Company enhances open source CRM and front-office system with e-commerce and web content management upgrades.

Concursive Corporation, a developer of open source Customer Relationship Management, content management, and Enterprise 2.0 technologies, today announced that it has integrated a Web Content Management system and e-commerce capabilities into its popular ConcourseSuite 5.0 software. The new features, developed in partnership with Concursive customer Brand Fuel Promotions, enable users to create robust websites and manage content from within ConcourseSuite and allow orders to be accepted online and fed directly to the CRM database. The company declared that the new capabilities are included in the latest release of ConcourseSuite.

The company states that Brand Fuel has used the new WCM capability to replace multiple technology platforms it used in the past. Now, by simply clicking on a tab in ConcourseSuite, Brand Fuel can author web sites, manage the content on the sites, and install pre-defined product ordering modules. Logos, product images and text descriptions all reside in the CRM database and all edits to web pages can be published in real-time. Orders placed through the site are entered directly into the CRM system.

In addition, the company states that its ConcourseSuite's WCM tool supports JSR 168-compliant portlets, which enable users to easily add application-based windows to a web page. With a portlet, users can add interactive functions such as a contact form that directly enters leads into the CRM system, graphical dashboards, and Web 2.0-style 'mash ups.'

"In a crowded industry, our goal was to make Brand Fuel stand out by offering one of the most collaborative and strategically valuable e-commerce capabilities anywhere," said Brand Fuel Co-founder Robert Fiveash. "We can correlate web traffic, examine sales patterns and perform other database research. These kinds of insights are very valuable to our clients. Concursive has created a solution with broad functionality including graphics storage, search capabilities, and a document library."

"The WCM system isn't simply integrated with ConcourseSuite—it literally is the same system, enabling users to analyze and leverage the customer data within the CRM," said Michael Harvey, Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer for Concursive. "This new release is a perfect example of how the open source model works to benefit the larger community. Once Brand Fuel told us they needed an integrated WCM system, we partnered to develop a tool that delivers significant commercial benefits to all users of ConcourseSuite. There are no dead ends with our platform—as easily as functionality can be imagined, it can be achieved."