New Analytics for Hosted CRM

Synergex announced it has released a new CRM analytics subscription service called VisualSmart, intended to work with data generated by Salesforce.com. The announcement is the latest in a series of ASP partnerships designed to enrich a company's hosted CRM functionality. Last week Salesnet announced it was partnering with Qualte to add robust service and support capabilities to its hosted solution. "We are strong believers in the ASP model," says Michael DeWid, vice president of sales and marketing at Synergex. "And we feel that a best of breed partnership approach based on tight integration of features between two products offers the most value to customers." DeWid calls Salesforce.com's solution "classic CRM," but notes that customers were asking for one feature the product lacks: data analytics. "We saw an opportunity there to deliver a similar hosted analytics model to Salesforce.com, one that gives business managers intuitive ways to look at data, placed in a format they can take action on," DeWid says. One of the most attractive features of the products, according to DeWid, is that it can be up and running in a matter of hours. "The fact that we can have customers up and running in as little as two hours demonstrates the power of the ASP model," DeWid says. Analysts say that more tight partnerships in the hosted space could be on the horizon. Karen Smith, research director with the Aberdeen Group, says that best-of-breed strategic partnerships are perhaps the best way for ASPs to add functionality. "Nowadays software vendors need to be looking into forming partnerships that will benefit their customers by giving them exactly what they need in the way of best of breed solutions," she says.