in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. BPM focuses on improving corporate performance by managing business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business processes is BPM. Processes can be structured and repeatable or unstructured and variable.\r\nAs an approach, BPM sees processes as important assets of an organization that must be understood, managed, and developed to announce and deliver value-added products and services to clients or customers. This approach closely resembles other total quality management or continuous improvement process methodologies. ISO 9000 promotes the process approach to managing an organization.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Successfully employing BPM usually involves the following:</span>\r\nOrganizing around outcomes not tasks to ensure the proper focus is maintained\r\nCorrecting and improving processes before (potentially) automating them; otherwise all you’ve done is make the mess run faster\r\nEstablishing processes and assigning ownership lest the work and improvements simply drift away – and they will, as human nature takes over and the momentum peters out\r\nStandardizing processes across the enterprise so they can be more readily understood and managed, errors reduced, and risks mitigated\r\nEnabling continuous change so the improvements can be extended and propagated over time\r\nImproving existing processes, rather than building radically new or “perfect” ones, because that can take so long as to erode or negate any gains achieved\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business Process Management Software (BPMS)</span> is a process automation tool. It helps you map out your everyday processes to identify and eliminate bottlenecks, control your company’s costs, make your day-to-day processes as efficient as possible, and ensure the effectiveness of the people involved in your processes. A business process management solution to a company’s needs begins with the alignment of business goals with an eye toward creating value through process change initiatives. This alignment leads to a thorough understanding and design of representative processes typically following an industry standard framework \r\nA BPM based foundation provides for complete lifecycle management of business processes, integration across technologies, and imbeds efficiency among people, processes, and technologies.\r\nCommercial business process management tools tend to center on the automation of business processes, essentially moving them from manual pen-and-paper endeavors to effortless automated transactions. BPM software products track how business information is used and then maps the relevant business process and ensure that transactions are done accordingly. This effectively shows where data and process bottlenecks occur and highlights various deficiencies in business processes, including areas where resources are wasted, allowing managers streamline and optimize those processes.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">There are three key types of BPMS:</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Efficiency Monitors:</span>Monitors every system of the enterprise for inefficiency in the processes by following it from start to finish. BPM program accurately pinpoints weakness and bottlenecks where customers might get frustrated and discontinue transactions and processes.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Workflow Software:</span> Uses detailed maps of an existing processes and tries to streamline them by optimizing certain steps. BPM workflow software cannot suggest improvements to the process, only optimize it, so this software is only as good as the process itself.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise Application Integration Tools:</span> A mixture of efficiency monitors, process and workflow management, EAI software is used to integrate legacy systems into new systems. This software can be used to map points for integrating old and new systems, optimizing their information-gathering characteristics and increasing the efficiency of system communications.<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What Are the Types of Business Process Management Software?</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\">There are <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">three basic kinds</span> of BPM frameworks:</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Horizontal frameworks.</span>They deal with design and development of business processes. They are generally focused on technology and reuse.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Vertical BPM frameworks.</span>&nbsp; This focuses on specific sets of coordinated tasks, using pre-built templates which can be easily deployed and configured.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Full-service BPM suites.</span>&nbsp; They have five basic components: Process discovery and project scoping; Process modeling and design; Business rules engine; Workflow engine; Simulation and testing.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\">There are <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">two types of BPM software</span> as it pertains to deployment:<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">On-premise</span> business process management (BPM). This has been the norm for most enterprises.</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software as a Service (SaaS).</span> Advances in cloud computing have led to an increased interest in various “software-on-demand” offerings.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are BPM Tools?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business Process Management (BPM) tools</span> are used for automating, measuring and optimizing business processes. BPM automation tools use workflow and collaboration to provide meaningful metrics to business leaders.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Misconceptions about BPM Tools.</span> There’s a common misconception that BPM tools do not easily demonstrate their benefit to the organization. While the benefit from using BPM tools can be hard to quantify, it can be expressed more effectively in terms of business value.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Process Management Tools.</span> Tools that allow process managers (those that are responsible for organizing the process or activity) to secure the resources needed to execute it, and measure the results of the activity, providing rewards or corrective feedback when necessary. Process manager tools also allows process managers to change and improve the process whenever possible.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Process Modeling Tools.</span> Software tools that let managers or analysts create business process diagrams. Simple tools only support diagramming. Professional Process Modeling Tools store each model element in a database so that they can be reused on other diagrams or updated. Many business process improvement software supports simulation or code generation.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/BPM_-_Business_Process_Management.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":182,"title":"CMS - Content management system","alias":"cms-content-management-system","description":"A content management system (CMS) manages the creation and modification of digital content. It typically supports multiple users in a collaborative environment.\r\nCMS features vary widely. Most CMSs include Web-based publishing, format management, history editing and version control, indexing, search and retrieval. By their nature, content management systems support the separation of content and presentation.\r\nContent management software solutions are typically used for enterprise content management systems (ECM) and web site content management systems (WCM). An ECM facilitates collaboration in the workplace by integrating document management, digital asset management and records retention functionalities, and providing end users with role-based access to the organization's digital assets. A WCM facilitates collaborative authoring for websites. ECM software often includes a WCM publishing functionality, but ECM webpages typically remain behind the organization's firewall.\r\nBoth enterprise content management and web content management systems have two components: a content management application (CMA) and a content delivery application (CDA). The CMA is a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the user to control the design, creation, modification and removal of content from a website without needing to know anything about HTML. The CDA component provides the back-end services that support management and delivery of the content once it has been created in the CMA.\r\nDigital asset management systems are another type of CMS. They manage content with a clearly defined author or ownership, such as documents, movies, pictures, phone numbers, and scientific data. Companies also use CMSs to store, control, revise, and publish documentation.\r\nBased on market share statistics, the most popular CMS is WordPress, used by more than 28% of all websites on the Internet, and by 59% of all websites using a known content management system, followed by Joomla and Drupal.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Content management systems typically provide the following features:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Search engine optimization</li><li>Integrated and online documentation</li><li>Modularity and extensibility</li><li>User and group functionality</li><li>Templating support for changing designs</li><li>Installation and upgrade wizards</li><li>Integrated audit logs</li><li>Compliance with various accessibility frameworks and standards, such as WAI-ARIA</li><li>Reduced need to code from scratch</li><li>Unified user experience</li><li>Version control</li><li>Edit permission management</li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is a CMS?</span></h1>\r\nAnswer: CMS is an acronym for &quot;Content Management System&quot;. You may see some variations on this term, but they all refer to the same concept. Variations include:\r\n<ul><li>Content Management System</li><li>Web CMS</li><li>Web Content Management System</li><li>CMS Platform</li><li>Content Management Platform</li><li>CMS System</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What does a CMS do?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In it's simplest terms, Content Management Systems are designed to help users create and manage their websites. Content management solutions help webmasters manage the many different resources, content types and various data that make up modern web sites.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">At a minimum, modern websites make use of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images (jpeg, gif, png, etc) to create web content for visitors to read. At the core of every CMS is the ability to organize these resources and generate valid content that can be read by web browsers. </p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">More advanced websites have interactive components (comment sections, forums, e-commerce...) that requires server software to validate and save user submitted content.<br />All of the top CMS platforms have features built-in or available for download as addons for all of these features.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the main types of CMS?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Simple CMS.</span> This system is used to create simple websites that contain several pages using simple control systems. Simple content management systems consist of several modules that are set one time. These CMSs are free and are available on the internet. Among their disadvantages are the inability to change settings, low transmission capacity, inability to create pages dynamically and the inability of ato delegateion of administrator’s credentials to others.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Template CMS.</span> It consists of modules as well, but its structure is more complex if compared to a simple CMS. Template CMS has high transmission capacity, around 50,000 inquiries. Also, it has the support of dynamic pages and the ability to delegate the administrator’s credentials. Many template systems are used to create website content because they are easy to use.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Professional CMS</span>. This type of CMS has a higher level of complexity. You may change the structure of internet resources. Additional modules can be attached to these systems. These systems are used to create information portals or massive projects. As a rule, these CMSs are a paid resource.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Universal CMS</span>. Universal systems have wide functionality and ample opportunities to develope websites of any complexity. They support the functions of changing the structure, creating dynamic pages, modification of settings and credential distribution. Universal CMS is quite expensive. These CMSs are used for work with large portals and web-projects that require high functionality and dynamics.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CMS_-_content_management_system.png"},{"id":363,"title":"Project and Portfolio Management","alias":"project-and-portfolio-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project Portfolio Management (PPM)</span> is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals, while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors. The International standard defines the framework of the Project Portfolio Management.\r\nPPM provides program and project managers in large, program/project-driven organizations with the capabilities needed to manage the time, resources, skills, and budgets necessary to accomplish all interrelated tasks. It provides a framework for issue resolution and risk mitigation, as well as the centralized visibility to help planning and scheduling teams to identify the fastest, cheapest, or most suitable approach to deliver projects and programs. Portfolio Managers define Key Performance Indicators and the strategy for their portfolio.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Pipeline Management.</span> Pipeline management involves steps to ensure that an adequate number of project proposals are not generated and not evaluated to determine whether (and how) a set of projects in the portfolio can be executed with finite development resources in a specified time. There are three major sub-components to pipeline management: ideation, work intake processes, and Phase-Gate reviews. Fundamental to pipeline management is the ability to align the decision-making process for estimating and selecting new capital investment projects with the strategic plan.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Resource Manager.</span> The focus on the efficient and effective deployment of an organization’s resources where and when they are needed. These can include financial resources, inventory, human resources, technical skills, production, and design. In addition to project-level resource allocation, users can also model ‘what-if’ resource scenarios, and extend this view across the portfolio.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Change Control.</span> The capture and prioritization of change requests that can include new requirements, features, functions, operational constraints, regulatory demands, and technical enhancements. PPM provides a central repository for these change requests and the ability to match available resources to evolving demand within the financial and operational constraints of individual projects.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Financial Management.</span> With PPM, the Office of Finance can improve their accuracy for estimating and managing the financial resources of a project or group of projects. In addition, the value of projects can be demonstrated in relation to the strategic objectives and priorities of the organization through financial controls and to assess progress through earned value and other project financial techniques.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Risk Management.</span> An analysis of the risk sensitivities residing within each project, as the basis for determining confidence levels across the portfolio. The integration of cost and schedule risk management with techniques for determining contingency and risk response plans, enable organizations to gain an objective view of project uncertainties.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s the difference between Project Management and Project Portfolio Management?</span>\r\nProject management is focused on an individual project, making sure it achieves its objectives and adheres to cost schedule baselines and performance standards. Project portfolio management, on the other hand, takes into consideration all the projects within a portfolio. The primary objective here is to select and maintain the appropriate mix of projects and to assess the costs, risks, and returns of running these projects in relation to how they match with organizational goals. Simply put, project management is about doing the project right, project portfolio management is about doing the right projects.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Problems Can Project Portfolio Management Address?</span>\r\nProject Portfolio Management helps companies avoid project overload and work on projects that are not aligned with the ultimate vision. In other words, project portfolio management helps companies to work towards their goals without getting sidetracked by too many shiny pennies (ie. projects that appear to be enticing but actually drain their resources for little return).\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does Project Portfolio Management help with new product development?</span>\r\nProject Portfolio Management supports companies in assessing, evaluating and ranking new product ideas before they become projects, so that time, money and human resources can be spent working on projects that support strategic objectives. This becomes increasingly important and relevant for companies that receive dozens if not hundreds of project proposals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the key elements of successful portfolio management?</span>\r\nGoals, objectives, governance, approval processes and monitoring portfolio performance.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Project_and_Portfolio_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[{"id":217,"title":"Ukraine","name":"UKR"}],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":174,"title":"No unified email system"},{"id":176,"title":"No unified address book"},{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":356,"title":"High costs of routine operations"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":66,"title":"BPM - Business Process Management","alias":"bpm-business-process-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process management (BPM)</span> is a discipline in operations management in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. BPM focuses on improving corporate performance by managing business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business processes is BPM. Processes can be structured and repeatable or unstructured and variable.\r\nAs an approach, BPM sees processes as important assets of an organization that must be understood, managed, and developed to announce and deliver value-added products and services to clients or customers. This approach closely resembles other total quality management or continuous improvement process methodologies. ISO 9000 promotes the process approach to managing an organization.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Successfully employing BPM usually involves the following:</span>\r\nOrganizing around outcomes not tasks to ensure the proper focus is maintained\r\nCorrecting and improving processes before (potentially) automating them; otherwise all you’ve done is make the mess run faster\r\nEstablishing processes and assigning ownership lest the work and improvements simply drift away – and they will, as human nature takes over and the momentum peters out\r\nStandardizing processes across the enterprise so they can be more readily understood and managed, errors reduced, and risks mitigated\r\nEnabling continuous change so the improvements can be extended and propagated over time\r\nImproving existing processes, rather than building radically new or “perfect” ones, because that can take so long as to erode or negate any gains achieved\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business Process Management Software (BPMS)</span> is a process automation tool. It helps you map out your everyday processes to identify and eliminate bottlenecks, control your company’s costs, make your day-to-day processes as efficient as possible, and ensure the effectiveness of the people involved in your processes. A business process management solution to a company’s needs begins with the alignment of business goals with an eye toward creating value through process change initiatives. This alignment leads to a thorough understanding and design of representative processes typically following an industry standard framework \r\nA BPM based foundation provides for complete lifecycle management of business processes, integration across technologies, and imbeds efficiency among people, processes, and technologies.\r\nCommercial business process management tools tend to center on the automation of business processes, essentially moving them from manual pen-and-paper endeavors to effortless automated transactions. BPM software products track how business information is used and then maps the relevant business process and ensure that transactions are done accordingly. This effectively shows where data and process bottlenecks occur and highlights various deficiencies in business processes, including areas where resources are wasted, allowing managers streamline and optimize those processes.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">There are three key types of BPMS:</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Efficiency Monitors:</span>Monitors every system of the enterprise for inefficiency in the processes by following it from start to finish. BPM program accurately pinpoints weakness and bottlenecks where customers might get frustrated and discontinue transactions and processes.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Workflow Software:</span> Uses detailed maps of an existing processes and tries to streamline them by optimizing certain steps. BPM workflow software cannot suggest improvements to the process, only optimize it, so this software is only as good as the process itself.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise Application Integration Tools:</span> A mixture of efficiency monitors, process and workflow management, EAI software is used to integrate legacy systems into new systems. This software can be used to map points for integrating old and new systems, optimizing their information-gathering characteristics and increasing the efficiency of system communications.<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What Are the Types of Business Process Management Software?</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\">There are <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">three basic kinds</span> of BPM frameworks:</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Horizontal frameworks.</span>They deal with design and development of business processes. They are generally focused on technology and reuse.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Vertical BPM frameworks.</span>&nbsp; This focuses on specific sets of coordinated tasks, using pre-built templates which can be easily deployed and configured.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Full-service BPM suites.</span>&nbsp; They have five basic components: Process discovery and project scoping; Process modeling and design; Business rules engine; Workflow engine; Simulation and testing.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\">There are <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">two types of BPM software</span> as it pertains to deployment:<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">On-premise</span> business process management (BPM). This has been the norm for most enterprises.</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software as a Service (SaaS).</span> Advances in cloud computing have led to an increased interest in various “software-on-demand” offerings.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are BPM Tools?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business Process Management (BPM) tools</span> are used for automating, measuring and optimizing business processes. BPM automation tools use workflow and collaboration to provide meaningful metrics to business leaders.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Misconceptions about BPM Tools.</span> There’s a common misconception that BPM tools do not easily demonstrate their benefit to the organization. While the benefit from using BPM tools can be hard to quantify, it can be expressed more effectively in terms of business value.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Process Management Tools.</span> Tools that allow process managers (those that are responsible for organizing the process or activity) to secure the resources needed to execute it, and measure the results of the activity, providing rewards or corrective feedback when necessary. Process manager tools also allows process managers to change and improve the process whenever possible.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Process Modeling Tools.</span> Software tools that let managers or analysts create business process diagrams. Simple tools only support diagramming. Professional Process Modeling Tools store each model element in a database so that they can be reused on other diagrams or updated. Many business process improvement software supports simulation or code generation.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/BPM_-_Business_Process_Management.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":182,"title":"CMS - Content management system","alias":"cms-content-management-system","description":"A content management system (CMS) manages the creation and modification of digital content. It typically supports multiple users in a collaborative environment.\r\nCMS features vary widely. Most CMSs include Web-based publishing, format management, history editing and version control, indexing, search and retrieval. By their nature, content management systems support the separation of content and presentation.\r\nContent management software solutions are typically used for enterprise content management systems (ECM) and web site content management systems (WCM). An ECM facilitates collaboration in the workplace by integrating document management, digital asset management and records retention functionalities, and providing end users with role-based access to the organization's digital assets. A WCM facilitates collaborative authoring for websites. ECM software often includes a WCM publishing functionality, but ECM webpages typically remain behind the organization's firewall.\r\nBoth enterprise content management and web content management systems have two components: a content management application (CMA) and a content delivery application (CDA). The CMA is a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows the user to control the design, creation, modification and removal of content from a website without needing to know anything about HTML. The CDA component provides the back-end services that support management and delivery of the content once it has been created in the CMA.\r\nDigital asset management systems are another type of CMS. They manage content with a clearly defined author or ownership, such as documents, movies, pictures, phone numbers, and scientific data. Companies also use CMSs to store, control, revise, and publish documentation.\r\nBased on market share statistics, the most popular CMS is WordPress, used by more than 28% of all websites on the Internet, and by 59% of all websites using a known content management system, followed by Joomla and Drupal.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Content management systems typically provide the following features:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Search engine optimization</li><li>Integrated and online documentation</li><li>Modularity and extensibility</li><li>User and group functionality</li><li>Templating support for changing designs</li><li>Installation and upgrade wizards</li><li>Integrated audit logs</li><li>Compliance with various accessibility frameworks and standards, such as WAI-ARIA</li><li>Reduced need to code from scratch</li><li>Unified user experience</li><li>Version control</li><li>Edit permission management</li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is a CMS?</span></h1>\r\nAnswer: CMS is an acronym for &quot;Content Management System&quot;. You may see some variations on this term, but they all refer to the same concept. Variations include:\r\n<ul><li>Content Management System</li><li>Web CMS</li><li>Web Content Management System</li><li>CMS Platform</li><li>Content Management Platform</li><li>CMS System</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What does a CMS do?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In it's simplest terms, Content Management Systems are designed to help users create and manage their websites. Content management solutions help webmasters manage the many different resources, content types and various data that make up modern web sites.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">At a minimum, modern websites make use of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images (jpeg, gif, png, etc) to create web content for visitors to read. At the core of every CMS is the ability to organize these resources and generate valid content that can be read by web browsers. </p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">More advanced websites have interactive components (comment sections, forums, e-commerce...) that requires server software to validate and save user submitted content.<br />All of the top CMS platforms have features built-in or available for download as addons for all of these features.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the main types of CMS?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Simple CMS.</span> This system is used to create simple websites that contain several pages using simple control systems. Simple content management systems consist of several modules that are set one time. These CMSs are free and are available on the internet. Among their disadvantages are the inability to change settings, low transmission capacity, inability to create pages dynamically and the inability of ato delegateion of administrator’s credentials to others.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Template CMS.</span> It consists of modules as well, but its structure is more complex if compared to a simple CMS. Template CMS has high transmission capacity, around 50,000 inquiries. Also, it has the support of dynamic pages and the ability to delegate the administrator’s credentials. Many template systems are used to create website content because they are easy to use.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Professional CMS</span>. This type of CMS has a higher level of complexity. You may change the structure of internet resources. Additional modules can be attached to these systems. These systems are used to create information portals or massive projects. As a rule, these CMSs are a paid resource.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Universal CMS</span>. Universal systems have wide functionality and ample opportunities to develope websites of any complexity. They support the functions of changing the structure, creating dynamic pages, modification of settings and credential distribution. Universal CMS is quite expensive. These CMSs are used for work with large portals and web-projects that require high functionality and dynamics.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CMS_-_content_management_system.png"},{"id":363,"title":"Project and Portfolio Management","alias":"project-and-portfolio-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project Portfolio Management (PPM)</span> is the centralized management of the processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals, while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors. The International standard defines the framework of the Project Portfolio Management.\r\nPPM provides program and project managers in large, program/project-driven organizations with the capabilities needed to manage the time, resources, skills, and budgets necessary to accomplish all interrelated tasks. It provides a framework for issue resolution and risk mitigation, as well as the centralized visibility to help planning and scheduling teams to identify the fastest, cheapest, or most suitable approach to deliver projects and programs. Portfolio Managers define Key Performance Indicators and the strategy for their portfolio.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Pipeline Management.</span> Pipeline management involves steps to ensure that an adequate number of project proposals are not generated and not evaluated to determine whether (and how) a set of projects in the portfolio can be executed with finite development resources in a specified time. There are three major sub-components to pipeline management: ideation, work intake processes, and Phase-Gate reviews. Fundamental to pipeline management is the ability to align the decision-making process for estimating and selecting new capital investment projects with the strategic plan.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Resource Manager.</span> The focus on the efficient and effective deployment of an organization’s resources where and when they are needed. These can include financial resources, inventory, human resources, technical skills, production, and design. In addition to project-level resource allocation, users can also model ‘what-if’ resource scenarios, and extend this view across the portfolio.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Change Control.</span> The capture and prioritization of change requests that can include new requirements, features, functions, operational constraints, regulatory demands, and technical enhancements. PPM provides a central repository for these change requests and the ability to match available resources to evolving demand within the financial and operational constraints of individual projects.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Financial Management.</span> With PPM, the Office of Finance can improve their accuracy for estimating and managing the financial resources of a project or group of projects. In addition, the value of projects can be demonstrated in relation to the strategic objectives and priorities of the organization through financial controls and to assess progress through earned value and other project financial techniques.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Risk Management.</span> An analysis of the risk sensitivities residing within each project, as the basis for determining confidence levels across the portfolio. The integration of cost and schedule risk management with techniques for determining contingency and risk response plans, enable organizations to gain an objective view of project uncertainties.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s the difference between Project Management and Project Portfolio Management?</span>\r\nProject management is focused on an individual project, making sure it achieves its objectives and adheres to cost schedule baselines and performance standards. Project portfolio management, on the other hand, takes into consideration all the projects within a portfolio. The primary objective here is to select and maintain the appropriate mix of projects and to assess the costs, risks, and returns of running these projects in relation to how they match with organizational goals. Simply put, project management is about doing the project right, project portfolio management is about doing the right projects.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Problems Can Project Portfolio Management Address?</span>\r\nProject Portfolio Management helps companies avoid project overload and work on projects that are not aligned with the ultimate vision. In other words, project portfolio management helps companies to work towards their goals without getting sidetracked by too many shiny pennies (ie. projects that appear to be enticing but actually drain their resources for little return).\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does Project Portfolio Management help with new product development?</span>\r\nProject Portfolio Management supports companies in assessing, evaluating and ranking new product ideas before they become projects, so that time, money and human resources can be spent working on projects that support strategic objectives. This becomes increasingly important and relevant for companies that receive dozens if not hundreds of project proposals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the key elements of successful portfolio management?</span>\r\nGoals, objectives, governance, approval processes and monitoring portfolio performance.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Project_and_Portfolio_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.bitrix24.ua/features/landing/crm_telephony/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIldPVyZTQ1wIVTY0bCh11CQlgEAAYAyAAEgIVbPD_BwE","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":407,"title":"Capsule CRM for research company","description":"\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">About the Client</span>\r\nCommunity Research gathers and shares research about New Zealand’s community and voluntary sector, as well as advocating good practice methods in community research.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Overview</span>\r\nTonica supported Community Research in their migration onto Capsule CRM in 2012 from a variety of different systems including Excel and Gmail.