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Aplicor Aplicor's business model is built upon acquiring and retaining customers for long periods of time. Low customer churn and high customer share are primary business objectives for the company - and for each Account Executive. Generally, veteran AE's perform their hunting during the day's most opportune hours and then immediately follow-up with farming existing customers. Farming opportunities include increasing user-counts, selling professional services or just enhancing and growing the customer relationship.
The Aplicor founders had previously implemented host-based and client/server CRM and ERP systems for Fortune 1000 and mid-market organizations from approximately 1987 to 2000. Although these systems were well regarded by larger organizations, they were cost prohibitive to the SMB market. In fact, research illustrated that the SMB market has historically not made the transition from simple contact management systems to CRM applications. According to Aberdeen Group, “Less than 15 percent of the 5 million to 6 million US companies with fewer than 500 computer users have CRM software installed” and according to research firm Morgan Stanley, only 10 percent of companies with revenues under $500 million have acquired CRM software. Reasons for historically low CRM adoption by this market segment are largely price and resource (staffing) related. Acquisition barriers include the high up front capital expenditures as well as the recurring expense for additional IT staffing. Aplicor aspired to deliver a true CRM system that would offer capabilities beyond the current environment of hosting applications and SMB contact management systems. The CRM application scope would include the three CRM integrated tentacles of Sales Force Automation (SFA), Marketing Management and Customer Service. More so, the application would need to provide those software functionality and automation elements available to the Fortune 1000 market, however, missing in the current environment of hosted applications and contact management systems. Such elements include the ability to accommodate both B2C and B2B account selling and support, support for various selling and support methodologies (e.g. Miller Hieman Solution Selling, Strategic Selling or Power-Based Selling), thorough Account Management, Lead Management, Activity Management, Opportunity Management, Competitor Management, Product Management with Quote and Order generation, Time & Task Management, Workflow and Business Rules processing, data warehousing with OLAP (Online Analytical Processing), direct integration with desktop applications (such as MS Outlook, Word, Excel), remote and offline utilization with Mobile and Wireless devices, global support and the ability to perform meaningful system customization by a non-technical user. Over two years of research and development went in to producing a robust and functionality rich product not currently available among hosted CRM applications. The Aplicor CRM solution was first delivered as a complete, enterprise-level solution in July 2003 with the above referenced functionality and automation capabilities. The solution was further delivered with both utilization and technology extendibility in mind. For example, recognizing the synergies of enterprise-wide information systems as well as the efficiencies for consolidated and integrated business systems, the underlying Aplicor architecture actually began as a Portal foundation, not a CRM software component, which provides a strong basis for continued evolvement beyond standalone CRM systems. The delivery and utilization model is key to Aplicor's client value proposition. Aplicor CRM is delivered without up front capital investment, long-term contract lock-in, complex software installations or other financial barriers. Recurring costs such as computer hardware and IT or support staffing are eliminated. The Aplicor CRM subscription-based delivery removes financial risk by licensing the software on a monthly pay-as-you-go rental basis, removes time-to-benefit risk by achieving a very short implementation timeframe (normally days or weeks as opposed to weeks or months) and operational risk by outsourcing the administration and maintenance to experts. The result is a trouble-free CRM information system which permits the customer to focus on their core business activities while achieving dramatically reduced total cost of ownership (TCO).
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