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Sharp Approach, Inc.
301 Sovereign Court, Suite 115
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Success StoriesSuccess Stories | Mission & Values | Career Opportunities | HomeSharp Approach has completed hundreds of projects for our many clients. As a short example, the following are successful CRM, .NET and web deployment projects over the past 10 years. NordyneNordyne is our “favorite client”, and we are proud to say it! Nordyne is a $350 million per year company that manufactures air conditioners and furnaces for the manufactured housing and residential markets. It began when Matt Brobeck, Manager of E-commerce and Information Systems met Laurie Calzada, Sharp Approach's founder and President, and was impressed by the depth and breadth of their knowledge and experience. During 2000, Sharp Approach designed, created and implemented an Expense Reporting System that allowed Nordyne to move to a paperless environment in the collection of expense information from local and remote users. 2001 was a big year for Nordyne, with many changes and challenges. Among many other projects, they launched eNORA, their business to business Internet based e-commerce web site. eNORA enables customers to go online to order products and replacement parts, check product pricing and submit warranty claims, among other tasks. Sharp Approach developed the eNORA web site located at www.nordyne.com, which involved taking the functionality of Nordyne's existing terminal style system and putting it on the web. Sharp Approach served as hardware and software architects, ensuring that eNORA integrated seamlessly with Nordyne's back-end Universe system, which is maintained by Nordyne's own in-house programmers. According to Mr. Brobeck, Sharp Approach's role in web development at Nordyne has included everything "from architecture to straight-out development to suggestions on business processes." Then in looking ahead to 2005, Nordyne used Sharp Approach as its exclusive Microsoft Partner to implement one of Nordyne's biggest challenges…CRM. With the advanced vision of Jim Miles, Director of MIS, and Mike Strubel, Marketing Project Manager, CRM became a way to not only manage contacts, but to manage sales groups and facilitate communication among the inside sales reps, warranty people and technical services. Through the utilization of .NET technologies, the focus of the project was to create a seamless integration to the back-end Universe PIX-based system to retrieve dynamic data via a web interface for each customer. The relationship between Nordyne and Sharp Approach has been a long and fruitful one, and we look forward to a continued relationship. XTRA LeaseXTRA Lease is Sharp Approach's oldest client, and we are proud to call them “friends”. XTRA Lease is one of the largest trailer leasing company's in North America. Sharp Approach's founder, Laurie Calzada, first met Mike Sharkey, CIO, in 1993 under her training company, ExecuTrain. During this time period, her team successfully worked with the XTRA Lease IT team in deploying and training all XTRA Lease personnel on a proprietary application entitled “EIS”, which tracks all of their trailer leases and warranty information. When Sharp Approach was founded in 1996, XTRA Lease was immediately on board with Ms. Calzada's organization. In the mid 1990's, they deployed an enterprise ACT! 3.0 database, and Sharp Approach was an integral part of deploying and training their staff. Then in the late 1990's, Sharp Approach began working with the XTRA Intermodal Division where they again deployed an enterprise ACT! solution, before the company went to a full CRM solution, Pivotal, which is now operating across their 90 branch locations. Hitachi Data SystemsHitachi Data Systems based in San Jose, California, provides services and solutions that incorporate the industry's best people, products, tools, and methodologies to maximize the return on IT investments. They remain a leader in the areas of Integration, Business Continuity, Storage Consolidation, and Storage Area Management. In 2002, the Director of Global Marketing for Hitachi, Rachel Young, and the Marketing Director, Judy Christensen, contacted Sharp Approach to assist with an automated sales tool to be used by their remote Inside Sales Representatives, and they needed it to integrate with the MPD Market Tracking program. Using Microsoft programming technologies and capitalizing on the XML technology for data transfer, Sharp Approach Engineers successfully deployed a master ACT! database with remote users that had a middle tier of XML technologies to transfer and track data to the MPD system, hosted in Los Angeles, California. After a few years of operation, and proving a huge ROI, Sharp Approach then assisted in deploying and training a more robust web based Marketing system, Blue Roads, that replaced the ACT! interface to the Inside Reps. Corporate