Sugar's Sweet Lotus Position 

Open Source CRM Company SugarCRM Announces First Integration of LotusLive in First of Planned IBM Offerings

Following on from joining the IBM Global Alliance Portfolio as a cloud solutions provider, SugarCRM, a leading provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software, has announced a new integration with the IBM LotusLive collaboration suite, its first in a series of planned offerings.

LotusLive provides organizations with integrated email, Web conferencing, and social networking and collaboration services through the IBM cloud to help clients innovate faster, improve daily business interactions and increase business efficiencies. The combined offering will help sales teams collaborate more effectively with their prospects and customers during lead generation, lead-to-cash and issue resolution processes. For example, a sales agent can now instantly launch a LotusLive online meeting with key prospects right from the Sugar application, and quickly and easily share important files and information with a few simple clicks.

This capability provides a more streamlined experience for the prospect, creates greater visibility into account activity, and increases CRM user productivity, which can shorten sales cycles and increase revenue for sales organizations.

Sugar, who currently serve over 600,000 end users in 80 languages, says the LotusLive integration will provide sales, marketing and customer support professionals with a fully integrated user experience. Since LotusLive and Sugar are cloud-based solutions, no software installation is required.

The integration between SugarCRM and LotusLive enables Sugar users to:

• Manage meetings at the account, contact, opportunity and support case level
• Access LotusLive directly from the Sugar Shortcut Bar
• Launch web and audio meetings directly from the Sugar user interface
• Attach notes and documents to a Sugar record, and share them with customers via LotusLive

Clint Oram (pictured), co-founder and chief technology officer at SugarCRM, said: "The integration between LotusLive and SugarCRM is a no-brainer," said . "The simple fact is that everyone working with customers today can benefit from simple, intuitive web-based tools to better connect and share information. Sugar and LotusLive together does just that."

SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin, who mentored the IBM Smartcamp in Dublin recently, said: "The integration of LotusLive capabilities with SugarCRM provides a powerful set of tools for all of our users," said . "Now, sales and support professionals can connect directly with prospects and customers in an instant, helping to provide higher service levels and shorter sales cycles."

Adoption of cloud computing is on the rise. Recent IDC research shows that worldwide spending on cloud services will grow almost threefold, reaching $44.2 billion by 2013.

The LotusLive integration is targeted to be generally available to all SugarCRM users later this spring. 

Click for more information on this product or visit SugarCRM Irish Country Partner ProvidentCRM.com

The 3rd Irish Software Show 2011 - Date Announced Click Here

People reading this article also read....

More SugarCRM News on IrishDev.com

More CRM News on IrishDev.com

More IBM News on IrishDev.com

More Open Source News, Events and Jobs on IrishDev.com

Get Instant Irish Tech News Updates....