Green Beacon Announces Enhancements for Microsoft Business Solutions CRM Software

Business Wire, Jan 6, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 6, 2003

Boston-based CRM Development and Consulting Services Company to

Provide Enhanced Features for Microsoft Business Solutions CRM

Green Beacon Solutions, a mid-market focused consulting and systems integration firm providing proven customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions with a rapid return on investment, today announced the key enhancements it has developed for the Microsoft(R) Business Solutions CRM software. Green Beacon evaluated the CRM requirements of key customers and prospects and developed enhancements including Lead Capture, Forecast Manager, Relationships Manager and Organizational Chart to help maximize the value of the Microsoft CRM solution to its customers.

Microsoft Business Solutions has designed its CRM software to help mid-market organizations improve employee productivity and develop profitable customer relationships. "Microsoft CRM provides a powerful CRM foundation and offers great functionality for mid-market customers," said Kostas Tzigizis, vice president of technology for Green Beacon Solutions. "We have developed specific extensions to the platform based upon our experience implementing and customizing CRM solutions and, more importantly, the business needs of our Microsoft CRM prospects and existing CRM customers."

Fully trained on the Microsoft CRM suite, Green Beacon is equipped to bring to its customers the product's key features such as lead and opportunity management, a 360-degree view of customer interactions, automated workflow, a searchable knowledgebase and direct integration with Microsoft Business Solutions' ERP offerings, including Great Plains.

Building off this strong technical foundation, Green Beacon will also offer its customers product enhancements including:

Lead Capture - Lead Capture integration allows companies to convert Web site visitors into Microsoft CRM leads. As prospects respond to marketing campaigns or request assistance on the web, Microsoft CRM automatically captures their contact and qualification information as a new lead and triggers the lead qualification process. New leads are created in seconds, eliminating manual entry and delivering hot leads to sales in seconds.

Forecast Manager - Sales managers typically use forecast or pipeline reports to determine the effectiveness of their team's efforts. Green Beacon's Forecast Manager provides both representatives and management with an up-to-the-minute snapshot of the sales pipeline. Unlike traditional printed reports, the Forecast Manager provides representatives with one-click access to underlying opportunity details, significantly improving forecast accuracy. Representatives also have the ability to categorize and filter the report by territory, status or probability.

Relationships Manager - In order to be successful today, sales representatives need to understand the relationships that are critical to closing the deal. The Relationships Manager enables representatives to track bi-directional relationships between any two account and contact records in the application. Relationships Manager also integrates with the Organizational Chart below to provide a visual roadmap of key relationships.

Organizational Chart - Organizational Chart provides a consolidated, hierarchical view of Microsoft CRM accounts, contacts, and the relationships between them. Organizational Chart offers a visual roadmap of organizational parent/child relationships including identifying employees at each branch. When used with the Green Beacon Relationships Manager, the Organizational Chart also displays key relationships between accounts and contacts that are not necessarily related, making it simple to track client/partner relationships with resellers, for example. Organizational Chart also offers one-click access to account and contact records, enabling users to easily navigate and update account and contact information.

"Green Beacon took careful steps to critically evaluate the true business needs of our mid-market clients to provide CRM enhancements for a solution that is practical, economical and efficient," said Benjamin Holtz, president and CEO of Green Beacon Solutions. "Our methodical approach is allowing us to deliver Microsoft CRM solutions that will increase revenues, reduce customer service costs, streamline sales lead generation, and simplify business processes for our clients."

Green Beacon works directly with clients to automate critical business processes and develop key business-focused tools that address the real needs of the people within each specific organization, ultimately improving customer interactions. The company has developed a proven delivery methodology to ensure the success of each project and to render higher quality consulting services to its clients at a valued price. Over the last year, the Green Beacon team has successfully delivered CRM implementations and customizations for clients in the financial services, publishing, biomedical/healthcare and information technology industries.