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Type of Work</span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Data Audit Report in order to visualise Community Research data structure prior to Capsule CRM and make general recommendations for the migration</li><li>Data Import Strategy, including data manipulation of the various input files in order to reduce the volume of duplicates and suit Capsule</li><li>Creation of bespoke fields in Capsule CRM to suit historical data and the requirements of Community Research</li><li>Final import of historical data into Capsule CRM and training on how to use the new system</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project Timescales</span>\r\n\r\nThree remote support consultancy days were provided over a period of four months.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Success Indicators</span>\r\n\r\n<ul><li>Contact details can be viewed anywhere in the world through a secure system</li><li>Tags, notes and custom fields tailor the database to the needs of Community Research</li><li>Easy to import new sources of data into the core database</li><li>Exciting new features such as social media integration</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Future Development</span>\r\n\r\nIt’s possible to integrate Capsule CRM with email marketing systems (such as mailchimp) and online sign up forms (through a WordPress plugin or Wufoo).&nbsp; At the time of writing, Community Research are looking into these integration options\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Client Comments</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">“I want to let you know we’ve really enjoyed working with you and your expertise has been absolutely invaluable to us. How beautiful and strange that we connected across timeframes and continents in this way, in order for your expertise to enrich our organisation There is a Maori proverb that says: ‘Kia tika a muri, ka ora a mua’ – if the right support is given from the back, then the work of those at the front will be successful. This is an expression commonly used on a marae. It means if everything is correct and proper at the back of the marae – the meeting house – everything at the front of the marae will run smoothly. (At the back of the marae all the preparation for managing the marae and its activities take place. At the front of the marae, the orators and leaders welcome and host the visitors.) So – thank you for making the back of our Marae in order” - Jan Hinde, Manager, Community Research New Zealand</span>","alias":"capsule-crm-for-research-company","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Capsule CRM for research company","keywords":"Community, Capsule, marae, Research, data, order, back, research","description":"\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">About the Client</span>\r\nCommunity Research gathers and shares research about New Zealand’s community and voluntary sector, as well as advocating good practice methods in community research.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bol","og:title":"Capsule CRM for research company","og:description":"\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">About the Client</span>\r\nCommunity Research gathers and shares research about New Zealand’s community and voluntary sector, as well as advocating good practice methods in community research.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bol"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4152,"title":"Community Research","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Community_Research.png","alias":"community-research","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Community Research is a registered charity and incorporated society established in 2008\r\n\r\nWe gather research about New Zealand’s tangata whenua, community and voluntary sector\r\nWe share it with a broader audience\r\nWe create a hub for iwi and community organisations to share their learnings\r\nWe advocate for good practice community research methods","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.communityresearch.org.nz/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Community Research","keywords":"community, share, Research, Community, research, audience, broader, with","description":"<div>Community Research is a registered charity and incorporated society established in 2008</div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div>We gather research about New Zealand’s tangata whenua, community and voluntary sector</div>\r\n<div>We share it with a broader audience</div>\r\n<","og:title":"Community Research","og:description":"<div>Community Research is a registered charity and incorporated society established in 2008</div>\r\n<div></div>\r\n<div>We gather research about New Zealand’s tangata whenua, community and voluntary sector</div>\r\n<div>We share it with a broader audience</div>\r\n<","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Community_Research.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":4029,"title":"Capsule","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Capsule.png","alias":"capsule","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Capsule was launched in 2009 following the founders' frustration with existing CRM services that were either overly simplistic or far too complex for most businesses. We believe the value of a modern CRM lies in the ability to help businesses stay organized, know more about their customers, build strong relationships and to make the most of sales opportunities, all while minimizing user input. We built Capsule to deliver on these values and today Capsule is used by thousands of businesses of all sizes all over the world.\r\n\r\nWe're based in Manchester, United Kingdom, a city with a creative heart that was founded on science and industry and the birthplace of the modern computer.\r\nCustomers in over 150 countries\r\n","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://capsulecrm.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Capsule","keywords":"Capsule, businesses, modern, over, most, with, that, while","description":"<div>Capsule was launched in 2009 following the founders' frustration with existing CRM services that were either overly simplistic or far too complex for most businesses. We believe the value of a modern CRM lies in the ability to help businesses stay organiz","og:title":"Capsule","og:description":"<div>Capsule was launched in 2009 following the founders' frustration with existing CRM services that were either overly simplistic or far too complex for most businesses. We believe the value of a modern CRM lies in the ability to help businesses stay organiz","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Capsule.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":4029,"title":"Capsule","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Capsule.png","alias":"capsule","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Capsule was launched in 2009 following the founders' frustration with existing CRM services that were either overly simplistic or far too complex for most businesses. We believe the value of a modern CRM lies in the ability to help businesses stay organized, know more about their customers, build strong relationships and to make the most of sales opportunities, all while minimizing user input. We built Capsule to deliver on these values and today Capsule is used by thousands of businesses of all sizes all over the world.\r\n\r\nWe're based in Manchester, United Kingdom, a city with a creative heart that was founded on science and industry and the birthplace of the modern computer.\r\nCustomers in over 150 countries\r\n","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://capsulecrm.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Capsule","keywords":"Capsule, businesses, modern, over, most, with, that, while","description":"<div>Capsule was launched in 2009 following the founders' frustration with existing CRM services that were either overly simplistic or far too complex for most businesses. We believe the value of a modern CRM lies in the ability to help businesses stay organiz","og:title":"Capsule","og:description":"<div>Capsule was launched in 2009 following the founders' frustration with existing CRM services that were either overly simplistic or far too complex for most businesses. We believe the value of a modern CRM lies in the ability to help businesses stay organiz","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Capsule.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1126,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Capsule CRM","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"capsule-crm","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>GET A COMPLETE VIEW OF YOUR BUSINESS - Store and manage all your business contacts in one place. All relationships, not just customers. Manage contacts, leads, customers, vendors and more.</li>\r\n<li>MAKE SURE THINGS GET DONE - Create tasks and share with co-workers. Don&rsquo;t miss that proposal deadline or customer call. If you have routine tasks, set them to repeat monthly or create a reusable process to match your business workflow.</li>\r\n<li>EASY TO USE - Be up and running in minutes. Capsule was designed with usability in mind. We made it simple and intuitive to help you feel at home within minutes of signing up, leaving you with time to focus on tasks at hand.</li>\r\n<li>EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE. Capture emails and attach notes, conversations, docs and files into a contact&rsquo;s history so it&rsquo;s easily available. Share a single view of a contact within your team.</li>\r\n<li>WE'RE HERE FOR YOU- Choosing Capsule isn't just choosing the right tool, you're also joining a community. Our friendly expert support team are here for you every day, every step of the way.</li>\r\n<li>MANAGE YOUR SALES PIPELINE AND CREATE REPORTS - Track bids, deals, proposals and other opportunities. See where your future income is coming from. Create reports and gain insight on your sales pipeline.</li>\r\n<li>CUSTOMIZE CAPSULE - Customize Capsule by adding the data fields you need and define processes for your team to follow. Create custom categories using tags such as vendor, lead and customer.</li>\r\n<li>CAPSULE MOBILE - Access your Capsule account wherever you go. Capsule for mobile gives you access to your contacts, tasks, opportunities, cases and more for both Android and iPhone.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\n","shortDescription":"Capsule CRM is the smart simple online CRM - build stronger customer relationships, make more sales and save time","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":14,"sellingCount":7,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Capsule CRM","keywords":"your, Capsule, tasks, contacts, team, Create, with, just","description":"\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>GET A COMPLETE VIEW OF YOUR BUSINESS - Store and manage all your business contacts in one place. All relationships, not just customers. Manage contacts, leads, customers, vendors and more.</li>\r\n<li>MAKE SURE THINGS GET DONE - Create tasks and shar","og:title":"Capsule CRM","og:description":"\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>GET A COMPLETE VIEW OF YOUR BUSINESS - Store and manage all your business contacts in one place. All relationships, not just customers. Manage contacts, leads, customers, vendors and more.</li>\r\n<li>MAKE SURE THINGS GET DONE - Create tasks and shar"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1127,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"},{"id":262,"title":"Support Customers"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":370,"title":"No automated business processes"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.tonica.co.uk/case-studies/migration-to-capsule-crm-case-study/","title":"Media"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":68,"title":"Cisco 7600 series router with control module for Cisco Catalyst 7600 series for modernization of the core of the information and computing network of the scientific center","description":"Description is not ready yet","alias":"cisco-7600-series-router-with-control-module-for-cisco-catalyst-7600-series","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco 7600 series router with control module for Cisco Catalyst 7600 series for modernization of the core of the information and computing network of the scientific center","keywords":"","description":"Description is not ready yet","og:title":"Cisco 7600 series router with control module for Cisco Catalyst 7600 series for modernization of the core of the information and computing network of the scientific center","og:description":"Description is not ready yet"},"deal_info":"","user":{},"supplier":{},"vendors":[{"id":170,"title":"Cisco","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png","alias":"cisco","address":"","roles":[],"description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, Cisco dominates the Internet Protocol (IP) -based network equipment segment, and also manufactures cybersecurity, video conferencing systems, and other network equipment and software. In addition, Cisco offers a number of cloud services. Cisco's primary customers are large enterprises and telecommunications service providers, but the company also sells products aimed at small businesses and the public sector. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco offers products and services in four categories. The company's infrastructure platforms generate more than half of its revenue. This includes switching devices, routing devices, wireless communications, and data processing solutions. Applications that account for over 10% of revenue are primarily software related to networking and data processing platforms. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Applications include collaboration tools (unified communications, Cisco TelePresence video conferencing) as well as AppDynamics and Internet of Things software. The cybersecurity product category generates more than 5% of the company's revenue and includes network security, email security, identity and access, advanced threat protection, and unified exposure management products. In addition, Cisco offers consulting services. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco's total revenue in fiscal 2020 was nearly $ 50 billion. The company is expanding its research and development (R&amp;D) investments in areas such as the cloud platform, remote collaboration platform, analytics and telecommunications technologies.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":29,"suppliedProductsCount":29,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":7,"vendorImplementationsCount":42,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":125,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.cisco.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Cisco","keywords":"Index, networking, Cisco, company, Russell, 1000, June, Average","description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:title":"Cisco","og:description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":423,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cisco 7600 Series Routers","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":2,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cisco-7600-series-routers","companyTypes":[],"description":"The Cisco 7600 Series is the industry's first carrier-class edge router to offer integrated, high-density Ethernet switching, carrier-class IP/MPLS routing, and 10-Gbps interfaces, benefiting enterprises and helping enable service providers to deliver both consumer and business services over a single converged Carrier Ethernet network.\r\n\r\nImportant Features:\r\nHigh performance, with up to 720 Gbps in a single chassis, or 40 Gbps capacity per slot\r\nA choice of form factors purpose-built for high availability\r\nCisco I-Flex design: A portfolio of shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs) that controls voice, video, and data experiences\r\nScalable and extensible suite of hardware and software capabilities to enable intelligent Carrier Ethernet services\r\nIntegrated Video Call Admission Control with innovative visual quality of experience for both broadcast and video on demand (VoD)\r\nIntelligent Services Gateway, providing scalable subscriber and application awareness with multidimensional identity capabilities and policy controls\r\nIntegrated Session Border Control with quality of experience in both Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) and non-SIP applications\r\nApplications:\r\nCarrier Ethernet: Aggregation of consumer and business service\r\nEthernet services edge: Personalized IP services\r\nWireless mesh networking and mobility service convergence\r\nIP/MPLS provider edge routing\r\nEnterprise WAN aggregation\r\nHeadquarters core routing","shortDescription":"Deploy high-performance IP/MPLS features as well as scalable personalized IP services at the network edge, improve operational efficiency, and maximize return on network investments with the Cisco 7600 Series Router.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":18,"sellingCount":12,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco 7600 Series Routers","keywords":"Ethernet, services, with, service, Carrier, edge, routing, both","description":"The Cisco 7600 Series is the industry's first carrier-class edge router to offer integrated, high-density Ethernet switching, carrier-class IP/MPLS routing, and 10-Gbps interfaces, benefiting enterprises and helping enable service providers to deliver both con","og:title":"Cisco 7600 Series Routers","og:description":"The Cisco 7600 Series is the industry's first carrier-class edge router to offer integrated, high-density Ethernet switching, carrier-class IP/MPLS routing, and 10-Gbps interfaces, benefiting enterprises and helping enable service providers to deliver both con"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":424,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":56,"title":"Router","alias":"router","description":"A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. Routers perform the traffic directing functions on the Internet. Data sent through the internet, such as a web page or email, is in the form of data packets. A packet is typically forwarded from one router to another router through the networks that constitute an internetwork (e.g. the Internet) until it reaches its destination node.\r\nA router is connected to two or more data lines from different IP networks. When a data packet comes in on one of the lines, the router reads the network address information in the packet header to determine the ultimate destination. Then, using information in its routing table or routing policy, it directs the packet to the next network on its journey.\r\nThe most familiar type of IP routers are home and small office routers that simply forward IP packets between the home computers and the Internet. An example of a router would be the owner's cable or DSL router, which connects to the Internet through an Internet service provider (ISP). More sophisticated routers, such as enterprise routers, connect large business or ISP networks up to the powerful core routers that forward data at high speed along the optical fiber lines of the Internet backbone.\r\nThe main purpose of a router is to connect multiple networks and forward packets destined either for its own networks or other networks. A router is considered a layer-3 device because its primary forwarding decision is based on the information in the layer-3 IP packet, specifically the destination IP address. When a router receives a packet, it searches its routing table to find the best match between the destination IP address of the packet and one of the addresses in the routing table. Once a match is found, the packet is encapsulated in the layer-2 data link frame for the outgoing interface indicated in the table entry. A router typically does not look into the packet payload,[citation needed] but only at the layer-3 addresses to make a forwarding decision, plus optionally other information in the header for hints on, for example, quality of service (QoS). For pure IP forwarding, a router is designed to minimize the state information associated with individual packets. Once a packet is forwarded, the router does not retain any historical information about the packet.\r\nThe routing table itself can contain information derived from a variety of sources, such as a default or static routes that are configured manually, or dynamic routing protocols where the router learns routes from other routers. A default route is one that is used to route all traffic whose destination does not otherwise appear in the routing table; this is common – even necessary – in small networks, such as a home or small business where the default route simply sends all non-local traffic to the Internet service provider. The default route can be manually configured (as a static route), or learned by dynamic routing protocols, or be obtained by DHCP.\r\nA router can run more than one routing protocol at a time, particularly if it serves as an autonomous system border router between parts of a network that run different routing protocols; if it does so, then redistribution may be used (usually selectively) to share information between the different protocols running on the same router.\r\nBesides making a decision as to which interface a packet is forwarded to, which is handled primarily via the routing table, a router also has to manage congestion when packets arrive at a rate higher than the router can process. Three policies commonly used in the Internet are tail drop, random early detection (RED), and weighted random early detection (WRED). Tail drop is the simplest and most easily implemented; the router simply drops new incoming packets once the length of the queue exceeds the size of the buffers in the router. RED probabilistically drops datagrams early when the queue exceeds a pre-configured portion of the buffer, until a pre-determined max, when it becomes tail drop. WRED requires a weight on the average queue size to act upon when the traffic is about to exceed the pre-configured size, so that short bursts will not trigger random drops.\r\nAnother function a router performs is to decide which packet should be processed first when multiple queues exist. This is managed through QoS, which is critical when Voice over IP is deployed, so as not to introduce excessive latency.\r\nYet another function a router performs is called policy-based routing where special rules are constructed to override the rules derived from the routing table when a packet forwarding decision is made.\r\nRouter functions may be performed through the same internal paths that the packets travel inside the router. Some of the functions may be performed through an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to avoid overhead of scheduling CPU time to process the packets. Others may have to be performed through the CPU as these packets need special attention that cannot be handled by an ASIC.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is a Router?</span>\r\nRouters are the nodes that make up a computer network like the internet. The router you use at home is the central node of your home network.\r\nIt functions as an information manager between the internet and all devices that go online (i.e. all devices connected to the router). Generally speaking, routers direct incoming traffic to its destination.\r\nThis also makes your router the first line of security in protecting your home network from malicious online attacks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Does a Router Do?</span>\r\nYour router handles network traffic. For example, to view this article, data packages coding for this website have to transit from our server, through various nodes on the internet, and finally through your router to arrive on your phone or computer. On your device, your browser decodes those data packages to display the article you’re currently reading.\r\nSince a typical household has more than one device that connects to the internet, you need a router to manage the incoming network signals. In other words, your router makes sure that the data packages coding for a website you want to view on your computer aren’t sent to your phone. It does that by using your device’s MAC address.\r\nWhile your router has a unique (external) IP address to receive data packages from servers worldwide, every device on your home network also carries a unique MAC address. Simply put, when you try to access information online, your router maintains a table to keep track of which device requested information from where. Based on this table, your router distributes incoming data packages to the correct recipient.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is the Difference Between Modems and Routers?</span>\r\nA modem turns the proprietary network signal of your ISP (internet service provider) into a standard network signal. In theory, you can choose between multiple ISPs and some of them may use the same delivery route. Your modem knows which signals to read and translate.\r\nThe kind of modem your ISP will provide you with depends on how you’re connecting to the internet. For example, a DSL modem requires a different technology than a cable or fiber optic broadband modem. That’s because one uses the copper wiring of your telephone line, while the others use a coaxial or a fiber optic cable, respectively.\r\nThe DSL modem has to filter and read both the low frequencies that phone and voice data produce, as well as the high frequencies of internet data. Cable modems, on the other hand, have to differentiate between television and internet signals, which are transmitted on different channels, rather than different frequencies. Finally, fiber optic uses pulses of light to transmit information. The modem has to decode these signals into standard data packages.\r\nOnce the modem has turned the ISP’s network signal into data packages, the router can distribute them to the target device.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Router1.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]},{"id":425,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM)","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":2,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cisco-catalyst-6500-series-7600-series-wireless-services-module-wism","companyTypes":[],"description":"As a member of the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller family, the Cisco WiSM works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet access points, and the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to support mission-critical wireless data, voice, and video applications. As a key component of Cisco Unified Wireless Network for the enterprise, and Cisco ServiceMesh for service providers, the Cisco WiSM provides real-time communication between access points and other wireless LAN controllers to deliver a secure, end-to-end wireless solution.\r\nBecause the Cisco WiSM supports 802.11a/b/g and the IEEE 802.11n draft 2.0 standard, organizations can deploy the solution that best meets their individual requirements. Organizations can offer robust coverage with 802.11 a/b/g or deliver greater performance with 5x the throughput and unprecedented reliability using 802.11n as part of an enterprise, or service provider wireless solution.","shortDescription":"The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM) provides unparalleled security, mobility, redundancy, and ease of use for business-critical wireless LANs (WLANs). It allows network managers and operators to control and manage their wireless networks easily.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":13,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM)","keywords":"Cisco, WiSM, wireless, Wireless, solution, with, access, enterprise","description":"As a member of the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller family, the Cisco WiSM works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet access points, and the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to support mission-critical wireless data, voice, and video applications. As a key compon","og:title":"Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM)","og:description":"As a member of the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller family, the Cisco WiSM works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet access points, and the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to support mission-critical wireless data, voice, and video applications. As a key compon"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":426,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":172,"title":"WLAN - wireless network","alias":"wlan-wireless-network","description":"Unified Communications (UC) is a marketing buzzword describing the integration of real-time, enterprise, communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user-interface and user-experience across multiple devices and media-types.\r\n\r\nIn its broadest sense, UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via a network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one-to-one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.\r\n\r\nUC allows an individual to send a message on one medium, and receive the same communication on another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. If the sender is online according to the presence information and currently accepts calls, the response can be sent immediately through text chat or video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non-real-time message that can be accessed through a variety of media.\r\n\r\nSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WLAN_-_wireless_network.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[{"id":180,"title":"Russia","name":"RUS"}],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":8,"title":"Reduce Production Timelines"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":354,"title":"Low bandwidth data channels"}]}},"categories":[{"id":56,"title":"Router","alias":"router","description":"A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. Routers perform the traffic directing functions on the Internet. Data sent through the internet, such as a web page or email, is in the form of data packets. A packet is typically forwarded from one router to another router through the networks that constitute an internetwork (e.g. the Internet) until it reaches its destination node.\r\nA router is connected to two or more data lines from different IP networks. When a data packet comes in on one of the lines, the router reads the network address information in the packet header to determine the ultimate destination. Then, using information in its routing table or routing policy, it directs the packet to the next network on its journey.\r\nThe most familiar type of IP routers are home and small office routers that simply forward IP packets between the home computers and the Internet. An example of a router would be the owner's cable or DSL router, which connects to the Internet through an Internet service provider (ISP). More sophisticated routers, such as enterprise routers, connect large business or ISP networks up to the powerful core routers that forward data at high speed along the optical fiber lines of the Internet backbone.\r\nThe main purpose of a router is to connect multiple networks and forward packets destined either for its own networks or other networks. A router is considered a layer-3 device because its primary forwarding decision is based on the information in the layer-3 IP packet, specifically the destination IP address. When a router receives a packet, it searches its routing table to find the best match between the destination IP address of the packet and one of the addresses in the routing table. Once a match is found, the packet is encapsulated in the layer-2 data link frame for the outgoing interface indicated in the table entry. A router typically does not look into the packet payload,[citation needed] but only at the layer-3 addresses to make a forwarding decision, plus optionally other information in the header for hints on, for example, quality of service (QoS). For pure IP forwarding, a router is designed to minimize the state information associated with individual packets. Once a packet is forwarded, the router does not retain any historical information about the packet.\r\nThe routing table itself can contain information derived from a variety of sources, such as a default or static routes that are configured manually, or dynamic routing protocols where the router learns routes from other routers. A default route is one that is used to route all traffic whose destination does not otherwise appear in the routing table; this is common – even necessary – in small networks, such as a home or small business where the default route simply sends all non-local traffic to the Internet service provider. The default route can be manually configured (as a static route), or learned by dynamic routing protocols, or be obtained by DHCP.\r\nA router can run more than one routing protocol at a time, particularly if it serves as an autonomous system border router between parts of a network that run different routing protocols; if it does so, then redistribution may be used (usually selectively) to share information between the different protocols running on the same router.\r\nBesides making a decision as to which interface a packet is forwarded to, which is handled primarily via the routing table, a router also has to manage congestion when packets arrive at a rate higher than the router can process. Three policies commonly used in the Internet are tail drop, random early detection (RED), and weighted random early detection (WRED). Tail drop is the simplest and most easily implemented; the router simply drops new incoming packets once the length of the queue exceeds the size of the buffers in the router. RED probabilistically drops datagrams early when the queue exceeds a pre-configured portion of the buffer, until a pre-determined max, when it becomes tail drop. WRED requires a weight on the average queue size to act upon when the traffic is about to exceed the pre-configured size, so that short bursts will not trigger random drops.\r\nAnother function a router performs is to decide which packet should be processed first when multiple queues exist. This is managed through QoS, which is critical when Voice over IP is deployed, so as not to introduce excessive latency.\r\nYet another function a router performs is called policy-based routing where special rules are constructed to override the rules derived from the routing table when a packet forwarding decision is made.\r\nRouter functions may be performed through the same internal paths that the packets travel inside the router. Some of the functions may be performed through an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to avoid overhead of scheduling CPU time to process the packets. Others may have to be performed through the CPU as these packets need special attention that cannot be handled by an ASIC.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is a Router?</span>\r\nRouters are the nodes that make up a computer network like the internet. The router you use at home is the central node of your home network.\r\nIt functions as an information manager between the internet and all devices that go online (i.e. all devices connected to the router). Generally speaking, routers direct incoming traffic to its destination.\r\nThis also makes your router the first line of security in protecting your home network from malicious online attacks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Does a Router Do?</span>\r\nYour router handles network traffic. For example, to view this article, data packages coding for this website have to transit from our server, through various nodes on the internet, and finally through your router to arrive on your phone or computer. On your device, your browser decodes those data packages to display the article you’re currently reading.\r\nSince a typical household has more than one device that connects to the internet, you need a router to manage the incoming network signals. In other words, your router makes sure that the data packages coding for a website you want to view on your computer aren’t sent to your phone. It does that by using your device’s MAC address.\r\nWhile your router has a unique (external) IP address to receive data packages from servers worldwide, every device on your home network also carries a unique MAC address. Simply put, when you try to access information online, your router maintains a table to keep track of which device requested information from where. Based on this table, your router distributes incoming data packages to the correct recipient.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is the Difference Between Modems and Routers?</span>\r\nA modem turns the proprietary network signal of your ISP (internet service provider) into a standard network signal. In theory, you can choose between multiple ISPs and some of them may use the same delivery route. Your modem knows which signals to read and translate.\r\nThe kind of modem your ISP will provide you with depends on how you’re connecting to the internet. For example, a DSL modem requires a different technology than a cable or fiber optic broadband modem. That’s because one uses the copper wiring of your telephone line, while the others use a coaxial or a fiber optic cable, respectively.\r\nThe DSL modem has to filter and read both the low frequencies that phone and voice data produce, as well as the high frequencies of internet data. Cable modems, on the other hand, have to differentiate between television and internet signals, which are transmitted on different channels, rather than different frequencies. Finally, fiber optic uses pulses of light to transmit information. The modem has to decode these signals into standard data packages.\r\nOnce the modem has turned the ISP’s network signal into data packages, the router can distribute them to the target device.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Router1.png"},{"id":172,"title":"WLAN - wireless network","alias":"wlan-wireless-network","description":"Unified Communications (UC) is a marketing buzzword describing the integration of real-time, enterprise, communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user-interface and user-experience across multiple devices and media-types.\r\n\r\nIn its broadest sense, UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via a network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one-to-one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.