Press Release CRM Start-up AKIOMA puts its trust in Cloud Enabling from Pironet NDH Web applications from AKIOMA as turbo for sales processes Freiberg am Neckar/Cologne, 13 January 2015 – Preparing complex offers in a quarter of the normal time or creating a product configurator in three weeks rather than twelve months – first customers of AKIOMA have already experienced such enhancements using the software solutions from the start-up. The cloud applications are based on “Progress Software” development environments and are available now in the Hosted Business Cloud of the Cancom subsidiary Pironet NDH. In order to design its applications for use via the internet from the very outset, AKIOMA decided to avail of the Cloud Enabling offering of Pironet NDH. The start-up is thus one of the numerous Business Cloud Application Partners whose application the Cancom subsidiary has equipped for the cloud. “The Hosted Business Cloud from Pironet NDH provides a ready-made Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment, is ISO-certified, is hosted solely in Germany and is subject to the German data protection law,” explains Mike Liewehr, Managing Director of AKIOMA. “Pironet NDH also provides us with support for round-theclock operation.” Offer preparation and product configurator from the cloud AKIOMA offers web-based tools for product configuration and the preparation of complex offers as well as for the mapping of workflows in the sales department. The cloud applications of AKIOMA have interfaces to standard ERP solutions and thus integrate seamlessly into an existing system environment. Customers of AKIOMA report on enormous increases in efficiency in the offer process. For example, Lucas-Nülle GmbH, the market leader in equipping educational institutions in Germany, ascribes a great deal of its success to AKIOMA. “Any company whose product and service portfolios are extremely complex is aware that drawing up an offer covering several dozen pages is always a complicated business that can frequently take several weeks,” says Mr Liewehr. The AKIOMA application enables sales staff to compile offers on an intuitive interface, to export the properly structured and visually attractive offer with a single click and to control the ensuing process chain, such as the release loop. Web applications without programming effort The AKIOMA solution for creating a product configurator also enables companies to incorporate their ranges of products and services on a user interface with a straightforward structure and to make these available to interested parties, for instance via their website. As with all AKIOMA solutions, no programming effort is required to create a product configurator since the applications are based on Progress Software technologies. Users can employ the development environments known as Progress Rollbase, OpenEdge, Corticon and BPM to create web tools by means of drag and drop. “One of our customers told us that if they hadn’t used AKIOMA, ten developers would have needed twelve months to create a complex product configurator. The AKIOMA solution enables this development period to be reduced to three weeks with two specialist developers, thus permitting a drastically reduced time to market,” explains Mr Liewehr. Hands-on assistance when entering the cloud With its pay-as-you-grow approach, Pironet NDH supports software houses such as AKIOMA on their way to the cloud. This approach allows developers to use PaaS environments free of charge initially. From the moment they generate their first sales, the software houses make a profit. Pironet NDH also assists independent software vendors (ISVs) with its Go-To-Market Programme. This includes, among other things, customised marketing and sales support, and also the provision of service-proven documents describing cloud services, SLAs, terms and conditions of business and customer contracts. All Business Cloud Application Partners that Pironet NDH have already supported in entering the cloud can be found at http://www.pironet-ndh.com/Cloud+Enabling+Partner_en. Press contact: Jan Erlinghagen Press Office Tel.: +49.2203.93530-1326 Fax: +49.2203.93530-99 Pironet NDH, a CANCOM company Von-der-Wettern-Strasse 27 D-51149 Cologne Email: [email protected]