Oracle unveils CRM On Demand Release 17

Oracle has revealed the next edition of its customer relationship management (CRM) software, promising new analytics capabilities that will give businesses more accurate revenue forecasts.

The vendor said that Oracle CRM On Demand Release 17 will include flexible fiscal calendars.

"Some companies start financial periods on odd days of the month or year. Before [this release] such businesses had difficulty producing accurate monthly forecasts with our sales system because it just assumed they began the period on the first of the month," said Daryn Mason, Oracle's senior director of CRM for Europe.

"Now they can assign the system to the right day of the year, and give more accurate sales forecasts."

The updated product will also allow Oracle customers to perform product as well as revenue forecasting. This will allow sales staff to see how many products they need to sell to meet targets.

"Also, when sales managers look back at previous product forecasts by their team, they will be able to see whether they are generally optimistic or pessimistic and factor this into the future," said Mason.

The release will also allow sales managers to check up on over-optimistic sales staff by comparing real-time sales information with historical forecasts housed in data warehouses.

Additional improvements to the on-demand product allow businesses to tighten up customer service support, the firm said. Newly automated time-based workflows will automatically inform managers if a logged complaint is not followed up in a given time.

Oracle has also added usability enhancements, such as a redesigned user interface that allows sales teams to resize it to their preference, better manage lists and customised field labels in the Mobile Sales Assistant.

New automated migration and data loader tools will allow developers personalising the application to quickly move the customised system from a training environment to a live one, said Mason.

"The new Oracle CRM On Demand Release 17 will help customers gain more actionable insight, increase sales productivity and achieve cost-savings," said Oracle president Charles Phillips.