\r\n\r\nUC allows an individual to send a message on one medium, and receive the same communication on another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. If the sender is online according to the presence information and currently accepts calls, the response can be sent immediately through text chat or video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non-real-time message that can be accessed through a variety of media.\r\n\r\nSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WLAN_-_wireless_network.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"http://www.ot.ru/projects/projects/modernization-of-the-core-of-the-regional-information-networks/?sphrase_id=5132","title":"Supplier's web site"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":1011,"title":"Cisco Catalyst WMS for large Ukrainian plant","description":"<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Description is not ready yet</span>","alias":"cisco-catalyst-wms-for-large-ukrainian-plant","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco Catalyst WMS for large Ukrainian plant","keywords":"","description":"<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Description is not ready yet</span>","og:title":"Cisco Catalyst WMS for large Ukrainian plant","og:description":"<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Description is not ready yet</span>"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4195,"title":"Hidden user","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/hidden_user.jpg","alias":"skrytyi-polzovatel","address":"","roles":[],"description":"User Information is confidential ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":98,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Hidden user","keywords":"Hidden, user, User, Information, confidential","description":"User Information is confidential ","og:title":"Hidden user","og:description":"User Information is confidential ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/hidden_user.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":2701,"title":"VERNA","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/VERNA.png","alias":"verna","address":"","roles":[],"description":"VERNA is one of the leading IT Integrators, specializing in design, implementation and support of technical solutions, aimed to improve the efficiency of corporate IT systems, - both on-site and on a remote basis. <br />VERNA has spent more than 15 successful years of dynamic development in the MSP area, having implemented 150 + projects for national-wide companies at Ukrainian market as well as outsourced projects for clients from USA and Western Europe.<br />The main customers are large geographically distributed enterprises: banks, retails, industrial enterprises (BNP Paribas Group, GlobalLogic, Volksbank, Kraft, ArcelorMittal, UniCredit Bank and others).<br />Technical expertise and skills of VERNA team are proven by certificates and partnership statuses with Cisco, Microsoft, HP, IBM, APC, Oracle, VMware, Citrix, Intel, Dell, Siemens, Systemax, etc.<br />VERNA specializes in planning, implementation and support of the following solutions:<br />- Virtualization (VMware,Hyper-V, Citrix, Dockers)<br />- Infrastructure (MS Active Directory, Office 365, Azure, AWS amazon)<br />- VoIP (Cisco, asterisk/FreePBX/Elastix)<br />- Unified Communications (Webex, Big Blue Button, Lync, Exchange, SharePoint)<br />- Networking (Cisco, FortiNet, OpenVPN, CheckPoint)<br />- Server &amp; Storage (SAN, NAS, FAS)<br />- Business applications and databases (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM)<br />- VDI and terminal access solutions (Microsoft, VMware, Citrix)<br />- Storage virtualization (DataCore)<br />- DLP and Information Security (Antivirus systems, websence, Fortinet, DeviceLock e t.c.)<br />Source: https://www.linkedin.com/company/verna","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":205,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":41,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":9,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.verna.ua/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"VERNA","keywords":"solutions, infrastructure, providing, distributed, geographically, with, core, services","description":"VERNA is one of the leading IT Integrators, specializing in design, implementation and support of technical solutions, aimed to improve the efficiency of corporate IT systems, - both on-site and on a remote basis. <br />VERNA has spent more than 15 successful ","og:title":"VERNA","og:description":"VERNA is one of the leading IT Integrators, specializing in design, implementation and support of technical solutions, aimed to improve the efficiency of corporate IT systems, - both on-site and on a remote basis. <br />VERNA has spent more than 15 successful ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/VERNA.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":170,"title":"Cisco","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png","alias":"cisco","address":"","roles":[],"description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, Cisco dominates the Internet Protocol (IP) -based network equipment segment, and also manufactures cybersecurity, video conferencing systems, and other network equipment and software. In addition, Cisco offers a number of cloud services. Cisco's primary customers are large enterprises and telecommunications service providers, but the company also sells products aimed at small businesses and the public sector. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco offers products and services in four categories. The company's infrastructure platforms generate more than half of its revenue. This includes switching devices, routing devices, wireless communications, and data processing solutions. Applications that account for over 10% of revenue are primarily software related to networking and data processing platforms. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Applications include collaboration tools (unified communications, Cisco TelePresence video conferencing) as well as AppDynamics and Internet of Things software. The cybersecurity product category generates more than 5% of the company's revenue and includes network security, email security, identity and access, advanced threat protection, and unified exposure management products. In addition, Cisco offers consulting services. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco's total revenue in fiscal 2020 was nearly $ 50 billion. The company is expanding its research and development (R&amp;D) investments in areas such as the cloud platform, remote collaboration platform, analytics and telecommunications technologies.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":29,"suppliedProductsCount":29,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":7,"vendorImplementationsCount":42,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":125,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.cisco.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Cisco","keywords":"Index, networking, Cisco, company, Russell, 1000, June, Average","description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:title":"Cisco","og:description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":425,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM)","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"2.00","implementationsCount":2,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cisco-catalyst-6500-series-7600-series-wireless-services-module-wism","companyTypes":[],"description":"As a member of the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller family, the Cisco WiSM works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet access points, and the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to support mission-critical wireless data, voice, and video applications. As a key component of Cisco Unified Wireless Network for the enterprise, and Cisco ServiceMesh for service providers, the Cisco WiSM provides real-time communication between access points and other wireless LAN controllers to deliver a secure, end-to-end wireless solution.\r\nBecause the Cisco WiSM supports 802.11a/b/g and the IEEE 802.11n draft 2.0 standard, organizations can deploy the solution that best meets their individual requirements. Organizations can offer robust coverage with 802.11 a/b/g or deliver greater performance with 5x the throughput and unprecedented reliability using 802.11n as part of an enterprise, or service provider wireless solution.","shortDescription":"The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series/7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM) provides unparalleled security, mobility, redundancy, and ease of use for business-critical wireless LANs (WLANs). It allows network managers and operators to control and manage their wireless networks easily.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":13,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM)","keywords":"Cisco, WiSM, wireless, Wireless, solution, with, access, enterprise","description":"As a member of the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller family, the Cisco WiSM works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet access points, and the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to support mission-critical wireless data, voice, and video applications. As a key compon","og:title":"Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series 7600 Series Wireless Services Module (WiSM)","og:description":"As a member of the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller family, the Cisco WiSM works in conjunction with Cisco Aironet access points, and the Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS) to support mission-critical wireless data, voice, and video applications. As a key compon"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":426,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":172,"title":"WLAN - wireless network","alias":"wlan-wireless-network","description":"Unified Communications (UC) is a marketing buzzword describing the integration of real-time, enterprise, communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user-interface and user-experience across multiple devices and media-types.\r\n\r\nIn its broadest sense, UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via a network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one-to-one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.\r\n\r\nUC allows an individual to send a message on one medium, and receive the same communication on another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. If the sender is online according to the presence information and currently accepts calls, the response can be sent immediately through text chat or video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non-real-time message that can be accessed through a variety of media.\r\n\r\nSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WLAN_-_wireless_network.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[{"id":217,"title":"Ukraine","name":"UKR"}],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":254,"title":"Centralize management"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":370,"title":"No automated business processes"},{"id":378,"title":"Low employee productivity"},{"id":395,"title":"Decentralization of management"},{"id":398,"title":"Poor communication and coordination among staff"}]}},"categories":[{"id":172,"title":"WLAN - wireless network","alias":"wlan-wireless-network","description":"Unified Communications (UC) is a marketing buzzword describing the integration of real-time, enterprise, communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user-interface and user-experience across multiple devices and media-types.\r\n\r\nIn its broadest sense, UC can encompass all forms of communications that are exchanged via a network to include other forms of communications such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and digital signage Communications as they become an integrated part of the network communications deployment and may be directed as one-to-one communications or broadcast communications from one to many.\r\n\r\nUC allows an individual to send a message on one medium, and receive the same communication on another medium. For example, one can receive a voicemail message and choose to access it through e-mail or a cell phone. If the sender is online according to the presence information and currently accepts calls, the response can be sent immediately through text chat or video call. Otherwise, it may be sent as a non-real-time message that can be accessed through a variety of media.\r\n\r\nSource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WLAN_-_wireless_network.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.verna.ua/projects/seti-i-telekommunikatsii/item/1153-uvelichenie-proizvoditelnosti-sklada-za-schet-primeneniya-mekhanizmov-radioplanirovaniya-i-vnedreniya-seti-wifi","title":"Supplier's web site"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":884,"title":"CISCO CMX for OKKO filling station network","description":"Description is not ready yet","alias":"cisco-cmx-for-okko-filling-station-network","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"CISCO CMX for OKKO filling station network","keywords":"","description":"Description is not ready yet","og:title":"CISCO CMX for OKKO filling station network","og:description":"Description is not ready yet"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":308,"title":"Сoncern Galnaftogaz (OKKO)","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/okko.png","alias":"koncern-galnaftogaz","address":"Mailing address 72 Heroiv UPA Str. L’viv, Ukraine, 79018 Registered address 1 Plastova Str. L’viv, Ukraine, 79056","roles":[],"description":"Сoncern Galnaftogaz is the leading Ukrainian company, basic activity of which is retail of fuel and consumer goods and services through the network of OKKO branded filling complexes. Company is among leaders at the oil products market and is presented in all regions of Ukraine. Another important direction of the Company’s activities is retail of consumer goods and services through the network of convenient stores, at filling complexes and outside them. Concern Galnaftogaz is also engaged into large and small wholesale of oil products and provides storage and transporting services of fuel to third parties.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":5,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.okko.ua/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Сoncern Galnaftogaz (OKKO)","keywords":"Сoncern, Galnaftogaz, fuel, services, thro, retail, goods, consumer","description":"Сoncern Galnaftogaz is the leading Ukrainian company, basic activity of which is retail of fuel and consumer goods and services through the network of OKKO branded filling complexes. Company is among leaders at the oil products market and is presented in all r","og:title":"Сoncern Galnaftogaz (OKKO)","og:description":"Сoncern Galnaftogaz is the leading Ukrainian company, basic activity of which is retail of fuel and consumer goods and services through the network of OKKO branded filling complexes. Company is among leaders at the oil products market and is presented in all r","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/okko.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":248,"title":"IT INTEGRATOR","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/IT-Integrator_logo.png","alias":"it-integrator","address":"Киев, ул. Смоленская, 31-33, 3 корпус тел. (044) 538-00-69","roles":[],"description":"IT-Integrator - ukrainian system integrator, has a wide product range and high competencies in the field of IT. The company was founded December 5, 2000. By focusing its activities on advanced technologies, the company offers its customers a wide range of products and services designed to increase efficiency. The company promotes the formation of IT literacy for the development of the Ukrainian economy.<br />Advantages\r\n<ul><li>Years of experience in the Ukrainian market</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Full range of IT services - from the sale of equipment to the audit services, engineering, consulting and support</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>More than 60 certified engineers</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Focusing on business customers' needs</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Cooperation with world manufacturers of hardware and software</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>High quality equipment certified delivery, warranty, service support and maintenance</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>An extensive branch network: the representation of all regions of Ukraine</li></ul>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":211,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":10,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":8,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://it-integrator.ua/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"IT INTEGRATOR","keywords":"company, customers, focusing, services, wide, Ukrainian, range, segment","description":"IT-Integrator - ukrainian system integrator, has a wide product range and high competencies in the field of IT. The company was founded December 5, 2000. By focusing its activities on advanced technologies, the company offers its customers a wide range of prod","og:title":"IT INTEGRATOR","og:description":"IT-Integrator - ukrainian system integrator, has a wide product range and high competencies in the field of IT. The company was founded December 5, 2000. By focusing its activities on advanced technologies, the company offers its customers a wide range of prod","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/IT-Integrator_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":170,"title":"Cisco","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png","alias":"cisco","address":"","roles":[],"description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, Cisco dominates the Internet Protocol (IP) -based network equipment segment, and also manufactures cybersecurity, video conferencing systems, and other network equipment and software. In addition, Cisco offers a number of cloud services. Cisco's primary customers are large enterprises and telecommunications service providers, but the company also sells products aimed at small businesses and the public sector. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco offers products and services in four categories. The company's infrastructure platforms generate more than half of its revenue. This includes switching devices, routing devices, wireless communications, and data processing solutions. Applications that account for over 10% of revenue are primarily software related to networking and data processing platforms. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Applications include collaboration tools (unified communications, Cisco TelePresence video conferencing) as well as AppDynamics and Internet of Things software. The cybersecurity product category generates more than 5% of the company's revenue and includes network security, email security, identity and access, advanced threat protection, and unified exposure management products. In addition, Cisco offers consulting services. </span>\r\n\r\n<span lang=\"en\">Cisco's total revenue in fiscal 2020 was nearly $ 50 billion. The company is expanding its research and development (R&amp;D) investments in areas such as the cloud platform, remote collaboration platform, analytics and telecommunications technologies.</span>","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":29,"suppliedProductsCount":29,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":7,"vendorImplementationsCount":42,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":125,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.cisco.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Cisco","keywords":"Index, networking, Cisco, company, Russell, 1000, June, Average","description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:title":"Cisco","og:description":"<span lang=\"en\">Cisco Systems is a global manufacturer of network equipment: routers, switches and servers, as well as software for data transmission on the Internet and corporate networks. The company was founded in 1984 in San Jose (California, USA). Today, ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Cisco_logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":4760,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX)","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"0.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cisco-connected-mobile-experiences-cmx","companyTypes":[],"description":"Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences turns the industry-leading wireless infrastructure into an intelligent platform that not only provides a reliable connection, but also provides analytic customer information that you can use to grow your business. As the undisputed leader in the Wi-Fi market with over seven years of experience in Wi-Fi location, Cisco is a trusted partner\r\nCisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) uses a high-density wireless network with the Cisco® Mobility Services Engine, which enables organizations to collect aggregated location data for Wi-Fi users. CMX Analytics is a data visualization module that helps organizations use the network as a source of data for business analysis, highlight behavioral patterns and trends, which, in turn, can help businesses make informed decisions about how to improve customer service and improve their quality. service.<br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><br />Benefits</span>\r\nWith the CMX solution, you can:\r\n<ul><li>Analyze business performance and optimize marketing activities through quantitative analysis of activity at your facility, for example, determining the patency of a particular store</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Increase the profitability per square meter by optimizing the location using the detailed traffic of the outlet, the conversion rate of visitors into customers, as well as other information, up to specific zones, as well as quantifying the implementation of changes</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Increase customer satisfaction by ensuring that there are enough staff during peak periods</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Increase profitability using location data for optimal mobile marketing campaigns.</li></ul>","shortDescription":"Thanks to Cisco CMX solutions, Wi-Fi from a familiar means of accessing the network can turn into a powerful tool for analytics, encouraging customers and generating additional profit.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":9,"sellingCount":9,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX)","keywords":"","description":"Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences turns the industry-leading wireless infrastructure into an intelligent platform that not only provides a reliable connection, but also provides analytic customer information that you can use to grow your business. As the undi","og:title":"Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX)","og:description":"Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences turns the industry-leading wireless infrastructure into an intelligent platform that not only provides a reliable connection, but also provides analytic customer information that you can use to grow your business. As the undi"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":4761,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":3,"title":"MDM - Mobile Device Management","alias":"mdm-mobile-device-management","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Mobile device management (MDM)</span> is an industry term for the administration of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers and laptops. Device management system is usually implemented with the use of a third party product that has management features for particular vendors of mobile devices.\r\nMDM is typically a deployment of a combination of on-device applications and configurations, corporate policies and certificates, and backend infrastructure, for the purpose of simplifying and enhancing the IT management of end user devices. In modern corporate IT environments, the sheer number and diversity of managed devices (and user behavior) has motivated device management tools that allow the management of devices and users in a consistent and scalable way. The overall role of MDM is to increase device supportability, security, and corporate functionality while maintaining some user flexibility.\r\nMany organizations administer devices and applications using MDM products/services. Mobile device management software primarily deals with corporate data segregation, securing emails, securing corporate documents on devices, enforcing corporate policies, integrating and managing mobile devices including laptops and handhelds of various categories. MDM implementations may be either on-premises or cloud-based.\r\nMDM functionality can include over-the-air distribution of applications, data and configuration settings for all types of mobile devices, including mobile phones, smartphones, tablet computers, ruggedized mobile computers, mobile printers, mobile POS devices, etc. Most recently laptops and desktops have been added to the list of systems supported as Mobile Device Management becomes more about basic device management and less about the mobile platform itself. \r\nSome of the <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">core functions</span> of mobile management software include:\r\n<ul><li>Ensuring that diverse user equipment is configured to a consistent standard/supported set of applications, functions, or corporate policies</li><li>Updating equipment, applications, functions, or policies in a scalable manner</li><li>Ensuring that users use applications in a consistent and supportable manner</li><li>Ensuring that equipment performs consistently</li><li>Monitoring and tracking equipment (e.g. location, status, ownership, activity)</li><li>Being able to efficiently diagnose and troubleshoot equipment remotely</li></ul>\r\nDevice management solutions are leveraged for both company-owned and employee-owned (Bring Your Own Device) devices across the enterprise or mobile devices owned by consumers. Consumer demand for BYOD is now requiring a greater effort for MDM and increased security for both the devices and the enterprise they connect to, especially since employers and employees have different expectations concerning the types of restrictions that should be applied to mobile devices.\r\nBy controlling and protecting the data and configuration settings of all mobile devices in a network, enterprise device management software can reduce support costs and business risks. The intent of MDM is to optimize the functionality and security of a mobile communications network while minimizing cost and downtime.\r\nWith mobile devices becoming ubiquitous and applications flooding the market, mobile monitoring is growing in importance. The use of mobile device management across continues to grow at a steady pace, and is likely to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 23% through 2028. The US will continue to be the largest market for mobile device management globally. ","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">How Mobile Device Management works?</h1>\r\nMobile device management relies on endpoint software called an MDM agent and an MDM server that lives in a data center. IT administrators configure policies through the MDM server's management console, and the server then pushes those policies over the air to the MDM agent on the device. The agent applies the policies to the device by communicating with application programming interfaces (APIs) built directly into the device operating system.\r\nSimilarly, IT administrators can deploy applications to managed devices through the MDM server. Mobile software management emerged in the early 2000s as a way to control and secure the personal digital assistants and smartphones that business workers began to use. The consumer smartphone boom that started with the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007 led to the bring your own device trend, which fueled further interest in MDM.\r\nModern MDM management software supports not only smartphones but also tablets, Windows 10 and macOS computers and even some internet of things devices. The practice of using MDM to control PCs is known as unified endpoint management.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Key Benefits of Mobile Device Management Software</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduce IT Administration.</span> Instead of manually configuring and testing each new mobile device, mobile device software takes care of the repetitive tasks for you. That gives IT staff more time to work on challenging projects that improve productivity.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Improve End-user Productivity. </span>Mobile device management helps end users become more productive because the process of requesting new mobile devices can be cut down from days to hours. Once end users have the device in their hands, mobile device management program helps them get set up on their corporate network much faster. That means less time waiting to get access to email, internal websites, and calendars.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduce IT Risk.</span> Mobile devices, especially if your organization allows “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD), create increased risk exposures. Typically, IT managers respond to these risks in one of two ways, neither of which help. First, you may say “no” to mobile device requests. That’s a fast way to become unpopular. Second, you may take a manual approach to review and oversee each device.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enable Enterprise Growth. </span>If your enterprise added a thousand employees this quarter through hiring, acquisition, or other changes, could IT handle the challenge? If you’re honest, you can probably imagine going through plenty of struggles and missing SLAs. That kind of disappointment and missed service expectations make end users respect IT less. \r\nBy using enterprise device management thoroughly, you'll enable enterprise growth. You'll have the systems and processes to manage 100 users or 10,000 users. That means IT will be perceived as enabling growth not standing in the way.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MDM_Mobile_Device_Management.png"},{"id":34,"title":"ITSM - IT Service Management","alias":"itsm-it-service-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT service management (ITSM)</span> is the process of designing, delivering, managing, and improving the IT services an organization provides to its end users. ITSM is focused on aligning IT processes and services with business objectives to help an organization grow.\r\nITSM positions IT services as the key means of delivering and obtaining value, where an internal or external IT service provider works with business customers, at the same time taking responsibility for the associated costs and risks. ITSM works across the whole lifecycle of a service, from the original strategy, through design, transition and into live operation.\r\nTo ensure sustainable quality of IT services, ITSM establishes a set of practices, or processes, constituting a service management system. There are industrial, national and international standards for IT service management solutions, setting up requirements and good practices for the management system. \r\nITSM system is based on a set of principles, such as focusing on value and continual improvement. It is not just a set of processes – it is a cultural mindset to ensure that the desired outcome for the business is achieved. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)</span> is a framework of best practices and recommendations for managing an organization's IT operations and services. IT service management processes, when built based on the ITIL framework, pave the way for better IT service operations management and improved business. To summarize, ITIL is a set of guidelines for effective IT service management best practices. ITIL has evolved beyond the delivery of services to providing end-to-end value delivery. The focus is now on the co-creation of value through service relationships. \r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ITSM processes typically include five stages, all based on the ITIL framework:</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ITSM strategy.</span> This stage forms the foundation or the framework of an organization's ITSM process building. It involves defining the services that the organization will offer, strategically planning processes, and recognizing and developing the required assets to keep processes moving. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service design.</span> This stage's main aim is planning and designing the IT services the organization offers to meet business demands. It involves creating and designing new services as well as assessing current services and making relevant improvements.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service transition.</span> Once the designs for IT services and their processes have been finalized, it's important to build them and test them out to ensure that processes flow. IT teams need to ensure that the designs don't disrupt services in any way, especially when existing IT service processes are upgraded or redesigned. This calls for change management, evaluation, and risk management. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service operation. </span>This phase involves implementing the tried and tested new or modified designs in a live environment. While in this stage, the processes have already been tested and the issues fixed, but new processes are bound to have hiccups—especially when customers start using the services. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Continual service improvement (CSI).</span> Implementing IT processes successfully shouldn't be the final stage in any organization. There's always room for improvement and new development based on issues that pop up, customer needs and demands, and user feedback.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Benefits of efficient ITSM processes</h1>\r\nIrrespective of the size of business, every organization is involved in IT service management in some way. ITSM ensures that incidents, service requests, problems, changes, and IT assets—in addition to other aspects of IT services—are managed in a streamlined way.\r\nIT teams in your organization can employ various workflows and best practices in ITSM, as outlined in ITIL. Effective IT service management can have positive effects on an IT organization's overall function.\r\nHere are the 10 key benefits of ITSM:\r\n<ul><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lower costs for IT operations</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Higher returns on IT investments</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Minimal service outages</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ability to establish well-defined, repeatable, and manageable IT processes</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Efficient analysis of IT problems to reduce repeat incidents</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Improved efficiency of IT help desk teams</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Well-defined roles and responsibilities</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Clear expectations on service levels and service availability</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Risk-free implementation of IT changes</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Better transparency into IT processes and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">How to choose an ITSM tool?</h1>\r\nWith a competent IT service management goal in mind, it's important to invest in a service desk solution that caters to your business needs. It goes without saying, with more than 150 service desk tools to choose from, selecting the right one is easier said than done. Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing an ITSM products:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Identify key processes and their dependencies. </span>Based on business goals, decide which key ITSM processes need to be implemented and chart out the integrations that need to be established to achieve those goals. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Consult with ITSM experts.</span> Participate in business expos, webinars, demos, etc., and educate yourself about the various options that are available in the market. Reports from expert analysts such as Gartner and Forrester are particularly useful as they include reviews of almost every solution, ranked based on multiple criteria.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Choose a deployment option.</span> Every business has a different IT infrastructure model. Selecting an on-premises or software as a service (SaaS IT service management) tool depends on whether your business prefers to host its applications and data on its own servers or use a public or private cloud.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Plan ahead for the future.</span> Although it's important to consider the &quot;needs&quot; primarily, you shouldn't rule out the secondary or luxury capabilities. If the ITSM tool doesn't have the potential to adapt to your needs as your organization grows, it can pull you back from progressing. Draw a clear picture of where your business is headed and choose an service ITSM that is flexible and technology-driven.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Don't stop with the capabilities of the ITSM tool.</span> It might be tempting to assess an ITSM tool based on its capabilities and features but it's important to evaluate the vendor of the tool. A good IT support team, and a vendor that is endorsed for their customer-vendor relationship can take your IT services far. Check Gartner's magic quadrant and other analyst reports, along with product and support reviews to ensure that the said tool provides good customer support.