Network Provider Offers Small Businesses a Combined ...
Overview
Country/Region: United States
Industry: Telecommunications
Customer Profile
Based in San Jose, California, Cisco Systems provides hardware, software, and services for creating network and Internet solutions designed to increase productivity and improve customer satisfaction.
Business Situation
Cisco Systems is expanding its presence in the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market by offering integrated solutions that are cost-effective and easy to install.
Solution
Cisco Systems developed the CRM Communications Connector—a middleware application that lets companies use Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM with Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) Communications to improve customer care.
Benefits
■ Expand SMB market presence
■ Increase customer satisfaction
■ Increase customer productivity
■ Enhance channel programs
■ Increase partner profitability
| | |“Cisco Systems recognizes that SMB customers are busy doing what they do best—expanding their businesses...They want integrated solutions and a single source of support.”
Peter Alexander, Vice President Worldwide Commercial Market Segment, Cisco Systems
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| | | |Primarily viewed by the industries it serves as a company that provides networking hardware, |
| | | |software, and services to large enterprises, Cisco Systems is expanding its presence in the small- to|
| | | |medium-sized business (SMB) market. By developing a middleware application that lets companies use |
| | | |Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM with Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) Communications, Cisco Systems and|
| | | |its more than 750 IP Communications partners around the world can offer the SMB market an integrated |
| | | |IP telephony solution that is cost-effective and easy to implement, use, maintain, and customize. The|
| | | |Cisco CRM Communications Connector is designed to provide SMBs with a single, integrated view of all |
| | | |customer communications and to help improve customer satisfaction, increase productivity, reduce |
| | | |total cost of ownership, and sustain a competitive advantage. |
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Situation
Founded in 1984 by a small group of computer scientists from Stanford University and based in San Jose, California, Cisco Systems provides hardware, software, and services for creating Internet Protocol (IP)–based networking solutions. With more than 34,000 employees worldwide, Cisco sells its products and services directly through its own sales force and indirectly through a global network of channel partners.
Cisco IP Communications—the complete suite of Cisco Systems’s voice and telephony offerings—includes the following:
• IP telephony solutions, including call-processing software and IP phones
• Unified communications and voice-mail solutions
• IP video conferencing and IP audio conferencing solutions
• Customer contact software for contact centers and self-service applications
• Voice infrastructure, including voice gateways and voice application systems
• Network management applications for IP communications solutions
According to Peter Alexander, Vice President of Cisco Systems’s Worldwide Commercial Market Segment, the company has long reaped the benefits of using the Internet for its own business practices. In the 2003 fiscal year, for example, Cisco Systems saved U.S.$2.1 billion by relying on the Internet to provide customer support, offer employee services, sell products, provide training, and manage finances and manufacturing processes.
Cisco Systems focuses on three broad areas to guide its business growth: core technologies, like routing and switching; the service provider market; and advanced technology markets.
Although the company’s customer base within these three areas includes businesses of all sizes, Beth Bowen, Cisco Systems’s Marketing Programs Manager, points out that Cisco Systems is often viewed by the industries it serves as primarily an enterprise company, with solutions catering specifically to large corporations.
“We are perceived as an enterprise company, and we really have focused on the enterprise market,” Bowen says. “However, now we’re investing significantly in expanding our SMB customer base, because we recognize the vast potential within this segment for our global channel partners as well as for Cisco.”
SMB Customers Repeatedly Ask for Integrated Solutions
According to Alexander and Bowen, small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) want to make the most of each technology investment. They want out-of-the-box solutions that address their business needs at a cost they can easily afford without the worry of hunting for, purchasing, and integrating individual components.
“Cisco Systems recognizes that SMB customers are busy doing what they do best—expanding their businesses,” Alexander says. “They need to obtain IT from the smallest number of sources, and they want integrated solutions and a single source of support.”
To accomplish its objective, Cisco Systems in early 2004 announced a collaborative effort with Microsoft intended to help accelerate SMB customer and channel partner success.
“Cisco Systems and Microsoft have long had many of the same SMB channel partners and customers,” Alexander says. “We will now be joining forces on SMB solution development and optimization, marketing, and channel programs.”
Solution
According to Alexander and Bowen, customer relationship management (CRM) sits at the top of the SMB customer’s integration wish list. Because of this, Cisco Systems developed a middleware application that lets companies use Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM with Cisco IP Communications, creating an integrated IP telephony and customer care solution that is cost-effective and easy to implement, use, maintain, and customize.
Microsoft CRM is a scalable front-office solution that incorporates many of the technologies that companies already use to manage their businesses, including the following:
• Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 serves as the transactional data store and metadata layer of the Microsoft CRM application. Use of SQL Server 2000, which is part of the Microsoft Windows Server SystemTM integrated server software, provides a scalable and reliable solution for managing vital customer information.
