CRM Software for the Real Estate Industry

August 18, 2017   OnContact
gettyimages 546201672 CRM Software for the Real Estate Industry

Customer relationship management (CRM) can be a powerful referral maximizing tool, especially for the real estate industry. In some cases, real estate agents rely on Excel spreadsheets to manage their growing databases. They struggle to go beyond simply focusing on the names and numbers in their spreadsheets by focusing instead on building relationships and a referral base. Below, we’ll discuss some of the most influential features available through CRM software to the real estate industry, and how the enterprise solution can help out in sales, marketing, customer service, and more.

Marketing automation can prove useful

While postcards, billboards, and radio commercials are great, there’s no denying the power of digital marketing. In today’s era of digital, it’s all about email, search engine optimization (SEO), websites, and online leads. Are you ensuring you have the right tools to tackle these marketing mediums? With customer relationship management (CRM) software, you’ll have access to marketing automation solutions to help out in your overall marketing efforts, such as an email designer, customized marketing reports, and email marketing automation. You’ll also be able to utilize lead scoring and capturing technology to ensure your website visitors are being tracked and counted as qualified leads.

Never let go of past clients

When you’re working as a small business, or in this case as a real estate agent, it can be challenging to keep up-to-date with all of your clients, both current and past, in addition to prospects. Unfortunately, older clients might end up being neglected more than you’d like. Using a CRM solution helps remedy this phenomenon by allowing you the opportunity to create follow-ups and reminders. Simply set up a reminder through your customer relationship management solution, and you’ll get notifications for when it’s the next appropriate time to reach out. In addition, you’ll be able to set up a follow-up plan to automate the process even further, saving you time and keeping your past clients in touch.

Focus on the art of the follow-up

Following up is crucial in the real estate industry. You need to stay in touch with a multitude of prospects and clients, both former and current. Without a CRM solution, it can be overwhelming and unorganized. With one, however, you’re able to manage your entire database in one centralized hub of information. When you go into your system, you’ll be able to know who’s ready to be called among your list, who’s ready to be emailed, and the status of each of your contacts.

Referrals, referrals, referrals

Referrals can be a fantastic selling resource, and it’s never been easier to handle them than with a customer relationship management solution. Simply enter the names and contact information of any and all business owners and professionals you’ve interacted with, and you’ll be able to pull their data whenever needed. This feature can come in handy when a client asks you for a nearby professional’s information, or for the contact information of a nearby lender.

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How Marketing Automation Can Super-Charge Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy

August 18, 2017   CRM News and Info
blog title supercharged abm 351x200 How Marketing Automation Can Super Charge Your Account Based Marketing Strategy

In the world of digital marketing, new terms and buzzwords are thrown around all the time. One that seems to be surviving and thriving past the initial hype is “account-based marketing,” or, as many call it, “ABM.” Businesses all over the world are putting ABM into practice and they’re seeing results.

According to SiriusDecisions’ 2016 State of Account Based Marketing (ABM) Study, 27% of survey respondents said they were devoting between 11% and 30% of their total marketing budget to ABM. And for good reason — ABM works.

Almost 85% of B2B marketers who measure ROI describe account-based marketing as delivering higher returns than any other marketing approach, with half of those marketers citing significantly higher returns. In addition, sales and marketing teams that do account-based marketing align better than other organizations. According to Bizible, “marketers doing ABM are about 40% more likely to report alignment with their sales team compared to marketers not doing ABM.”

As companies begin to put ABM strategies into practice, they should remember that it’s a strategy, not a technology. To work effectively, ABM needs the right technology backing it. These solutions often include marketing automation systems designed to orchestrate and deliver messaging, as well as analytical capabilities to evaluate results. As B2B marketers realize this, an increasing number of marketers are investing in tech solutions to do ABM at scale.

As an ABM strategy grows, B2B marketers will find it is essential to have a marketing automation platform that’s able to manage, engage, and report on audiences while reducing the amount of time needed to support campaign management. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at how ABM works within the B2B marketing world and how finding the right marketing automation can super-charge that strategy.