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_ITSM.png"},{"id":69,"title":"Business Analytics","alias":"business-analytics","description":"Business Analytics is “the study of data through statistical and operations analysis, the formation of predictive models, application of optimization techniques, and the communication of these results to customers, business partners, and college executives.” Business Analytics requires quantitative methods and evidence-based data for business modeling and decision making; as such, Business Analytics requires the use of Big Data.\r\nSAS describes Big Data as “a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis.” What’s important to keep in mind about Big Data is that the amount of data is not as important to an organization as the analytics that accompany it. When companies analyze Big Data, they are using Business Analytics to get the insights required for making better business decisions and strategic moves.\r\nCompanies use Business Analytics (BA) to make data-driven decisions. The insight gained by BA enables these companies to automate and optimize their business processes. In fact, data-driven companies that utilize Business Analytics achieve a competitive advantage because they are able to use the insights to:\r\n<ul><li>Conduct data mining (explore data to find new patterns and relationships)</li><li>Complete statistical analysis and quantitative analysis to explain why certain results occur</li><li>Test previous decisions using A/B testing and multivariate testing</li><li>Make use of predictive modeling and predictive analytics to forecast future results</li></ul>\r\nBusiness Analytics also provides support for companies in the process of making proactive tactical decisions, and BA makes it possible for those companies to automate decision making in order to support real-time responses.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does Business Analytics (BA) mean?</span>\r\nBusiness analytics (BA) refers to all the methods and techniques that are used by an organization to measure performance. Business analytics are made up of statistical methods that can be applied to a specific project, process or product. Business analytics can also be used to evaluate an entire company. Business analytics are performed in order to identify weaknesses in existing processes and highlight meaningful data that will help an organization prepare for future growth and challenges.\r\nThe need for good business analytics has spurred the creation of business analytics software and enterprise platforms that mine an organization’s data in order to automate some of these measures and pick out meaningful insights.\r\nAlthough the term has become a bit of a buzzword, business analytics are a vital part of any business. Business analytics make up a large portion of decision support systems, continuous improvement programs and many of the other techniques used to keep a business competitive. Consequently, accurate business analytics like efficiency measures and capacity utilization rates are the first step to properly implementing these techniques.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Business_Analytics.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":8,"title":"Reduce Production Timelines"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"},{"id":262,"title":"Support Customers"},{"id":307,"title":"Enhance Competitive Ability"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":371,"title":"No control over the state of communication channels"},{"id":375,"title":"No support for mobile and remote users"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"},{"id":392,"title":"Lengthy production timelines"}]}},"categories":[{"id":3,"title":"MDM - Mobile Device Management","alias":"mdm-mobile-device-management","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Mobile device management (MDM)</span> is an industry term for the administration of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers and laptops. Device management system is usually implemented with the use of a third party product that has management features for particular vendors of mobile devices.\r\nMDM is typically a deployment of a combination of on-device applications and configurations, corporate policies and certificates, and backend infrastructure, for the purpose of simplifying and enhancing the IT management of end user devices. In modern corporate IT environments, the sheer number and diversity of managed devices (and user behavior) has motivated device management tools that allow the management of devices and users in a consistent and scalable way. The overall role of MDM is to increase device supportability, security, and corporate functionality while maintaining some user flexibility.\r\nMany organizations administer devices and applications using MDM products/services. Mobile device management software primarily deals with corporate data segregation, securing emails, securing corporate documents on devices, enforcing corporate policies, integrating and managing mobile devices including laptops and handhelds of various categories. MDM implementations may be either on-premises or cloud-based.\r\nMDM functionality can include over-the-air distribution of applications, data and configuration settings for all types of mobile devices, including mobile phones, smartphones, tablet computers, ruggedized mobile computers, mobile printers, mobile POS devices, etc. Most recently laptops and desktops have been added to the list of systems supported as Mobile Device Management becomes more about basic device management and less about the mobile platform itself. \r\nSome of the <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">core functions</span> of mobile management software include:\r\n<ul><li>Ensuring that diverse user equipment is configured to a consistent standard/supported set of applications, functions, or corporate policies</li><li>Updating equipment, applications, functions, or policies in a scalable manner</li><li>Ensuring that users use applications in a consistent and supportable manner</li><li>Ensuring that equipment performs consistently</li><li>Monitoring and tracking equipment (e.g. location, status, ownership, activity)</li><li>Being able to efficiently diagnose and troubleshoot equipment remotely</li></ul>\r\nDevice management solutions are leveraged for both company-owned and employee-owned (Bring Your Own Device) devices across the enterprise or mobile devices owned by consumers. Consumer demand for BYOD is now requiring a greater effort for MDM and increased security for both the devices and the enterprise they connect to, especially since employers and employees have different expectations concerning the types of restrictions that should be applied to mobile devices.\r\nBy controlling and protecting the data and configuration settings of all mobile devices in a network, enterprise device management software can reduce support costs and business risks. The intent of MDM is to optimize the functionality and security of a mobile communications network while minimizing cost and downtime.\r\nWith mobile devices becoming ubiquitous and applications flooding the market, mobile monitoring is growing in importance. The use of mobile device management across continues to grow at a steady pace, and is likely to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 23% through 2028. The US will continue to be the largest market for mobile device management globally. ","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">How Mobile Device Management works?</h1>\r\nMobile device management relies on endpoint software called an MDM agent and an MDM server that lives in a data center. IT administrators configure policies through the MDM server's management console, and the server then pushes those policies over the air to the MDM agent on the device. The agent applies the policies to the device by communicating with application programming interfaces (APIs) built directly into the device operating system.\r\nSimilarly, IT administrators can deploy applications to managed devices through the MDM server. Mobile software management emerged in the early 2000s as a way to control and secure the personal digital assistants and smartphones that business workers began to use. The consumer smartphone boom that started with the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007 led to the bring your own device trend, which fueled further interest in MDM.\r\nModern MDM management software supports not only smartphones but also tablets, Windows 10 and macOS computers and even some internet of things devices. The practice of using MDM to control PCs is known as unified endpoint management.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Key Benefits of Mobile Device Management Software</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduce IT Administration.</span> Instead of manually configuring and testing each new mobile device, mobile device software takes care of the repetitive tasks for you. That gives IT staff more time to work on challenging projects that improve productivity.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Improve End-user Productivity. </span>Mobile device management helps end users become more productive because the process of requesting new mobile devices can be cut down from days to hours. Once end users have the device in their hands, mobile device management program helps them get set up on their corporate network much faster. That means less time waiting to get access to email, internal websites, and calendars.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduce IT Risk.</span> Mobile devices, especially if your organization allows “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD), create increased risk exposures. Typically, IT managers respond to these risks in one of two ways, neither of which help. First, you may say “no” to mobile device requests. That’s a fast way to become unpopular. Second, you may take a manual approach to review and oversee each device.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span> \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enable Enterprise Growth. </span>If your enterprise added a thousand employees this quarter through hiring, acquisition, or other changes, could IT handle the challenge? If you’re honest, you can probably imagine going through plenty of struggles and missing SLAs. That kind of disappointment and missed service expectations make end users respect IT less. \r\nBy using enterprise device management thoroughly, you'll enable enterprise growth. You'll have the systems and processes to manage 100 users or 10,000 users. That means IT will be perceived as enabling growth not standing in the way.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MDM_Mobile_Device_Management.png"},{"id":34,"title":"ITSM - IT Service Management","alias":"itsm-it-service-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">IT service management (ITSM)</span> is the process of designing, delivering, managing, and improving the IT services an organization provides to its end users. ITSM is focused on aligning IT processes and services with business objectives to help an organization grow.\r\nITSM positions IT services as the key means of delivering and obtaining value, where an internal or external IT service provider works with business customers, at the same time taking responsibility for the associated costs and risks. ITSM works across the whole lifecycle of a service, from the original strategy, through design, transition and into live operation.\r\nTo ensure sustainable quality of IT services, ITSM establishes a set of practices, or processes, constituting a service management system. There are industrial, national and international standards for IT service management solutions, setting up requirements and good practices for the management system. \r\nITSM system is based on a set of principles, such as focusing on value and continual improvement. It is not just a set of processes – it is a cultural mindset to ensure that the desired outcome for the business is achieved. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)</span> is a framework of best practices and recommendations for managing an organization's IT operations and services. IT service management processes, when built based on the ITIL framework, pave the way for better IT service operations management and improved business. To summarize, ITIL is a set of guidelines for effective IT service management best practices. ITIL has evolved beyond the delivery of services to providing end-to-end value delivery. The focus is now on the co-creation of value through service relationships. \r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ITSM processes typically include five stages, all based on the ITIL framework:</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">ITSM strategy.</span> This stage forms the foundation or the framework of an organization's ITSM process building. It involves defining the services that the organization will offer, strategically planning processes, and recognizing and developing the required assets to keep processes moving. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service design.</span> This stage's main aim is planning and designing the IT services the organization offers to meet business demands. It involves creating and designing new services as well as assessing current services and making relevant improvements.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service transition.</span> Once the designs for IT services and their processes have been finalized, it's important to build them and test them out to ensure that processes flow. IT teams need to ensure that the designs don't disrupt services in any way, especially when existing IT service processes are upgraded or redesigned. This calls for change management, evaluation, and risk management. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service operation. </span>This phase involves implementing the tried and tested new or modified designs in a live environment. While in this stage, the processes have already been tested and the issues fixed, but new processes are bound to have hiccups—especially when customers start using the services. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Continual service improvement (CSI).</span> Implementing IT processes successfully shouldn't be the final stage in any organization. There's always room for improvement and new development based on issues that pop up, customer needs and demands, and user feedback.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Benefits of efficient ITSM processes</h1>\r\nIrrespective of the size of business, every organization is involved in IT service management in some way. ITSM ensures that incidents, service requests, problems, changes, and IT assets—in addition to other aspects of IT services—are managed in a streamlined way.\r\nIT teams in your organization can employ various workflows and best practices in ITSM, as outlined in ITIL. Effective IT service management can have positive effects on an IT organization's overall function.\r\nHere are the 10 key benefits of ITSM:\r\n<ul><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lower costs for IT operations</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Higher returns on IT investments</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Minimal service outages</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ability to establish well-defined, repeatable, and manageable IT processes</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Efficient analysis of IT problems to reduce repeat incidents</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Improved efficiency of IT help desk teams</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Well-defined roles and responsibilities</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Clear expectations on service levels and service availability</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Risk-free implementation of IT changes</li><li>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Better transparency into IT processes and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">How to choose an ITSM tool?</h1>\r\nWith a competent IT service management goal in mind, it's important to invest in a service desk solution that caters to your business needs. It goes without saying, with more than 150 service desk tools to choose from, selecting the right one is easier said than done. Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing an ITSM products:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Identify key processes and their dependencies. </span>Based on business goals, decide which key ITSM processes need to be implemented and chart out the integrations that need to be established to achieve those goals. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Consult with ITSM experts.</span> Participate in business expos, webinars, demos, etc., and educate yourself about the various options that are available in the market. Reports from expert analysts such as Gartner and Forrester are particularly useful as they include reviews of almost every solution, ranked based on multiple criteria.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Choose a deployment option.</span> Every business has a different IT infrastructure model. Selecting an on-premises or software as a service (SaaS IT service management) tool depends on whether your business prefers to host its applications and data on its own servers or use a public or private cloud.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Plan ahead for the future.</span> Although it's important to consider the &quot;needs&quot; primarily, you shouldn't rule out the secondary or luxury capabilities. If the ITSM tool doesn't have the potential to adapt to your needs as your organization grows, it can pull you back from progressing. Draw a clear picture of where your business is headed and choose an service ITSM that is flexible and technology-driven.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Don't stop with the capabilities of the ITSM tool.</span> It might be tempting to assess an ITSM tool based on its capabilities and features but it's important to evaluate the vendor of the tool. A good IT support team, and a vendor that is endorsed for their customer-vendor relationship can take your IT services far. Check Gartner's magic quadrant and other analyst reports, along with product and support reviews to ensure that the said tool provides good customer support.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_ITSM.png"},{"id":69,"title":"Business Analytics","alias":"business-analytics","description":"Business Analytics is “the study of data through statistical and operations analysis, the formation of predictive models, application of optimization techniques, and the communication of these results to customers, business partners, and college executives.” Business Analytics requires quantitative methods and evidence-based data for business modeling and decision making; as such, Business Analytics requires the use of Big Data.\r\nSAS describes Big Data as “a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis.” What’s important to keep in mind about Big Data is that the amount of data is not as important to an organization as the analytics that accompany it. When companies analyze Big Data, they are using Business Analytics to get the insights required for making better business decisions and strategic moves.\r\nCompanies use Business Analytics (BA) to make data-driven decisions. The insight gained by BA enables these companies to automate and optimize their business processes. In fact, data-driven companies that utilize Business Analytics achieve a competitive advantage because they are able to use the insights to:\r\n<ul><li>Conduct data mining (explore data to find new patterns and relationships)</li><li>Complete statistical analysis and quantitative analysis to explain why certain results occur</li><li>Test previous decisions using A/B testing and multivariate testing</li><li>Make use of predictive modeling and predictive analytics to forecast future results</li></ul>\r\nBusiness Analytics also provides support for companies in the process of making proactive tactical decisions, and BA makes it possible for those companies to automate decision making in order to support real-time responses.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What does Business Analytics (BA) mean?</span>\r\nBusiness analytics (BA) refers to all the methods and techniques that are used by an organization to measure performance. Business analytics are made up of statistical methods that can be applied to a specific project, process or product. Business analytics can also be used to evaluate an entire company. Business analytics are performed in order to identify weaknesses in existing processes and highlight meaningful data that will help an organization prepare for future growth and challenges.\r\nThe need for good business analytics has spurred the creation of business analytics software and enterprise platforms that mine an organization’s data in order to automate some of these measures and pick out meaningful insights.\r\nAlthough the term has become a bit of a buzzword, business analytics are a vital part of any business. Business analytics make up a large portion of decision support systems, continuous improvement programs and many of the other techniques used to keep a business competitive. Consequently, accurate business analytics like efficiency measures and capacity utilization rates are the first step to properly implementing these techniques.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Business_Analytics.png"},{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://it-integrator.ua/ru/project/postroenie-umnoy-besprovodnoy-infrastruktury-v-seti-okko","title":"Supplier's web site"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":344,"title":"CRMNEXT RE-THINK CRM for Bank","description":"Achieving the ‘ONE BANK’ vision\r\n\r\n“With over 55,000+ users &amp; 4,000+ branches and multiple integration points, it was hard for any system to match our expectations. But with CRMNEXT, we have enjoyed 99.9% uptime availability and seamless scalability.” - Rajesh Wagh, Sr. Vice President (IT)\r\n\r\nCUSTOMER CHALLENGES\r\n<ul><li>Build comprehensive &amp; actionable 360° customer view.</li><li>Fragmented customer information in multiple disparate systems.</li><li>Fragmented selling process leading to fragmented ownership, low visibility and challenges in monitoring of turn-around times.</li><li>Time consuming processes for reconciliation and generation of reports.</li><li>Low visibility of information leading to inefficiencies in cross-sell and up-sell.</li><li>Highly demanding and sensitive managed customer segment.</li><li>Large customer base and associated data management challenges.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SOLUTIONS PROVIDED</span>\r\nDelivering AmazingCustomer Experience\r\n<ul><li>CEasy on-boarding</li><li>Instant gratification</li><li>Reliable service.</li><li>Personalized relationships</li><li>Consistency across channels</li></ul>\r\nDeploying Private Cloud\r\n<ul><li>Ultra-scalable, elastic</li><li>Use commodity hardware</li><li>100% auto upgradable</li><li>Always on, always current</li><li>Reliable integrations</li></ul>\r\nCreating Single Destination Convenience for Users\r\n<ul><li>Reduce application hopping</li><li>Automate to reduce workload</li><li>Assistance in target achievement Information on finger tips</li><li>Actionable intelligence at point of interaction</li></ul>\r\nExecuting Faster Processes\r\n<ul><li>200% faster sales TAT</li><li>Best in class process efficiency</li><li>Pro-active SLA management</li><li>Core system synchronized</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">RESULTS</span>\r\nSales Automation\r\n<ul><li>208% Increase in Lead Conversion</li><li>40% Increase in Cross Selling</li><li>90% Reduction in Sales TAT</li></ul>\r\nCustomer Service &amp; Support\r\n<ul><li>52% Improvement in Service Quality</li><li>42% Increase in Net Promoters Score</li></ul>\r\nCampaign Management\r\n<ul><li>370% Increase in Leads Generated</li><li>108% Increase in Response Rate</li><li>23% Increase in Campaign Frequency</li></ul>\r\nStaff Impact\r\n<ul><li>73% Bank workforce using CRMNEXT</li><li>10,000+ No. of daily personalized reports</li></ul>","alias":"crmnext-re-think-crm-for-bank","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"CRMNEXT RE-THINK CRM for Bank","keywords":"Increase, customer, multiple, visibility, challenges, system, reports, Service","description":"Achieving the ‘ONE BANK’ vision\r\n\r\n“With over 55,000+ users &amp; 4,000+ branches and multiple integration points, it was hard for any system to match our expectations. But with CRMNEXT, we have enjoyed 99.9% uptime availability and seamless scalability.” - Ra","og:title":"CRMNEXT RE-THINK CRM for Bank","og:description":"Achieving the ‘ONE BANK’ vision\r\n\r\n“With over 55,000+ users &amp; 4,000+ branches and multiple integration points, it was hard for any system to match our expectations. But with CRMNEXT, we have enjoyed 99.9% uptime availability and seamless scalability.” - Ra"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4056,"title":"HDFC Bank","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/HDFC_Bank.png","alias":"hdfc-bank","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Personal Banking Services from HDFC Bank: Offers a wide range of personal banking services including savings and current accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages and insurance to meet your personal needs. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.hdfcbank.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"HDFC Bank","keywords":"HDFC, personal, Bank, credit, accounts, current, cards, insurance","description":"Personal Banking Services from HDFC Bank: Offers a wide range of personal banking services including savings and current accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages and insurance to meet your personal needs. ","og:title":"HDFC Bank","og:description":"Personal Banking Services from HDFC Bank: Offers a wide range of personal banking services including savings and current accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages and insurance to meet your personal needs. ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/HDFC_Bank.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":4055,"title":"CRMNEXT","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/CRMNEXT.png","alias":"crmnext","address":"","roles":[],"description":"CRMNEXT continues where traditional CRMs leave off. It eliminates the artificial barriers between human and digital channels, enabling world-class, omni-channel customer interactions from a single, unified platform. With more than a million financial service associates and a billion customers supported by the platform globally, CRMNEXT effectively recalibrates banks’ potential to grow engagement, drive profitability and deliver innovation.\r\n\r\nIt has to its credit the largest Banking CRM implementation in the world with 3,25,000+ users across 5,000+ locations and 36 countries. With proficiency in creating customer journeys from digital onboarding through all aspects of assisted services, we are focused on the delivery of high-quality CRM implementations.\r\n","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.crmnext.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"CRMNEXT","keywords":"CRMNEXT, digital, from, customer, With, platform, across, users","description":"<div>CRMNEXT continues where traditional CRMs leave off. It eliminates the artificial barriers between human and digital channels, enabling world-class, omni-channel customer interactions from a single, unified platform. With more than a million financial serv","og:title":"CRMNEXT","og:description":"<div>CRMNEXT continues where traditional CRMs leave off. It eliminates the artificial barriers between human and digital channels, enabling world-class, omni-channel customer interactions from a single, unified platform. With more than a million financial serv","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/CRMNEXT.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":4055,"title":"CRMNEXT","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/CRMNEXT.png","alias":"crmnext","address":"","roles":[],"description":"CRMNEXT continues where traditional CRMs leave off. It eliminates the artificial barriers between human and digital channels, enabling world-class, omni-channel customer interactions from a single, unified platform. With more than a million financial service associates and a billion customers supported by the platform globally, CRMNEXT effectively recalibrates banks’ potential to grow engagement, drive profitability and deliver innovation.\r\n\r\nIt has to its credit the largest Banking CRM implementation in the world with 3,25,000+ users across 5,000+ locations and 36 countries. With proficiency in creating customer journeys from digital onboarding through all aspects of assisted services, we are focused on the delivery of high-quality CRM implementations.\r\n","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.crmnext.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"CRMNEXT","keywords":"CRMNEXT, digital, from, customer, With, platform, across, users","description":"<div>CRMNEXT continues where traditional CRMs leave off. It eliminates the artificial barriers between human and digital channels, enabling world-class, omni-channel customer interactions from a single, unified platform. With more than a million financial serv","og:title":"CRMNEXT","og:description":"<div>CRMNEXT continues where traditional CRMs leave off. It eliminates the artificial barriers between human and digital channels, enabling world-class, omni-channel customer interactions from a single, unified platform. With more than a million financial serv","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/CRMNEXT.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1158,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"CRMNEXT Re-Think CRM","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"crmnext-re-think-crm","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\nSALES Why do sales take an eternity to close? Why can’t we improve win ratios? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. SERVICE Why do businesses seldom know customers? Why do customers have to talk to several different people before somebody services their requests? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. CROSS-SELL Why must sales to existing customers be a reactive process? What if we could offer useful and relevant products &amp; services to customers without them asking? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. MARKETING Why are there gaps between marketing and sales strategies? How can we plan &amp; execute measurable marketing campaigns? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. PROCESS MANAGEMENT Why is it so hard to change business processes? Wouldn’t it be nice to configure workflows without having to code? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. ANALYTICS Is it really necessary to view data in prescribed fixed formats? Why can’t we pick and choose analytics that we want to view in a single screen? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers INTEGRATION How can we take the pain out of integration? Why do we have to hop between multiple systems to get things done? How can we do it all from a single screen? SOCIAL How can we use social as medium to build meaningful dialog with customers? Why can’t social become a channel to increase brand equity? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. COLLABORATION Why must sales to existing customers be a reactive process? What if we could offer useful and relevant products &amp; services to customers without them asking? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers.","shortDescription":"CRMNEXT RE-THINK CRM - SALES SERVICE CROSS-SELL MARKETING PROCESS MANAGEMENT ANALYTICS INTEGRATION SOCIAL COLLABORATION","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":13,"sellingCount":5,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"CRMNEXT Re-Think CRM","keywords":"with, some, asked, questions, brought, thats, ourselves, answers","description":"\r\nSALES Why do sales take an eternity to close? Why can’t we improve win ratios? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. SERVICE Why do businesses seldom know customers? Why do customers have to","og:title":"CRMNEXT Re-Think CRM","og:description":"\r\nSALES Why do sales take an eternity to close? Why can’t we improve win ratios? These are some of the questions we asked ourselves. And that’s why we brought you a CRM with the answers. SERVICE Why do businesses seldom know customers? Why do customers have to"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1160,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":356,"title":"High costs of routine operations"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.crmnext.com/customers/hdfc_bank","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":787,"title":"Cybereason for Fortune 500 Bank","description":"<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">A Fortune 500 bank needed to replace its EDR (endpoint detection and response) tool with one that provided the security team with a complete attack story by automatically collecting and analyzing endpoint data. The security team also needed its new EDR tool to help it transition to a behavioral-based detection model. Cybereason helped the security team better detect abnormal behavior across the entire company by automating endpoint data collection and analysis.<br /></span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">THE CHALLENGE</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">The bank, which has more than 60 million customers across the world, had a big data problem. The EDR tool it was using collected reams of endpoint data from the bank’s hundreds of thousands of servers and computers but didn’t provide security analysts with any context on this information. Instead, analysts had to undertake the time-consuming process of manually querying the data to make sense of it.<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"></span><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"></span></span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \"><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“Our previous EDR tool just provided lots of data. That’s not helpful when you have such a large infrastructure. You just get overwhelmed with data,”</span> said the bank’s deputy CISO.</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">Greater endpoint visibility into malicious activity across the enterprise was also a requirement. The bank’s previous EDR tool failed to detect a red team simulating attackers. The deputy CISO knew that if a red team could use these techniques to evade the EDR tool, attackers could use them to infiltrate the bank’s network.<br />The bank needed an EDR tool that:<br />» Automatically gathered and analyzed endpoint data and used it to provide analysts with a complete attack story<br />» Used behavioral analysis to detect malicious activity<br />» Increased endpoint visibility and provided advanced threat detection across the entire company<br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">THE SOLUTION</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">Cybereason’s ability to automatically sort through endpoint data and place context around it impressed the security team and lead to the bank purchasing the platform. The bank decided to deploy Cybereason on 400,000 endpoints. Deployment began in early September 2017 and, by the end of the year, Cybereason was on 200,000 endpoints.</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">With Cybereason, the security team had visibility into what was normal behavior in their IT environment and what was an anomaly that required further investigation. <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“Lots of tools are very good at providing visibility, but no other product could say, ‘This is the thing you need to look at.’ That’s what Cybereason provides. We need a tool that gives us those unique alerts because we’re a big bank and a big target,</span>” said the deputy CISO.<br />Cybereason was quickly put to test: two weeks into the deployment process, when Cybereason was on 20,000 machines, the Apache Struts server vulnerability was publicly disclosed. The bank used Cybereason to monitor its environment and see if attackers were exploiting the vulnerability.<br /><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“When Struts came out and that was a challenge for us because we have such a large infrastructure. We needed to be sure that while patching was happening we could see if anyone was exploiting the vulnerability. We immediately deployed Cybereason to those impacted systems to increase visibility,”</span> said the deputy CISO.<br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">THE OUTCOME</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">The bank’s security team became more efficient with Cybereason. Instead of manually querying endpoint data, they used Cybereason’s in-memory graph database to automatically collect and correlate endpoint data and alert them when malicious behavior was detected. This allowed the security team to spend more time investigating incidents that threatened the bank’s security.<br /><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“The magic of Cybereason is that it doesn’t just take all your data. The graph database will tell you what is normal in your environment and what isn’t normal. That’s valuable because you can focus on what’s unusual,”</span> said the deputy CISO.</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">Using Cybereason also helped the security team adopt a behavioral-based detection model and rely less on indicators of compromise, which weren’t providing them with enough visibility. Attackers easily changed indicators of compromise to evade antivirus software, said the deputy CISO. Additionally, he had noticed an increase in fileless malware attacks, which can’t be detected by looking for indicators of compromise. Using behavioral analysis to detect attacker tools, techniques and procedures is the best way to discover fileless malware attacks.<br /><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“Indicators are an aging thing in security. You have to move beyond them. You have to detect techniques and tools, which are much harder for adversaries to change,”</span> he said.