Archive for the 'Datasquirt' Category
June 5, 2011
After years of innovation to its cloud-based corporate messaging product CONTACT, developing its international distribution channels and building up its global base of customers, Datasquirt has reached the point where it is cash-flow positive and profitable.
The company has also signed a white-label distribution deal with a very large American business that will give it sales coverage throughout the USA and Canada.
Today the Sunday Star times has posted an article on Datasquirt’s recent announcements.
A further article was subsequently published in the NZ Herald.
Posted in Cloud, Communication, Datasquirt, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ASX, Datasquirt, Datasquirt CONTACT
June 4, 2011
Over the last decade, through my three businesses Enprise, EMS-Cortex and Datasquirt, I’ve spent a lot of time and effort focused on selling software in the American market. After this much time, it still never fails to amaze me how big the US market is in comparison to other countries.
I first saw the following graphic at an SAP presentation in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, which shows in simple terms just how big the American economy is. A friend of mine at SAP forwarded it to me recently after I mentioned it to him.
On the map, each state of America has a country of similar sized economy & population named on it. I noted that Maryland is marked as New Zealand. To check this, my own quick research found that Maryland’s economy and population is in fact a tad bigger than New Zealand’s.
Click on the map below for a larger view.
Posted in Datasquirt, ERP, SAP Business One | Leave a Comment »
Tags: USA Market, USA States
May 31, 2011
The following is an extract from the Financial Statements that Datasquirt (ASX:DSQ) has lodged with the ASX this evening (for the full version, refer to the ASX site);
By the end of FY11 Datasquirt had eliminated cash burn as forecast and moved into profit for the fourth quarter. The company achieved this through growing revenue by 37%, excluding other revenue and foreign exchange gains and losses, making significant, strategic improvements in global distribution and by continuing to innovate, as well as through prudent cost management.
The adoption of Social Media channels as ‘business as usual’ for most corporations, the ongoing growth of SMS and web chat communication and the international interest in cloud-based technologies mean Datasquirt is well placed for FY12.
The company expects sales from both current and new clients to continue to increase. It also anticipates an ongoing growth in the strength of its reseller channel and has budgeted for an ongoing programme of product enhancement, to deliver further social media and reporting functionality in line with client demand.
September 2010 saw Datasquirt become one of the first companies in the world to offer corporations a call centre platform for managing their Twitter communications with customers. This created additional revenue streams from existing clients, such as Royal Mail Group (UK), as well as positioning Datasquirt as a future focussed provider and generating new business enquiries.
Demand from current clients during the 2011 financial year broadened from email and SMS to increased demand for the fax and web chat functionality in CONTACTTM, as well as social media. Corporate businesses increasingly recognise the commercial importance of integrated communications, while customer expectations for real-time replies and multi-channel communication are continually rising. Both these major trends are demand drivers for Datasquirt.
FY2011 saw continued growth in sales through reseller partners internationally, culminating in Q4 in the agreement to supply a leading North American call centre provider with CONTACTTM under their own branding; a deal worth over US$1million which will see Datasquirt’s software deployed across the US. The global technology search which preceded this organisation selecting CONTACT illustrates the quality and differentiation of the Datasquirt product set.
In a climate of ongoing economic uncertainty, corporate businesses are increasingly seeking pay-as-you go hosted (cloud-based) software solutions, such as CONTACT. They are increasingly driven by their customers to provide more sophisticated, integrated and real-time customer service, across multiple channels, and to be better than their competitors at responding to enquiries and complaints. In an environment where businesses want more efficiency, security and control, and are investing in products which offer a clear competitive advantage and good return on investment in the short to medium term,
Datasquirt is well placed for continued growth.
The Directors are very confident in the success of Datasquirt and will now be buying more shares.
Posted in Cloud, Communication, Datasquirt, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Call Centers, Call Centres, Contact Centres, Datasquirt, Datasquirt CONTACT
September 18, 2010
Opportunities and demands on today’s Corporate Contact Centers have evolved extensively since the early days of the “Call Center”. Whereas the primary communication channel has always been the voice call, today we have the addition of SMS Text, Email, Faxes, Web Chat and now Social Media.
