Progressive SMB Manufacturers offer SaaS

i-MARK, the leading provider of web-hosted eBusiness solutions for discrete product manufacturers, has witnessed a significant shift among the small-to-medium-size businesses (SMBs) in their utilization of the Internet. Looking beyond websites as just another vehicle to distribute their marketing message, SMB manufacturers now recognize their websites must satisfy the instantaneous search-to-acquire requirements of their primarily large OEM customers. "Large manufacturers have been our bread-and-butter since we first offered sales automation solutions in 1998. Now SMB manufacturers recognize they must add affordable self-service, search-to-acquire tools to their 'information-only' websites if they expect to compete effectively and grow globally", says Del Merenda, i-MARK's president. He added, "lamenting the low ROIs of traditional marketing, SMBs realize they must put their websites to work if they expect to recapture profitable growth."

Two leading SMB manufacturers, Nielsen / Sessions division of Actuant, and Morganite Molten Metals division of The Morgan Crucible Company plc, acquired i-MARK's 24/7 BUSINESS software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to better interact with customers and to identify valuable prospects. "Clearly, the Internet has become the information destination for buyers and specifying engineers and it's no surprise that SMBs are rushing to implement our 24/7 BUSINESS solutions", says Merenda.

Nielsen / Sessions chose 24/7 BUSINESS to transform their static website into a self-service business tool, addressing the real-time-response needs of OEM prospects and customers, and enabling buyers to transact on-line. Nielsen is long-reputed for being well out in front of customer demand for reliable information. They expect 24/7 BUSINESS to deliver mission-accomplished visitor' experiences and intuitive, self-service e-commerce.

Morganite Crucible chose 24/7 BUSINESS because they needed to consolidate products and supporting information from multiple websites into one easy to use web destination. Morganite was missing too many up-sell/cross-sell opportunities because inside sales did not know about all the products that Morganite offers worldwide. CSRs took too much time to lookup details, resulting in impatient buyers; unproductive call transfers to Morganite product managers; and ultimately, lost sales.

i-MARK offers self-service business solutions to manufacturers that increase the productivity of their engineering-oriented end-users.