ExpressCorporate Express is one of the world's largest business-to-business suppliers of essential office and computer products and services with sales of approximately $4.5 billion in North America. Sharp Approach worked with Rick Payne, Vice President of Sales, in automating many of the business and sales processes used within the Corporate Express environment. In the late 1990's, we successfully deployed one of the largest scaled synchronized infrastructure's of ACT!, including a master database and 80 remote synchronized databases. The Sharp Approach team also wrote many Visual Basic Integrated applications that assisted in the generation of new business and follow through of closed opportunities. After deployment, and an evaluation period of 90 days, Corporate Express found that they had saved 250 hours of selling time by the automation of one process alone: “Strictly Business” was their prospecting process that ensured the proper amount of prospecting was taking place, and there was a 10+ step process being followed in order to “close the deal”. NortekNortek is a leader in the manufacturing and distribution of high-quality, competitively-priced building products for residential, light commercial, and commercial applications. Their portfolio consists of over a dozen different subsidiary corporations. In 2003, Nortek found it necessary to deploy a web based application for all of their subsidiaries to successfully track shipping and trucking information across their multitude of groups and locations. In the summer of 2003, Sharp Approach successfully designed and deployed a .NET web-based tracking system at www.nortek-logistics.com which is utilized by a majority of the Nortek owned and operated companies. In addition, Nortek selected Sharp Connection, our sister company, for hosting of the site and the data warehousing of the shipping information. Enterprise Rent-A-CarEnterprise Rent-A-Car is the largest car rental company in the world with over 818,000 vehicles in their rental and leasing fleet. In 2005, Sharp Approach partnered with Microsoft to successfully migrate 48 remote ACT! databases at their branch locations into a Microsoft CRM system. After a comprehensive Design and Analysis phase, our team worked together with the Leasing Division in order to migrate and deploy over 10 years of ACT! data into the newly customized CRM system. Managed Care ProfessionalsManaged Care Professionals is a leader in the healthcare payer market. Their team of professionals offer extensive claims processing experience, and they help healthcare payer customers reduce expenses, increase revenue, optimize productivity, and support the sharing of critical electronic-based information. The Sharp Approach team began working with Tim Alfaro, President and Founder, in 2003 by automating their collection process through a three tier synchronization of over a dozen ACT! databases. After 2 years of operation, the system was “busting at the seams”, and in the spring of 2005, Sharp Approach managed and deployed a highly customized SalesLogix CRM system which completely automates the claim processing from the inception to the collection phase. The system has been so highly successful, that they currently have 4 million active records that are in the system being processed on behalf of their clients. Pinnacle PressPinnacle Press specializes in a multitude of color book component projects and serves the premium quality book component market for universities, trade and religious publishers across the country. After many years of doing manual quotes, emailing and faxing information to clients, Pinnacle Press, through a client reference, asked Sharp Approach to assist them in the automation of an online quoting system. After working with the founder of Pinnacle Press, Tom Rohlfing, Sharp Approach successfully designed and implemented a secure online quoting system that has been working effectively and efficiently for almost 5 years, and is hosted by our sister company, Sharp Connection. Mr. Rohlfing receives incredibly positive feedback from his clients, and through the automation of his quotes, it has allowed him and his staff to work more efficiently with his nationwide clients. Battery Handling SystemsBattery Handling Systems manufactures and distributes a wide range of versatile battery roller stands and stations to automatic transfer carriages that convert existing pallet trucks into efficient and cost-effective portable battery changers. In 2002, Sharp Approach began assisting the management team with deploying sales force automation through a master ACT! database, which assisted in linking their remote sales people with their support team in the St. Louis office. After years of usage, and an overwhelming growth of information, they deployed a more robust SalesLogix system, which now enables them to do mass marketing to their distribution channel.
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