Social Media (such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) opens up new possibilities for corporates to interact with their customers and analyse what people are saying and thinking about them and their products.
With the addition of Social Media capability to Datasquirt‘s CONTACT messaging platform; Corporate Contact Centers now have a solution that enables them to leverage Social Media channels alongside SMS, Fax, Email and WebChat. This is ideal for enabling conversations with customers to span multiple channels without compromising the ability to holistically report and audit across the whole spectrum of channels.
Click here for a preview of “CONTACT Social”, Datasquirt’s new Social Media capability for its CONTACT messaging platform.
Posted in Communication, Datasquirt, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Call Centers, Call Centres, Contact Centers, Contact Centres, Datasquirt, Datasquirt CONTACT, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube
June 21, 2010
I’ve just been reading a very interesting article by Mike Proulx of Bloomberg Businessweek, called Top Five Social Media Marketing Mistakes.
In the article, Mike is saying that businesses large and small should;
- Monitor Social Media in order to know what is being said about them.
- Ensure that the right people are responding when needed. The wrong responses can be very damaging and costly.
- Respond Quickly – delays send bad signals to the market.
- Never fake anything in Social Media – you will be found out!
- Never Stop – Social Media is an ongoing activity and marketing investment.
The larger the business and the bigger its public profile, the more critical it is that it manages its Social Media presence expertly and diligently.
Datasquirt’s product “CONTACT” is ideal for corporations wanting to manage all of their Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc) and other direct messaging (SMS, Web Chat, Email etc) from a single web-based multi-user console. CONTACT addresses all of the challenges normally faced by corporates wanting to manage their social media presence, from monitoring & reporting, through to team management, standard messages, audit trails, cross-media conversations and general compatibility with modern Contact Center operational requirements.
Datasquirt have been in the Corporate short-messaging business for nearly a decade and supply CONTACT solutions to leading businesses and government departments throughout the world.
www.datasquirt.com
Posted in Cloud, Communication, Datasquirt, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Tags: CONTACT, Contact Centers, Corporate, Datasquirt, Datasquirt CONTACT, Facebook, Marketing, Messaging, SMS, Social Media, Twitter
June 18, 2010
This week I sat in on a pre-release demonstration of Datasquirt’s Social Media offering for its flagship product “CONTACT”. It was being presented to a large British corporate customer who is already very active in the Social Media and non-voice Messaging space.
Social Media is a “hot potato” for large corporate businesses and government departments because they typically require a team of people to operate their Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc accounts and therefore have specific requirements for coordinating, distributing, recording and reporting these messages and conversations.
What excited this British customer (and me for that matter) was how Datasquirt’s CONTACT solution would allow the corporate contact center to mix Social Media channels in with other channels such as SMS text, web chat, fax and email. All of these channels mix together in a single management & reporting console and allow conversations to span over multiple channel types if needed (for example a conversation could start out on Twitter and then shift to email or SMS).
As a Cloud-based application, CONTACT has been designed from the ground up to run in a web browser and be compatible with the work-flows and reporting expectations of corporate contact centers. It is used by some of the largest corporations and government entities for processing SMS text, Web Chat, fax and email communications. This is about to extend into Social Media, starting with Twitter and moving in to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social media channels.
More details about CONTACT and its multi-channel communication capabilities can be found on Datasquirt’s web site.
Posted in Cloud, Communication, Datasquirt | 1 Comment »
Tags: Datasquirt, Datasquirt CONTACT, Facebook, SMS, SMS Text, Social Media, Twitter, TXT, Web Chat, YouTube
June 15, 2010
One of the “Generals” of Enprise Group is Jason Langley, who heads up Enprise Software. Enprise Software is the creator and global distributor of Enprise Job Costing for SAP Business One, which is sold through SAP’s international reseller channel.
I’ve known and worked with Jason for over 15 years, starting from the mid 1990’s, when we both worked at PC Direct (a successful NZ-based Personal Computer company). Jason was the corporate sales rep and I was the Information Services manager.
