At Axeda Systems' DRM Leadership Forum, Industry Leaders Agree Device Relationship Management is Key Driver to the New Proactive Enterprise

Concluding that the "market is ready for DRM," Mr. Bonsel presented findings from an AFSMI survey of international service executives, conducted in late September with Strategies for Growth(SM), which demonstrated that:

- 92% of service executives are aware of DRM and that it enables devices to send and receive data in real time over the Internet.

- 85% believe DRM is important to their present/planned overall business strategy, with 22% believing it to be "essential."

- 39% are planning to deploy a DRM system in the next  /-12 months to provide Internet-based remote service. Another 33% presently have a DRM system under consideration.

- Over 50% see the top benefits from DRM as being less customer downtime and improved customer satisfaction, while others point to improved service, operational benefits such as lower costs, improved revenues and more competitive service offerings.

- More than two thirds believe DRM will effect departments all across the organization beyond customer service, including sales, marketing, design and logistics.

Navi Radjou, senior research analyst, Forrester Research, outlined the course of this next wave of the Internet - the X Internet - in which digital assets are completely linked with physical assets to enable a service-driven supply network. Mr. Radjou projected that there would be 14 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2010, representing an investment of $3 trillion dollars by that time in X Internet-enabling technology.

In his presentation, Mr. Radjou discussed how many manufacturers today, once they sell products, have no way of gaining real-time visibility into how their products are performing in the field. He detailed how, by using remote sensing technology, some companies have already begun to track, in real time, three aspects related to their products: product usage, product quality, and spare parts inventory availability data. Mr. Radjou expects smart companies to convert raw data into insight that will allow them to continuously tune their upstream activities such as design, sourcing, manufacturing and sales.

Joseph Basalla, managing director, CRM & Industrial Markets, BearingPoint Inc., discussed how field service organizations could transform from reactive service to predictive service with device relationship management. He shared that DRM can be used by service management to achieve return on investment in three target areas: "cost take-out" which improves efficiency and productivity through consolidation of processes; "top-line growth" which enables them to perform better, faster and with lower costs; and "customer focus" which builds customer loyalty through enhanced service.

Dale Calder, president & founder of Axeda Systems, explained how the Axeda DRM(TM) System works and how it can transform businesses with improved operations and increased return on investment across the enterprise. "We believe DRM will fundamentally change the way businesses operate by tapping the value of information from products in the field. We see this as the fulfillment of how enterprises have been automating over the last 15 years with applications like ERP and CRM, now allowing companies to have a full circle view of their operations. DRM lets businesses leverage their assets so they can become proactive and increases the value of capital equipment, capital software, and their most valuable asset - the value of their employees."