ContactNet Provides Enterprise Relationship Management
by Bill Ives
Many of the most interesting new enterprise applications are search based. Here is a useful new genre of software based on search. Relationships are at the core of most business processes and successes. Enterprise Relationship Management or ERM is a class of software that supports these efforts. ContactNet is a leader in defining, creating, and offering ERM. The company’s ContactNet software helps professional services firms unlock the value within their complete relationship network to generate new business. ContactNet is an automated search application that instantly identifies colleagues who have the strongest relationships with a client or prospect.
I recently spoke with Wilbur Swan, one of the founders of ContactNet. The firm began as Contact Networks and I was aware of them when I led a practice within a large consulting firm. After getting started, they focused on the legal market in 2005 as they found strong acceptance there. Later, in 2007 they were acquired by Thomson Reuters to support their offerings to the legal market. They have over 100 clients now in law firms ranging from 100 to over 5,000 employees.
ContactNet automatically uncovers, aggregates and prioritizes a law firm’s internal relationships with external business contacts by analyzing data from address books, e-mail logs, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications and other enterprise systems. They have recently expanded their relationship intelligence functionality to better enable firms to identify new targets, prevent missed opportunities, monitor client engagement and ultimately evaluate the success of client development efforts. See example below.
ContactNet provides a relationship strength rating based on recency and frequency of contacts. The measure is shown in the green bars in the image above. You can fine-tune this measure by applying different weights to channels such as email or phone. The search feature is robust and you can search by company, contact name, contact title, colleagues, geography, and industry group. For example you can see results organized by geography below.
The new capabilities include analytics to spot relationship opportunities and risks, You can spot changes in relationship behavior and receive alerts on such data as a drop off in key relationship activity. You can identify new business opportunities based on criteria such as Top 100 clients, Fortune 500 relationships and prospect and industry group opportunities.
There are several integration capabilities with other relevant enterprise software. For example, users can now view ContactNet relationships from within Monitor Suite (a Thomson Reuters Legal competitive intelligence product), to see the intersection of market and relationship opportunities. It also works with SharePoint. In addition, there is integration with many CRM systems to allow users to evaluate relationship strength as part of marketing workflows, as well as rich, continuously-updated relationship data. Unlike most CRM applications, there is no manual data entry as ContactNet automatically looks at its data sources.
ContactNet is now in the process of creating business development dashboard capabilities for better market analysis. You will be able to view strategic account and relationship information, such as new contacts, new companies, key clients and non-clients, key industries, recent searches and usage graphs conveniently from one screen.
Wilbur said that they are also looking to provide specific tools to support stages in the relationship life cycle. ContactNet defines three stages: collect and capture, learn and engage, and remind and renew. The Content Collector shows you people you have contacted that are not yet in your address book and automates the process of adding them based on data from colleagues. The Relationship Reminder reports, as shown below, lapses in contact frequency to let you stay current on the many relationships you maintain.
ContactNet is looking to move into additional markets as relationships are the core of most businesses. New areas include investment banking, consulting, and sales. As a former member of a large consulting firm I can see how ContactNet’s comprehensive approach to ERM will be extremely valuable. This enhanced access to relationship data can allow firms to be more strategic in how they handle this aspect of the business. Managing relationships has often been seen as a tactical exercise. Moving it to a strategic activity should produce huge benefits.
