Comag CRM / XRM Success Story

Customer Effective is proud to announce a new Microsoft developed video on an outstanding CRM/xRM success story with their client, Comag Marketing Group. Cheers to the team at CMG, we truly value our relationship with this group. Comag Marketing Group (CMG), jointly owned by Conde Nast Publications and The Hearst Corp., provides leading magazine publishers with comprehensive sales, marketing and promotional services. CMG employs a 400-member merchandising staff who are required to collect data and perform a series of in-store condition checks. CMG provides merchandising services to thousands of US retail locations as well as US airport newsstands. At airports, data was previously collected via legacy handheld devices with an application designed and deployed in 2003 that was limited in its flexibility to integrate into other CMG corporate systems. The retail merchandising staff used either a manual “bubble form” or entered the data into Excel spreadsheets. The bubble forms were mailed weekly, and CMG’s IS team had to process them into an electronic data warehouse. The Excel spreadsheets were submitted via email. The new mobile solution allows merchandisers to scan barcode information using a .NET custom application. The data are fed in real time into CMG’s Dynamics CRM environment, which allows for immediate reporting throughout the company. CMG worked with a number of vendors, including Panasonic Toughbook and its VAR Trac2Mobile; Eastridge Technologies, which developed …