Nortel, Broadbase Develop Analytical CRM Applications

Nortel Networks' Clarify Inc. is pushing beyond traditional customer-relationship management into analytical CRM with a new suite of analytical CRM applications co-developed by Broadbase Software.

Clarify has introduced Nortel Networks' Clarify Analytic Applications, a long name for four applications that tie Broadbase's analytical and customer-segmentation technology into a Clarify data model. The combination is intended to help businesses dig deeper into customer data and to improve the effectiveness of customer service and sales operations.

The development, based on a three-year partnership that provided interoperability between the two companies' software, is under way. The first analytical product, Clarify Performance Manager, can help determine the most efficient way to route calls and staff contact centers. Future products, particularly Clarify Customer Relationship Analytics Application, will cull more data about customers themselves and will help businesses segment customer bases to find profitable customers and to build marketing and sales messages for particular groups of customers. Another pair of products, Clarify Analytic Customization Kit and Clarify Analytic Development Kit, are intended for custom analytical CRM deployments.

Analysts say that Nortel's Clarify unit has been occupied by its attempts to integrate with the parent company and has lagged slightly behind other CRM vendors in analytical CRM applications. Oracle has built analytical applications into its Oracle Applications 11i suite, and top CRM vendor Siebel Systems has allied with analytical vendor Informatica Corp.

Clarify Performance Manager will be available in about two months, with prices starting around $50,000. The other products will be available early next year.