SINGAPORE (03/21/2000) - IT services company Origin BV, together with Baan Co.
NV and Microsoft Corp., have set up a regional CRM Competency Center of Excellence here to showcase and aid the implementation of CRM (customer relationship management) applications.
Touted as a one-stop CRM shop, it is the first such competency center for Origin worldwide, and is located at Origin's Singapore office.
"We want to give customers one face, one contact point, and a wealth of industry-specific knowledge," said K C Neoh, chief executive officer, Origin Asia-Pacific.
The alliance will be targeting medium to large enterprises in Asia-Pacific, who are in the specific vertical industries of hi-tech and electronics, consumer packaged goods, banking and finance, and property industries.
Built on the infrastructure that the company set up for its consultancy and data center based in the same location, the multi-million dollar center will be using Baan's FrontOffice suite of CRM applications on Windows NT.
Baan's CRM offerings were inherited from its 1997 acquisition of Aurum, a provider of front office applications. In the future, Origin plans to also showcase CRM offerings from other vendors.
With a team of 35 certified and dedicated CRM consultants, the number is targeted to increase to 85 consultants by end of year 2001.
To facilitate future CRM implementations, "we plan to build templates based on our consultants' experience, so that it would be easier to build future," said Henry Goh, director, Enterprise Solution Asia-Pacific, Origin.
Besides setting up the competency center, Origin has also organized a series of seminars focusing on CRM in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
Origin is one of Baan's biggest business partners to date, with more than 1,500 Baan consultants worldwide.