Why ABM Works for B2B Marketers  

As this blog has covered before, ABM is a strategy for brand, demand, and expand. It works for B2B companies because it behaves differently than B2C marketing. When selling in the B2C marketplace, marketers are usually focused on one person — the consumer. In the world of B2B, however, corporate decisions are signed off on by a consensus of stakeholders. According to a recent Harvard Business Journal story, the technology and insights company CEB found that the usual number is close to 5.4 decision makers within an account.

The good news for customer retention is that marketers now have a team of decision makers championing their product or service. If any of those in the account leave, not only will there still be a foothold in the original account, but also a potential champion at the new organization. ABM creates a stronger customer relationship across the board. That all sounds great, but, as with any worthwhile strategy, there are obstacles.

The Issue

The success of an ABM strategy hinges on first aggregating contacts within accounts, then creating personalized content for each member of the team. That content then must be delivered to the right team member at the right time within the customer journey. However, all content must maintain a level of consistency across all channels. An ABM approach must do all of that without creating tons of additional work for the marketing team. To be effective, it requires time and resources.

Most marketing teams don’t have the time and resources this level of strategy requires. This is where a marketing automation solution that supports ABM will save the day.

How Marketing Automation Can Super-Charge ABM

1. Clear Account Views, Including Activity

ABM strategies already have a ton of moving parts. It can be difficult to keep track of all the activity — the who-is-who and where they are in the funnel. With the right ABM-supporting marketing automation platform, marketers can have access to the account profiles of the decision makers, as well as the influencers within the account. This will allow marketing teams to see account-level profile data such as industry, revenue, and headquarter location. With these account contacts, marketers can also view buying behavior and engagement within a single view, saving marketing teams money and time. 

2. Ease of Audience Segmentation and Measurement

Marketing revolves around getting the right message to the right person at the right time. AMB presents a challenge here because different contacts or accounts may require different content. With the right platform, marketers can quickly segment their audiences based on customer profile or industry. For example, marketing teams can swiftly target healthcare accounts to capitalize on that segment if relevant new trends emerge.

Marketing automation makes it possible to not only segment and send but also measure these multi-channel AMB strategies without creating extra work for marketing team members. In the world of marketing, if something cannot be measured, it’s likely not worth the effort. Marketing automation platforms allow marketing teams to measure engagement and other critical success factors through methods such as account scoring. This provides marketers with keen insight into account health. 

3. Ability to Create Personalization within an ABM Strategy

No matter how many people are involved in an account, marketers should attempt to market to each of them individually. After all, they have their own needs and stressors and should be delivered content accordingly. Marketing automation platforms allow marketers to send personalized emails to everyone in one account with ease. Beyond that, marketers can tailor the content to a specific industry, ensuring relevance to the account and taking personalization beyond just the correct name at the top.

Account-based marketing is a clear, winning strategy in B2B marketing. But, when it comes time to truly make the marketing strategy come to life, using marketing automation designed to support ABM can be the key. Find out how your organization can adopt a winning marketing automation solution today.

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Empower Business Users to Integrate on Their Own—Without IT!

August 18, 2017   TIBCO Spotfire
rsz bigstock 183638470 Empower Business Users to Integrate on Their Own—Without IT!

Digital transformation cannot happen in a company if it’s only an IT-driven venture. Line of business users need to be involved to drive today’s business transformations forward. Digital transformation also requires modernizing legacy systems. Connecting everything and sharing data is a crucial step towards modernization. But how can you accomplish these two very difficult, but crucial steps quickly, easily, and without too much cost?

Fortunately, there is a solution that can connect everything in your organization, without the need for IT and harrowing, difficult integrations. These systems, also known as an iPaaS (integration platforms as a service), offer a one-stop shop to create, deploy, and test all of your integrations. They can connect cloud to ground, cloud to cloud and everything in between, at a reasonable subscription cost. With an iPaaS, users can easily and quickly collect and share data between all of their systems so you can get a complete view of customers and your business. And, it works just like all of your other SaaS apps. You just log-in and start integrating.