</span>","alias":"cybereason-for-fortune-500-bank","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Cybereason for Fortune 500 Bank","keywords":"","description":"<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">A Fortune 500 bank needed to replace its EDR (endpoint detection and response) tool with one that provided the security team with a complete attack story by automatically collecting and analyzing endpoint data. The securi","og:title":"Cybereason for Fortune 500 Bank","og:description":"<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">A Fortune 500 bank needed to replace its EDR (endpoint detection and response) tool with one that provided the security team with a complete attack story by automatically collecting and analyzing endpoint data. The securi"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4195,"title":"Hidden user","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/hidden_user.jpg","alias":"skrytyi-polzovatel","address":"","roles":[],"description":"User Information is confidential ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":98,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Hidden user","keywords":"Hidden, user, User, Information, confidential","description":"User Information is confidential ","og:title":"Hidden user","og:description":"User Information is confidential ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/hidden_user.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":5261,"title":"Cybereason","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/cybereason-logo.png","alias":"cybereason","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel.\r\nCybereason is the leader in endpoint protection, offering endpoint detection and response, next-generation antivirus, managed monitoring and IR services. <br /> \r\nFounded by elite intelligence professionals born and bred in offense-first hunting, Cybereason gives enterprises the upper hand over cyber adversaries. \r\n\r\n","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":2,"suppliedProductsCount":2,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.cybereason.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Cybereason","keywords":"","description":"Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel.\r\nCybereason is the leader in endpoint protection, offering endpo","og:title":"Cybereason","og:description":"Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel.\r\nCybereason is the leader in endpoint protection, offering endpo","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/cybereason-logo.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":5261,"title":"Cybereason","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/cybereason-logo.png","alias":"cybereason","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel.\r\nCybereason is the leader in endpoint protection, offering endpoint detection and response, next-generation antivirus, managed monitoring and IR services. <br /> \r\nFounded by elite intelligence professionals born and bred in offense-first hunting, Cybereason gives enterprises the upper hand over cyber adversaries. \r\n\r\n","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":2,"suppliedProductsCount":2,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.cybereason.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Cybereason","keywords":"","description":"Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel.\r\nCybereason is the leader in endpoint protection, offering endpo","og:title":"Cybereason","og:description":"Cybereason is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2012. It is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional office locations in London, UK, Tokyo, Japan, and Tel Aviv, Israel.\r\nCybereason is the leader in endpoint protection, offering endpo","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/cybereason-logo.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":3372,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Cybereason Platform","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"0.00","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"cybereason-platform","companyTypes":[],"description":"&nbsp;The Cybereason platform is powered by a custom-built in-memory graph, the only truly automated hunting engine anywhere. It detects behavioral patterns across every endpoint and surfaces malicious operations in an exceptionally user-friendly interface.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cybereason Offerings</span>\r\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Deep Hunting Platform</span>\r\nThe Cybereason Deep Hunting Platform delivers endpoint detection and response (EDR), nextgeneration antivirus (NGAV), managed threat hunting, and threat intelligence — all in one solution and one single lightweight sensor.<br />Built using Cybereason's proprietary cybersecurity data analytics architecture, the platform focuses on collecting and analyzing behavioral data and correlating disparate data points to identify malicious operations and facilitate immediate action. The Cybereason Deep Hunting Platform doesn't simply secure your data; it leverages your data to secure.<br /><br /><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cybereason Complete Endpoint Protection</span>\r\nImplement comprehensive endpoint protection with Cybereason’s Complete Endpoint Protection platform. The solution integrates the power of EDR and next-generation antivirus (NGAV) so you can replace your legacy AV with a single advanced endpoint solution.\r\n<ul><li>Combination of centralized and endpoint-side analytics</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Behavioral analysis in the Cybereason Hunting Engine</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Full attack lifecycle protection</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li>Single sensor and single Response Interface</li></ul>\r\n<br /><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Cybereason RansomFree</span>\r\nKeep your personal files safe from ransomware with Cybereason RansomFree. Built on the same Cybereason detection methodology, RansomFree is protection software designed to detect and stop ransomware from encrypting your files. With a mission to help everyone – not just large enterprises, it provides RansomFree at no cost because protection should be accessible to everyone.","shortDescription":"Cybereason is an endpoint detection and response platform that offers real-time cyber threat detection and incident investigation solutions.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":7,"sellingCount":13,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Cybereason Platform","keywords":"","description":"&nbsp;The Cybereason platform is powered by a custom-built in-memory graph, the only truly automated hunting engine anywhere. It detects behavioral patterns across every endpoint and surfaces malicious operations in an exceptionally user-friendly interface.\r\n<","og:title":"Cybereason Platform","og:description":"&nbsp;The Cybereason platform is powered by a custom-built in-memory graph, the only truly automated hunting engine anywhere. It detects behavioral patterns across every endpoint and surfaces malicious operations in an exceptionally user-friendly interface.\r\n<"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":3373,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":40,"title":"Endpoint security","alias":"endpoint-security","description":"In network security, endpoint security refers to a methodology of protecting the corporate network when accessed via remote devices such as laptops or other wireless and mobile devices. Each device with a remote connecting to the network creates a potential entry point for security threats. Endpoint security is designed to secure each endpoint on the network created by these devices.\r\nUsually, endpoint security is a security system that consists of security software, located on a centrally managed and accessible server or gateway within the network, in addition to client software being installed on each of the endpoints (or devices).&nbsp; The server authenticates logins from the endpoints and also updates the device software when needed. While endpoint security software differs by vendor, you can expect most software offerings to provide antivirus, antispyware, firewall and also a host intrusion prevention system (HIPS).\r\nEndpoint security is becoming a more common IT security function and concern as more employees bring consumer mobile devices to work and companies allow its mobile workforce to use these devices on the corporate network.<br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are endpoint devices?</span>\r\nAny device that can connect to the central business network is considered an endpoint. Endpoint devices are potential entry points for cybersecurity threats and need strong protection because they are often the weakest link in network security.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security management?</span>\r\nA set of rules defining the level of security that each device connected to the business network must comply with. These rules may include using an approved operating system (OS), installing a virtual private network (VPN), or running up-to-date antivirus software. If the device connecting to the network does not have the desired level of protection, it may have to connect via a guest network and have limited network access.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security software?</span>\r\nPrograms that make sure your devices are protected. Endpoint protection software may be cloud-based and work as SaaS (Software as a Service). Endpoint security software can also be installed on each device separately as a standalone application.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint detection and response (EDR)?</span>\r\nEndpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions analyze files and programs, and report on any threats found. EDR solutions monitor continuously for advanced threats, helping to identify attacks at an early stage and respond rapidly to a range of threats.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Endpoint_security.png"},{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":465,"title":"UEBA - User and Entity Behavior Analytics","alias":"ueba-user-and-entity-behavior-analytics","description":"Developments in UBA technology led Gartner to evolve the category to user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA). In September 2015, Gartner published the Market Guide for User and Entity Analytics by Vice President and Distinguished Analyst, Avivah Litan, that provided a thorough definition and explanation. UEBA was referred to in earlier Gartner reports but not in much depth. Expanding the definition from UBA includes devices, applications, servers, data, or anything with an IP address. It moves beyond the fraud-oriented UBA focus to a broader one encompassing &quot;malicious and abusive behavior that otherwise went unnoticed by existing security monitoring systems, such as SIEM and DLP.&quot; The addition of &quot;entity&quot; reflects that devices may play a role in a network attack and may also be valuable in uncovering attack activity. &quot;When end users have been compromised, malware can lay dormant and go undetected for months. Rather than trying to find where the outsider entered, UEBAs allow for quicker detection by using algorithms to detect insider threats.&quot;\r\nParticularly in the computer security market, there are many vendors for UEBA applications. They can be &quot;differentiated by whether they are designed to monitor on-premises or cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) applications; the methods in which they obtain the source data; the type of analytics they use (i.e., packaged analytics, user-driven or vendor-written), and the service delivery method (i.e., on-premises or a cloud-based).&quot; According to the 2015 market guide released by Gartner, &quot;the UEBA market grew substantially in 2015; UEBA vendors grew their customer base, market consolidation began, and Gartner client interest in UEBA and security analytics increased.&quot; The report further projected, &quot;Over the next three years, leading UEBA platforms will become preferred systems for security operations and investigations at some of the organizations they serve. It will be—and in some cases already is—much easier to discover some security events and analyze individual offenders in UEBA than it is in many legacy security monitoring systems.&quot;","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is UEBA?</span>\r\nHackers can break into firewalls, send you e-mails with malicious and infected attachments, or even bribe an employee to gain access into your firewalls. Old tools and systems are quickly becoming obsolete, and there are several ways to get past them.\r\nUser and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) give you more comprehensive way of making sure that your organization has top-notch IT security, while also helping you detect users and entities that might compromise your entire system.\r\nUEBA is a type of cybersecurity process that takes note of the normal conduct of users. In turn, they detect any anomalous behavior or instances when there are deviations from these “normal” patterns. For example, if a particular user regularly downloads 10 MB of files every day but suddenly downloads gigabytes of files, the system would be able to detect this anomaly and alert them immediately.\r\nUEBA uses machine learning, algorithms, and statistical analyses to know when there is a deviation from established patterns, showing which of these anomalies could result in, potentially, a real threat. UEBA can also aggregate the data you have in your reports and logs, as well as analyze the file, flow, and packet information.\r\nIn UEBA, you do not track security events or monitor devices; instead, you track all the users and entities in your system. As such, UEBA focuses on insider threats, such as employees who have gone rogue, employees who have already been compromised, and people who already have access to your system and then carry out targeted attacks and fraud attempts, as well as servers, applications, and devices that are working within your system.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of UEBA?</span>\r\nIt is the unfortunate truth that today's cybersecurity tools are fast becoming obsolete, and more skilled hackers and cyber attackers are now able to bypass the perimeter defenses that are used by most companies. In the old days, you were secure if you had web gateways, firewalls, and intrusion prevention tools in place. This is no longer the case in today’s complex threat landscape, and it’s especially true for bigger corporations that are proven to have very porous IT perimeters that are also very difficult to manage and oversee.\r\nThe bottom line? Preventive measures are no longer enough. Your firewalls are not going to be 100% foolproof, and hackers and attackers will get into your system at one point or another. This is why detection is equally important: when hackers do successfully get into your system, you should be able to detect their presence quickly in order to minimize the damage.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does UEBA Work?</span>\r\nThe premise of UEBA is actually very simple. You can easily steal an employee’s user name and password, but it is much harder to mimic the person’s normal behavior once inside the network.\r\nFor example, let’s say you steal Jane Doe’s password and user name. You would still not be able to act precisely like Jane Doe once in the system unless given extensive research and preparation. Therefore, when Jane Doe’s user name is logged in to the system, and her behavior is different than that of typical Jane Doe, that is when UEBA alerts start to sound.\r\nAnother relatable analogy would be if your credit card was stolen. A thief can pickpocket your wallet and go to a high-end shop and start spending thousands of dollars using your credit card. If your spending pattern on that card is different from the thief’s, the company’s fraud detection department will often recognize the abnormal spending and block suspicious purchases, issuing an alert to you or asking you to verify the authenticity of a transaction.\r\nAs such, UEBA is a very important component of IT security, allowing you to:\r\n1. Detect insider threats. It is not too far-fetched to imagine that an employee, or perhaps a group of employees, could go rogue, stealing data and information by using their own access. UEBA can help you detect data breaches, sabotage, privilege abuse and policy violations made by your own staff.\r\n2. Detect compromised accounts. Sometimes, user accounts are compromised. It could be that the user unwittingly installed malware on his or her machine, or sometimes a legitimate account is spoofed. UEBA can help you weed out spoofed and compromised users before they can do real harm.\r\n3. Detect brute-force attacks. Hackers sometimes target your cloud-based entities as well as third-party authentication systems. With UEBA, you are able to detect brute-force attempts, allowing you to block access to these entities.\r\n4. Detect changes in permissions and the creation of super users. Some attacks involve the use of super users. UEBA allows you to detect when super users are created, or if there are accounts that were granted unnecessary permissions.\r\n5. Detect breach of protected data. If you have protected data, it is not enough to just keep it secure. You should know when a user accesses this data when he or she does not have any legitimate business reason to access it.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_User_and_Entity_Behavior_Analytics.png"},{"id":824,"title":"ATP - Advanced Threat Protection","alias":"atp-advanced-threat-protection","description":" Advanced threat protection (ATP) refers to a category of security solutions that defend against sophisticated malware or hacking-based attacks targeting sensitive data. Advanced threat protection solutions can be available as software or as managed services. ATP solutions can differ in approaches and components, but most include some combination of endpoint agents, network devices, email gateways, malware protection systems, and a centralized management console to correlate alerts and manage defenses.\r\nThe primary benefit offered by advanced threat protection software is the ability to prevent, detect, and respond to new and sophisticated attacks that are designed to circumvent traditional security solutions such as antivirus, firewalls, and IPS/IDS. Attacks continue to become increasingly targeted, stealthy, and persistent, and ATP solutions take a proactive approach to security by identifying and eliminating advanced threats before data is compromised.\r\nAdvanced threat protection services build on this benefit by providing access to a global community of security professionals dedicated to monitoring, tracking, and sharing information about emerging and identified threats. ATP service providers typically have access to global threat information sharing networks, augmenting their own threat intelligence and analysis with information from third parties. When a new, advanced threat is detected, ATP service providers can update their defenses to ensure protection keeps up. This global community effort plays a substantial role in maintaining the security of enterprises around the world.\r\nEnterprises that implement advanced threat protection are better able to detect threats early and more quickly formulate a response to minimize damage and recover should an attack occur. A good security provider will focus on the lifecycle of an attack and manage threats in real-time. ATP providers notify the enterprise of attacks that have occurred, the severity of the attack, and the response that was initiated to stop the threat in its tracks or minimize data loss. Whether managed in-house or provided as a service, advanced threat protection solutions secure critical data and systems, no matter where the attack originates or how major the attack or potential attack is perceived.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Advanced Threat Protection Works?</span>\r\nThere are three primary goals of advanced threat protection: early detection (detecting potential threats before they have the opportunity to access critical data or breach systems), adequate protection (the ability to defend against detected threats swiftly), and response (the ability to mitigate threats and respond to security incidents). To achieve these goals, advanced threat protection services and solutions must offer several components and functions for comprehensive ATP:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-time visibility</span> – Without continuous monitoring and real-time visibility, threats are often detected too late. When damage is already done, response can be tremendously costly in terms of both resource utilization and reputation damage.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Context</span> – For true security effectiveness, threat alerts must contain context to allow security teams to effectively prioritize threats and organize response.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data awareness</span> – It’s impossible to determine threats truly capable of causing harm without first having a deep understanding of enterprise data, its sensitivity, value, and other factors that contribute to the formulation of an appropriate response.</li></ul>\r\nWhen a threat is detected, further analysis may be required. Security services offering ATP typically handle threat analysis, enabling enterprises to conduct business as usual while continuous monitoring, threat analysis, and response occurs behind the scenes. Threats are typically prioritized by potential damage and the classification or sensitivity of the data at risk. Advanced threat protection should address three key areas:\r\n<ul><li>Halting attacks in progress or mitigating threats before they breach systems</li><li>Disrupting activity in progress or countering actions that have already occurred as a result of a breach</li><li>Interrupting the lifecycle of the attack to ensure that the threat is unable to progress or proceed</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon-ATP.png"},{"id":838,"title":"Endpoint Detection and Response","alias":"endpoint-detection-and-response","description":"Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is a cybersecurity technology that addresses the need for continuous monitoring and response to advanced threats. It is a subset of endpoint security technology and a critical piece of an optimal security posture. EDR differs from other endpoint protection platforms (EPP) such as antivirus (AV) and anti-malware in that its primary focus isn't to automatically stop threats in the pre-execution phase on an endpoint. Rather, EDR is focused on providing the right endpoint visibility with the right insights to help security analysts discover, investigate and respond to very advanced threats and broader attack campaigns stretching across multiple endpoints. Many EDR tools, however, combine EDR and EPP.\r\nWhile small and mid-market organizations are increasingly turning to EDR technology for more advanced endpoint protection, many lack the resources to maximize the benefits of the technology. Utilizing advanced EDR features such as forensic analysis, behavioral monitoring and artificial intelligence (AI) is labor and resource intensive, requiring the attention of dedicated security professionals.\r\nA managed endpoint security service combines the latest technology, an around-the-clock team of certified CSOC experts and up-to-the-minute industry intelligence for a cost-effective monthly subscription. Managed services can help reduce the day-to-day burden of monitoring and responding to alerts, enhance security orchestration and automation (SOAR) and improve threat hunting and incident response.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Endpoint detection and response (EDR)?</span>\r\nEndpoint detection and response is an emerging technology that addresses the need for continuous monitoring and response to advanced threats. One could even make the argument that endpoint detection and response is a form of advanced threat protection.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the Key Aspects of EDR Security?</span>\r\nAccording to Gartner, effective EDR must include the following capabilities:\r\n<ul><li>Incident data search and investigation</li><li>Alert triage or suspicious activity validation</li><li>Suspicious activity detection</li><li>Threat hunting or data exploration</li><li>Stopping malicious activity</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What to look for in an EDR Solution?</span>\r\nUnderstanding the key aspects of EDR and why they are important will help you better discern what to look for in a solution. It’s important to find EDR software that can provide the highest level of protection while requiring the least amount of effort and investment — adding value to your security team without draining resources. Here are the six key aspects of EDR you should look for:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">1. Visibility:</span> Real-time visibility across all your endpoints allows you to view adversary activities, even as they attempt to breach your environment and stop them immediately.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">2. Threat Database:</span> Effective EDR requires massive amounts of telemetry collected from endpoints and enriched with context so it can be mined for signs of attack with a variety of analytic techniques.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">3. Behavioral Protection:</span> Relying solely on signature-based methods or indicators of compromise (IOCs) lead to the “silent failure” that allows data breaches to occur. Effective endpoint detection and response requires behavioral approaches that search for indicators of attack (IOAs), so you are alerted of suspicious activities before a compromise can occur.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">4. Insight and Intelligence:</span> An endpoint detection and response solution that integrates threat intelligence can provide context, including details on the attributed adversary that is attacking you or other information about the attack.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">5. Fast Response:</span> EDR that enables a fast and accurate response to incidents can stop an attack before it becomes a breach and allow your organization to get back to business quickly.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">6. Cloud-based Solution:</span> Having a cloud-based endpoint detection and response solution is the only way to ensure zero impact on endpoints while making sure capabilities such as search, analysis and investigation can be done accurately and in real time.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/hgghghg.png"},{"id":852,"title":"Network security","alias":"network-security","description":" Network security consists of the policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. Network security involves the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users choose or are assigned an ID and password or other authenticating information that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security covers a variety of computer networks, both public and private, that are used in everyday jobs; conducting transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals. Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network security is involved in organizations, enterprises, and other types of institutions. It does as its title explains: it secures the network, as well as protecting and overseeing operations being done. The most common and simple way of protecting a network resource is by assigning it a unique name and a corresponding password.\r\nNetwork security starts with authentication, commonly with a username and a password. Since this requires just one detail authenticating the user name — i.e., the password—this is sometimes termed one-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, something the user 'has' is also used (e.g., a security token or 'dongle', an ATM card, or a mobile phone); and with three-factor authentication, something the user 'is' is also used (e.g., a fingerprint or retinal scan).\r\nOnce authenticated, a firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component may fail to check potentially harmful content such as computer worms or Trojans being transmitted over the network. Anti-virus software or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) help detect and inhibit the action of such malware. An anomaly-based intrusion detection system may also monitor the network like wireshark traffic and may be logged for audit purposes and for later high-level analysis. Newer systems combining unsupervised machine learning with full network traffic analysis can detect active network attackers from malicious insiders or targeted external attackers that have compromised a user machine or account.\r\nCommunication between two hosts using a network may be encrypted to maintain privacy.\r\nHoneypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, may be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools, as the honeypots are not normally accessed for legitimate purposes. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis may be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected by the honeypot. A honeypot can also direct an attacker's attention away from legitimate servers. A honeypot encourages attackers to spend their time and energy on the decoy server while distracting their attention from the data on the real server. Similar to a honeypot, a honeynet is a network set up with intentional vulnerabilities. Its purpose is also to invite attacks so that the attacker's methods can be studied and that information can be used to increase network security. A honeynet typically contains one or more honeypots.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Network Security?</span>\r\nNetwork security is any action an organization takes to prevent malicious use or accidental damage to the network’s private data, its users, or their devices. The goal of network security is to keep the network running and safe for all legitimate users.\r\nBecause there are so many ways that a network can be vulnerable, network security involves a broad range of practices. These include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying active devices:</span> Using software to block malicious programs from entering, or running within, the network. Blocking users from sending or receiving suspicious-looking emails. Blocking unauthorized use of the network. Also, stopping the network's users accessing websites that are known to be dangerous.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying passive devices:</span> For instance, using devices and software that report unauthorized intrusions into the network, or suspicious activity by authorized users.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Using preventative devices:</span> Devices that help identify potential security holes, so that network staff can fix them.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ensuring users follow safe practices:</span> Even if the software and hardware are set up to be secure, the actions of users can create security holes. Network security staff is responsible for educating members of the organization about how they can stay safe from potential threats.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Network Security Important?</span>\r\nUnless it’s properly secured, any network is vulnerable to malicious use and accidental damage. Hackers, disgruntled employees, or poor security practices within the organization can leave private data exposed, including trade secrets and customers’ private details.\r\nLosing confidential research, for example, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars by taking away competitive advantages it paid to gain. While hackers stealing customers’ details and selling them to be used in fraud, it creates negative publicity and public mistrust of the organization.\r\nThe majority of common attacks against networks are designed to gain access to information, by spying on the communications and data of users, rather than to damage the network itself.\r\nBut attackers can do more than steal data. They may be able to damage users’ devices or manipulate systems to gain physical access to facilities. This leaves the organization’s property and members at risk of harm.\r\nCompetent network security procedures keep data secure and block vulnerable systems from outside interference. This allows the network’s users to remain safe and focus on achieving the organization’s goals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Do I Need Formal Education to Run a Computer Network?</span>\r\nEven the initial setup of security systems can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the field. A comprehensive security system is made of many pieces, each of which needs specialized knowledge.\r\nBeyond setup, each aspect of security is constantly evolving. New technology creates new opportunities for accidental security leaks, while hackers take advantage of holes in security to do damage as soon as they find them. Whoever is in charge of the network’s security needs to be able to understand the technical news and changes as they happen, so they can implement safety strategies right away.\r\nProperly securing your network using the latest information on vulnerabilities helps minimize the risk that attacks will succeed. Security Week reported that 44% of breaches in 2014 came from exploits that were 2-4 years old.\r\nUnfortunately, many of the technical aspects of network security are beyond those who make hiring decisions. So, the best way an organization can be sure that their network security personnel are able to properly manage the threats is to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_security.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":306,"title":"Manage Risks"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":371,"title":"No control over the state of communication channels"},{"id":384,"title":"Risk of attacks by hackers"},{"id":385,"title":"Risk of data loss or damage"}]}},"categories":[{"id":40,"title":"Endpoint security","alias":"endpoint-security","description":"In network security, endpoint security refers to a methodology of protecting the corporate network when accessed via remote devices such as laptops or other wireless and mobile devices. Each device with a remote connecting to the network creates a potential entry point for security threats. Endpoint security is designed to secure each endpoint on the network created by these devices.\r\nUsually, endpoint security is a security system that consists of security software, located on a centrally managed and accessible server or gateway within the network, in addition to client software being installed on each of the endpoints (or devices).&nbsp; The server authenticates logins from the endpoints and also updates the device software when needed. While endpoint security software differs by vendor, you can expect most software offerings to provide antivirus, antispyware, firewall and also a host intrusion prevention system (HIPS).\r\nEndpoint security is becoming a more common IT security function and concern as more employees bring consumer mobile devices to work and companies allow its mobile workforce to use these devices on the corporate network.<br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are endpoint devices?</span>\r\nAny device that can connect to the central business network is considered an endpoint. Endpoint devices are potential entry points for cybersecurity threats and need strong protection because they are often the weakest link in network security.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security management?</span>\r\nA set of rules defining the level of security that each device connected to the business network must comply with. These rules may include using an approved operating system (OS), installing a virtual private network (VPN), or running up-to-date antivirus software. If the device connecting to the network does not have the desired level of protection, it may have to connect via a guest network and have limited network access.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security software?</span>\r\nPrograms that make sure your devices are protected. Endpoint protection software may be cloud-based and work as SaaS (Software as a Service). Endpoint security software can also be installed on each device separately as a standalone application.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint detection and response (EDR)?</span>\r\nEndpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions analyze files and programs, and report on any threats found. EDR solutions monitor continuously for advanced threats, helping to identify attacks at an early stage and respond rapidly to a range of threats.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Endpoint_security.png"},{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":465,"title":"UEBA - User and Entity Behavior Analytics","alias":"ueba-user-and-entity-behavior-analytics","description":"Developments in UBA technology led Gartner to evolve the category to user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA). In September 2015, Gartner published the Market Guide for User and Entity Analytics by Vice President and Distinguished Analyst, Avivah Litan, that provided a thorough definition and explanation. UEBA was referred to in earlier Gartner reports but not in much depth. Expanding the definition from UBA includes devices, applications, servers, data, or anything with an IP address. It moves beyond the fraud-oriented UBA focus to a broader one encompassing &quot;malicious and abusive behavior that otherwise went unnoticed by existing security monitoring systems, such as SIEM and DLP.&quot; The addition of &quot;entity&quot; reflects that devices may play a role in a network attack and may also be valuable in uncovering attack activity. &quot;When end users have been compromised, malware can lay dormant and go undetected for months. Rather than trying to find where the outsider entered, UEBAs allow for quicker detection by using algorithms to detect insider threats.