LEADCRITICKaleidico Deregulates the LMS
Filed Under: featured, Kaleidico
Digg.com | Netscape.com | Reddit.com | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon.com | Google.com | Socialogs.com | Others social services
If you didn’t know already it is LMS week here at LeadCritic where I cover everything “Lead Management”. I wish I put that much thought into, but I don’t. In any case it seems that the press releases from a few LMS companies have fallen in succession and have covered comparable topics. Yesterday, I covered the launch of Debt Soft in the Leads360 platform and today Kaleidico launched their Icosales 5.0.
According to their press release, they have taken the strategy of making Icosales usable by any sales staff rather then targeting a few specific verticals.
“Our goal in this new release was to bring the conversion power of icoSales lead management to a variety of sales organizations,” said Keith Burwell, Kaleidico’s head of business development. “The perspective of the Kaleidico brand has long been as an innovator in building CRM software that helps sales people increase their closing capacity–now we have handed this advantage to any sales team.”
This new strategy seems to opening up unexpected doors for Kaleidico in the non-profit and political campaign management sector. What will be interesting to watch is what strategy will work. Now the comparison is not necessarily an apples to apples comparison for a number of reasons, but will targeting a few specific industries with highly targeted tools beat out the strategy of generalizing the platform to meet most everyones lead management needs?
This adds to the group of companies who are diversifying out or away from the mortgage vertical. Are you starting to feel left behind? You probably should.
.
.
.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Loading ...
Nick Hedges | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
It is great to hear about attmepts to make the best of a difficult market. We tried the horizontal strategy as an experiment and it didn’t work very well for us despite having a very flexible piece of software. In fact we have about 15 different industries represented on our software as a legacy of this.
The problem is that LMSs need vertical-specific functionality to be useful so you end up adding bits and pieces of one-off capabilities for each client. This is expensive as is the effort to sell and market horizontally. It also takes your eye off the ball in providing world-class customer service to your core verticals.
It is possible that IcoSales will be more successful than we were. I do wish them luck but I think it might be difficult with the small handful of people that are still left working at the company to pull this one off.
Raj Parekh | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
This business is still evolving. Vertical focus does have advantages and one reason that we built the LeadROI system the way we did for Mortgage. However, there are verticals that we are coming across through our sales efforts that have a significant need for lead management and are under served by the current LMS providers. I agree with Nick that expertise in a vertical does lend to better customer service. I also agree that it’s hard to execute unless you have the resources. Mediawhiz has both the expertise and resources devoted to Lead Management that we are happy to be a part of.
Greg Cieslik | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
Nick, clever, but obvious innuendo in your voice here. Our company has one less executive how many did you lay-off in your last cuts (Noel, any thoughts here?). BTW, ALL the developers are all still cranking out A+ software and 100% of client care is in place. Save your piety pandering.
In fact, in less than week after roll out it seems our approach (including a reference to ‘world-class’ [your words] customer service… to paraphrase ‘best in ten years’) is showing quite a bit of success.
http://tinyurl.com/6qgx6x
This ‘expensive’ endeavor by a ‘handful of people’ (again, as you put it) is quite the moot point when it comes to our service. Our platform is flexible enough to meet any vertical-specific needs quite rapidly. This is made possible by our more-than-capable team’s thorough and agile software design. So if there are any buyers out there who want a single system that can handle all of your different sales leads with one-stop reporting and management - rest assured - we’re ready for you.
I cannot help but be reminded of ‘David and Goliath.’
Nick Hedges | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
Greg,
Got it. An adversarial back and forth in public isn’t good for us or the sector so I don’t want to go into defensive mode. I do appreciate your need for clarification though.
There was a level of innuendo in my voice because I jumped to the assumption that if your CEO and figure head would leave then the company must be struggling a bit in other areas too. I do accept that you may well have the same resources as always in place on the engineering and customer service side though, so my assumptions may well be wrong, which seems to be what you are suggesting.
Leads360 currently employs over 50 people and has 2 less employees than when our organization was at its largest; we’re also actively hiring for 6 positions right now, just for clarification on our side.
At the end of the day if you guys are successful at opening up new verticals for Lead Management then that is great news for everyone. What I said about how challenging a horizontal strategy is should be taken at face value, it is our experience, you may find your results differ and I sincerely hope they do.
Keith Burwell | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
Guys–good stuff! Passion for the software is critical to success. Kaleidico is excited about the move into other markets and feel like it will be positive. Nick–I agree– we all need to open doors and make inroads whenever possible. (I just won’t tell you when we get there)
Coopitition works for NASCAR, it can work to further lead management as well.
A lead buyer | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
Feels like we are back in Vegas!!!
Lead Critic | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
Lead Buyer,
what are your thoughts? Instead of hearing from the participating parties, lets here from people who aren’t so biased.
