A Customer Relationship Management Industry First — Saratoga Systems Offers Fixed-Time/Fixed-Cost Guarantee

Business Wire, April 19, 1999

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

April 19, 1999 -

Saratoga Takes the Guesswork Out of Purchasing

Enterprise-Level Customer Relationship Management

Solutions and Delivers on Expected ROI

Saratoga Systems, a provider of enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced that it will offer guaranteed fixed-time and fixed-cost for the implementation of its family of CRM business solutions.

The industry's first and only company to offer such a guarantee, Saratoga is addressing customer needs by alleviating the uncertainty of purchasing an enterprise-level CRM solution. This guarantee will provide Saratoga customers with a clear understanding of the product, including software and consulting services, associated cost, the implementation timeframe, and ROI expectations.

"Customers want to know how much and how long. Saratoga is breaking industry ground by offering a guarantee on what are typically seen as variables in the CRM purchasing equation," said Jim Peck, Saratoga's vice president of sales. "Our customers will know time and cost before the project even begins."

Saratoga can assume the risk of offering its customers a fixed-time/fixed-cost guarantee because of the unique technology built in to its product family. Avenue has the industry's only architecture designed and proven to deliver fast implementation and customization, as well as the lowest total cost of ownership.

Success = Understanding Corporate Objectives and Business Processes

Saratoga understands that having a clear picture of its customer's corporate objectives and business processes is imperative to the success of enterprise CRM projects. The fixed-time/fixed-cost guarantee helps facilitate this goal.

The Saratoga team works with each company in order to focus the enterprise, both strategically and operationally on the goal of creating strong customer relationships that build loyalty and increase the value of each customer. Key components include the technological infrastructure, business processes, organizational processes, and people.

Because senior management's involvement is key to the implementation success of business critical applications, Saratoga's team will work with senior management to build the business case, assess the business need, and quantify the ROI. In addition, Saratoga will work closely with IT, examining existing internal system architecture, as well as with users in order to define system requirements. Based on this business process analysis, Saratoga will deliver a guaranteed price and completion time for the implementation of Saratoga's enterprise-level CRM solution.

CRM Takes Center Stage

As CRM becomes a mission critical component in the corporate competitive arsenal, the need for flexible CRM solutions that will grow and change along with a company's business processes becomes more pressing then ever before. By one estimate the cost of acquiring customers is five times more costly than retaining an existing one. This represents the value of knowing customers intimately, anticipating and fulfilling their individual needs.

"Companies realize that substantial cost savings and revenue leverage will occur through improved relationships with customers, and improved sales and service productivity," said Rene White. "With our fixed-time/fixed-cost guarantee, Saratoga is the only company in this industry guaranteeing the time and dollar investment required to enhance these relationships and maximize productivity."

About Saratoga Systems

Saratoga Systems is the most trusted brand in customer relationship management software. The company has built the industry's largest installed base in the financial services, energy, and manufacturing marke ts with more than 725 corporations and 85,000 individual users throughout the world.

The Avenue product line is a complete customer relationship management system used by companies to increase sales, marketing, and field service effectiveness. Unlike any other product, Avenue offers a full spectrum of access options designed to cost-effectively meet the changing needs of growing companies.

Saratoga manages worldwide operations from its San Jose, Calif., headquarters, as well as from sales and support offices in the U.K., France, Germany, and Sweden. For more information, visit www.saratogasystems.com or contact Saratoga's California headquarters office at 408/371-9330 (phone), 408/371-9376 (fax), or info@saratogasystems.com.

Avenue and Saratoga Systems are trademarks of Saratoga Systems Inc. All other company names mentioned are property of their respective owners.