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, also part of Windows Server System, receive, send, and track incoming and outgoing e-mail.
• Active Directory® service, part of the Windows® operating system, helps provide tight security and reduce administration costs. Active Directory improves the management and support of user profiles, roles, and privileges.
Although Cisco Systems’s middleware application—the Cisco CRM Communications Connector—can scale to thousands of users, Bowen explains that Cisco created it with the specific needs of the 20- to 250-employee business in mind.
The connector operates with three of the company’s IP Communications platforms—CallManager Express, CallManager, and CallManager with IP Contact Center (IPCC) Express. The platforms are designed to meet the needs of all employees, not just call center agents, within an SMB.
According to Sean Beierly, Cisco Systems’s Solution Program Manager, the connector enables these platforms to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft CRM, giving users an easy, fast, and affordable means of adding IP telephony capabilities to their CRM installations.
“One problem with CRM programs at the enterprise level is that they are completely separate applications. To use them, companies often have to change their cultures and processes to get employees on board,” Beierly says. “But Microsoft CRM has the same user interface as Microsoft Office Outlook® and so does the Cisco solution. We don’t have any additional applications that come into play and confuse the customer.”
Connecting the Two Solutions Yields a More Complete Offering
Consolidating voice, video, and data applications onto a single, integrated infrastructure, Cisco IP Communications—which includes CallManager Express, CallManager, and CallManager with IPCC Express—enables companies to reduce the cost and complexity associated with managing multiple networks.
“Because voice and data applications reside on the same network, Cisco IP Communications facilitates easy device moves, additions, and changes,” Beierly says. “Further, its support of XML-based IP phone productivity applications gives companies timely access to critical information and reduces the chance for error and time delays as information is shared between work groups.”
For example, Beierly explains, using IP telephony, customer service representatives receiving in-bound calls can not only identify the caller, but can also automatically pull up a customer record and notes about previous interactions. Equally important, employees can use these features while traveling, and they can create virtual sales or call centers in multiple locations.
By marrying voice and data, it’s also possible to give different sales or support representatives access to the same information. That means if the employee who typically handles an account is out of the office, other people on the team can field the call and tap into the customer data or add to it—even if they work in other offices.
“Microsoft CRM includes integrated sales and customer service modules that enable employees to share information to improve sales success and deliver consistent, efficient customer service,” Beierly says. “It includes lead and opportunity management, a complete view of customer history, automated incident management, and a searchable knowledge base.”
Microsoft CRM also includes reporting tools for accurate forecasting and measurement of business activity and employee performance.
“Together, these solutions help organizations improve the productivity of their CRM users by providing intelligent telephony features such as click-to-dial and screen pops on incoming calls,” Beierly says. “They also associate voice-mail messages with the customer record, creating a unified view of all customer communications.”
The combined solution can be used for a variety of tasks involving call information capture, call association, and outbound calling. The following bullet points provide examples of these capabilities:
− Captures incoming and outgoing call information, including calling number, called number, and call start and end times
− Allows organizations to associate incoming or outgoing calls with a customer record, manually or automatically
− Matches calling number or called number to customer records
− Opens customer account records on the receiving agent’s PC screen as the call arrives
− Supports manual association of calls with new or existing account records
− Supports click-to-dial feature from customer records
− Supports manual dial from the desk phone and automatically associates the call with the appropriate customer records
Cisco’s integration has been tested and verified under the new Microsoft CRM verification test. This software test identifies independent software vendor (ISV) solutions that successfully run on Microsoft CRM.
In the past, Beierly explains, integrating a traditional private branch exchange (PBX) with a desktop CRM application required expensive specialized hardware and software—and often produced mixed results.
Installed at the desktop within about 45 seconds, the Communications Connector requires only the Microsoft CRM application and Cisco IP Communications platforms.
The Communications Connector user can access full sales capabilities through Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client—which acts as the primary client for managing tasks and contacts—or online by using a Web browser. The connector requires no additional hardware and supports the full line of Cisco Systems’s IP phones, from the entry-level Cisco IP Phone 7902G to the advanced Cisco IP Phone 7970G.
Microsoft CRM can also be up and running within a few hours and fully customized in a matter of days or weeks.
SDK Ensures Rapid Development and Ease of Integration
The software development kit (SDK) that ships with Microsoft CRM played a key role in the development of the connector, which took only a few months.
According to Beierly, the use of open application programming interfaces (APIs) for Microsoft CRM made it easy for Cisco Systems to integrate the application’s CRM and sales-force automation modules with its IP Communications platforms. And, after they have been deployed at a customer site, the solutions will integrate seamlessly with most third-party and proprietary applications.
