Success story solvito - GBS

CRM Specialist solvito opens up new customer groups with
Platform-as-a-Service from GROUP Live
Background
Designing, developing and providing support for IT solutions that enable more efficient work – these are
the key activities at solvito GmbH. As a provider of CRM solutions solvito helps customers to create
optimized structures and seamless processes – for true added value in daily work processes. Based in
Hamburg, the company develops and markets solutions, services and projects in the fields of Lotus Notes
and CRM. The company’s main goal is to give customers decisive impulses and work out solutions that
allow turning even the most complex processes into simple routine. And usually the simplest way is also
the best – unless there is a better one. This philosophy is one of the key reasons why Lotus Notes
became market leader, and it also helped solvito to become IBM Premier Business Partner, the highest
partnership level at IBM. This certified competence guarantees customers maximum reliability and
creativity.
IBM also provides the technical infrastructure for GROUP Live, the “Platform as a Service” (PaaS)
solution offered by GROUP Business Software AG and essentially targeted at independent software
vendors (ISVs). On a monthly rental basis, ISVs are provided with access to a complete infrastructure that
allows them to offer their solutions as software-as-a-service to their own customers. With their attention
drawn to the PaaS platform early, solvito GmbH was the first ISV to be convinced of its benefits.
Solution
Essentially, what solvito GmbH wanted to achieve with the GROUP Live PaaS system is to shorten the
delivery time for their own CRM standard solution “Ufficio” and reduce its go-to-market time. Ufficio turned
out to be ideally suited for PaaS as a highly scalable rental solution which can be tailored to the exact
requirements of the customer. In addition, the CRM experts wanted to minimize the manual work to be
performed by their customers to integrate the solvito solution, and in particular avoid setting up additional
servers at the customer site. Additionally, the company also defined more flexible licensing procedures for
its offers. All in all, solvito was looking for a powerful platform with a view to opening up new customer
groups.
Cost-effectiveness combined with ease of use, these turned out to be the factors that convinced solvito to
opt for the PaaS solution from GROUP Live. According to Jörg Baumann, Managing Director at solvito
GmbH, “What made the difference for us was the high flexibility of the platform combined with a quick and
convenient access to new customer segments.” The only conceivable alternative for solvito would have
been to host Ufficio themselves – but compared to the GROUP Live platform this would have entailed
significantly higher costs, software adjustments and building additional know-how.
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With the current solution, solvito is able to continue focusing on their core business – developing and
marketing their CRM solution Ufficio – as neither the operation nor the management of the IT
infrastructure requires any resources. Furthermore, Platform-as-a-Service helps solvito pave the way for
new, more flexible marketing options and also brings further added value. Among the many benefits of
the GROUP Live solution, the CRM experts particularly appreciated the quick rollout as well as the
possibility to offer demo versions of Ufficio to interested customers in a very short time.
Implementation
With GROUP Live and the IBM infrastructure solvito draws on state-of-the-art technologies that facilitate
access to the SaaS market. The goal was to turn the Lotus Notes-based CRM application Ufficio into a
cloud-capable solution in a short time. The result was a standardized scenario and a fully automated
setup process of the hosted CRM solution, which greatly simplified market entry. Also, custom
adjustments of the software itself are no longer required. A minimum of integration effort and quick
implementation along with flexibility are the key factors for using the GROUP Live PaaS solution.
Experience with the GROUP Live platform
With the GROUP Live platform complicated installations, cost-intensive hardware and time-consuming
management for hosting solutions has become something of the past. The CRM provider solvito was able
to bring its project of making its Ufficio software SaaS-capable to a successful conclusion in a very short
time. In close cooperation with GROUP, the implementation of the CRM solution on the GROUP Live
platform was started at the end October 2009 – the system has been running productively since as early
as December 2009.
The biggest challenge turned out to be the requested automation processes in the delivery of the Ufficio
application. Entirely reproduced by the GROUP Live PaaS platform, they were finally implemented as
desired. The solvito CRM system now features a non-touch installation of the entire application
environment, thus effectively eliminating the need for interaction by administrators or users during the
rollout process.
Conclusions and Perspectives
Based on the technology of the highly flexible GROUP Live platform, solvito is now in a position to provide
customers and their employees with the Ufficio CRM solution on a Software-as-a-Service basis, with the
development, delivery, operation, management and monitoring integrated within a common infrastructure.