TIBCO’s iPaaS, TIBCO Cloud Integration, is unique. It is the only integration platform designed for users of all technical levels, designed to support reuse through API-lead functionality, and built on open source. It’s a revolutionary solution on the market today. TIBCO Cloud Integration:

  • Automates everyday workflows
  • Gives you quick time to results
  • Offers a low barrier to entry (both with cost and ease of use)
  • Connects all of your SaaS apps without IT

Come see TIBCO Cloud Integration in action in a series of upcoming live demos.

The live demos are running through November. Bring your questions and use cases as these are meant to be highly interactive sessions. We also recommend you start your TIBCO Cloud Integration trial so you can follow along in real time.

See you at the demos!

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Animate a spring?

August 18, 2017   BI News and Info

Starting from what is read here, write the following code:

spring[a_, x1_, x2_] := Module[{m, n},
   xvalues = Table[m, {m, x1, x2, (x2 - x1)/1000}];
   yvalues = Table[a Sin[n Pi/2], {n, 0, 100, .1}];
   zvalues = Table[a Cos[n Pi/2], {n, 0, 100, .1}];
   Line[Transpose @ {xvalues, yvalues, zvalues}]];

x[t_] := Cos[t]

xmin = NMinValue[{x[t], 0 <= t <= tmax}, t];
xmax = NMaxValue[{x[t], 0 <= t <= tmax}, t];

Animate[Graphics3D[{
             spring[.2, xmin - .1, x[t]],
             {LightGray, Sphere[{x[t], 0, 0}, .3]}},
             Boxed -> False,
             Lighting -> "Neutral",
             PlotRange -> {{xmin - .1, xmax + .1}, {-1, 1}, {-1, 1}},
             ViewPoint -> Above],
        {t, 0, tmax, .1}]

you get the animation of what’s shown in the figure:

sImVd Animate a spring?

I do not regret the result, but it is still far from the beautiful representations here reproduced.

Since I’m not able to use that complicated code for my purpose, I thought I would swell the line of my spring but I would not know how to do the code I posted.

I also had the idea of using Tube instead of Line, but in that case I pound my pc.

Can you give me a hand? Thank you!

1 Answer

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The Future of AI: Smart Machines Will Save Us, Not Destroy Us

August 18, 2017   FICO
AI 25 Years FICO Machine Learning The Future of AI: Smart Machines Will Save Us, Not Destroy Us

To commemorate the silver jubilee of FICO’s use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we asked FICO employees a question: What does the future of AI look like? The post below is one of the thought-provoking responses, from Shafi Rahman, a principal scientist at FICO, working in San Diego.

The most memorable scene in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey is when HAL 3000 turns off the life-support functions of the crew in an attempt to keep itself from getting disconnected. This was my first encounter with what we call artificial intelligence. Then in Terminator, we were introduced to Skynet, a neural network based AI, which raised an army of robots for self-preservation.

Hollywood has always portrayed the future of AI in a dystopian, cataclysmic manner. In reality, I believe things will be different — benign and beneficial to the human-kind.

In the last 10 years, we have seen huge revival in the research and development of AI. This has been fueled primarily by our ability to train deep neural networks using larger and larger training datasets, riding on faster and better CPUs and GPUs, Big Data and innovations in algorithms.

AI is poised to evolve faster than ever in the next decade. And yet, we are not going to witness the kind of man-versus-machine showdown that we have seen in Hollywood movies. On the contrary, AI will lead to major improvements in all dimensions of our lives within the next 10 years.

AI Will Save Lives

Take the ongoing research in the application of AI in medical sciences. The early results coming out of labs are nothing but positive. Samsung, for example, announced last year that its ultrasound devices can now identify breast cancer and even advise whether it’s benign or malignant, using AI that analyses ultrasound images. Similarly, using AI based on speech recognition and analysis, scientists have devised early detection capability for onset of Parkinson’s disease, with the claimed detection rate of 99%. Merck gave huge cash prizes for discovering new drugs using AI.

