Even if you are on the right track, you can get run over if you stand still

One of the pioneers of CRM, Mike Muhney joined Pat Sullivan (founder of InterACT! Commerce) in 1986, co-developing ACT! and co-founding ContACT! Software International Inc. Chiefly responsible for the global sales and marketing of ACT!, he appointed 33 distributors in 23 countries. As Executive VP of InterACT! Commerce Corporation, Mike is busy getting greater market share for ACT! and their other product, SalesLogix. His immediate task is to educate the Indian customer about ACT!   

How was ACT! born?We had only $15,000 dollars left when we realized that our earlier product was going to fail. That night I talked to a gentleman who had lot of respect in the industry. He advised us to come up with another idea closing the existing business altogether. It was July 4, 1986, a holiday in America. We faxed one paper and that morning ACT! was born. I still have the original piece of paper on which we drew the concept of the product and the 'decision tree' of the architecture. 

ACT! was released in the market in April 1987. The name became so grand in America that everybody started hearing about it but nobody knew Conductor Software (the company name), and so we became ContACT! Software International. 

I retired for a few years, after it was sold to Symantec, and started another company Celebrity Soft Inc. Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley joined as partners. To cut a long story short, Symantec after running it for six years got a new CEO, and the new CEO said, “What are we doing with all this other products? We are an anti-virus company. The Internet requires even more anti-virus tools. Lets get rid of this other products.” 

We decided to buyback ACT! in December 1999 but it was legally transferred to us in April 2000. So it is back with the original inventor and we have great plans for the product.

 When did you launch the product in India? And how has been the market response?We had formally launched the product few months ago in India. The product is just imported to the country and the feedback is good. We are here to create a new channel and look at the existing channel. 

In the first three months, our plan is to have corporate resellers in India in seven cities. In the first phase we are looking at Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. At present we have 13 channel partners in India including Pentasoft, TCS, Sonata Software, Idealake, Nenstep, Digital Future and others. 

The company has already attracted more than 400 retail partners and another 500 VARs and integrators have become Certified SalesLogix Business Partners.

 What is the margin you are giving to your resellers here?Currently we are selling our products on a flat price and the resellers are getting about 25 percent as margin on the purchase price. I think there is a great opportunity for a proven product like this. Our key is to get partners who can focus on our product. Our energy is focused on customer legacy.

 What strategy have you adopted to market ACT! here?We conduct sessions on e-business where several hundred people come. We give demonstrations and make them realize where they are headed, getting them excited about the product, showing them what it means to them, how it could help their business and help their customers to be better served. 

ACT! is designed for people to deal with other people. And who doesn’t want to deal with people? And who doesn’t want to deal with people more effectively? There is a saying: Even if you are on the right track you can get run over if you stand still.

So the market conditions, the world or local Indian market conditions, the competition, the expectations of the customer -- they are all redefining the rules of the game. If you want to be victorious, you have to keep up. And ACT! has over four million legal customers who honestly tell that they could not live without it because it has helped them that much.

 Is ACT! customizable?You can use the product as it is. Most of our customers do not need customization. It is very easy to do it yourself. Customization issue comes more for those companies who wants to integrating it with their accounting system. For example: How do we get the two different kinds of packages to talk to each other. Most ACT! users do not know how to do that. So that will be where a certified consultant will be trained from the technical point of view.

 What is the difference between SalesLogix and ACT!?SalesLogix is a robust but highly specific and costly solution for enterprise-level CRM initiatives for large corporations. ACT! on the other hand is primarily meant for independent users. 



When I say independent it does not mean that an ACT! user cannot work for a large corporation. In fact, most ACT! users do work for the large organizations like IBM or Forbes, independently. Their job is to do the business using different selling techniques and they use ACT! to achieve that.

 How different is ACT! from other products? Suppose, I’m using Microsoft Office, I get a Contact Manager with reminder facility etc. So why should I use another contact management software like ACT!? ACT! is about capturing every bit of information I learn about every individual I deal with. It is about having a legacy, a history of the relationship. For example, if I am promoted or I leave the company and you take over my position, you are totally educated about the customer and can continue the process of further developing him/her.

You can’t do that in Outlook, it was not designed for that. It is like writing on a piece of paper “a meeting tomorrow at 9 AM with me”. After the meeting tomorrow this piece of paper can go in to the garbage can, there is no legacy between us. ACT! builds that legacy. 

And companies that recognize the importance of understanding customers understand that they have to have knowledge. Knowledge is accumulated over time. Without it you never understand the customer. If a competitor comes along who understands the customer better, he will steal him away. 

So it’s a risk game I am playing. If I choose to ignore the rules that have been defined by the customer, it is very serious stuff. The nice thing about ACT! is that it is simple, practical, ready to go, productive system. Most software cannot claim that. ACT! can. And it has over four million customers who have voted it the favorite with their wallets.

 Who are your competitors? The closest competitor is a company called Goldmine. They recently changed the product name to FrontRange. Recently, there was a report in the Wall Street Journal about the value of customer relationship. They kept referring to ACT! and it said ACT! has 71 percent share in the world market and Goldmine, the number two, had seven percent. 

Nelson Johny in Mumbai