With all goals regarding rollout times and market entry achieved, the overall assessment of this first-
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customer project with GROUP Live by solvito is marked by a smooth and trouble-free implementation.
“Most importantly, we were able to establish new market access opportunities and significantly simplify
access to new customer segments. We are now able to offer our CRM solution on a SaaS basis and thus
attract customers who demand resource-saving operation with a minimum of installation efforts,” Jörg
Baumann from solvito explains and then goes on to stress the platform’s high easy-to-learn factor and its
easy central management functionality through the web-based interface. Also, with their high level
availability and excellent service, the GROUP Live consultants significantly contributed the success of the
project and great satisfaction of solvito.
For solvito, the technical improvements have already begun to yield tangible results: Five end customers
are expected to start using the CRM solution on the GROUP Live platform in the first quarter 2010.
Looking ahead, the CRM provider now plans to further expand its cloud-capable CRM system to
accommodate sector-specific CRM requirements and include BlackBerry support.
About GROUP Live
The GROUP Division for Cloud Computing and PaaS
GROUP Live specializes in the development of powerful Platform-as-a-Service technologies (PaaS).
Using this highly flexible platform, both software vendors and companies are in a position to make their
solutions cloud-capable without time-consuming and costly adjustments and provide them to customers
and employees as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This makes it possible, for the first time, to develop,
deploy, operate, manage and monitor complex application environments "in the cloud".
GROUP customers include well-known companies from all over the world, such as Deutsche Bank, Ernst
& Young, Honda, Heineken, Allianz and Miele. More than three million users and over 3,000 companies
worldwide rely on GROUP solutions for the efficiency and security of their systems.
For further information please visit: www.grouplive.com
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GROUP consortium
The GROUP consortium is the leading provider of "Collaborative Business Solutions". "Collaborative
Business Solutions" help users involved in a common task work together to achieve their goals.
While our competitors only offer partial solutions for collaborative systems, GROUP provides a
comprehensive and harmonized solution which includes all areas of collaboration:
■ Communication (e-mail, messaging, etc.)
■ Content (CRM, DMS, libraries and analytics)
■ Team management (group calendars, coordination of appointments, group activities, etc.)
■ Process engineering systems (workflow)
GROUP Technologies enables enterprises to incorporate collaboration into their business processes to
achieve their goals faster, easier and more efficiently.
GROUP is based in Europe and the USA and makes its solutions available to customers the world over.
GROUP includes GROUP Business Software AG, and its subsidiaries, GEDYS IntraWare GmbH and
Relavis Corporation.
Over 3,000 customers with more than 3 million users have already deployed GROUP solutions. Our
customers include Sparkasse and Volksbank, accounting for more than three quarters of the branches of
all German banks, as well as numerous international companies such as Allianz, BASF, Bayer, Deutsche
Bank, DuPont, Ernst & Young, Honda, Miele and Michelin.
For further information please visit: www.group.de
Contact
GROUP Business Software AG, Hospitalstraße 6, 99817 Eisenach, Deutschland
Email: presse@group-technologies.com, Phone: +49 3691 7353-0, Fax: +49 3691 7353-99
www.group-technologies.com, www.group.de
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solvito GmbH
Headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, solvito GmbH is an IBM Premier Business Partner and offers Lotusbased
IT solutions that simplify daily work and also allow for complex structures, with the focus on two key
attributes – simple and intelligent.
The solvito modules form a flexible, scalable and integrated system for CRM as well as document and
project management. Due to the modular design and individual customizing options, we can tailor our
application to your specific fields of application and needs – from addresses, documents and project
management to time recording and billing.
Portfolio
� Process consulting, software design and development based Lotus Notes and Java
� Standard software and individual solutions for CRM, document management and project
management
� Platform as a Service
� Software as a Service
� Migration to Lotus Notes / Domino
� Administration for Lotus Notes / Domino
� License consulting and sale for IBM products and solutions
� Application development for BlackBerry®
Contact
solvito GmbH
Großer Burstah 31
20457 Hamburg
Germany
Phone +49 40-68 94 95-60
Fax +49 40-68 94 95-88
Email solvitovertrieb@solvito.de
www.solvito.de
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