The media tempest surrounding energy trading company Enron has focused attention anew on the Big Five auditing firms and the potentially unethical relationships between their auditing and consulting units. But to judge their recent performance and revamped strategies in the CRM space, the consulting units can manage just fine without their auditing brethren.

That's the view of industry experts and executives at the Big Five and their successors: PwC Consulting (a unit of PriceWaterhouseCoopers), Deloitte Consulting, KPMG Consulting, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and Arthur Andersen spin-off Accenture. Despite the recent economic slump, all of the outfits enjoyed healthy growth in the CRM/call center arenas. One factor underpinning the growth figures: redesigned solutions, backed by expanded vendor partnerships, aimed at speeding project installations and return on investment (ROI).

"They the Big Five have all beefed up their focus on ROI within the past year, in part because of the sagging economy," says Beth Eisenfeld, a research director at Gartner Group, a Stamford, CT-based market research firm. "To that end, they've developed business case components and methodologies that better target revenue enhancements and cost savings."

The efforts have not gone unrewarded. All of the consulting firms reported double-digit growth in their CRM practices. Many CRM units are growing faster than sister consulting divisions. In 2001, KPMG's CRM unit posted a 21% revenue gain. At Accenture, CRM projects garnered 25%, or $2 billion, of the firm's business. Deloitte Consulting reported growth of 24.4%, or $854 million, in CRM revenue. And PwC Consulting's CRM practice secured $1.1 billion, or 14% of $7 billion in consulting fees. Significantly, call centers accounted for nearly 50% of the CRM total.

Contributing to the Big Five's good fortunes, observers say, is a less competitive consulting field, as many Web integrators went bankrupt when the dot-com bubble burst. But experts also laud the Big Five for refocusing on core competencies.

"It's all about B2B - back to basics," says Gartner's Eisenfeld. "In the go-go years, the Big Five, like other consulting outfits, were offering 'e-anything solutions.' With the dot-com bust, the Big Five have, rightly, folded their Web practices into traditional services offerings."

The redesigned and re-branded solutions include, for example, PwC Consulting's CRM Accel, unveiled last October. The platform integrates customer service, sales and market applications, plus technology, from PwC's partners: Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Avaya, among others. Close vendor partnerships underpin, too, CRM packages at Accenture and at KPMG Consulting.

The latter is allied with IT behemoths Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel Systems for its Rapid Return on Investment Express Solution. Bruce Culbert, senior vice president at KPMG, says the Express and other CRM packages target two hot-growth areas: integrating customer care by e-mail, text chat, phone, and on Web sites and consolidating multi-site call center operations.

Facilitating speedier implementations, say market watchers, are newly launched or expanded systems integration teams at the Big Five. In past years, by contrast, many of the firms limited themselves to technology analysis, selection and related consulting.

The enhanced focus on speed of implementation, ROI and strategic vendor alliances might have a downside, experts caution. The packaged solutions, to the extent they do not entail customization, might not be the best for the client's business. Customers might also question whether the Big Five's technology recommendations are unbiased.

"The downside of these pre-assembled, vendor-backed packages is that customers can get an inappropriate solution by default," says Jocelyn Young, an analyst and program manager at research outfit IDC in Framingham, MA. "Customers have to sufficiently articulate to the consultant what their needs are, their business processes and the company vision."

Gartner Group's Eisenfeld agrees. "These growing partnerships reinforce the obvious, which is that the Big Five are not as vendor-neutral as they say they are."

But market watchers note that many of the technology firms have started or enlarged professional services arms. So the Big Five are better off collaborating with, not competing against, the vendor units.

Analysts uniformly applaud one thing: Steps the Big Five have taken to separate auditing and consulting practices to eliminate potential conflicts of interest. The more the consulting units distance themselves from the Enron scandal, the better.

Mobile CRM Apps Depend On Customer Happiness

Research conducted by Siemens casts light on the drivers that contribute to successfully implementing a corporate mobile CRM services strategy. Not surprisingly, they point to customers as key.

A survey canvassed the views of senior IT professionals and business managers. It found that "keeping customers happy" ranked above "enabling organizations to become easier to interact with," and improving competitiveness, on their list of priorities.

The Web-based poll showed that more than 70% of respondents believed that connecting employees to office databases, thereby giving access to centralized information, was the best way to achieve and maintain customer satisfaction. Conclusion: Remote access is the best candidate for a workable value-added mobile app.

The survey showed the main benefits that organizations desire are improving productivity (83% of the vote) and streamlining business processes (60%).

See more at: www.commweb.com/article/COM20020115S0003.

Davox Tunes in a Concerto

A new company, Concerto Software, has arisen from the combination of two call center stalwarts: Davox and CELLIT.

Davox, which has successfully transformed itself from an old-style outbound-based predictive dialer vendor into a full-featured CRM provider, changed its name to Concerto Software after buying privately held CELLIT for $10.2 million plus stock.

CELLIT brings to the Davox product mix significant inbound capabilities: automatic call distribution with skills- and rules-based routing; IVR, e-mail management, Web chat and collaboration; plus voice messaging, monitoring, recording and reporting.

Read more at: www.commweb.com/article/COM20020110S0005.

The Future of Telecom in 2002

When we asked visitors to CommWeb to gaze into their crystal balls to analyze what will become of the beleaguered telecom industry this year, one response from expert Max Schroeder stood out.

He framed the short-term future this way: The issue, he says "is if direct and reseller sales personnel can go into a customer location and perform a true site analysis and present clear ROI-focused solutions. Business is bad. Budgets are tight. But decision makers will spend money (find it in the budget somehow) if the ROI is clear.

