CRM BRIEFS

By Diana Garber

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City will implement DST Systems Inc.'s (Kansas City) Automated Work Distributor (AWD) to streamline its claims, new membership services and written correspondence operations. AWD eliminates paper-based processing and expands customer communication channels, according to DST. The program also has the ability to apply a company's pre-defined business rules and associate skill levels to implement the active work inventory, so the insurer has the right information to satisfy a customer's request. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City provides healthcare benefits to more than 830,000 members.

Xchange Inc. (Boston) will use Dublin-based IONA's Orbix E2A Application Service Platform enterprise edition as the foundation of its Xchange 8 CRM solution. Orbix E2A supports cross-language integration, and enables the development of Java extensions to a customer's application service with little re-coding and supporting plug-in integration, the vendor says. Xchange will use the platform to access data and information from customers' business applications, Web servers and Java 2. Xchange Inc. solutions are designed to allow businesses to synchronize online and offline multi-channel customer campaigns that are integrated with call centers and other customer touch-points in real time.

DataFlux Corp. (Cary, NC), a SAS Company and provider of data quality and data integration solutions, reached an agreement with iORMYX (Herndon, VA) to develop access adaptors to several CRM and analytics vendors. iORMYX will additionally function as a systems integrator and referral partner with DataFlux, and provide Data Quality Assessment services for large customer applications. "Our partnership with iORMYX will provide DataFlux customers with direct and transparent access to any data in their organization. Customers want direct and immediate management of data contained in ERP and CRM systems from Siebel, PeopleSoft, and SAP. And customers want direct integration into other data management environments like Informatica," according to Tony Fisher, DataFlux president.

Jacada Ltd. (Atlanta) has made the Jacada Integrator 3.6 generally available. The integrator has full Web services support. It exposes existing business logic and data locked up in legacy systems as reusable Web services using a number of client-side adapters. Jacada Integrator now offers a risk-free approach to testing and implementing Web services, the vendor says.