&quot;\r\nParticularly in the computer security market, there are many vendors for UEBA applications. They can be &quot;differentiated by whether they are designed to monitor on-premises or cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) applications; the methods in which they obtain the source data; the type of analytics they use (i.e., packaged analytics, user-driven or vendor-written), and the service delivery method (i.e., on-premises or a cloud-based).&quot; According to the 2015 market guide released by Gartner, &quot;the UEBA market grew substantially in 2015; UEBA vendors grew their customer base, market consolidation began, and Gartner client interest in UEBA and security analytics increased.&quot; The report further projected, &quot;Over the next three years, leading UEBA platforms will become preferred systems for security operations and investigations at some of the organizations they serve. It will be—and in some cases already is—much easier to discover some security events and analyze individual offenders in UEBA than it is in many legacy security monitoring systems.&quot;","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is UEBA?</span>\r\nHackers can break into firewalls, send you e-mails with malicious and infected attachments, or even bribe an employee to gain access into your firewalls. Old tools and systems are quickly becoming obsolete, and there are several ways to get past them.\r\nUser and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) give you more comprehensive way of making sure that your organization has top-notch IT security, while also helping you detect users and entities that might compromise your entire system.\r\nUEBA is a type of cybersecurity process that takes note of the normal conduct of users. In turn, they detect any anomalous behavior or instances when there are deviations from these “normal” patterns. For example, if a particular user regularly downloads 10 MB of files every day but suddenly downloads gigabytes of files, the system would be able to detect this anomaly and alert them immediately.\r\nUEBA uses machine learning, algorithms, and statistical analyses to know when there is a deviation from established patterns, showing which of these anomalies could result in, potentially, a real threat. UEBA can also aggregate the data you have in your reports and logs, as well as analyze the file, flow, and packet information.\r\nIn UEBA, you do not track security events or monitor devices; instead, you track all the users and entities in your system. As such, UEBA focuses on insider threats, such as employees who have gone rogue, employees who have already been compromised, and people who already have access to your system and then carry out targeted attacks and fraud attempts, as well as servers, applications, and devices that are working within your system.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of UEBA?</span>\r\nIt is the unfortunate truth that today's cybersecurity tools are fast becoming obsolete, and more skilled hackers and cyber attackers are now able to bypass the perimeter defenses that are used by most companies. In the old days, you were secure if you had web gateways, firewalls, and intrusion prevention tools in place. This is no longer the case in today’s complex threat landscape, and it’s especially true for bigger corporations that are proven to have very porous IT perimeters that are also very difficult to manage and oversee.\r\nThe bottom line? Preventive measures are no longer enough. Your firewalls are not going to be 100% foolproof, and hackers and attackers will get into your system at one point or another. This is why detection is equally important: when hackers do successfully get into your system, you should be able to detect their presence quickly in order to minimize the damage.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does UEBA Work?</span>\r\nThe premise of UEBA is actually very simple. You can easily steal an employee’s user name and password, but it is much harder to mimic the person’s normal behavior once inside the network.\r\nFor example, let’s say you steal Jane Doe’s password and user name. You would still not be able to act precisely like Jane Doe once in the system unless given extensive research and preparation. Therefore, when Jane Doe’s user name is logged in to the system, and her behavior is different than that of typical Jane Doe, that is when UEBA alerts start to sound.\r\nAnother relatable analogy would be if your credit card was stolen. A thief can pickpocket your wallet and go to a high-end shop and start spending thousands of dollars using your credit card. If your spending pattern on that card is different from the thief’s, the company’s fraud detection department will often recognize the abnormal spending and block suspicious purchases, issuing an alert to you or asking you to verify the authenticity of a transaction.\r\nAs such, UEBA is a very important component of IT security, allowing you to:\r\n1. Detect insider threats. It is not too far-fetched to imagine that an employee, or perhaps a group of employees, could go rogue, stealing data and information by using their own access. UEBA can help you detect data breaches, sabotage, privilege abuse and policy violations made by your own staff.\r\n2. Detect compromised accounts. Sometimes, user accounts are compromised. It could be that the user unwittingly installed malware on his or her machine, or sometimes a legitimate account is spoofed. UEBA can help you weed out spoofed and compromised users before they can do real harm.\r\n3. Detect brute-force attacks. Hackers sometimes target your cloud-based entities as well as third-party authentication systems. With UEBA, you are able to detect brute-force attempts, allowing you to block access to these entities.\r\n4. Detect changes in permissions and the creation of super users. Some attacks involve the use of super users. UEBA allows you to detect when super users are created, or if there are accounts that were granted unnecessary permissions.\r\n5. Detect breach of protected data. If you have protected data, it is not enough to just keep it secure. You should know when a user accesses this data when he or she does not have any legitimate business reason to access it.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_User_and_Entity_Behavior_Analytics.png"},{"id":824,"title":"ATP - Advanced Threat Protection","alias":"atp-advanced-threat-protection","description":" Advanced threat protection (ATP) refers to a category of security solutions that defend against sophisticated malware or hacking-based attacks targeting sensitive data. Advanced threat protection solutions can be available as software or as managed services. ATP solutions can differ in approaches and components, but most include some combination of endpoint agents, network devices, email gateways, malware protection systems, and a centralized management console to correlate alerts and manage defenses.\r\nThe primary benefit offered by advanced threat protection software is the ability to prevent, detect, and respond to new and sophisticated attacks that are designed to circumvent traditional security solutions such as antivirus, firewalls, and IPS/IDS. Attacks continue to become increasingly targeted, stealthy, and persistent, and ATP solutions take a proactive approach to security by identifying and eliminating advanced threats before data is compromised.\r\nAdvanced threat protection services build on this benefit by providing access to a global community of security professionals dedicated to monitoring, tracking, and sharing information about emerging and identified threats. ATP service providers typically have access to global threat information sharing networks, augmenting their own threat intelligence and analysis with information from third parties. When a new, advanced threat is detected, ATP service providers can update their defenses to ensure protection keeps up. This global community effort plays a substantial role in maintaining the security of enterprises around the world.\r\nEnterprises that implement advanced threat protection are better able to detect threats early and more quickly formulate a response to minimize damage and recover should an attack occur. A good security provider will focus on the lifecycle of an attack and manage threats in real-time. ATP providers notify the enterprise of attacks that have occurred, the severity of the attack, and the response that was initiated to stop the threat in its tracks or minimize data loss. Whether managed in-house or provided as a service, advanced threat protection solutions secure critical data and systems, no matter where the attack originates or how major the attack or potential attack is perceived.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Advanced Threat Protection Works?</span>\r\nThere are three primary goals of advanced threat protection: early detection (detecting potential threats before they have the opportunity to access critical data or breach systems), adequate protection (the ability to defend against detected threats swiftly), and response (the ability to mitigate threats and respond to security incidents). To achieve these goals, advanced threat protection services and solutions must offer several components and functions for comprehensive ATP:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-time visibility</span> – Without continuous monitoring and real-time visibility, threats are often detected too late. When damage is already done, response can be tremendously costly in terms of both resource utilization and reputation damage.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Context</span> – For true security effectiveness, threat alerts must contain context to allow security teams to effectively prioritize threats and organize response.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data awareness</span> – It’s impossible to determine threats truly capable of causing harm without first having a deep understanding of enterprise data, its sensitivity, value, and other factors that contribute to the formulation of an appropriate response.</li></ul>\r\nWhen a threat is detected, further analysis may be required. Security services offering ATP typically handle threat analysis, enabling enterprises to conduct business as usual while continuous monitoring, threat analysis, and response occurs behind the scenes. Threats are typically prioritized by potential damage and the classification or sensitivity of the data at risk. Advanced threat protection should address three key areas:\r\n<ul><li>Halting attacks in progress or mitigating threats before they breach systems</li><li>Disrupting activity in progress or countering actions that have already occurred as a result of a breach</li><li>Interrupting the lifecycle of the attack to ensure that the threat is unable to progress or proceed</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon-ATP.png"},{"id":838,"title":"Endpoint Detection and Response","alias":"endpoint-detection-and-response","description":"Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is a cybersecurity technology that addresses the need for continuous monitoring and response to advanced threats. It is a subset of endpoint security technology and a critical piece of an optimal security posture. EDR differs from other endpoint protection platforms (EPP) such as antivirus (AV) and anti-malware in that its primary focus isn't to automatically stop threats in the pre-execution phase on an endpoint. Rather, EDR is focused on providing the right endpoint visibility with the right insights to help security analysts discover, investigate and respond to very advanced threats and broader attack campaigns stretching across multiple endpoints. Many EDR tools, however, combine EDR and EPP.\r\nWhile small and mid-market organizations are increasingly turning to EDR technology for more advanced endpoint protection, many lack the resources to maximize the benefits of the technology. Utilizing advanced EDR features such as forensic analysis, behavioral monitoring and artificial intelligence (AI) is labor and resource intensive, requiring the attention of dedicated security professionals.\r\nA managed endpoint security service combines the latest technology, an around-the-clock team of certified CSOC experts and up-to-the-minute industry intelligence for a cost-effective monthly subscription. Managed services can help reduce the day-to-day burden of monitoring and responding to alerts, enhance security orchestration and automation (SOAR) and improve threat hunting and incident response.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Endpoint detection and response (EDR)?</span>\r\nEndpoint detection and response is an emerging technology that addresses the need for continuous monitoring and response to advanced threats. One could even make the argument that endpoint detection and response is a form of advanced threat protection.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the Key Aspects of EDR Security?</span>\r\nAccording to Gartner, effective EDR must include the following capabilities:\r\n<ul><li>Incident data search and investigation</li><li>Alert triage or suspicious activity validation</li><li>Suspicious activity detection</li><li>Threat hunting or data exploration</li><li>Stopping malicious activity</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What to look for in an EDR Solution?</span>\r\nUnderstanding the key aspects of EDR and why they are important will help you better discern what to look for in a solution. It’s important to find EDR software that can provide the highest level of protection while requiring the least amount of effort and investment — adding value to your security team without draining resources. Here are the six key aspects of EDR you should look for:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">1. Visibility:</span> Real-time visibility across all your endpoints allows you to view adversary activities, even as they attempt to breach your environment and stop them immediately.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">2. Threat Database:</span> Effective EDR requires massive amounts of telemetry collected from endpoints and enriched with context so it can be mined for signs of attack with a variety of analytic techniques.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">3. Behavioral Protection:</span> Relying solely on signature-based methods or indicators of compromise (IOCs) lead to the “silent failure” that allows data breaches to occur. Effective endpoint detection and response requires behavioral approaches that search for indicators of attack (IOAs), so you are alerted of suspicious activities before a compromise can occur.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">4. Insight and Intelligence:</span> An endpoint detection and response solution that integrates threat intelligence can provide context, including details on the attributed adversary that is attacking you or other information about the attack.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">5. Fast Response:</span> EDR that enables a fast and accurate response to incidents can stop an attack before it becomes a breach and allow your organization to get back to business quickly.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">6. Cloud-based Solution:</span> Having a cloud-based endpoint detection and response solution is the only way to ensure zero impact on endpoints while making sure capabilities such as search, analysis and investigation can be done accurately and in real time.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/hgghghg.png"},{"id":852,"title":"Network security","alias":"network-security","description":" Network security consists of the policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. Network security involves the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users choose or are assigned an ID and password or other authenticating information that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security covers a variety of computer networks, both public and private, that are used in everyday jobs; conducting transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals. Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network security is involved in organizations, enterprises, and other types of institutions. It does as its title explains: it secures the network, as well as protecting and overseeing operations being done. The most common and simple way of protecting a network resource is by assigning it a unique name and a corresponding password.\r\nNetwork security starts with authentication, commonly with a username and a password. Since this requires just one detail authenticating the user name — i.e., the password—this is sometimes termed one-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, something the user 'has' is also used (e.g., a security token or 'dongle', an ATM card, or a mobile phone); and with three-factor authentication, something the user 'is' is also used (e.g., a fingerprint or retinal scan).\r\nOnce authenticated, a firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component may fail to check potentially harmful content such as computer worms or Trojans being transmitted over the network. Anti-virus software or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) help detect and inhibit the action of such malware. An anomaly-based intrusion detection system may also monitor the network like wireshark traffic and may be logged for audit purposes and for later high-level analysis. Newer systems combining unsupervised machine learning with full network traffic analysis can detect active network attackers from malicious insiders or targeted external attackers that have compromised a user machine or account.\r\nCommunication between two hosts using a network may be encrypted to maintain privacy.\r\nHoneypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, may be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools, as the honeypots are not normally accessed for legitimate purposes. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis may be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected by the honeypot. A honeypot can also direct an attacker's attention away from legitimate servers. A honeypot encourages attackers to spend their time and energy on the decoy server while distracting their attention from the data on the real server. Similar to a honeypot, a honeynet is a network set up with intentional vulnerabilities. Its purpose is also to invite attacks so that the attacker's methods can be studied and that information can be used to increase network security. A honeynet typically contains one or more honeypots.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Network Security?</span>\r\nNetwork security is any action an organization takes to prevent malicious use or accidental damage to the network’s private data, its users, or their devices. The goal of network security is to keep the network running and safe for all legitimate users.\r\nBecause there are so many ways that a network can be vulnerable, network security involves a broad range of practices. These include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying active devices:</span> Using software to block malicious programs from entering, or running within, the network. Blocking users from sending or receiving suspicious-looking emails. Blocking unauthorized use of the network. Also, stopping the network's users accessing websites that are known to be dangerous.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying passive devices:</span> For instance, using devices and software that report unauthorized intrusions into the network, or suspicious activity by authorized users.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Using preventative devices:</span> Devices that help identify potential security holes, so that network staff can fix them.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ensuring users follow safe practices:</span> Even if the software and hardware are set up to be secure, the actions of users can create security holes. Network security staff is responsible for educating members of the organization about how they can stay safe from potential threats.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Network Security Important?</span>\r\nUnless it’s properly secured, any network is vulnerable to malicious use and accidental damage. Hackers, disgruntled employees, or poor security practices within the organization can leave private data exposed, including trade secrets and customers’ private details.\r\nLosing confidential research, for example, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars by taking away competitive advantages it paid to gain. While hackers stealing customers’ details and selling them to be used in fraud, it creates negative publicity and public mistrust of the organization.\r\nThe majority of common attacks against networks are designed to gain access to information, by spying on the communications and data of users, rather than to damage the network itself.\r\nBut attackers can do more than steal data. They may be able to damage users’ devices or manipulate systems to gain physical access to facilities. This leaves the organization’s property and members at risk of harm.\r\nCompetent network security procedures keep data secure and block vulnerable systems from outside interference. This allows the network’s users to remain safe and focus on achieving the organization’s goals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Do I Need Formal Education to Run a Computer Network?</span>\r\nEven the initial setup of security systems can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the field. A comprehensive security system is made of many pieces, each of which needs specialized knowledge.\r\nBeyond setup, each aspect of security is constantly evolving. New technology creates new opportunities for accidental security leaks, while hackers take advantage of holes in security to do damage as soon as they find them. Whoever is in charge of the network’s security needs to be able to understand the technical news and changes as they happen, so they can implement safety strategies right away.\r\nProperly securing your network using the latest information on vulnerabilities helps minimize the risk that attacks will succeed. Security Week reported that 44% of breaches in 2014 came from exploits that were 2-4 years old.\r\nUnfortunately, many of the technical aspects of network security are beyond those who make hiring decisions. So, the best way an organization can be sure that their network security personnel are able to properly manage the threats is to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_security.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.cybereason.com/hubfs/finalfortune500bankcasestudy-1.pdf","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":361,"title":"eGain Mail for Threadfellows","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Threadfellows’ CX transformation journey with eGain, in their words</span>\r\n“Customer experience is foundational in our business,” says Carl Atwell of Threadfellows. “We had a problem in that area, and that’s really where we reached out to eGain.”\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why did he call Outlook™ a black hole?</span>\r\n“The customer is there, either contacting us via email or in phone calls. So much of that valuable communication was going directly into Outlook. It was a black hole, a black hole in terms of there’s so much valuable stuff there, but we don’t even actually understand what it is. And it was creating a real void. There was all this communication that was happening before it ever went into order management, but because it was happening in Outlook, we had no data. And without data, we really struggled to solve the problem.”\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">And eGain helped Threadfellows de-risk their investment in customer service and transform customer experience.</span>\r\nCarl Atwell, Threadfellows\r\n“We had a business problem. We knew what the problem was. We knew we needed help. We called eGain, and they helped… I feel like they are listening to our pain and figuring out if they can help us (which is) why they become a valuable partner to the point where you just want to present another problem to them and say, can you handle it.”","alias":"egain-mail-for-threadfellows","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"eGain Mail for Threadfellows","keywords":"eGain, problem, they, Threadfellows, that, customer, hole, black","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Threadfellows’ CX transformation journey with eGain, in their words</span>\r\n“Customer experience is foundational in our business,” says Carl Atwell of Threadfellows. “We had a problem in that area, and that’s really where we re","og:title":"eGain Mail for Threadfellows","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Threadfellows’ CX transformation journey with eGain, in their words</span>\r\n“Customer experience is foundational in our business,” says Carl Atwell of Threadfellows. “We had a problem in that area, and that’s really where we re"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4114,"title":"Threadfellows","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Threadfellows.png","alias":"threadfellows","address":"","roles":[],"description":"At Threadfellows, we've curated a collection of remarkable brands to help you showcase yours.\r\nThe brands you own, work for, and wear make a difference, and the desire to put your stamp on something is human nature. You want to feel good. You want to belong. You want to share who you are with the world.&nbsp;\r\n\r\nTAKING BRANDED APPAREL TO THE NEXT LEVEL\r\nThat's where Threadfellows comes in. Our team has decades of experience protecting brands, building relationships with top-tier apparel companies, and plussing-up business gear with best-in-class decoration.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://threadfellows.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Threadfellows","keywords":"Threadfellows, with, brands, want, That, where, comes, LEVEL","description":"<div>At Threadfellows, we've curated a collection of remarkable brands to help you showcase yours.</div>\r\n<div>The brands you own, work for, and wear make a difference, and the desire to put your stamp on something is human nature. You want to feel good. You w","og:title":"Threadfellows","og:description":"<div>At Threadfellows, we've curated a collection of remarkable brands to help you showcase yours.</div>\r\n<div>The brands you own, work for, and wear make a difference, and the desire to put your stamp on something is human nature. You want to feel good. You w","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Threadfellows.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":4106,"title":"eGain","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/eGain.png","alias":"egain","address":"","roles":[],"description":"eGain Corporation (formerly known as eGain Communications Corporation) (NASDAQ: EGAN) is a customer engagement cloud solutions company, traded on the NASDAQ. It is best known for its suite of knowledge-powered software applications, used by omnichannel contact centers, customer service organizations and digital business teams.\r\nSource:&nbsp;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGain","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":2,"suppliedProductsCount":2,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.egain.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"eGain","keywords":"eGain, customer, NASDAQ, known, Corporation, centers, service, organizations","description":"eGain Corporation (formerly known as eGain Communications Corporation) (NASDAQ: EGAN) is a customer engagement cloud solutions company, traded on the NASDAQ. It is best known for its suite of knowledge-powered software applications, used by omnichannel contact","og:title":"eGain","og:description":"eGain Corporation (formerly known as eGain Communications Corporation) (NASDAQ: EGAN) is a customer engagement cloud solutions company, traded on the NASDAQ. It is best known for its suite of knowledge-powered software applications, used by omnichannel contact","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/eGain.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":4106,"title":"eGain","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/eGain.png","alias":"egain","address":"","roles":[],"description":"eGain Corporation (formerly known as eGain Communications Corporation) (NASDAQ: EGAN) is a customer engagement cloud solutions company, traded on the NASDAQ. It is best known for its suite of knowledge-powered software applications, used by omnichannel contact centers, customer service organizations and digital business teams.\r\nSource:&nbsp;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGain","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":2,"suppliedProductsCount":2,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://www.egain.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"eGain","keywords":"eGain, customer, NASDAQ, known, Corporation, centers, service, organizations","description":"eGain Corporation (formerly known as eGain Communications Corporation) (NASDAQ: EGAN) is a customer engagement cloud solutions company, traded on the NASDAQ. It is best known for its suite of knowledge-powered software applications, used by omnichannel contact","og:title":"eGain","og:description":"eGain Corporation (formerly known as eGain Communications Corporation) (NASDAQ: EGAN) is a customer engagement cloud solutions company, traded on the NASDAQ. It is best known for its suite of knowledge-powered software applications, used by omnichannel contact","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/eGain.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1314,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"eGain Mail","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"egain-mail","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\nAn integral part of the eGain suite for customer service, eGain’s email management software offers:\r\n<ul> <li>Predefined workflows to manage incoming email and webform enquiries. Contains service level agreement (SLA) triggers to automate email routing and monitoring.</li> <li>Intelligent parsing of the content of all inbound email queries. Ability to send auto-responses and recommend responses to agents.</li> <li>Tracking of all customer queries.</li> <li>Complete customer information and interaction history, across channels, available to email customer service agents, enabling informed interactions.</li> <li>Access to the centralized knowledge base that enables contact center agents to accurately resolve complex inquiries and processes. The agents can also contribute to the knowledge base thereby capturing invaluable expertise on the fly.</li> <li>Varied collaboration options with experts within and outside the system.</li> <li>Comprehensive analytics and real-time alarms for operational performance management</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Administrator</span>\r\n<ul> <li>100% web-based email management software enables remote and easy administration</li> <li>Fine grained control over user access, role, and permissions</li> <li>Immediate, scheduled, and out-of-the-box reports</li> <li>Multichannel and channel-specific analytics</li> <li>Widest range of deployment options — inhouse implementation, subscription-based hosted delivery, and managed services for remote administration of licensed software</li> </ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email Agent</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Complete customer information and interaction history, across channels, available to email customer service agents, enabling informed interactions</li> <li>Automated service processes for the email channel, such as auto-replies, auto-suggestions, and auto-acknowledgements improve productivity</li> <li>Web-based consoles for a range of users: Agents, supervisors and managers, business analysts, knowledge authors, programmers, and system administrators</li> </ul>","shortDescription":"eGain Mail, the leading email management solution, helps companies manage large volumes of customer emails and webforms responsively and effectively.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":4,"sellingCount":9,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"eGain Mail","keywords":"email, customer, service, agents, software, management, knowledge, across","description":"\r\nAn integral part of the eGain suite for customer service, eGain’s email management software offers:\r\n<ul> <li>Predefined workflows to manage incoming email and webform enquiries. Contains service level agreement (SLA) triggers to automate email routing and m","og:title":"eGain Mail","og:description":"\r\nAn integral part of the eGain suite for customer service, eGain’s email management software offers:\r\n<ul> <li>Predefined workflows to manage incoming email and webform enquiries. Contains service level agreement (SLA) triggers to automate email routing and m"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1315,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":7,"title":"Improve Customer Service"},{"id":252,"title":"Increase Customer Base"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":174,"title":"No unified email system"},{"id":176,"title":"No unified address book"},{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":377,"title":"Separate communications channels"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"http://www.egain.com/best-practice-choose-right-email-management-software/","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":364,"title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite for L’Occitane Group","description":"As a specialist in natural and organic cosmetics, the Group produces and distributes 4 beauty and well-being brands all around the world: L’Occitane en Provence, Melvita, Erborian and L’Occitane au Brésil.&nbsp; L’Occitane Group has over 3000 stores across 90 countries.\r\nThrough its major international CRM systems upgrade project, L’Occitane intends to offer its millions of customers around the globe a more seamless and customer-friendly cross-channel experience.\r\nL’Occitane’s quality of service and customer guarantees needed to be identical when dealing with any major international issue, across all networks and all continents.\r\nThe L’Occitane Group set up its international customer service department back in 2012 with the ambition to offer an “extraordinary” customer experience and to do so regardless of the touchpoint (stores, web &amp; digital, department stores, pharmacies, hotels and spas).\r\nThe Group’s objective is thus to respond to its customers with the greatest care, as quickly as possible across all digital channels. This includes social networks, which are a real sounding board for consumer opinion, while continuously measuring customer satisfaction.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The challenge</span>\r\nReal-time satisfaction monitoring L’Occitane uses the same KPIs all over the world thanks to Eptica’s advanced reporting functionalities: email response time, time to close a request, percentage of requests closed, percentage of chats answered, average processing time, e-commerce intervention rate, etc.\r\nTo measure customer satisfaction, L’Occitane uses Net Promoter Scores (NPS).&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The solution</span>\r\nDeployed in 17 countries since 2012, the Eptica solution covers both automated and augmented conversations: self-service, email, social networks and chat. It interfaces with the customer database so as to provide employees with a unique vision of the customer: a history of purchases, requests, communications received, CRM segmentation and other data.\r\n\r\n&quot;It was important for us to have a robust solution that could handle high volumes of conversations and enable us to improve productivity so that our agents could focus on personalising the relationship.”\r\nAnne-Sophie Pouyau,\r\nHead of International &amp; European Customer Service\r\nL’Occitane en Provence.\r\n\r\nL’Occitane uses Eptica’s shared knowledge base which is integrated into all digital channels and the telephone&nbsp;\r\nThanks to AI and, in particular, Natural Language Processing, the solution also enables conversations to be sorted automatically according to the content and tone of the messages. Requests can therefore be prioritised. Self-service helps reduce incoming volume by enabling automatic responses to customers 24/7. Chat improves customer experience by offering personalised, contextualised and proactive support when, for example, the customer is looking for information, about to make a purchase or having difficulty confirming their order.\r\nA conversational, collaborative and cognitive platform\r\nThe customer relationship manager must simultaneously provide an ‘extraordinary’ experience on all channels while sharing the Voice of the\r\n\r\nTwo questions for...\r\nWe intended to create an international customer service department capable of managing more than 17 countries around the world and several channels. The benefit of Eptica was its intelligent, integrated, multichannel and multilingual platform. This is why Eptica seemed an obvious choice!\r\nThanks to AI and Natural Language Processing, we are able to gain real knowledge and understanding of our customers and their psychology. This allows us to adapt to their requirements, along the entire value chain, and be more attentive to their needs in order to satisfy them. When we share verbatim data internally, we are sharing data that has a soul! This makes the Voice of the Customer very powerful within the company’s different departments, enabling us to continuously improve the customer experience and our products.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: underline;\">The benefits:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-time reporting</span>\r\nL’Occitane can follow what is happening across all channels using the same KPIs so as to optimise resources and measure activities consistently.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Improved coherence</span>\r\nAll the agents have access to the same knowledge base, which provides consistency and increased productivity.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Greater customer satisfaction</span>\r\nFollowing every interaction, a satisfaction questionnaire is sent out. On a daily basis, the customer service teams receive the results, including complaints, and so are able to react quickly when a customer is dissatisfied.