Geac Computer Corporation Limited.
The Consortium Goes Live in Just Four Weeks on New CRM System From Geac
Studley, England (ots/PRNewswire)
- Return on Investment Achieved Within One Month
The Consortium for Purchasing and Distribution, a GBP 40m national procurement and fulfillment organisation, has taken just four weeks from start to finish to implement a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system from enterprise software supplier Geac(R) (TSX:GAC, NASDAQ:GEAC). The CRM system, Opportunity Management, is already helping 50 sales and customer support staff to better manage 30,000 UK customers (60,000 contacts) which range from schools, colleges, local authorities, care homes, nurseries to many private companies.
The new system is integrated with The Consortium's existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software called System21 Aurora from Geac, which operates on an IBM iSeries model 820.
Joe Caddell, Business Systems Director for The Consortium, said:
"We were using an old version of the Talent CRM system and had evaluated the cost of upgrading to the current version. The decision to switch to Opportunity Management was clear-cut. Not only was it significantly cheaper and a low risk migration, it allowed us to have a consolidated customer and prospect view across our whole business. As well as the obvious benefits in understanding our customers better, we were able to simplify processes that had been prone to introduce data errors. The system has already paid for itself in the first month of operation."
The Consortium is already using the system to great effect. Marketing lists are being loaded into Opportunity Management as prospects. As soon as prospects are converted to customers it is easy to switch a prospect record to a customer account as all the information resides within the combined Geac system. Previously, this required an overnight batch process and then subsequent manual changes to both systems to keep them synchronised.
Customer support staff can now deal with customer enquiries without having to toggle between two different systems. Prior to the implementation, there was no online interface between the systems which could delay the process of answering customer queries or result in decisions being made with incomplete information.
Val Kirby, Business Systems Development Manager at The Consortium, said: "We had sales people using Talent and the customer services team using System21 limiting the aggregation of knowledge about our customers. Some key documents were being held in paper form and so weren't available from either system - now we attach them to the customer record. We have also simplified our system infrastructure - with fewer interfaces there is minimal scope for things to go wrong."
Joe Caddell again:
"Such a rapid change in the run up to Christmas was not something we took lightly. The sales team use this period to restructure their customer accounts. Opportunity Management was evaluated with the sales team and the decision had their full support. The implementation went smoothly and our users are delighted with their new system."
Since going live in December 2005 The Consortium has been dedicated to rolling the system out. It has trained up three 'power users' who are now instrumental in teaching others within the organisation. There have been a series of internal training sessions to introduce the system to all users, and enhanced training sessions to spread the knowledge of the system's many advanced features.
About Geac
Geac (TSX: GAC, NASDAQ:GEAC) is a global enterprise software company that addresses the needs of the Chief Financial Officer. Geac's best-in-class technology products and services help organisations do more with less in an increasingly competitive environment, amidst growing regulatory pressure, and in response to other business issues confronting the CFO. Further information is available at http://www.geac.com or through e-mail at info(at)geac.com.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements of Geac's intentions, beliefs, expectations and predictions for the future. These forward-looking statements often include use of the future tense with words such as "will," "may," "intends," "anticipates," "expects" and similar conditional or forward-looking words and phrases. These forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees. They are only predictions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and they may differ materially from actual future events or results. Geac undertakes no obligation to update or revise the information contained herein. Important factors that could cause a material difference between these forward-looking statements and actual events include, among other things: our ability to increase revenues from new license sales, cross-sell into our existing customer base and reduce customer attrition; whether we are able to deliver products and services within required time frames and budgets to meet increasingly competitive customer demands and performance guaranties; risks inherent in fluctuating international currency exchange rates in light of our global operations and the unpredictable effect of geopolitical world and local events; whether we are successful in our continued efforts to manage expenses effectively and maintain profitability; our ability to achieve revenue from products and services that are under development; the uncertain effect of the competitive environment in which we operate and resulting pricing pressures; and whether the anticipated effects and results of our new product offerings and successful product implementation will be realized. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that relate to Geac's business and operations are summarized in more detail from time to time in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and with the Canadian Securities Administrators. Please refer to Geac's most recent quarterly reports available through the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov and through the website maintained by the Canadian Securities Administrators and the Canadian Depository for Securities Limited at www.sedar.com for more information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ. Geac is a registered trademark of Geac Computer Corporation Limited. All other marks are trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact:
For further information: Media Contacts: Crawford Warnock, Citigate
Dewe Rogerson, +44-(0)1604-232223, crawford.warnock@citigatedr.co.uk;
Richard Moore, Geac, +44-(0)1527-496189, richard.moore@geac.com;
Investor Contact: Alys Scott, Geac, +1-(781)-672-5980,
Alys.scott@geac.com