In fact, there is an entire research journal, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, dedicated to the research in the application of AI in medicine, human biology and health care. This rapid progress leads me to believe that within the next 10 years, there will be faster and earlier diagnosis of all diseases at a much lower cost, and the drugs and treatments will be much more effective. Doctors could routinely use AI systems for second opinions, and medical mistakes would be things of the past. These would lead to saving of millions of lives across the globe each year, and improve quality of medical outcomes dramatically.

AI Will Make Workers’ Lives Better and the Earth Greener

In the past, automation has saved people from drudgery and elevated the quality of life by making work environment safer, while letting us do more intellectually satisfying and physically less demanding jobs. In the current wave of automation, led by the resurgence in AI, I don’t expect the outcome to be any differently, though like earlier, there will be disruptions.

The American Trucking Associations predicts that a total of nearly 900,000 new drivers will be needed over the next eight years and there are 50,000 jobs currently vacant due to lack of drivers. This is the kind of scenario where AI would step in and fill the gap. As Harvard Technology Review reports, any self-driving truck will require a driver to remain on board to take over the control in cases which AI can’t handle. The job itself will become less stressful, leading to fewer mistakes and road accidents. The trucks will run continuously on the road, reducing the time and cost and making things cheaper. The fuel efficiency will go up by as much as 30% when AI takes control, leading to a greener planet.

If the use of AI in trucking industry is any indication, in the next ten years, jobs will often require interplay with AI based systems. It will reduce effort and increase efficiency of the workers. The side effects would almost always include better quality of life, better and cheaper products, happier employees and customers and a green earth. Societies would evolve to help those affected by the job displacements, while continuous and on-the-job learning would become de facto standard.

AI Will Reduce Cyber-Crime and Money Laundering

At FICO we have been leveraging artificial intelligence to help our clients make their decisions smarter. It has been 25 years since we got our first patent in application of AI for fraud detection in the payment card space. This led to a rapid decline in card fraud across all of the USA within a very short time.

Since then we have extended the AI offerings to include self-learning models, and its application in diverse spaces like cybersecurity. We expect that in the next 10 years, the AI capabilities of FICO can dramatically reduce the threat of cyberattacks on computer networks and connected IoT devices by identifying even the most subtle forms of intrusions and isolating vulnerabilities. In the next 10 years, our AI capabilities could make money laundering and terrorism financing virtually impossible. One can even imagine the same technology being extended to make it impossible for criminals and terrorists to hide their activity and avoid scrutiny. In conjunction with AI-based facial recognition system, it would be impossible for them to avoid detection.

AI for Good, Not Evil

Predicting the future is a hard business even for those of us who make living out of using AI to predict future outcomes. Progress of technology is not always linear. It does lead to disruption. Unintended things happen. But then we learn to deal with the negative fall-outs, do a course correction and steer the technology towards the greater good.

The path of the future of AI shouldn’t be any different. And there is already a good line of sight into what the future of AI would be like in the next 10 years. So while things may get difficult at times, I expect that we won’t be encountering Skynet or HAL anytime soon. On the contrary, we will have healthier population, happier employees and customers, more profitable businesses, less crime and a safer planet.

See other FICO posts on artificial intelligence.

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Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store

August 18, 2017   Self-Service BI

We are pleased to announce the Public preview of the Visio custom visual for Power BI.

The Visio custom visual will allow you to visualize data using Microsoft Visio diagrams from within Power BI dashboards and reports. Any Power BI user can add Visio custom visual from the store (get it from the store) to start using this capability right away.

With Visio, you can create illustrative diagrams, such as interconnected workflows and real-world layouts, to pursue operational intelligence. Using Visio and Power BI together, you can illustrate and compare data both as diagrams and as traditional Power BI visuals in one place, driving operational and business intelligence to understand the overall picture.

Note: The Public Preview of Visio custom visual is currently supported in the Power BI service and Power BI Desktop. Support for Power BI Mobile apps will arrive soon.

With this new visual, you can connect to a Visio diagram hosted on SharePoint or OneDrive for Business. The underlying Power BI data is then automatically and intelligently linked to the diagram based on its shape properties, eliminating the need to do this manually. In just a few clicks, Visio diagrams become yet another interactive Power BI visualization that can help you make informed decisions faster.

