CRM News Feed

Computer Sciences Corporation has signed a new information technology, or IT, outsourcing contract with hotels and pubs group Whitbread valued at approximately 26 million pounds, or US$49.6 million, expanding the total contract value to approximately 120 million pounds, or $229 million, since 2000. Under this new five-and-a-half-year agreement, which supersedes the current contract signed in 2004, CSC, which has a major operation in Solihull, England, will provide India-based applications support through its world sourcing operation.

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eGain Communications has released the latest iteration of its self-service application, eGain Service 7.6. New features include guidance on complex customer interactions and tweaks to security, as well as additional process improvement. Such incremental gains in functionality — across the self-service industry in general — are likely to be the norm going forward, according to Gartner research director Esteban Kolsky. “The self-service industry has matured,” he said.

Let’s say your boss has asked you to explore buying a customer relationship management — or CRM — software package for your bank. How can you manage the process so you find an appropriate system — without taking too much time from your other duties? Your first step will be to establish the goals for the project. Why are you buying it? What are the specific problems it is expected to solve? What opportunities will it help exploit? CRM software, by its nature as a system that combines marketing, sales and service functions, can do many different things.

Systems integration and information technology services provider Computer Sciences Corp. on Monday said Airbus North America Engineering has signed a new six-year, US$20 million IT outsourcing contract. The agreement extends work CSC has performed under a similar unannounced contract that began in April 2002. Under the new deal, CSC will continue providing IT infrastructure services to Airbus North America in Wichita, Kan., and will add that support for a facility in Mobile, Ala.

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Oracle recently took a series of steps designed to make it easier for IT departments to assess the seriousness of security flaws in its databases, business applications and other products. The company’s latest quarterly batch of security fixes included new information about such vulnerabilities in an effort to help IT managers, as well as systems and database administrators, better prioritize their patching plans. One of the additions is a new severity rating method based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System.