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Representing the Voice of the Customer internally</span>\r\nThanks to the KPIs and customer verbatim data, the customer service department has a great deal of influence when it comes to convincing the other departments: marketing, digital, sales logistics, etc.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated social media management</span>\r\nThe customer service department has Community Managers who use the Eptica solution. They can therefore reply consistently, using the same tone as on the other channels, accessing the same knowledge base.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unique view of the customer</span>\r\nAll over the world, the customer service teams have the same information about the customer, thanks to the integration of the customer database with the Eptica solution.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Agents’ well-being</span>\r\nAs the use of the Eptica solution is intuitive and training is very fast, customer advisors very quickly become familiar with the tool, gaining in productivity and improved well-being at work.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Improvement in customer retention</span>\r\nBy proposing chat to customers likely to experience difficulties while buying online, L’Occitane has been able to improve conversion rates.\r\n","alias":"eptica-customer-engagement-suite-for-loccitane-group","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite for L’Occitane Group","keywords":"customer, L’Occitane, solution, with, Eptica, service, experience, channels","description":"As a specialist in natural and organic cosmetics, the Group produces and distributes 4 beauty and well-being brands all around the world: L’Occitane en Provence, Melvita, Erborian and L’Occitane au Brésil.&nbsp; L’Occitane Group has over 3000 stores across 90 ","og:title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite for L’Occitane Group","og:description":"As a specialist in natural and organic cosmetics, the Group produces and distributes 4 beauty and well-being brands all around the world: L’Occitane en Provence, Melvita, Erborian and L’Occitane au Brésil.&nbsp; L’Occitane Group has over 3000 stores across 90 "},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":4126,"title":"L'OCCITANE Group","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/L_OCCITANE_Group.png","alias":"loccitane-group","address":"","roles":[],"description":"The L'OCCITANE Group is a global, natural and organic ingredient-based cosmetics and well-being products retailer. The Group has four brands (L’OCCITANE en Provence, Melvita, Erborian and L'OCCITANE au Brésil) in its portfolio and is committed to developing and retailing high quality products that are rich in natural and organic ingredients of traceable origins and respect for the environment. ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"http://group.loccitane.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"L'OCCITANE Group","keywords":"Group, OCCITANE, products, organic, natural, that, quality, retailing","description":"The L'OCCITANE Group is a global, natural and organic ingredient-based cosmetics and well-being products retailer. The Group has four brands (L’OCCITANE en Provence, Melvita, Erborian and L'OCCITANE au Brésil) in its portfolio and is committed to developing an","og:title":"L'OCCITANE Group","og:description":"The L'OCCITANE Group is a global, natural and organic ingredient-based cosmetics and well-being products retailer. The Group has four brands (L’OCCITANE en Provence, Melvita, Erborian and L'OCCITANE au Brésil) in its portfolio and is committed to developing an","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/L_OCCITANE_Group.png"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":4125,"title":"Eptica","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Eptica.png","alias":"eptica","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Eptica is a leading European tech company specialized in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience. Eptica provides brands with conversational and collaborative solutions powered by AI. Founded 16 years ago by Olivier Njamfa, Eptica supports brands to make digital CX the key link in the value chain ensuring their customer service delivers value to consumers and across their business. Eptica has offices in Paris, London, Boston and Singapore.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">To help brands become truly conversational, our innovation makes the best use of AI and cognitive technologies for CX to enable them to:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Understand customers</li><li>Serve customers across all channels</li><li>Share the conversations with all in the organisation, not just the contact center</li><li>Enrich knowledge from every interaction</li><li>Analyse all conversations to collect insights on the perceptions of the brand</li></ul>\r\nToday, more than 450 organisations worldwide, across all industries, rely on our customer service solutions on digital channels, including self service, knowledge base, email, chat and social media.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.eptica.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Eptica","keywords":"Eptica, service, across, brands, digital, customer, value, knowledge","description":"<div>Eptica is a leading European tech company specialized in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience. Eptica provides brands with conversational and collaborative solutions powered by AI. Founded 16 years ago by Olivier Njamfa, Eptica supports b","og:title":"Eptica","og:description":"<div>Eptica is a leading European tech company specialized in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience. Eptica provides brands with conversational and collaborative solutions powered by AI. Founded 16 years ago by Olivier Njamfa, Eptica supports b","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Eptica.png"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":4125,"title":"Eptica","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Eptica.png","alias":"eptica","address":"","roles":[],"description":"Eptica is a leading European tech company specialized in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience. Eptica provides brands with conversational and collaborative solutions powered by AI. Founded 16 years ago by Olivier Njamfa, Eptica supports brands to make digital CX the key link in the value chain ensuring their customer service delivers value to consumers and across their business. Eptica has offices in Paris, London, Boston and Singapore.\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">To help brands become truly conversational, our innovation makes the best use of AI and cognitive technologies for CX to enable them to:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Understand customers</li><li>Serve customers across all channels</li><li>Share the conversations with all in the organisation, not just the contact center</li><li>Enrich knowledge from every interaction</li><li>Analyse all conversations to collect insights on the perceptions of the brand</li></ul>\r\nToday, more than 450 organisations worldwide, across all industries, rely on our customer service solutions on digital channels, including self service, knowledge base, email, chat and social media.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":1,"vendorImplementationsCount":1,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.eptica.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Eptica","keywords":"Eptica, service, across, brands, digital, customer, value, knowledge","description":"<div>Eptica is a leading European tech company specialized in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience. Eptica provides brands with conversational and collaborative solutions powered by AI. Founded 16 years ago by Olivier Njamfa, Eptica supports b","og:title":"Eptica","og:description":"<div>Eptica is a leading European tech company specialized in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience. Eptica provides brands with conversational and collaborative solutions powered by AI. Founded 16 years ago by Olivier Njamfa, Eptica supports b","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/Eptica.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":1324,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.40","implementationsCount":1,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"eptica-customer-engagement-suite","companyTypes":[],"description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Knowledge Base</span> Putting knowledge at the heart of your customer service Eptica offers an engaging, accessible, dynamic, rich and well structured knowledge base to improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of information across sales and customer service channels. The Eptica Knowledge Base learns from the way it is used which content is best for answering a specific question. Every interaction with the knowledge base continues to refine and enhance the relevance of content. The system combines knowledge with the multichannel customer contact history, which together enable agents to optimize the effectiveness of their customer interactions. Using search and query histories from customers and agents, content is automatically and dynamically prioritized and made available where it is needed. Agents can also highlight content gaps as they work, simply by selecting a tick box which puts questions that need answers into the content management workflow.&nbsp; Information to answer questions need only be created once to be available to all customer service channels. Different departments can be responsible for information and incorporated into the content workflow. Every interaction with the knowledge base continuously enhances and refines the relevance of content, helping to keep the knowledge base up-to-date. Eptica enables organizations to build upon a centralized knowledge base that can be rolled out across multiple contact channels with ease. For example, it can be searchable by customers online and it can also be integrated with workflow to ensure contact center responses are consistent and efficient via email, calls and chat. A centralized knowledge base delivers relevant, accurate and consistent knowledge across channels for agents, back office staff and for customers, creating competitive advantage and delivering the best possible customer experience. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Eptica Linguistic Services</span> Winner of International Expo CRE Innovation Award for ‘CRE Innovative Digital Linguistics EngineUnderstand what customers really mean Delivering consistent, rapid and personalized responses to consumers, based on understanding the tone and style of the language they use is critical to Customer Service excellence. Linguistics helps by automatically analyzing incoming interactions, prioritizing them based on tone, forwarding to the most relevant agent or department and suggesting relevant answers. This not only increases efficiency but provides unparalleled insight into customer behavior that can link into Big Data and Voice of the Customer initiatives. At Eptica, linguistics is at the heart of our entire product set. Eptica Linguistic Services™ is the engine that powers all of our linguistic capabilities, driving service excellence by embedding it across every channel: Our advanced Natural Language Processing automatically analyses incoming interactions to detect key message elements, language and sentiment, enabling queries to be quickly routed to the right agent, along with recommended responses. Sentiment analysis of the language used in incoming communications gives immediate insight into how happy an individual customer is - and allows you to prioritize resources accordingly. By understanding the context of questions asked, our Linguistic Search feature delivers faster, more accurate answers to customers, whatever type of language they use, as well as providing powerful insight into customer behavior, which feeds into Voice of the Customer programs. Eptica Linguistic Service is supported by Eptica's in-house team of linguists, ensuring it continues to develop and evolve as language changes now and in the future. <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\">Benefits:</span>\r\n<ul> <li>Achieve Higher First Contact Resolution (FCR) rates</li> <li>Deliver high quality answers, faster to increase efficiency</li> <li>Listen to the Voice of your Customers to best meet their needs</li> </ul>\r\nOrganizations need an innovative approach to deal with their increasing customer service challenges without having to sacrifice cost, quality or speed of response. Applying techniques based on linguistics will enable you to tackle your challenges by closer, more automated understanding of what your customers are saying. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Interaction Workflow</span> Eptica’s workflow is designed to support the processing and management of all inbound and outbound customer requests and interactions that take place across multiple channels. For example, when a customer sends an email or submits a web form Eptica captures the inbound message and create a workflow item to manage that interaction. Eptica automatically profiles each inbound message in order for it to be visible to the appropriate team and given an appropriate level of priority. Eptica also uses the results of the computational linguistic analysis to be able to push to agents highly relevant knowledge articles which will assist the agent in correctly handling and responding to the inbound request.\r\n","shortDescription":"The Eptica Customer Engagement Suite platform is designed around a central Knowledge Base and Eptica Linguistic Services, an advanced linguistics technology system.","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":15,"sellingCount":3,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite","keywords":"customer, Eptica, knowledge, into, with, content, that, customers","description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Knowledge Base</span> Putting knowledge at the heart of your customer service Eptica offers an engaging, accessible, dynamic, rich and well structured knowledge base to improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of infor","og:title":"Eptica Customer Engagement Suite","og:description":"\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Knowledge Base</span> Putting knowledge at the heart of your customer service Eptica offers an engaging, accessible, dynamic, rich and well structured knowledge base to improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of infor"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":1325,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":177,"title":"Decentralized IT systems"},{"id":340,"title":"Low quality of customer service"},{"id":370,"title":"No automated business processes"},{"id":388,"title":"Failure to attract new customers"},{"id":389,"title":"Customer attrition"},{"id":390,"title":"Low quality of customer support"}]}},"categories":[{"id":71,"title":"CRM - Customer Relationship Management","alias":"crm-customer-relationship-management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer service</span> is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. The perception of success of such interactions is dependent on employees &quot;who can adjust themselves to the personality of the guest&quot;. Customer service concerns the priority an organization assigns to customer service relative to components such as product innovation and pricing. In this sense, an organization that values good customer service may spend more money in training employees than the average organization or may proactively interview customers for feedback.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">customer support</span> is a range of customer services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, trouble shooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. These services even may be done at customer's side where he/she uses the product or service. In this case it is called &quot;at home customer services&quot; or &quot;at home customer support.&quot;\r\nRegarding technology, products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support. \r\nCustomer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means, such as kiosks, Internet sites, and apps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM </span>(Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. It uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer retention and ultimately driving sales growth.\r\nOne important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials and more recently, social media. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.\r\nCRM helps users focus on their organization’s relationships with individual people including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers.\r\nWhen people talk about customer relationship management system, they might mean any of three things: \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as Technology</span>: This is a technology product, often in the cloud, that teams use to record, report and analyse interactions between the company and users. This is also called a CRM system or solution.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Strategy</span>: This is a business’ philosophy about how relationships with customers and potential customers should be managed.&nbsp; </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">CRM as a Process</span>: Think of this as a system a business adopts to nurture and manage those relationships.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why is CRM important?</span></h1>\r\nCRM management system enables a business to deepen its relationships with customers, service users, colleagues, partners and suppliers.\r\nForging good relationships and keeping track of prospects and customers is crucial for customer acquisition and retention, which is at the heart of a CRM’s function. You can see everything in one place — a simple, customizable dashboard that can tell you a customer’s previous history with you, the status of their orders, any outstanding customer service issues, and more.\r\nGartner predicts that by 2021, CRM technology will be the single largest revenue area of spending in enterprise software. If your business is going to last, you know that you need a strategy for the future. For forward-thinking businesses, CRM is the framework for that strategy.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the benefits of CRM?</span></h1>\r\nBy collecting and organising data about customer interactions, making it accessible and actionable for all, and facilitating analysis of that data, CRM offers many benefits and advantages.<br />The benefits and advantages of CRM include:\r\n<ul><li>Enhanced contact management</li><li>Cross-team collaboration</li><li>Heightened productivity</li><li>Empowered sales management</li><li>Accurate sales forecasting</li><li>Reliable reporting</li><li>Improved sales metrics</li><li>Increased customer satisfaction and retention</li><li>Boosted marketing ROI</li><li>Enriched products and services</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the key features of most popular CRM software programs?</span></h1>\r\nWhile many CRM solutions differ in their specific value propositions — depending on your business size, priority function, or industry type — they usually share some core features. These, in fact, are the foundation of any top CRM software, without which you might end up using an inferior app or an over-rated address book. So, let’s discuss the key features you need to look for when figuring out the best CRM software for your business.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Contact management</span>. The best CRM solutions aren’t just an address book that only organizes contact details. It manages customer data in a centralized place and gives you a 360-degree view of your customers. You should be able to organize customers’ personal information, demographics, interactions, and transactions in ways that are meaningful to your goals or processes. Moreover, a good contact management feature lets you personalize your outreach campaign. By collecting personal, social, and purchase data, it will help you to segment target audience groups in different ways.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting and dashboards</span>. These features of customer relationship management allow you to use analytics to interpret customer data. Reporting is very useful if you want to consolidate disparate data and churn out insights in different visualizations. This lets you make better decisions or proactively deal with market trends and customer behavioral patterns. The more visual widgets a CRM software has, the better you can present reports. Furthermore, a best customer relationship management software will generate real-time data, making reporting more accurate and timely. Reporting also keeps you tab on sales opportunities like upsell, resell, and cross-sell, especially when integrated with e-commerce platforms.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lead management</span>. These features let you manage leads all the way to win-loss stage. They pave a clear path to conversion, so you can quickly assess how the business is performing. One of the main three legs that comprises the best client relationship management software (the other two being contact management and reporting), lead management unburdens the sales team from follow-ups, tracking, and repetitive tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deals and tasks</span>. Deals and tasks are closely associated with leads. Deals are leads at the negotiation stage, so it’s critical to keep a close eye on their associated tasks for a higher chance of conversion.<br />CRM software tools should also let you track both deals and tasks in their respective windows or across the sales stages. Whether you’re viewing a contact or analyzing the sales pipeline, you should be able to immediately check the deal’s tasks and details. Deals and tasks should also have user permissions to protect leaks of sensitive data. Similarly, alerts are critical to tasks so deadlines are met. Notifications are usually sent via email or prominently displayed on the user’s dashboard.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Campaign management</span>. Solid CRM software will integrate this feature to enable marketing processes from outreach concept to A/B testing to deployment and to post analysis. This will allow you to sort campaigns to target segments in your contacts and define deployment strategies. You will also be able to define metrics for various channels, then plow back the insights generated by post-campaign analytics into planning more campaigns.<br />Recurring outreach efforts can also be automated. For instance, you can set to instantly appropriate content to contacts based on their interest or send tiered autoresponders based on campaign feedback.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Email management</span>. By integrating with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, CRM solutions can capture email messages and sort important details that can be saved in contacts or synced with leads. They can also track activities like opened emails, forwarded emails, clicked links, and downloaded files. Emails can also be qualified for prospecting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Social media management. </span>Popular CRM systems feature an integrated social media management where you can view different social media pages from the CRM’s interface. This is a convenient way to post, reply on, and manage all your pages. Likewise, this feature gives you a better perspective on how customers are interacting with your brand. A glean of their likes and dislikes, interests, shares, and public conversations helps you to assess customer biases and preferences. Customers are also increasingly using social media to contact companies; hence, a good CRM should alert you for brand mentions.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile access</span>. With more users accessing apps via mobile devices, many vendors have been prioritizing mobile-first platforms. Emergence Capital Partners study found over 300 mobile-first apps so far and CRM is definitely one their targets. Many CRM solutions have both Android and iOS apps. Mobile access works in two ways to be highly appreciated: accessing data and inputting data while on location. Field sales with the latest sales information on hand may be able to interest prospects better. Conversely, sales reps can quickly update deals across the pipeline even as they come off a client meeting.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CRM_-_Customer_Relationship_Management.png"},{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","alias":"contact-center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png"},{"id":337,"title":"Sales","alias":"sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png"},{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","alias":"marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png"},{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","alias":"customer-service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"","functionallyTaskAssignment":"","projectWasPut":"","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.eptica.com/l-occitane-case-study-0","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0},{"id":1241,"title":"Ericom Shield for EUCCU","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">BACKGROUND</span>\r\nEastern Utah Community Credit Union is a member-driven financial institution that is committed to providing low-cost banking, loan, mortgage and credit card services, online and from four local branches, to members who live, work or have businesses in five Utah counties.<br /><br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">GRADUATING TO ISOLATION’S NEXT GENERATION</span><br />\r\nEUCCU’s Information Technology Officer, Cole Clarke, CISSP, is a knowledgeable proponent of remote browser isolation technology for all organizations. <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“I have the same concerns as anyone has who is responsible for defending any network, with the biggest concerns being about internet interactions and email. But as a financial institution, we can’t say, ‘Well, maybe we’ll take a little more risk with that.’ We can’t. We’ve got to make sure that those things are protected.”</span><br />\r\nAs an early adopter of internet isolation and an experienced solution administrator, Mr. Clarke had a clear picture of what he wanted when it was time to renew EUCCU’s previous isolation platform. Following acquisition of the platform by a new provider, however, technology development had slowed and service suffered. EUCCU was no longer getting either the service or the product that it needed. <br />\r\nMr. Clarke wanted a forward-looking, secure solution that was designed to work with the credit union’s updated infrastructure and would continue to work with emerging cloud infrastructures as well. Beyond technical considerations, he was extremely aware of the importance of user experience. <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“Users are always negative when they know I am making a change. If new solutions don’t work smoothly when we push them out, people get a negative opinion of them.&nbsp; I try to keep them as positive as possible, by choosing solutions that align with our workflow and enhance user productivity.”</span><br />\r\nMost of the internet isolation solutions that Mr. Clarke investigated simply did not deliver the level of performance he required. They rendered content poorly or in some cases, only partially. In addition, users could not use the browsers they liked, but instead were restricted to a solutionspecific browser. As a result, said Mr. Clarke, “the interface felt weird.”<br /><br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">THE SOLUTION: ERICOM SHIELD</span><br />\r\nWhile researching alternative solutions, Cole Clarke discovered a review that gave Ericom Shield high marks for secure browsing. He was particularly impressed by the seamless, natural browsing experience that it offers, the ability to restrict secure browsing to uncategorized sites, and the excellent documentation provided on the Ericom site.<br />\r\nUsing Ericom Shield’s simple and intuitive management interface, EUCCU easily whitelisted well-known banking and lending sites that are directly business-related and have good reputations, since they can be relied on to have excellent security. And sites categorized as risky by the company’s Fortinet firewall are entirely blacklisted.<br />\r\nWhile the credit union has a policy of not using the internet for anything other than business reasons, a lot of business reasons put users into gray areas. IT staff uses the Internet to research coding and security. Financial people need to research rates, interact with other financial institutions, and get other information they need for their jobs. That’s where Shield comes into play.<br />\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“The reason for wanting Ericom Shield is so that we can stay safe but still allow the flexibility for people to get their work done and do research, versus having to lock down the firewall tight,”</span> said Mr. Clarke. <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“I can rely on Ericom Shield to keep the credit union secure and still allow people the flexibility to get their jobs done.”</span><br />\r\nEUCCU users are also pleased with Ericom Shield – when they notice it at all. Mr. Clarke reports that they like it way better than the previous solution. In fact, he added the word “Shield” to their browser tabs so they would know when they are on a site that is Shielded – otherwise they can’t tell the difference from when they browse whitelisted sites.<br />\r\nSaid Mr. Clarke, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“I’d say this is a very successful implementation. I’ve put in a lot of different systems. Installation and setup of Ericom Shield was super easy, even setting up the Kerberos authentication. Integration with our security stack was smooth. The management interface is great and easy to learn. And the documentation on Ericom’s website is excellent. Support was wonderful too. Whenever I needed more help they always had the answers.”</span><br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><br />RESULTS</span><br />\r\nIn the words of Cole Clarke, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">“Ericom Shield does what it’s supposed to do. I really have no complaints about it at all. It’s doing just what I need it to do.”</span>","alias":"ericom-shield-for-euccu","roi":0,"seo":{"title":"Ericom Shield for EUCCU","keywords":"","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">BACKGROUND</span>\r\nEastern Utah Community Credit Union is a member-driven financial institution that is committed to providing low-cost banking, loan, mortgage and credit card services, online and from four local branches, to m","og:title":"Ericom Shield for EUCCU","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">BACKGROUND</span>\r\nEastern Utah Community Credit Union is a member-driven financial institution that is committed to providing low-cost banking, loan, mortgage and credit card services, online and from four local branches, to m"},"deal_info":"","user":{"id":8918,"title":"Eastern Utah Community Credit Union (EUCCU)","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/EUCCU.jpg","alias":"eastern-utah-community-credit-union-euccu","address":"","roles":[],"description":" Eastern Utah Community Credit Union is a member-driven financial institution that is committed to providing low-cost banking, loan, mortgage and credit card services, online and from four local branches, to members who live, work or have businesses in five Utah counties.","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":1,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.euccu.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Eastern Utah Community Credit Union (EUCCU)","keywords":"","description":" Eastern Utah Community Credit Union is a member-driven financial institution that is committed to providing low-cost banking, loan, mortgage and credit card services, online and from four local branches, to members who live, work or have businesses in five Ut","og:title":"Eastern Utah Community Credit Union (EUCCU)","og:description":" Eastern Utah Community Credit Union is a member-driven financial institution that is committed to providing low-cost banking, loan, mortgage and credit card services, online and from four local branches, to members who live, work or have businesses in five Ut","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/EUCCU.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"supplier":{"id":8760,"title":"Hidden supplier","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/znachok_postavshchik.jpg","alias":"skrytyi-postavshchik","address":"","roles":[],"description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":0,"suppliedProductsCount":0,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":76,"vendorImplementationsCount":0,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Hidden supplier","keywords":"","description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","og:title":"Hidden supplier","og:description":" Supplier Information is confidential ","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/znachok_postavshchik.jpg"},"eventUrl":""},"vendors":[{"id":5447,"title":"Ericom Software","logoURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/ericom.png","alias":"ericom-software","address":"","roles":[],"description":" Ericom offers solutions that secure browsing, and optimize desktop and application delivery to any device, anywhere.\r\n Ericom enterprise-grade remote browser isolation, secure remote access, and cloud enablement solutions provide a superior work experience and optimize enterprise productivity at tens of thousands of organizations of all sizes, with over ten million users. \r\nEricom has offices in the United States, United Kingdom and EMEA and an extensive network of distributors and partners throughout North America, Europe, APAC, and Africa.<br />Source: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ericom-software/about/","companyTypes":[],"products":{},"vendoredProductsCount":1,"suppliedProductsCount":1,"supplierImplementations":[],"vendorImplementations":[],"userImplementations":[],"userImplementationsCount":0,"supplierImplementationsCount":0,"vendorImplementationsCount":3,"vendorPartnersCount":0,"supplierPartnersCount":0,"b4r":0,"categories":{},"companyUrl":"https://www.ericom.com/","countryCodes":[],"certifications":[],"isSeller":false,"isSupplier":false,"isVendor":false,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"Ericom Software","keywords":"","description":" Ericom offers solutions that secure browsing, and optimize desktop and application delivery to any device, anywhere.\r\n Ericom enterprise-grade remote browser isolation, secure remote access, and cloud enablement solutions provide a superior work experience an","og:title":"Ericom Software","og:description":" Ericom offers solutions that secure browsing, and optimize desktop and application delivery to any device, anywhere.\r\n Ericom enterprise-grade remote browser isolation, secure remote access, and cloud enablement solutions provide a superior work experience an","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/ericom.png"},"eventUrl":""}],"products":[{"id":6250,"logo":false,"scheme":false,"title":"Ericom Shield Remote Browser Isolation (RBI)","vendorVerified":0,"rating":"1.80","implementationsCount":3,"suppliersCount":0,"alias":"ericom-shield-remote-browser-isolation-rbi","companyTypes":[],"description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Endpoint attacks are on the rise</span>\r\n94% of businesses have had malware delivered by email, and 23% report malware entering via the web*. Detection-based solutions are powerless against unknown or zero-day threats. Credential theft-sites are removed before they can be categorized as malicious – but not before phishing emails lure users in.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Shield your business from web-borne dangers</span></span>\r\nEricom Shield Remote Browser Isolation empowers users to securely and efficiently access the essential web-based tools of every modern business – websites and email -- without the risk of malware attacks or credential theft and without investment in costly infrastructure.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Secure Browsing</span></span>\r\nEricom Shield renders websites in remote, isolated containers located in the DMZ or cloud, and delivers only a safe interactive media stream to end-users, on their standard browser. No active content ever reaches the endpoint. Users enjoy secure, seamless, hassle-free access to the sites that they need.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Phishing Protection</span></span>\r\nWhen it comes to phishing attacks, user training just isn’t enough. Ericom Shield executes email-embedded URLs away from endpoints, in remote virtual browsers in the cloud or DMZ, so no malware can reach endpoints. For extra protection from credential theft, the clean media streams can be sent to endpoints in read-only mode, preventing users from entering sensitive data such as user IDs and passwords.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Document-borne Malware Protection</span></span>\r\nLet users download the files they need from websites and emails, without fear of embedded malware. Ericom Shield content sanitization capabilities disarm embedded threats then reconstruct and deliver safe files, with native functionality intact.