Try it out now in an embedded report:

Let’s look at this with a fictitious example. Contoso is a large retailer working to improve its inventory management. Using Power BI, the current inventory per store can be represented in a series of visualizations, including a tree-map that shows stock by item (left-side chart in the image below).

52dba25a df26 4acc ae96 039ccf61865a Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store

The visuals are perfect for an all-up view of inventory at this store. But what if Contoso needs more nuanced details, such as sales and inventory data for specific clothing racks? What if it needs to understand where each rack is located in the store and how they are positioned relative to one another? Using a Visio diagram of the store’s layout, Contoso can overlay the data in Power BI on Visio’s diagram of the clothing racks. The resulting Power BI dashboard provides an accurate, up-to-date representation of the overall store inventory, while also maintaining the ability to drill into specific items.

eac27730 e76f 4694 a957 3fc07f107c5d Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store

The treemap was replaced with individual item racks that have been color-coded and labeled based on the inventory levels from Power BI data. For example, when “Tea Dresses” is clicked in the Visio diagram, you quickly see that sales are very strong, which helps explain why inventory is low. Similarly, when “Suit Coats” is clicked in the Power BI bar chart, you see the item is well below its sales target and inventory is still high. You can also see that the suit coat rack is located in a back corner of the store, making it less accessible to customers. Based on this information, the Contoso team might decide to use more rack space for tea dresses and less for suit coats, or reposition the racks for greater accessibility.

There are endless types of Visio diagrams that can offer more detailed insights with Power BI, including:

  • Flow charts for identifying interdependencies
  • Fishbone diagrams for root-cause analysis
  • Organizational charts for assessing the impact of hierarchies on process decisions and people management

f19326a6 23e6 4560 b04c 42c0a1f9fd89 Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store

Visio flowchart illustrating a sample home loan approval process for a bank. Using the Power BI charts, the bank sees that actual ticket response times for performing property risk assessments are higher than expected. In the Visio diagram, that process step is highlighted in red indicating that, because it’s so early in the process, it could affect other steps in the future if the ticket processing issue isn’t resolved soon.

b73ae579 3fa3 4d1d b8f5 8855a2f0675a Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store

Fishbone chart showing that poor working conditions — specifically excessive noise and temperature, which are highlighted in red in the Visio diagram — are the root cause of diminished product quality. The diagram relies on the employee ratings of operational categories depicted in the Power BI charts on the right.

9be15e92 d60d 4146 a7bc 5c82fdc92f80 Visio custom visual is now in Public Preview and available in the store

Dashboard showing how certain people and departments, illustrated by the Visio hierarchy diagram in the upper left, affect different organizational processes. In this case, the marketing and sales department is over budget on tele sales and tele call efforts, all of which are highlighted in red.

Known limitations of the Public Preview:

  • To access the Visio diagram from the Visio custom visual, you will need to sign into the host SharePoint with your organizational ID. The visual will prompt you with a sign-in window.
  • To include a Visio visual in a Publish to Web report, you must use an authenticated Visio diagram. Refer to the documentation for details.

  • The Visio visual public preview is not yet supported for Power BI Mobile apps, Power BI Embedded, exporting to PowerPoint, or email subscriptions.

Visio and Power BI are visual tools—each helps you to dissect data in new, meaningful ways. Together, they can uncover even more insights.

Get the Visio custom visual for Power BI from the Office store, or search for it in the integrated store in your Power BI Desktop or Power BI service.

To know more about Visio Power BI custom visual, please refer step-by-step help articles

Please visit our UserVoice site to submit your suggestions for improving Visio-Power BI connectivity. For questions about this and other features, email us at tellvisio@microsoft.com

Lastly, you can follow us on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for the latest Visio news.

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Captains Deserting a Sinking Ship?

August 18, 2017   Humor

Donald Trump has managed to do something that no other Republican president in recent history has done. He has alienated the captains of industry.

