Silvon Software Introduces Customer Analysis Application; New CRM Application Added To The...

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

WESTMONT, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 2000

Silvon Software, Inc. today announced the availability of a customer analysis solution that will be marketed and sold under the company's Stratum(TM) suite of business performance management applications.

"The Customer Relationship Analytics module of Stratum empowers companies to ensure that their most profitable customers remain satisfied and that sales and marketing efforts are aimed at retaining good customers and attracting the right prospects," said Michael J. Hennel, president and CEO of Silvon. "That starts with having a single, integrated view of customer activity from which revenue-building and customer management decisions can be made."

The Stratum Customer Relationship Analytics module includes several pre-packaged analytical views and reports addressing these areas:

- Customer Value Assessment, for examining customer and channel value from
multiple perspectives, such as lifetime sales, gross margin contribution, and
by factors that affect profitability such as discounts, freight and handling,
and average selling price. By understanding the relative value of each
customer, companies using this module can then begin to focus sales and
marketing efforts on the most profitable ones and those with the most profit
potential.

- Customer Acquisition / Targeted Selling, for additional profiling,
segmentation and ranking of customers based on propensity to buy, order
frequency, and overall purchasing behavior. With this application, businesses
can apply specialized metrics to segment customers and then build specific
promotions or sales efforts around select customer groups.

- Customer Management, for understanding the impact of order fulfillment,
returns and call center activity on actual sales performance. This module
allows users to review year-to-date sales revenue and problems reported by
customers to identify correlations and better understand how customer service
issues are impacting profits.

The Stratum Customer Relationship Analytics module does not require implementation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. For businesses that already have a contact management, sales force automation, or call center solution in place, the module can be used to leverage the value of data contained within these CRM applications through its pre-built analytical views and reports.

About Stratum

The Stratum suite of analytic applications is currently available from Silvon and features completely integratable modules for Sales Performance Management, Marketing Performance Management, Manufacturing Performance Management, Procurement Performance Management, e-Business Performance Management, Customer Relationship Analytics and Financial Performance Management. The Stratum suite includes Silvon's DataTracker technology featuring a relational data warehouse, on-line analytical processing engine, closed-loop processing functionality, a built-in planning application, and enterprise connectors for extracting, transforming and loading data from ERP, CRM and other web-based business transaction systems into the data warehouse for analysis purposes. The product line also features hundreds of pre-built, best-of-breed analytical views and reports based on supply chain-specific business models.

About Silvon Software

Silvon Software is a global supply chain-focused business intelligence solutions provider headquartered in the western Chicago suburb of Westmont, Illinois. Since 1987, Silvon has focused on software-based business intelligence/analytic application solutions for manufacturing, wholesale distribution and retail organizations. Silvon solutions are predicated on the fact that a better business understanding will empower the move toward an optimized supply chain. Silvon clients benefit from improving business practices and profitability by leveraging analytic information on customers, suppliers, and operational performance. Silvon's analytic applications run on IBM AS/400, Windows NT and Unix, and are supported by a network of OEMs, value-added resellers and independent distributors. The company's solutions are currently installed in more than 1,400 sites worldwide.