J.D. Edwards: Help Yourself

In it attempt to secure its stake in CRM, J.D. Edwards & Co.,earlier this week made available its customer self-service and supplier self-service applications through its OneWorld Portal. The applications can be accessed through an updated version of JDE's OneWorld Portal, which also offers the ability to access other information, applications, and content from any terminal, laptop or Pocket PC device with a Web browser. Gartner Group states handling customer inquiries over the phone costs nine times more than a self-help system over the Web-$4.50 per call compared to 50 cents per call. Additionally, META Group estimates the average return on investment from a self-help application to be 47 percent after six months. "Partners along the supply chain can use Supplier Self-Service to help themselves to account information, purchase orders, release schedules, quotes, responses and supplier performance analyses stored within a business' s OneWorld system. With Customer Self-Service, customers can enter and modify forecasts, review sales orders and invoices, track shipments, manage user profiles, review account balances and payment history, and obtain personalized customer alerts," J.D. Edwards said in a prepared statement. While the self-help tools can be viewed through OneWorld, the portal is not needed to access the information within the host enterprise. Customers and suppliers can access the self-service application as if they were pulling information from the Internet.