The presidential Strategic and Policy Forum decided to disband themselves. This group included CEOs from GM, JP Morgan Chase, Wal-Mart, Blackstone, PepsiCo, IBM, Ernst & Young, and GE (among others). The decision was made quickly after Trump’s response to violence from white nationalists. “Given the comments of the last several days, no one could continue to be seen as supporting this kind of divisiveness.”

Trump tried to claim that he dissolved the Forum, but that was a lie as the group itself had already voted to disband.

Trump did manage to kill the Manufacturing Advisory Council, but only after seven of its members had already left in disgust.

Once business deserts the GOP, is there anyone else left other than racists and bigots?

Captains Deserting a Sinking Ship?
© Lalo Alcaraz

UPDATE: And a third advisory council has bitten the dust, the Presidential Advisory Council on Intrastructure. It actually died before it even got started.


Also published on Medium.

Captains Deserting a Sinking Ship?

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How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

August 18, 2017   Microsoft Dynamics CRM
PowerHashTag Blog 300x225 How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

CRM is all about keeping your data clean, whether it’s a contact record with an accurate phone number and mailing address, or an opportunity that has the right products linked to the right customer. Keeping those key details straight is one of the major benefits of using CRM. But what about the details that may not be applicable to all your contacts, is there a way to store that information in an organized, searchable fashion? Yes, and it’s called PowerHashTag!

Suppose you work for an event hall that schedules all sorts of different events from comedians, to plays, to lectures, to concerts. You could create a field labeled “Interest” but how would you be able to drill down and determine what type of comedian, or what type of lecture a contact is interested in? That field would become complex and disorganized in a hurry.

Instead, by using PowerHashTag you could create specific hashtags such as #JoeCRMComedy, #Broadway, #ScienceLectures, #JazzConcerts.

081717 1925 HowPowerHas1 How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

You can even customize the color of the hashtag by clicking on the hashtag and changing the default color using HTML Color Codes.

081717 1925 HowPowerHas2 How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

The real magic of PowerHashTag is what happens next. Once you schedule Joe CRM Comedy to your event hall, you can search your CRM database and identify which contacts have an interest in seeing Joe CRM Comedy – let’s be honest though, it’s all your contacts – then you can reach out to each of them individually, add them to a marketing list, or drop them into a PowerNurture Campaign.

081717 1925 HowPowerHas3 How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

The next step is to use an Advanced Find search to add those contacts to a marketing list. Open up advanced find, look for contacts that have a connection equal to the PowerHashTag you are searching against.

081717 1925 HowPowerHas4 How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

Click on the results icon and voila – now you can add these contacts to a Marketing List, a Quick Campaign, or assign them to a designated salesperson.

081717 1925 HowPowerHas5 How PowerHashTag Can Keep You Organized While Providing Details on Contacts and Leads

There are many different applications for PowerHashTag, especially in applying multiple categories to a customer record. To see how it can best suit your needs, reach out to us or give it a try yourself!

Happy Dynamics 365’ing and #HappyHashTagging!

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Kabam vet leads Deca Games’ charge into live operations for old games

August 18, 2017   Big Data

Germany’s Deca Games is coming out of stealth to offer live operations (such as tournaments) that can breathe life into older mobile and PC games.

The Berlin-based company will work with game studios and developers who don’t want to continue the task of running an existing game as a service. It will do so by taking over the entire operation of a game through acquisition or licensing. In doing so, Deca Games will compete with rivals such as RockYou and Tag Games. Deca’s very existence suggests there might be a lot of aging games out there with dedicated fans wondering if their beloved title will be shut down.

Deca Games’s founder is Ken Go, who previously served as general manager for Kabam’s European headquarters. He developed Kabam’s Live Ops departments and served as executive producer on Kabam’s Kingdoms of Camelot (which is operated today by Deca’s rival RockYou).

The team consists of 30 people, including free-to-play veterans from Aeria Games, Bigpoint, and Kabam. Deca Games wants to provide a way for developers to profit from the long tail of games and preserve dedicated fan bases for the long-term.

Kabam vet leads Deca Games’ charge into live operations for old games

Above: Ken Go is founder of Deca Games.

