Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2006/07/11/netsuite_carphone/

More Carphone CRM goes online

NetSuite snaffles some more

By Martin Banks

Posted in Channel, 11th July 2006 12:18 GMT

Following on from last year's deal with the Opal Telecom division of Carphone Warehouse, online business management provider NetSuite has snaffled a bit more work from the UK telecoms company.

Business Solutions, the business-to-business arm of the Carphone Warehouse, has opted for NetSuite's CRM+ to provide Sales Force Automation (SFA).

The deal involves an initial 400 seats and brings the total in Carphone Warehouse to some 2,000 seats when added to the Opal Telecom contract.

According to NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson, this makes Carphone Warehouse the biggest customer the company has in the UK. Opal is also using CRM+ as a tool to boost sales.

Nelson says NetSuite was able to get the Business Solutions service up and running on its HP-based server farm within 45 days. He estimated that it was bringing down the time for provisioning new services to customers from 18 days to three.

One side issue of this deal is that online, on-demand services such as this are currently perceived as the target of small to medium-sized businesses. These are the often the types of business that cannot afford to implement large scale systems for SFA or similar roles but still require a high level of capability, so source from online service providers such as NetSuite.

Carphone, however, is a £3bn member of the FTSE 250, so presumably could afford its own.