Johnson Controls Extends CRM Pact With Saratoga Systems
23 May 2000
Johnson Controls Extends CRM Pact With Saratoga Systems
New CRM System Offers Flexible Architecture, Remote Synchronization and Ease
Of Use to Set New Standard of Comfort for Controls Industry
CAMPBELL, Calif., May 22 Saratoga Systems, Inc., a leading
supplier of enterprise Sales Force Automation and Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) software, today announced that Johnson Controls ,
a global market leader in automotive systems and facility management and
control has upgraded its CRM system to Saratoga Systems' Avenue. In less than
90 days, Johnson Controls successfully deployed Avenue to 1,230 end users in
its Controls Group across 100 distributed North America-based locations. The
company has already begun executing sales and business processes quicker, more
intuitively, and with less rework.
The Controls Group division of Johnson Controls engineers, manufactures,
installs, and services control systems that automate a building's heating,
ventilating, and air conditioning, as well as its lighting, security, and fire
safety equipment. Since 1994, the company has effectively used Saratoga
Systems SPS 4.5 for sales forecasting, opportunity management, lead
management, and other sales automation processes. As customer demands for
highly-individualized attention grew, Johnson Controls' reaped the benefits of
the flexible architecture within the Avenue product line.
The Avenue solution for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and
operations processes, addresses the problems inherent in distributed
organizations. From a single application, Avenue allows information-sharing
from remote laptops to LAN-based PCs across a range of connectivity options.
Functioning as a distributed database solution, Avenue allows Johnson Controls
sales reps to upload, download, and share critical customer information. Data
is synchronized between remote users and the central database providing easy
access to multi-window, multi-level customer profiles, and sales-related
information. The database content remains current, while new data can be
entered and accessed from multiple locations.
"We were looking for a compatible and easy-to-use upgrade to our former
system, with a flexible architecture that will keep up with our customers'
growing demand for personalized service," stated William Hable, director of
market planning, research, and systems for Johnson Controls. "The migration
was effortless. We dropped in the software, pointed to the existing data on
the laptop, and provided two hours of training to users -- who left the
session able to go right to work on the new system. Avenue has become integral
to our ability to execute mission critical business processes and is a key
component of our company's customer interaction strategy."
Avenue is a fully integrated suite of CRM business solutions for managing
sales, marketing, customer service and operations processes for growing
mid-sized companies and large corporate divisions. Saratoga's software is
designed to address the Web- and network-based environments of today's complex
business processes, and to grow and change to meet expanding system
requirements. Avenue delivers a comprehensive range of service delivery
options, including LAN, Web, remote, and Palm Pilot, making it convenient,
fast and easy for internal sales, marketing and service personnel, managers
and executives, field forces, distributors, supply chain partners, and other
remote personnel to access and share business-critical customer data.
"We believe our cohesive relationship with Johnson Controls stems from our
steadily evolving product line that logically branches out in a sustainable
way -- which is similar to the way Johnson Controls has based its business
philosophy," said Curt DiSibio, chief operating officer for Saratoga Systems.
"By upgrading to Avenue, Johnson Controls is taking advantage of one of the
most flexible and scalable systems available in the world today."