AVANTE SOLUTIONS AND ICENTERA FORM STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TO PROVIDE MARKETING AND SALES EFFECTIVENESS TO MID-LARGE SIZE ENTERPRISES
The icSuite Enables Avante Sales Teams To Dynamically Deliver Critical Information to Customers and Prospects Through Easy-to-Create Portals
MINNEAPOLIS, MN. September 7, 2004—iCentera, the leading provider of intelligence centers for Marketing and Sales Effectiveness (MSE), today announced a strategic partnership with Avante Solutions, the leading CRM and Service Desk solution provider for mid to large size enterprises. Through this partnership Avante will become a technology integration partner and reseller of iCentera's icSuite, a hosted marketing and sales intelligence center. For over 5 years Avante Solutions has been the leading technology solutions provider with more than 3,000 deployments of CRM, Help Desk and Asset Management Solutions including SalesLogix, Goldmine, HEAT, Microsoft CRM and Altiris. The iCentera icSuite picks up where other CRM solutions leave off by allowing teams to easily locate and share any type of current and relevant information, including marketing collateral, data sheets, and sales techniques. Through Dynamic Intelligence Delivery (DID) the icSuite also allows teams to promote relevant information externally to partners, customers, and prospects through easy to create portals. In addition to reselling the iCentera icSuite, Avante is leveraging the icSuite internally to enable its own sales teams and service staff to sell and support customers more effectively.
"Companies turned to CRM solutions for sales administration; increasing the productivity of their teams. And we deliver the best-of-breed solutions that help them achieve that goal. But now we are seeing companies that are frustrated with the lack of communication and knowledge sharing among employees and sales teams. Most of the CRM products in the mid-market were not designed to manage and deliver the actionable information that is necessary during the sales process to enable teams to sell better and sell more," said Charles Cyna, Co-founder, Avante Solutions, Inc. "The icSuite takes CRM to a point most technology solutions cannot effectively address." With the icSuite sales reps and partners can profile a customer and find information relevant to the sales process and customer needs."
Heeding the call from their customers, Avante set out to build or buy a collaborative solution that captured and provided easy access to the information and best practices that enabled sales teams and service staff to sell more. After a rigorous evaluation process, Avante not only partnered with iCentera but also began leveraging the icSuite internally for its own sales teams and support staff. "Allowing reps to quickly locate information, create and deliver customer, prospect and partner portals, and share critical documents without using email is key to our success," said Cory Fisk, CRM Sales Solutions Manager for Avante Solutions. "Email has become unreliable. With the volume of email today, you don't know whether it has been received and corporate email filters make it even harder to deliver attachments to your customers," Fisk said. "The icSuite gives us the ability to store and send content and lets us know when and how it has been accessed. Now I can upload data sheets, technical documents and brochures to the icIntelligence Center and in minutes promote information to multiple portals, at the same time, and without relying on email. Now my sales teams and support staff know exactly what is relevant and where to find it."
"Companies are looking for best of breed solutions to enable their marketing and sales organizations to sell more," said Craig Dembeck SVP Sales and Business Development for iCentera. "The icSuite provides a complete solution that teams can dynamically market and sell through. We are excited to partner with a CRM industry leader in the quest to enable companies to sell more."
About Avante Solutions, Inc.
Avante Solutions is a leading consulting based organization that specializes in implementing CRM, Service Desk and Asset Management technologies to North America's fastest growing organizations. With offices in Mississauga, Chicago, Calgary and San Francisco, Avante provides the combination of leading proven technologies, implementation expertise and ongoing support to enable successful long-term partnerships with their customers.
A selection of Avante customers include; Aventis Pasteur, Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre, CIBC Mortgages, City of New York, Del Monte, Deloitte Consulting, Panasonic, State of Washington, Western Michigan University, Northeastern Illinois University and Xerox Corporation For more information on Avante, call (866) 282-6831 or visit http://www.avantesolutions.com.
About iCentera
Within 24 hours, iCentera delivers a hosted Marketing & Sales Intelligence Center that companies can market, sell, and communicate through. iCentera's icSuite provides absolute content management, private website creation, and real-time analytics so that companies can immediately begin to sell better and sell more. Founded in 2003, iCentera "Portals for Mortals" enable companies to deliver their information, their way, to whomever they chose. icSuite customers include: AlterPoint, American Locker, IPIX, netForensics, and NexTone. Partners include: The American Marketing Association (AMA), salesforce.com, and Avante Solutions. For more information please call us at 866-556-1288 or visit us at http://www.icentera.com.