The APIs provided by Microsoft are based on a metadata-driven data storage model and include a declarative workflow engine, an integrated setup process, and configuration and management tools that greatly reduce the cost and time associated with configuration, customization, deployment, and upgrade.
Benefits
By connecting Cisco IP Communications with Microsoft CRM, Cisco Systems and its global channel partners can offer the SMB market a complete customer care solution that enables a single, integrated view of all customer interactions. In doing so, Cisco Systems hopes to help its SMB customers increase productivity and gain a competitive edge through increased customer satisfaction.
For its global channel partners, Cisco Systems believes that the combined solution will help them strengthen relationships with their customers and generate new sources of revenue.
SMB Customers Increase Productivity and Customer Service
Integrating Cisco IP Communications with Microsoft CRM helps SMBs increase productivity and customer service by:
• Recording the duration of all calls with the contact to enable accurate and complete billing. For example, Beierly explains, a call duration feature allows law firms to accurately track the amount of time spent talking to clients on the phone as well as the time spent on follow up.
• Improving customer loyalty and sales by providing Microsoft CRM users with an easy method to contact customers, along with automatic identification of incoming callers.
• Enabling sales personnel or customer service representatives to reach customers with an easy-to-use, click-to-dial application directly from Microsoft Outlook 2003.
• Providing priority queuing or special call handling for select customers calling in to the Cisco IP Contact Center.
Partners Benefit from Deliberate Cooperation
According to Alexander, partnering has long occurred between Cisco Systems and Microsoft channel partners to help bring integrated solutions to customers.
However, he explains, one of the main objectives of Cisco Systems’s cooperative initiative with Microsoft is to formalize and expand these efforts to capitalize on opportunities that may have been missed in the past.
“We want to make both partner communities more successful by providing them with incentives and solution blueprints for them to work together in a more coordinated fashion,” Alexander says. “We want to enable channel partners to share information, become aware of deals, understand partner objectives, and provide comprehensive solutions like the Communications Connector to the SMB market.”
This level of collaboration, he points out, makes it easier for channel partners to provide value-added solutions to the SMB market based on Cisco Systems’s network infrastructure and Microsoft applications.
“Our partners are seeking ways to increase their profitability and improve customer satisfaction. They also want new strategies and solutions for addressing the SMB market,” Alexander says. “The Communications Connector for Microsoft CRM is the first step toward this end. Through this initiative, our channel partners will be able to solve the unique business needs of the SMB market and address new opportunities.”
Microsoft Business Solutions
Microsoft Business Solutions offers integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsized organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency. The financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with Microsoft products such as Microsoft Office and Windows operating system to streamline processes across an entire organization, giving businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly. Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company’s needs.
For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to:
businesssolutions
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| |Software and Services
■ Solutions
− Microsoft Business Solutions CRM
■ Technologies
− Microsoft Active Directory
|Products
− Microsoft Outlook 2000
− Microsoft SQL Server 2000
− Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server
− Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 | |
“We want to enable channel partners to share information, become aware of deals, understand partner objectives, and provide comprehensive solutions like the Communications Connector to the SMB market.”
Peter Alexander, Vice President Worldwide Commercial Market Segment, Cisco Systems
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For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
For more information about Cisco Systems products and services, call (800) 553-6387 or visit the Web site at:
“The Communications Connector for Microsoft CRM is the first step toward this end. Through this initiative, our channel partners will be able to solve the unique business needs of the SMB market and address new opportunities.”
Peter Alexander, Vice President Worldwide Commercial Market Segment, Cisco Systems
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IP Communications with Cisco CallManager, Cisco IPCC Express, and Microsoft CRM
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"...Microsoft CRM has the same user interface as Microsoft Office Outlook and so does the Cisco solution. We don’t have any additional applications that come into play and confuse the customer.”
Sean Beierly, Solution Program Manager, Cisco Systems
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“...We’re investing significantly in expanding our SMB customer base, because we recognize the vast potential within this segment for our global channel partners as well as for Cisco.”
Beth Bowen, Marketing Programs Manager, Cisco Systems
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© 2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Outlook, Windows and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Document published April 2004 | | |
"Together, these solutions help organizations improve the productivity of their CRM users by providing intelligent telephony features such as click-to-dial and screen pops on incoming calls..."
Sean Beierly, Solution Program Manager, Cisco Systems
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IP Communications with Cisco CallManager Express and Microsoft CRM
“Microsoft CRM includes integrated sales and customer service modules that enable employees to share information to improve sales success and deliver consistent, efficient customer service.”
Sean Beierly, Solution Program Manager, Cisco Systems
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IP Communications with Cisco CallManager and Microsoft CRM
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