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits Ericom Shield Remote Browser Isolation</span>\r\n<ul><li>Websites are rendered in isolated containers in the cloud or DMZ, so no active content ever reaches endpoints</li><li>Proxy-based access – easily integrates with all secure web gateways</li><li>URL redirection to virtual browsers in the cloud or DMZ</li><li>Zero installation on the endpoint</li><li>Works with any endpoint browser, device and OS</li><li>Embedded URL filtering</li><li>Category-based policy management</li><li>Comprehensive activity reporting and logging</li><li>Highly-available distributed cloud platform delivers 99.999% uptime</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ericom Shield Remote Browser Isolation Improves Security While Reducing Cost and Complexity</span>\r\n<ul><li>Neutralizes the most prevalent cyber attack vectors -- browsing &amp; email</li><li>Keeps employees productive by providing a secure, cost-effective native browsing experience</li><li>Protects users from sophisticated social engineering, credential theft and phishing attacks</li><li>Air-gaps browser-executable code, email links and downloads away from endpoints</li><li>Opens each tab in a unique, disposable container to eliminate cross-site scripting attacks</li><li>Simplifies IT operations by minimizing false positives and helpdesk calls</li><li>Works with all browsers, devices and operating systems</li><li>Flexibly scales as organizations need to add isolation to cover incremental users</li></ul>","shortDescription":"Ericom Shield Remote Browser Isolation: Zero Trust protection from web-borne malware and credential theft","type":null,"isRoiCalculatorAvaliable":false,"isConfiguratorAvaliable":false,"bonus":100,"usingCount":0,"sellingCount":0,"discontinued":0,"rebateForPoc":0,"rebate":0,"seo":{"title":"Ericom Shield Remote Browser Isolation (RBI)","keywords":"","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Endpoint attacks are on the rise</span>\r\n94% of businesses have had malware delivered by email, and 23% report malware entering via the web*. Detection-based solutions are powerless against unknown or zero-day threats. Credenti","og:title":"Ericom Shield Remote Browser Isolation (RBI)","og:description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Endpoint attacks are on the rise</span>\r\n94% of businesses have had malware delivered by email, and 23% report malware entering via the web*. Detection-based solutions are powerless against unknown or zero-day threats. Credenti"},"eventUrl":"","translationId":6251,"dealDetails":null,"roi":null,"price":null,"bonusForReference":null,"templateData":[],"testingArea":"","categories":[{"id":40,"title":"Endpoint security","alias":"endpoint-security","description":"In network security, endpoint security refers to a methodology of protecting the corporate network when accessed via remote devices such as laptops or other wireless and mobile devices. Each device with a remote connecting to the network creates a potential entry point for security threats. Endpoint security is designed to secure each endpoint on the network created by these devices.\r\nUsually, endpoint security is a security system that consists of security software, located on a centrally managed and accessible server or gateway within the network, in addition to client software being installed on each of the endpoints (or devices).&nbsp; The server authenticates logins from the endpoints and also updates the device software when needed. While endpoint security software differs by vendor, you can expect most software offerings to provide antivirus, antispyware, firewall and also a host intrusion prevention system (HIPS).\r\nEndpoint security is becoming a more common IT security function and concern as more employees bring consumer mobile devices to work and companies allow its mobile workforce to use these devices on the corporate network.<br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are endpoint devices?</span>\r\nAny device that can connect to the central business network is considered an endpoint. Endpoint devices are potential entry points for cybersecurity threats and need strong protection because they are often the weakest link in network security.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security management?</span>\r\nA set of rules defining the level of security that each device connected to the business network must comply with. These rules may include using an approved operating system (OS), installing a virtual private network (VPN), or running up-to-date antivirus software. If the device connecting to the network does not have the desired level of protection, it may have to connect via a guest network and have limited network access.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security software?</span>\r\nPrograms that make sure your devices are protected. Endpoint protection software may be cloud-based and work as SaaS (Software as a Service). Endpoint security software can also be installed on each device separately as a standalone application.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint detection and response (EDR)?</span>\r\nEndpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions analyze files and programs, and report on any threats found. EDR solutions monitor continuously for advanced threats, helping to identify attacks at an early stage and respond rapidly to a range of threats.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Endpoint_security.png"},{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":824,"title":"ATP - Advanced Threat Protection","alias":"atp-advanced-threat-protection","description":" Advanced threat protection (ATP) refers to a category of security solutions that defend against sophisticated malware or hacking-based attacks targeting sensitive data. Advanced threat protection solutions can be available as software or as managed services. ATP solutions can differ in approaches and components, but most include some combination of endpoint agents, network devices, email gateways, malware protection systems, and a centralized management console to correlate alerts and manage defenses.\r\nThe primary benefit offered by advanced threat protection software is the ability to prevent, detect, and respond to new and sophisticated attacks that are designed to circumvent traditional security solutions such as antivirus, firewalls, and IPS/IDS. Attacks continue to become increasingly targeted, stealthy, and persistent, and ATP solutions take a proactive approach to security by identifying and eliminating advanced threats before data is compromised.\r\nAdvanced threat protection services build on this benefit by providing access to a global community of security professionals dedicated to monitoring, tracking, and sharing information about emerging and identified threats. ATP service providers typically have access to global threat information sharing networks, augmenting their own threat intelligence and analysis with information from third parties. When a new, advanced threat is detected, ATP service providers can update their defenses to ensure protection keeps up. This global community effort plays a substantial role in maintaining the security of enterprises around the world.\r\nEnterprises that implement advanced threat protection are better able to detect threats early and more quickly formulate a response to minimize damage and recover should an attack occur. A good security provider will focus on the lifecycle of an attack and manage threats in real-time. ATP providers notify the enterprise of attacks that have occurred, the severity of the attack, and the response that was initiated to stop the threat in its tracks or minimize data loss. Whether managed in-house or provided as a service, advanced threat protection solutions secure critical data and systems, no matter where the attack originates or how major the attack or potential attack is perceived.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Advanced Threat Protection Works?</span>\r\nThere are three primary goals of advanced threat protection: early detection (detecting potential threats before they have the opportunity to access critical data or breach systems), adequate protection (the ability to defend against detected threats swiftly), and response (the ability to mitigate threats and respond to security incidents). To achieve these goals, advanced threat protection services and solutions must offer several components and functions for comprehensive ATP:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-time visibility</span> – Without continuous monitoring and real-time visibility, threats are often detected too late. When damage is already done, response can be tremendously costly in terms of both resource utilization and reputation damage.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Context</span> – For true security effectiveness, threat alerts must contain context to allow security teams to effectively prioritize threats and organize response.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data awareness</span> – It’s impossible to determine threats truly capable of causing harm without first having a deep understanding of enterprise data, its sensitivity, value, and other factors that contribute to the formulation of an appropriate response.</li></ul>\r\nWhen a threat is detected, further analysis may be required. Security services offering ATP typically handle threat analysis, enabling enterprises to conduct business as usual while continuous monitoring, threat analysis, and response occurs behind the scenes. Threats are typically prioritized by potential damage and the classification or sensitivity of the data at risk. Advanced threat protection should address three key areas:\r\n<ul><li>Halting attacks in progress or mitigating threats before they breach systems</li><li>Disrupting activity in progress or countering actions that have already occurred as a result of a breach</li><li>Interrupting the lifecycle of the attack to ensure that the threat is unable to progress or proceed</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon-ATP.png"},{"id":852,"title":"Network security","alias":"network-security","description":" Network security consists of the policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. Network security involves the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users choose or are assigned an ID and password or other authenticating information that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security covers a variety of computer networks, both public and private, that are used in everyday jobs; conducting transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals. Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network security is involved in organizations, enterprises, and other types of institutions. It does as its title explains: it secures the network, as well as protecting and overseeing operations being done. The most common and simple way of protecting a network resource is by assigning it a unique name and a corresponding password.\r\nNetwork security starts with authentication, commonly with a username and a password. Since this requires just one detail authenticating the user name — i.e., the password—this is sometimes termed one-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, something the user 'has' is also used (e.g., a security token or 'dongle', an ATM card, or a mobile phone); and with three-factor authentication, something the user 'is' is also used (e.g., a fingerprint or retinal scan).\r\nOnce authenticated, a firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component may fail to check potentially harmful content such as computer worms or Trojans being transmitted over the network. Anti-virus software or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) help detect and inhibit the action of such malware. An anomaly-based intrusion detection system may also monitor the network like wireshark traffic and may be logged for audit purposes and for later high-level analysis. Newer systems combining unsupervised machine learning with full network traffic analysis can detect active network attackers from malicious insiders or targeted external attackers that have compromised a user machine or account.\r\nCommunication between two hosts using a network may be encrypted to maintain privacy.\r\nHoneypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, may be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools, as the honeypots are not normally accessed for legitimate purposes. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis may be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected by the honeypot. A honeypot can also direct an attacker's attention away from legitimate servers. A honeypot encourages attackers to spend their time and energy on the decoy server while distracting their attention from the data on the real server. Similar to a honeypot, a honeynet is a network set up with intentional vulnerabilities. Its purpose is also to invite attacks so that the attacker's methods can be studied and that information can be used to increase network security. A honeynet typically contains one or more honeypots.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Network Security?</span>\r\nNetwork security is any action an organization takes to prevent malicious use or accidental damage to the network’s private data, its users, or their devices. The goal of network security is to keep the network running and safe for all legitimate users.\r\nBecause there are so many ways that a network can be vulnerable, network security involves a broad range of practices. These include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying active devices:</span> Using software to block malicious programs from entering, or running within, the network. Blocking users from sending or receiving suspicious-looking emails. Blocking unauthorized use of the network. Also, stopping the network's users accessing websites that are known to be dangerous.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying passive devices:</span> For instance, using devices and software that report unauthorized intrusions into the network, or suspicious activity by authorized users.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Using preventative devices:</span> Devices that help identify potential security holes, so that network staff can fix them.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ensuring users follow safe practices:</span> Even if the software and hardware are set up to be secure, the actions of users can create security holes. Network security staff is responsible for educating members of the organization about how they can stay safe from potential threats.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Network Security Important?</span>\r\nUnless it’s properly secured, any network is vulnerable to malicious use and accidental damage. Hackers, disgruntled employees, or poor security practices within the organization can leave private data exposed, including trade secrets and customers’ private details.\r\nLosing confidential research, for example, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars by taking away competitive advantages it paid to gain. While hackers stealing customers’ details and selling them to be used in fraud, it creates negative publicity and public mistrust of the organization.\r\nThe majority of common attacks against networks are designed to gain access to information, by spying on the communications and data of users, rather than to damage the network itself.\r\nBut attackers can do more than steal data. They may be able to damage users’ devices or manipulate systems to gain physical access to facilities. This leaves the organization’s property and members at risk of harm.\r\nCompetent network security procedures keep data secure and block vulnerable systems from outside interference. This allows the network’s users to remain safe and focus on achieving the organization’s goals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Do I Need Formal Education to Run a Computer Network?</span>\r\nEven the initial setup of security systems can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the field. A comprehensive security system is made of many pieces, each of which needs specialized knowledge.\r\nBeyond setup, each aspect of security is constantly evolving. New technology creates new opportunities for accidental security leaks, while hackers take advantage of holes in security to do damage as soon as they find them. Whoever is in charge of the network’s security needs to be able to understand the technical news and changes as they happen, so they can implement safety strategies right away.\r\nProperly securing your network using the latest information on vulnerabilities helps minimize the risk that attacks will succeed. Security Week reported that 44% of breaches in 2014 came from exploits that were 2-4 years old.\r\nUnfortunately, many of the technical aspects of network security are beyond those who make hiring decisions. So, the best way an organization can be sure that their network security personnel are able to properly manage the threats is to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_security.png"}],"characteristics":[],"concurentProducts":[],"jobRoles":[],"organizationalFeatures":[],"complementaryCategories":[],"solutions":[],"materials":[],"useCases":[],"best_practices":[],"values":[],"implementations":[]}],"countries":[],"startDate":"0000-00-00","endDate":"0000-00-00","dealDate":"0000-00-00","price":0,"status":"finished","statusLabel":"Finished","isImplementation":true,"isAgreement":false,"confirmed":1,"implementationDetails":{"businessObjectives":{"id":14,"title":"Business objectives","translationKey":"businessObjectives","options":[{"id":4,"title":"Reduce Costs"},{"id":5,"title":"Enhance Staff Productivity"},{"id":6,"title":"Ensure Security and Business Continuity"},{"id":306,"title":"Manage Risks"}]},"businessProcesses":{"id":11,"title":"Business process","translationKey":"businessProcesses","options":[{"id":336,"title":"Risk or Leaks of confidential information"},{"id":344,"title":"Malware infection via Internet, email, storage devices"},{"id":356,"title":"High costs of routine operations"},{"id":378,"title":"Low employee productivity"},{"id":384,"title":"Risk of attacks by hackers"},{"id":385,"title":"Risk of data loss or damage"}]}},"categories":[{"id":40,"title":"Endpoint security","alias":"endpoint-security","description":"In network security, endpoint security refers to a methodology of protecting the corporate network when accessed via remote devices such as laptops or other wireless and mobile devices. Each device with a remote connecting to the network creates a potential entry point for security threats. Endpoint security is designed to secure each endpoint on the network created by these devices.\r\nUsually, endpoint security is a security system that consists of security software, located on a centrally managed and accessible server or gateway within the network, in addition to client software being installed on each of the endpoints (or devices).&nbsp; The server authenticates logins from the endpoints and also updates the device software when needed. While endpoint security software differs by vendor, you can expect most software offerings to provide antivirus, antispyware, firewall and also a host intrusion prevention system (HIPS).\r\nEndpoint security is becoming a more common IT security function and concern as more employees bring consumer mobile devices to work and companies allow its mobile workforce to use these devices on the corporate network.<br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are endpoint devices?</span>\r\nAny device that can connect to the central business network is considered an endpoint. Endpoint devices are potential entry points for cybersecurity threats and need strong protection because they are often the weakest link in network security.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security management?</span>\r\nA set of rules defining the level of security that each device connected to the business network must comply with. These rules may include using an approved operating system (OS), installing a virtual private network (VPN), or running up-to-date antivirus software. If the device connecting to the network does not have the desired level of protection, it may have to connect via a guest network and have limited network access.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint security software?</span>\r\nPrograms that make sure your devices are protected. Endpoint protection software may be cloud-based and work as SaaS (Software as a Service). Endpoint security software can also be installed on each device separately as a standalone application.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is endpoint detection and response (EDR)?</span>\r\nEndpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions analyze files and programs, and report on any threats found. EDR solutions monitor continuously for advanced threats, helping to identify attacks at an early stage and respond rapidly to a range of threats.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Endpoint_security.png"},{"id":52,"title":"SaaS - software as a service","alias":"saas-software-as-a-service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software as a service (SaaS)</span> is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is sometimes referred to as &quot;on-demand software&quot;, and was formerly referred to as &quot;software plus services&quot; by Microsoft.\r\n SaaS services is typically accessed by users using a thin client, e.g. via a web browser. SaaS software solutions has become a common delivery model for many business applications, including office software, messaging software, payroll processing software, DBMS software, management software, CAD software, development software, gamification, virtualization, accounting, collaboration, customer relationship management (CRM), Management Information Systems (MIS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), invoicing, human resource management (HRM), talent acquisition, learning management systems, content management (CM), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and service desk management. SaaS has been incorporated into the strategy of nearly all leading enterprise software companies.\r\nSaaS applications are also known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web-based software</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">on-demand software</span> and<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> hosted software</span>.\r\nThe term &quot;Software as a Service&quot; (SaaS) is considered to be part of the nomenclature of cloud computing, along with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Desktop as a Service (DaaS),managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as a service (MBaaS), and information technology management as a service (ITMaaS).\r\nBecause SaaS is based on cloud computing it saves organizations from installing and running applications on their own systems. That eliminates or at least reduces the associated costs of hardware purchases and maintenance and of software and support. The initial setup cost for a SaaS application is also generally lower than it for equivalent enterprise software purchased via a site license.\r\nSometimes, the use of SaaS cloud software can also reduce the long-term costs of software licensing, though that depends on the pricing model for the individual SaaS offering and the enterprise’s usage patterns. In fact, it’s possible for SaaS to cost more than traditional software licenses. This is an area IT organizations should explore carefully.<br />SaaS also provides enterprises the flexibility inherent with cloud services: they can subscribe to a SaaS offering as needed rather than having to buy software licenses and install the software on a variety of computers. The savings can be substantial in the case of applications that require new hardware purchases to support the software.<br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Who uses SaaS?</span></h1>\r\nIndustry analyst Forrester Research notes that SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen. Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP like NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics.The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours. \r\nSales and marketing people are likely familiar with Salesforce.com, the leading SaaS CRM software, with millions of users across more than 100,000 customers. Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">Why SaaS? Benefits of software as a service</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Lower cost of entry</span>. With SaaS solution, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app. In the case of funding software and its implementation, this can be a make-or-break issue for the sales and marketing budget, so the lower cost really makes the difference.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping</span>. In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping. With many SaaS companies offering free trials, this means a painless proof of concept and discovery phase to prove the benefit to the organization. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay as you go</span>. SaaS business software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security</span>. Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.&nbsp; While some IT people worry about Software as a Service security outside of the enterprise walls, the likely truth is that the vendor has a much higher level of security than the enterprise itself would provide. Many will have redundant instances in very secure data centers in multiple geographies.&nbsp; Also, the data is being automatically backed up by the vendor, providing additional security and peace of mind. Because of the data center hosting, you’re getting the added benefit of at least some disaster recovery. Lastly, the vendor manages these issues as part of their core competencies—let them.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration and scalability.</span> Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers. One of the terrific aspects of integration is that orders written in the field can be automatically sent to the ERP. Now a salesperson in the field can check inventory through the catalog, write the order in front of the customer for approval, send it and receive confirmation, all in minutes. And as you scale with a SaaS vendor, there’s no need to invest in server capacity and software licenses. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Work anywhere</span>. Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/SaaS__1_.png"},{"id":824,"title":"ATP - Advanced Threat Protection","alias":"atp-advanced-threat-protection","description":" Advanced threat protection (ATP) refers to a category of security solutions that defend against sophisticated malware or hacking-based attacks targeting sensitive data. Advanced threat protection solutions can be available as software or as managed services. ATP solutions can differ in approaches and components, but most include some combination of endpoint agents, network devices, email gateways, malware protection systems, and a centralized management console to correlate alerts and manage defenses.\r\nThe primary benefit offered by advanced threat protection software is the ability to prevent, detect, and respond to new and sophisticated attacks that are designed to circumvent traditional security solutions such as antivirus, firewalls, and IPS/IDS. Attacks continue to become increasingly targeted, stealthy, and persistent, and ATP solutions take a proactive approach to security by identifying and eliminating advanced threats before data is compromised.\r\nAdvanced threat protection services build on this benefit by providing access to a global community of security professionals dedicated to monitoring, tracking, and sharing information about emerging and identified threats. ATP service providers typically have access to global threat information sharing networks, augmenting their own threat intelligence and analysis with information from third parties. When a new, advanced threat is detected, ATP service providers can update their defenses to ensure protection keeps up. This global community effort plays a substantial role in maintaining the security of enterprises around the world.\r\nEnterprises that implement advanced threat protection are better able to detect threats early and more quickly formulate a response to minimize damage and recover should an attack occur. A good security provider will focus on the lifecycle of an attack and manage threats in real-time. ATP providers notify the enterprise of attacks that have occurred, the severity of the attack, and the response that was initiated to stop the threat in its tracks or minimize data loss. Whether managed in-house or provided as a service, advanced threat protection solutions secure critical data and systems, no matter where the attack originates or how major the attack or potential attack is perceived.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Advanced Threat Protection Works?</span>\r\nThere are three primary goals of advanced threat protection: early detection (detecting potential threats before they have the opportunity to access critical data or breach systems), adequate protection (the ability to defend against detected threats swiftly), and response (the ability to mitigate threats and respond to security incidents). To achieve these goals, advanced threat protection services and solutions must offer several components and functions for comprehensive ATP:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Real-time visibility</span> – Without continuous monitoring and real-time visibility, threats are often detected too late. When damage is already done, response can be tremendously costly in terms of both resource utilization and reputation damage.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Context</span> – For true security effectiveness, threat alerts must contain context to allow security teams to effectively prioritize threats and organize response.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data awareness</span> – It’s impossible to determine threats truly capable of causing harm without first having a deep understanding of enterprise data, its sensitivity, value, and other factors that contribute to the formulation of an appropriate response.</li></ul>\r\nWhen a threat is detected, further analysis may be required. Security services offering ATP typically handle threat analysis, enabling enterprises to conduct business as usual while continuous monitoring, threat analysis, and response occurs behind the scenes. Threats are typically prioritized by potential damage and the classification or sensitivity of the data at risk. Advanced threat protection should address three key areas:\r\n<ul><li>Halting attacks in progress or mitigating threats before they breach systems</li><li>Disrupting activity in progress or countering actions that have already occurred as a result of a breach</li><li>Interrupting the lifecycle of the attack to ensure that the threat is unable to progress or proceed</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon-ATP.png"},{"id":852,"title":"Network security","alias":"network-security","description":" Network security consists of the policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources. Network security involves the authorization of access to data in a network, which is controlled by the network administrator. Users choose or are assigned an ID and password or other authenticating information that allows them access to information and programs within their authority. Network security covers a variety of computer networks, both public and private, that are used in everyday jobs; conducting transactions and communications among businesses, government agencies and individuals. Networks can be private, such as within a company, and others which might be open to public access. Network security is involved in organizations, enterprises, and other types of institutions. It does as its title explains: it secures the network, as well as protecting and overseeing operations being done. The most common and simple way of protecting a network resource is by assigning it a unique name and a corresponding password.\r\nNetwork security starts with authentication, commonly with a username and a password. Since this requires just one detail authenticating the user name — i.e., the password—this is sometimes termed one-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, something the user 'has' is also used (e.g., a security token or 'dongle', an ATM card, or a mobile phone); and with three-factor authentication, something the user 'is' is also used (e.g., a fingerprint or retinal scan).\r\nOnce authenticated, a firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component may fail to check potentially harmful content such as computer worms or Trojans being transmitted over the network. Anti-virus software or an intrusion prevention system (IPS) help detect and inhibit the action of such malware. An anomaly-based intrusion detection system may also monitor the network like wireshark traffic and may be logged for audit purposes and for later high-level analysis. Newer systems combining unsupervised machine learning with full network traffic analysis can detect active network attackers from malicious insiders or targeted external attackers that have compromised a user machine or account.\r\nCommunication between two hosts using a network may be encrypted to maintain privacy.\r\nHoneypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, may be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools, as the honeypots are not normally accessed for legitimate purposes. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis may be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected by the honeypot. A honeypot can also direct an attacker's attention away from legitimate servers. A honeypot encourages attackers to spend their time and energy on the decoy server while distracting their attention from the data on the real server. Similar to a honeypot, a honeynet is a network set up with intentional vulnerabilities. Its purpose is also to invite attacks so that the attacker's methods can be studied and that information can be used to increase network security. A honeynet typically contains one or more honeypots.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Network Security?</span>\r\nNetwork security is any action an organization takes to prevent malicious use or accidental damage to the network’s private data, its users, or their devices. The goal of network security is to keep the network running and safe for all legitimate users.\r\nBecause there are so many ways that a network can be vulnerable, network security involves a broad range of practices. These include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying active devices:</span> Using software to block malicious programs from entering, or running within, the network. Blocking users from sending or receiving suspicious-looking emails. Blocking unauthorized use of the network. Also, stopping the network's users accessing websites that are known to be dangerous.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deploying passive devices:</span> For instance, using devices and software that report unauthorized intrusions into the network, or suspicious activity by authorized users.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Using preventative devices:</span> Devices that help identify potential security holes, so that network staff can fix them.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Ensuring users follow safe practices:</span> Even if the software and hardware are set up to be secure, the actions of users can create security holes. Network security staff is responsible for educating members of the organization about how they can stay safe from potential threats.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Network Security Important?</span>\r\nUnless it’s properly secured, any network is vulnerable to malicious use and accidental damage. Hackers, disgruntled employees, or poor security practices within the organization can leave private data exposed, including trade secrets and customers’ private details.\r\nLosing confidential research, for example, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars by taking away competitive advantages it paid to gain. While hackers stealing customers’ details and selling them to be used in fraud, it creates negative publicity and public mistrust of the organization.\r\nThe majority of common attacks against networks are designed to gain access to information, by spying on the communications and data of users, rather than to damage the network itself.\r\nBut attackers can do more than steal data. They may be able to damage users’ devices or manipulate systems to gain physical access to facilities. This leaves the organization’s property and members at risk of harm.\r\nCompetent network security procedures keep data secure and block vulnerable systems from outside interference. This allows the network’s users to remain safe and focus on achieving the organization’s goals.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Do I Need Formal Education to Run a Computer Network?</span>\r\nEven the initial setup of security systems can be difficult for those unfamiliar with the field. A comprehensive security system is made of many pieces, each of which needs specialized knowledge.\r\nBeyond setup, each aspect of security is constantly evolving. New technology creates new opportunities for accidental security leaks, while hackers take advantage of holes in security to do damage as soon as they find them. Whoever is in charge of the network’s security needs to be able to understand the technical news and changes as they happen, so they can implement safety strategies right away.\r\nProperly securing your network using the latest information on vulnerabilities helps minimize the risk that attacks will succeed. Security Week reported that 44% of breaches in 2014 came from exploits that were 2-4 years old.\r\nUnfortunately, many of the technical aspects of network security are beyond those who make hiring decisions. So, the best way an organization can be sure that their network security personnel are able to properly manage the threats is to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Network_security.png"}],"additionalInfo":{"budgetNotExceeded":"-1","functionallyTaskAssignment":"-1","projectWasPut":"-1","price":0,"source":{"url":"https://www.ericom.com/SuccessStories/story_eastern_utah_credit_union.asp","title":"Web-site of vendor"}},"comments":[],"referencesCount":0}]}},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"agreements":{"agreementById":{},"ids":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"comparison":{"loading":false,"error":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{},"products":[],"selectedTemplateId":null},"presentation":{"type":null,"company":{},"products":[],"partners":[],"formData":{},"dataLoading":false,"dataError":false,"loading":false,"error":false},"catalogsGlobal":{"subMenuItemTitle":""}}