InformationWeek

November 10, 1997

Sales-Force Automation In High Gear

Vendors integrate suites, link to ERP

he market for sales-force automation software is picking up steam as vendors provide more integrated suites that are easier to deploy and forge tighter linkswith enterprise resource planning applications.

Applix Inc. this week will roll out a suite that bundles its sales, service, and help-desk modules in one package called Applix Enterprise 7.0. The move follows a similar strategy implemented by vendors such as Clarify, Scopus, and Vantive, which also sell integrated suites. Such bundles, says Hugh Bishop, an analyst with the Aberdeen Group in Boston, are "a key element to growth because users' organizations can turn to the same vendor for more and more software in the future."

Vantive last week also promised lower costs and easier application management for users. The sales-force automation vendor announced a partnership with Marimba Inc. to distribute and upgrade the Vantive suite via a Web browser. That will eliminate the need fo r companies to manually load the application onto individual desktops.

That's good news for Jean Holley, director of IT at Waste Management Inc. in Oakbrook, Ill. "We are in the middle of a very tedious rollout of Vantive that requires us to load the software onto more than 300 clients," she says. "I can't imagine doing this again." With Marimba's push technology, users will simply connect to a central server to get the latest software upgrades.

Sales-force automation vendors are also forming tight relationships with ERP players. Concentra Corp., a supplier of sales configuration and pricing software, will announce next week an alliance with Oracle's ERP software. Currently, users must build customized interfaces between the two products. Vantive has a similar deal with ERP vendor PeopleSoft.

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