British Telecom has entered into the high-end customer relationship
management (CRM) fray and plans to generate £2.5bn in revenue from
the technology over the next three years.
BT has formed a number of alliances with partners, including
systems integrator Accenture, communications provider Avaya and CRM
giant Siebel Systems.
The company is selling Siebel's call centre application as part of
a pre-packaged end-to-end call centre solution, called Contact
Central.
Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, said the product was
central to BT's growth plans. "We will stay within our vision of
connecting your world completely," he said, adding that the company
intends to sell communications solutions that are outside of its
traditional business.
BT claims it will be able to offer CRM to both small and
medium-sized companies that have traditionally been unable to
afford the technology.
The company also claims it can deliver a cheaper, easy-to-use
offering that will deliver a faster return on investment than
traditional CRM implementations do for large scale enterprises.
The CRM package "has pre-integrated options that let you get the
system up and running in a matter of days, rather than months - and
it's easier to manage," stated Danny McLaughlin, managing director
of BT Major Business.
Tom Siebel, chairman and chief executive officer of Siebel Systems,
was on hand to launch the new BT offering. Contract Central already
has two customers who have signed contracts worth £200,000 for 30
seats.