The media tempest surrounding energy trading company Enron has focused attention anew on the Big Five auditing firms and the potentially unethical relationships between their auditing and consulting units. But to judge their recent performance and revamped strategies in the CRM space, the consulting units can manage just fine without their auditing brethren.

That's the view of industry experts and executives at the Big Five and their successors: PwC Consulting (a unit of PriceWaterhouseCoopers), Deloitte Consulting, KPMG Consulting, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and Arthur Andersen spin-off Accenture. Despite the recent economic slump, all of the outfits enjoyed healthy growth in the CRM/call center arenas. One factor underpinning the growth figures: redesigned solutions, backed by expanded vendor partnerships, aimed at speeding project installations and return on investment (ROI).

"They [the Big Five] have all beefed up their focus on ROI within the past year, in part because of the sagging economy," says Beth Eisenfeld, a research director at Gartner Group, a Stamford, CT-based market research firm. "To that end, they've developed business case components and methodologies that better target revenue enhancements and cost savings."

The efforts have not gone unrewarded. All of the consulting firms reported double-digit growth in their CRM practices. Many CRM units are growing faster than sister consulting divisions. In 2001, KPMG's CRM unit posted a 21% revenue gain. At Accenture, CRM projects garnered 25%, or $2 billion, of the firm's business. Deloitte Consulting reported growth of 24.4%, or $854 million, in CRM revenue. And PwC Consulting's CRM practice secured $1.1 billion, or 14% of $7 billion in consulting fees. Significantly, call centers accounted for nearly 50% of the CRM total.

Contributing to the Big Five's good fortunes, observers say, is a less competitive consulting field, as many Web integrators went bankrupt when the dot-com bubble burst. But experts also laud the Big Five for refocusing on core competencies.

"It's all about B2B - back to basics," says Gartner's Eisenfeld. "In the go-go years, the Big Five, like other consulting outfits, were offering 'e-anything solutions.' With the dot-com bust, the Big Five have, rightly, folded their Web practices into traditional services offerings."

The redesigned and re-branded solutions include, for example, PwC Consulting's CRM Accel, unveiled last October. The platform integrates customer service, sales and market applications, plus technology, from PwC's partners: Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Avaya, among others. Close vendor partnerships underpin, too, CRM packages at Accenture and at KPMG Consulting.

The latter is allied with IT behemoths Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel Systems for its Rapid Return on Investment Express Solution. Bruce Culbert, senior vice president at KPMG, says the Express and other CRM packages target two hot-growth areas: integrating customer care by e-mail, text chat, phone, and on Web sites and consolidating multi-site call center operations.

Facilitating speedier implementations, say market watchers, are newly launched or expanded systems integration teams at the Big Five. In past years, by contrast, many of the firms limited themselves to technology analysis, selection and related consulting.

The enhanced focus on speed of implementation, ROI and strategic vendor alliances might have a downside, experts caution. The packaged solutions, to the extent they do not entail customization, might not be the best for the client's business. Customers might also question whether the Big Five's technology recommendations are unbiased.

"The downside of these pre-assembled, vendor-backed packages is that customers can get an inappropriate solution by default," says Jocelyn Young, an analyst and program manager at research outfit IDC in Framingham, MA. "Customers have to sufficiently articulate to the consultant what their needs are, their business processes and the company vision."

Gartner Group's Eisenfeld agrees. "These growing partnerships reinforce the obvious, which is that the Big Five are not as vendor-neutral as they say they are."

But market watchers note that many of the technology firms have started or enlarged professional services arms. So the Big Five are better off collaborating with, not competing against, the vendor units.

Analysts uniformly applaud one thing: Steps the Big Five have taken to separate auditing and consulting practices to eliminate potential conflicts of interest. The more the consulting units distance themselves from the Enron scandal, the better.

Mobile CRM Apps Depend On Customer Happiness

Research conducted by Siemens casts light on the drivers that contribute to successfully implementing a corporate mobile CRM services strategy. Not surprisingly, they point to customers as key.

A survey canvassed the views of senior IT professionals and business managers. It found that "keeping customers happy" ranked above "enabling organizations to become easier to interact with," and improving competitiveness, on their list of priorities.

The Web-based poll showed that more than 70% of respondents believed that connecting employees to office databases, thereby giving access to centralized information, was the best way to achieve and maintain customer satisfaction. Conclusion: Remote access is the best candidate for a workable value-added mobile app.

The survey showed the main benefits that organizations desire are improving productivity (83% of the vote) and streamlining business processes (60%).

See more at: www.commweb.com/article/COM20020115S0003.

Davox Tunes in a Concerto

A new company, Concerto Software, has arisen from the combination of two call center stalwarts: Davox and CELLIT.

Davox, which has successfully transformed itself from an old-style outbound-based predictive dialer vendor into a full-featured CRM provider, changed its name to Concerto Software after buying privately held CELLIT for $10.2 million plus stock.

CELLIT brings to the Davox product mix significant inbound capabilities: automatic call distribution with skills- and rules-based routing; IVR, e-mail management, Web chat and collaboration; plus voice messaging, monitoring, recording and reporting.

Read more at: www.commweb.com/article/COM20020110S0005.

The Future of Telecom in 2002

When we asked visitors to CommWeb to gaze into their crystal balls to analyze what will become of the beleaguered telecom industry this year, one response from expert Max Schroeder stood out.

He framed the short-term future this way: The issue, he says "is if direct and reseller sales personnel can go into a customer location and perform a true site analysis and present clear ROI-focused solutions. Business is bad. Budgets are tight. But decision makers will spend money (find it in the budget somehow) if the ROI is clear.