Database Reference
In-Depth Information
4.4.4 Stress Test
This is similar to the stress test administered for traditional systems. This involves estimating the
load anticipated in the production environment and simulating the same in the test environment
to ascertain whether the suggested configuration can handle the expected load. This test can
involve predictable volumes of data in the database, transaction throughputs on the LAN/WAN,
or interactive sessions on the terminals serviced by the central servers. Industry-level benchmarks
for the relevant areas should be used for reporting on the observed performances. This could be
a full-scale test conducted on the company site or at the technology demonstration centers of the
concerned vendor.
4.5 CRM Vendors and Products
CRM is a customer-focused business strategy designed to optimize profitability, revenue, and
customer satisfaction. To improve business processes associated with selling, servicing, and mar-
keting, enterprises across a number of industries are launching CRM initiatives. To realize CRM,
enterprises must implement collaborative processes and technologies that support customer inter-
actions throughout all channels. The problem is that many of those software vendors provide only
single-function-focused or single-channel-focused offerings and are often not strong in each of the
three domains relevant to CRM.
Most CRM packages are targeted at three types of companies:
1. Enterprise or those with more than 500 employees
2. Midmarket, with between 100 and 500 employees
3. Small businesses with less than 100 employees
By about 1994, CRM had clearly been identified as the emerging market with a great potential.
Siebel and Pivotal emphasized sales management aspects; Vantive, Clarify, Onyx, and Remedy
developed customer service applications. Newer entrants such as BroadVision and Silknet concen-
trated on e-commerce. Since then, all of the leading vendors have undergone significant consolida-
tion by moving toward a model of all-encompassing system that covers all functional areas and all
customer interaction channels and touch points.
The major players like SAP, Oracle (Siebel), and Salesforce have been targeting the enterprise
and are moving slowly into the midmarket area by reason of its great growth potential.
Other vendors such as Aptean (Onyx, Pivotal) and Microsoft who are typically associated
with the midmarket, are trying to capture some of the enterprise market. Finally, vendors such as
FrontRange (GoldMine) and Sage (SalesLogix) are targeting the small enterprises by providing
one-stop shop for a spectrum of functionalities.
4.5.1 Application Suites or Best in Class
4.5.1.1 Suite of Applications
An integrated application suite is a set of applications that employ a common architecture, ref-
erencing a common logical database with a single schema. Some suites are more of an interfaced
application bundle, that is, a set of interfaced applications from a single vendor containing more
than one technical architecture or more than one logical database—frequently assembled by the