Image Credit: Deca Games

“With game companies needing to focus on their next big hit to continue to grow and survive, smaller older games with a very engaged audience are being put on the back burner,” said Go in a statement. “I created Deca Games to give developers an alternative route to shutting down a game, and for the super fans of these games on the verge of dying. We care deeply about the community, and that comes across in everything we do. Our ultimate goal is to give these games a rebirth and revitalize the fan base.”

Deca Games wants to handle all community management, product management, feature development, art, customer support, live events, and promotion planning to ensure a good experience. Go started the company a year ago, and it has been working with developers including Kabam and Gree. It now operates five games on browsers, Steam, and mobile platforms — including the six-year-old Realm of the Mad God. That game has doubled its users under Deca.

“Ken and his team bring incredible passion, creativity, and experience to each Live Ops project,” said Andrew Sheppard, the outgoing CEO of Gree International Entertainment. “Gree values their unique approach to community, which focuses on long-term engagement and value creation. In this regard, Deca Games is hands-down the best choice.”

Deca has not raised outside money, and it is profitable, the company said.

Kabam vet leads Deca Games’ charge into live operations for old gamesThe PC Gaming channel is presented by Intel®‘s Game Dev program.

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Overcome 3 Challenges Faced by Professional Services Firms with a Specific CRM Solution

August 18, 2017   CRM News and Info
CRM Blog Overcome 3 Challenges Faced by Professional Services Firms with a Specific CRM Solution

The flexibility of a CRM solution such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to turn it into the heart of your organization’s operations. You can then use it as the entryway from which all your activities can be completed. It can also integrate a solution specifically designed for your industry, allowing you to complete all your tasks from a single interface that’s intuitive, familiar and user-friendly. With a solution that incorporates their specific business rules and needs, professional services firms can overcome several of the challenges they encounter daily.

1. Have only one version of the truth across your organization

One of the challenges that many professional services firms must face is the utilization of non-integrated applications and Excel spreadsheets. Result: resources don’t always have access to the latest information or the most recent version of a document, which can lead to discrepancies regarding facts or activity status. By centralizing all your information with a specific solution integrated to your CRM system, not only do you ensure access for resources across your entire organization, you also offer them complete visibility on all aspects of your business.

As such, your mandates, invoices and WIPs, as well as customer activities and all communications exchanged with them, can be accessed from a single source updated in real time. The associates have increased visibility on their mandates and their clients, as well as on their complete history and profitability. By having all this data on hand, they can also better serve their clients, exceed their expectations and ensure their satisfaction.

2. Shorten your invoicing cycle

Maintain the balance between finances and operations by leveraging the flexibility of your CRM system and the control of your ERP solution. With a complete, bidirectional integration, information is transferred from one system to the other in real time. This not only avoids constant back-and-forth communications between your associates and the accounting team, but it also eliminates manual data entry and reduces the risk of errors and double entries.

Various invoice templates can be used and combined from the CRM, then transferred to the accounting system. This allows you to create invoices that meet all your clients’ criteria and that fit the requirements of the different services offered by your organization, while also adapting them to your organization’s branding. Lastly, having access to your financial data in real time means that you can invoice faster. This way, you improve your cash flow while also reducing the risk of write-offs and bad debts.

3. Optimize the utilization and productivity rates of your resources

By using workflows to automate certain process, you can facilitate your associates’ tasks and activities. For example, they can be notified to approve the budget when a new mandate is created. Among the specific functionalities of our solution, a resource planning tool also makes it possible to view easily the resources that are currently assigned and those that are available to work on new mandates. This tool thus makes it possible to optimize resource utilization and better plan hiring. Lastly, the solution allows you to budget the potential for billable hours per resource per month and to track them throughout the year.

One last challenge that many professional services firms must face is the difficulty of staying on top of technological trends to meet the constantly evolving needs of their clients. Scalable and flexible, the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform makes it possible to catch up on this technological lag, while a specific solution such as JOVACO’s accounting solution improves efficiency and performance across your entire organization.

By JOVACO Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics 365 specialist in Quebec

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