Following PC Direct, Jason has held a number of positions in computer, web-development and software companies. These include another company I’m involved in, Datasquirt (which specializes in Social Media and SMS Text solutions for Corporate Contact Centers) – where he was the versatile “jack of all trades” that held the business together during its early formative years. Jason’s repertoire of diverse skills include computer programming, web site design, graphic art, sales, marketing and general management (I’m sure to have forgotten some…).
Jason’s skills and experience stand him in good stead to lead the team at Enprise Software, which is based in Auckland, New Zealand and works closely with over 100 SAP Business One resellers and their respective customers, which are located all around the world.
Posted in Datasquirt, Enprise Job Costing, ERP, Project Costing, SAP Business One, Sap Isv | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Enprise, Enprise Job Costing, Enprise Software, Job Costing, PC Direct, Project Costing, SAP, SAP Business One
April 22, 2010
Speaking as someone who is involved in the global SME ERP Industry through Enprise NZ and Enprise Software, involved in the Cloud Control Panel & Hosting industry through EMS-Cortex and involved in the Business Messaging and Social Media Industry through Datasquirt; here is my prediction of how ERP Software will be sold in the new decade that we are now entering;
Sales Process
- Firstly, the prospective customer will search the Internet for an ERP Solution and ERP Reseller that look suitable for their type of business. This will involve the use of a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo and would include searches of web sites and various Social Media including Twitter, Linked-In, YouTube, Facebook and others.
- The prospective customer will then contact the ERP Reseller via Email, Instant Message, Voice Call or Social Media Tweet, asking for more information and a demonstration of the ERP solution.
- An initial consultation/discussion will follow via Email, Voice Call, Social Media etc to determine whether the fit between the ERP Solution and the customer requirements is such that a product demo is warranted.
- The ERP Reseller will then set up a temporary demonstration ERP solution in the Cloud using their own portal in the Cortex Cloud Control Panel. The demonstration system would be a clean installation of the ERP demo, complete with its own clean virtual database server and (optional) desktop environment. The exact solution, including add-on industry vertical components and temporary user accounts can be selected and configured in the Cortex portal. This demo system would be provisioned, up and running within minutes of being requested on the portal and would be set to last for a predetermined duration for the purposes of the demonstration.
- The ERP Reseller would then either visit the prospective customer and demonstrate the ERP solution on-site (geography permitting) using a computer connected to the Internet or will demonstrate via a web meeting tool such as GoToMeeting or WebEx.
- The prospective customer might then want to spend further time trying out various aspects of the demonstration system after the ERP Reseller has finished demonstrating it. If the ERP Reseller agrees to this then they can arrange for the demonstration system to be kept alive in the Cloud for a longer duration to enable the prospective customer to continue with their own trial use of the system.
- If/when the prospective customer decides to purchase the ERP system, the ERP Reseller would go back into their portal on the Cortex Control Panel, delete the demonstration system and configure a new live ERP system. The company and user names would be entered into the Cortex portal and also any additional up-sell items would also be included, such as Exchange Email accounts, SharePoint, Blackberry, VOIP accounts, Backups, Firewalls, Hosted Desktops (eg XenApp, XenDesktop), Payroll Access etc.
- Application licensing information would be sent via Web Services to the respective vendors (eg Microsoft, Citrix, SAP, MYOB etc) and licences would be generated and applied back to the new hosted system via web services.
- The Cloud-delivered ERP solution is now live, up and running. The ERP Reseller’s consultants can now access the system to configure the ERP Solution to the requirements of the customer.
- The ERP Solution is now live in the Cloud and can be accessed from anywhere via the Internet. This includes all the branch and home locations of the customer as well as the ERP Reseller and the ERP and other software vendors.
Applying Upgrades and Patches to the ERP System
Prior to a new upgrade or patch being applied to a live ERP system, it must be tested against the individual customer’s data and processes to ensure that the software changes work correctly and cause no disruption to the business.