I think you can argue both strategies and in many cases simply have a large staff or financing can actually magnify wrong decisions, not to say either is right or wrong, however more may be on the line for 360. I think it is a good move to have vertical specific plugins or add-ons. As a matter of fact, I think both are correct decisions for each company in light of their own growth strategies.
Because really this question about strategy needs to be asked for many companies, not just the LMS companies we have been discussing. Does it make sense to target a few verticals or all. Based on your experience, what do you think?
Raj Parekh | Aug 20, 2008 | Reply
It’s all marketing semantics at the end of the day. Let’s face it, we’re all spreading out in different verticals. We will overlap efforts in some verticals and I’m sure we’ll all get a piece of the available pie based on how specialized we get in those verticals, how many additional services we offer those verticals, and how much marketing we do to gain visibility in those verticals. I’m not necessarily interested in vertical hopping or chasing what everyone is. I want growth and penetration in those verticals where my company (team) can bring the greatest value to our clients. If we say we’re in a vertical, it’s going to be because we actively support those verticals through other products and services we offer at MediaWhiz or we have in house expertise.
Noel Collins | Aug 21, 2008 | Reply
To Greg’s point, I’m worth 10 employees, LOL
A lead buyer | Aug 21, 2008 | Reply
Been a little busy this week but will post some comments this weekend….
A lead buyer | Aug 22, 2008 | Reply
I can see the merit both approaches.
I think it comes down to the pool of clients you are targeting. Some smaller shops might be ok with a low(er) cost non vertical specific solution while larger players most likely want all the bells and whistles that a vertical specific offering would most likely have (tools, fields, reports, etc). They would also pay for it most likely.
In the end the shops that buy the most are going to want the ability to do things that an out of the box non vertical specific solution would most likely fall short of.
I am not sure if this is as simple as a company offering different products, one that is generic for many applications and more specific version for insurance, mortgage, etc. I am not sure if this approach is cost effective or not.
As a matter of full disclosure one of the shops that I am responsible for does use Leads360 as a LMS. The vast majority of our lead business however is not run through 360 so I wouldn’t say I am overly biased towards their solution.
Keith Burwell | Aug 22, 2008 | Reply
Lead Buyer– surprisingly, our experience is just the opposite. Having been vetted, implemented, and utilized in 5 top 10 lender organizations, simplicity is actually more desirable.
It is the ability for the technology to standardize the process, discipline the methods, and simplify the interactions that are important.
Lead management at its core is about getting a lead from receipt to conversion. Simplicity and technology should REDUCE the amount of differentiated efforts by the sales team, not convolute them.
This is Kaleidico’s approach, but we all have differing ideas.
Noel Collins | Aug 22, 2008 | Reply
I would add that in today’s market place, clients in any vertical are price sensitive and wary of services/solutions that cost anything above and beyond “Free”. Ugh.
A Lead Buyer | Aug 22, 2008 | Reply
Keith fair enough. To be honest we haven’t looked at your solution in quite some time…
BootyJuice | Aug 25, 2008 | Reply
I’d say that the truth here is actually much worse than anyone is admitting. Not only is the vertical-market-specific functionality necessary to create apps that are worth the client’s money and time, but the real ugliness is that clients want specific, tailored functionality that may only apply to them. You know, like “can you integrate with my XYZ phone system” or “I want it to tie into my legacy 1-off PHP in-house/contractor-built database application” etc. And what’s so darn ugly about this, for SAAS providers, is that all of a sudden with the market downturn the clients are (that much more) powerful ! So you are going to get hammered if you are picky about what to implement. The team that will win is the one who’s software platform is built around a core set of LMS features and has a very generic (extensible) way of handling the 1-offs and custom-built pieces that clients want. If you can quickly, and cheaply implement these 1-offs to land clientele, without destroying your codebase or causing the system to become unstable, then you will win.
Lead Critic | Aug 25, 2008 | Reply
Booty, you hit it on the head.
My thoughts exactly.
A lead buyer | Aug 26, 2008 | Reply
very good point booty…and very true.
Raj Parekh | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
You’re spot on Booty. There are things that throw a wrench in the spokes sometimes though, i.e. MISMO compliance. There has to be a healthy balance between the vertical agnostic approach (horizontal) vs. vertical specific. All of us in the business struggle with how deep we want to imbed ourselves in any one vertical at the expense of a more extensible system that can serve many. Fortunately, with regard to MISMO, it extends to all Financial Services.
Noel Collins | Aug 29, 2008 | Reply
I’m not satiated, how about a poll Critic?
BootyJuice | Aug 29, 2008 | Reply
Noel,
I quench the everlasting thirst. What is your best contact info. I have a hair-brained idea to run by ye.
Booty
Noel Collins | Aug 30, 2008 | Reply
noelecollins@yahoo.com, talk with you soon…