IMA Introduces New E-Business Vision With the Introduction of Demand Chain Management IMA Pioneers Solutions That Redefine CRM, eCRM and CTI Marketplaces SHELTON, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 19, 1999--IMA (NASDAQ:IMAA - news), a leading global provider of synchronized, multi-channel e-business solutions, today announced a revolutionary new process for supporting the huge inflow of demand that has shifted from more traditional distribution channels onto the Internet. IMA's vision, termed Demand Chain Management (DCM), will be a suite of technology solutions to enable businesses to create demand, manage demand, and respond to demand in a highly effective manner.
Demand Chain Management takes the core values of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy to a new level by applying new e-commerce technologies that are rapidly overtaking today's business world. DCM looks at the bigger picture - beyond traditional CRM response - and addresses how demand and delivery channels are changing as technology redefines the relationship between the supplier and the customer.
''The Internet has revolutionized the way businesses communicate with their customers,'' said Al Subbloie, IMA's President and CEO. ''Demand Chain Management allows companies to successfully blend all communication methods, manage diverse customer interactions, and respond to requests in an efficient, customer-centric manner.''
''IMA is announcing a revolutionary answer to business problems in the three major customer-facing markets, CRM, eCRM, and CTI middleware,'' Subbloie continued. ''The Web is forcing a major requirement shift for the enterprise towards a new breed of architecture designed for channel synchronization and demand normalization anywhere in the customer demand chain. Demand Chain Management is the specific value-added vision that brings all of the fragmentation together in a common business layer, putting the customer's demand in the center of a powerful new open architecture.''
Currently two major shortcomings exist in the CRM and eCRM software being offered to businesses. CRM solutions are not designed from the customer's point of view, and are simply a wide collection of predefined data models and processes that assist company personnel in communicating with customers. Existing eCRM software has the same design flaw as its predecessor, which is compounded by the wide variety of partial, proprietary solutions offered by various vendors. As a result, the actual demands of customers are not reflected appropriately nor made persistent in the system, and there is inconsistency in the way the business manages what really matters, their customers' requests for products and services any time, from anywhere, over any channel.
Traditional CRM and CTI software have attempted to bring synergy between voice and the web, but have failed to do so. These middleware solutions remain ''transaction-centric'', with little ability for demand to persist as a data component in a chain of events defined by a common set of business rules anywhere in the enterprise. While many companies are creating loose partnerships or merging, solutions from these fragmented players creates large inefficiencies for the enterprise because of hard wired integration of proprietary or even multiple rules engines, along with overlapping legacy architectures.
IMA's Demand Chain Management product suite will allow businesses to easily respond to consumers in a rapid and personalized manner. It not only generates demand, but automatically routes the requests (e-mail, voice, fax, chatroom, etc.) to the appropriate personnel, and can even employ a highly automated yet personalized response mechanism. To accomplish this, IMA has created the Industry's first object-oriented, Java-centric component architecture for e-business application development. This true OO component architecture offers n-tiered scalability and promotes a best-of-breed solution through re-useable e-business components, such as a rules engine, personalization, web development and legacy integration.
While IMA is shifting its business focus, the company remains committed to supporting its CRM and CTI customers across the globe. ''We will continue to offer the same level of service and support that we always have. And since our new DCM offerings will be built on open industry standard architecture, all of our EDGE customers will be able to use our new offerings to extend their current EDGE applications across their entire enterprise system,'' Subbloie added. ''Our new technology provides both existing and new clients the opportunity to continue the use of existing applications while adding greatly enhanced enterprise functionality across the full demand chain.
IMA is the only player in the market today with a vision that addresses all the technologies which make up the Demand Chain - e-commerce, business intelligence and eCRM - by focusing its products and services on this new relationship between the buyers and sellers.
About IMA
IMA provides synchronized, multi-channel e-business solutions, enabling businesses to create market demand, manage that demand, and then respond to it in the most effective manner with world-class customer interaction software solutions. Gartner Group ranks IMA as a leader in customer service and support systems and as a visionary in sales applications. Over 400 global organizations including Bose Corp., Humana, ICT Group, Lloyds TSB, Texas Utilities, U.S. Cellular Corp. and Xerox depend on IMA products and services to help grow their business through the process of acquiring and retaining customers. IMA has headquarters in Shelton, Connecticut and offices and representatives worldwide. More information about IMA's products and services can be found on the World Wide Web at www.imaedge.com, requested via email at ima@imaedge.com or by calling 1-203-925-6800. |