To enable this testing process, the ERP Reseller will go into their portal of the Cortex Control Panel and request a temporary test copy of the live ERP Environment. This enables the ERP Reseller’s consultants, in conjunction with the customer’s staff, to test the new software version and identify any possibly reconfiguration issues on the test system.
Once the testing process is completed and signed off, the ERP Reseller can go back into their portal of the Cortex Control Panel and apply the upgrade to the live system. They can also delete the test system when they are finished with it.
Support
Support of the ERP System by the ERP Reseller and the ERP Vendor is a lot easier, more efficient and less costly under this new model for the following reasons;
- Because the ERP System and its virtual operating environment was provisioned by Cortex, it would be done the same every time, using best practices, using the correct program versions and configuration. These things are therefore known to the support personnel and not subject to variation.
- The support personnel have quick and easy remote access to the hosted ERP solution (subject to permission from the customer to access their system and data).
The model works better for everyone involved in the ERP system sale. The customer, the ERP Reseller and the ERP and other software vendors.
The Customer gets:
- Extended Access to a Demo System
- Reduced Capital Outlay
- Faster Implementation
- Reduced management overhead of looking after local server & infrastructure
The ERP Reseller gets:
- Up-sell opportunities
- Faster Implementation – freeing up time to sell more!
- Repeatable Cookie Cutter implementations
- Easier to Support
The Vertical Solution Vendor gets:
- Opportunity to list solutions on the Cortex Portal
- Easier Support on a Known Environment
The ERP Vendor gets:
- Faster Implementations = More Sales
- Easier & Less Expensive Support
- Better Product Performance in a Correct Known Environment
Posted in Cloud, Communication, Cortex, Datasquirt, Enprise Job Costing, ERP, Multi-tenant, MYOB EXO, SAP Business One, Sap Isv, Virtualization | 1 Comment »
Tags: Citrix, Cloud, Cortex, Datasquirt, EMS-Cortex, Enprise, ERP, Hosted ERP, Microsoft, MYOB, MYOB EXO, SAP, SAP Business One
March 25, 2010
I have to be careful about what I say about Datasquirt because it’s a publicly listed company on the Australian stock exchange (ASX:DSQ) and being a non-executive director and chairman, there are strict rules about what I can and cannot say, without making an announcement to the ASX.
What I can say is as follows; 🙂
Firstly, I have to say that Datasquirt is a cool company, made up of people who are passionate about what they do. Datasquirt’s product is called CONTACT and it’s a SaaS, Web deployed Communications Console for Corporate Businesses to enable their Contact Centers (formerly Call Centers) to interact with their customers, suppliers or staff using SMS text, Instant Messaging, email, fax etc.
I was one of the founders of Datasquirt and so my involvement dates back to when the company started up in 2001. This was soon after I (and some of the other Datasquirt founders) sold our previous business, Exonet.
In the early days we did a lot of experimenting to see how SMS Texts could be used for business purposes. After several years of building custom SMS applications for various industry verticals, we started to see what common functionality everyone wanted and realized that all the big customers had Contact Centers – so we designed and built CONTACT as a product to satisfy this market need.
Being web deployed, CONTACT can be run from any browser on the Internet, so requires minimal effort by the customers’ IT departments to get it up and running. The product integrates with the customer’s internal databases such as CRM, ERP etc and has advanced logic algorithms to pre-process messages automatically and/or distribute them to applicable call center operators. Templates and automation facilitate a speedy response to incoming messages and advanced reporting functions enable all types of reports and analysis – including the types of reporting normally expected in corporate contact centers.
In today’s world of advanced and instant world-wide communications, it is more important than ever for businesses to engage with the new communication technologies and new social media types like Twitter, Linked-In, Facebook etc. Accordingly, these are exciting times for Datasquirt and its product CONTACT which empowers corporate business customers to communicate directly, instantly and intimately in the new communications age!
Watch this company this year!
www.datasquirt.com
Posted in Communication, Datasquirt | 1 Comment »
Tags: Call Centers, Communication, Communications, Contact Centers, Datasquirt, IM, Instant Messaging, Linked-In, SaaS, SMS, Twitter, TXT
Mark Loveys 