Asia-Pacific Brims with Opportunity

Hoping to boost sales, CRM vendors Onyx Software and ChannelWave Software set their sights on the promising Asia-Pacific market. Onyx inked a partnership with North 22 Solutions, a reseller in the Chinese market; and ChannelWave struck an exclusive deal with Mitsui & Co., a giant international trading company, to peddle ChannelWave's PRM wares in Japan. And why not cast your eyes across the Pacific Ocean? Technology investment throughout the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at a compound average growth rate of 30 percent over the next five years, predicts market researcher IDC. Echoing this sentiment, Frost and Sullivan says the Asia-Pacific market for CRM software will top $561 million in 2003. Under terms of the deal, Onyx and North 22 will tweak Onyx Enterprise CRM to the cultural and language nuances of the Chinese market, the companies claim. Onyx Enterprise CRM supports Unicode, allowing companies to display multi-lingual text in a single server and database. And North 22 will market, sell and distribute Onyx products on the mainland, navigating the tricky and politics-laden waters that go along with doing business in China. Of course, Onyx is no stranger to the Asia-Pacific market. Customers include Dodwell Japan, Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Singapore Cable Vision, Telekom Malaysia Berhad, among others, as customers. The Asia-Pacific market is expected to contribute to an increasingly significant chare of Onyx's total revenue, the company claims. On the heels of the Onyx-North 22 announcement, ChannelWave and Mitsui teamed to provide partnering technology to Japanese companies in the high-tech, recreation, telecommunications, manufacturing, and automotive industries. Mitsui, which already distributes CRM software from PeopleSoft, will also localize ChannelWave's flagship ChannelWave 5 software to the Japan market. Mitsui chose ChannelWave's because of the company's financial stability, strong management team, and highly configurable Web-based solutions, according to Toshiyuki Yamazoe, general manager of Mitsui's enterprise solution service business department. Peter Emerson, vice president of corporate and international development and general counsel at ChannelWave, said, in a statement: "Today's agreement with Mitsui is an important step in ChannelWave's international growth strategy as we expand our geographic and vertical market presence across the globe. We see a great opportunity in Japan and the entire Asia-Pacific market."