MK Partners Archive for November, 2008

Spark Selects MK Partners’ Shopping Cart via the Force.com AppExchange from Salesforce.com

MK Partners’ Shopping Cart enables Spark to take control of its relationship building with donors

SAN FRANCISCO – Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference – November 3, 2008 – MK Partners today announced that Spark has deployed the MK Partners’ Shopping Cart via the Force.com AppExchange. Leveraging Google Checkout, MK Partners has developed code that all salesforce.com customers can use to display and sell products through their websites, including real-time integration with the contact, opportunity, and product records in Salesforce CRM. Built on the Force.com platform, MK Partners’ Shopping Cart will be available in time for the holiday season for test drive and deployment on the Force.com AppExchange at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/. It is currently available for purchase directly through MK Partners.

The announcement was made today at Dreamforce ‘08, Salesforce.com’s User and Developer Conference.

Spark, a San Francisco-based nonprofit committed to inspiring middle-school youth to pursue their interests, came to MK Partners seeking a way to integrate Salesforce CRM with their website, allowing prospective donors to build relationships with students. In conjunction with the PHP development team at Arrowpointe, MK Partners built a robust solution utilizing Google Checkout to enable Spark donors to learn more about the youth participating in the program and pledge money to specific program participants.

Eliminating the need for another system, the MK Partners’ Shopping Cart has allowed Spark to process donations online and use that data to help donors cultivate relationships with students in the form of emails and photo updates. “We developed this solution on the Force.com platform as a direct result of the needs of our customer base. MK Partners is proud to offer an application that enables organizations to use Salesforce CRM as a means to both control website content, make sales and collect payments as well,” said Matt Kaufman, CEO of MK Partners.

“With MK Partners Shopping Cart application, companies can control online inventory, payments or sales within one system. Thousands of customers using the Force.com AppExchange now have access to this application to help ensure that sales processes can be completed in Salesforce CRM,” said Clarence So, Chief Marketing Officer, salesforce.com.

The MK Partners’ Shopping Cart was built from the experience gathered by the firms’ established history of implementing Salesforce CRM and developing on the Force.com platform. MK Partners is excited to introduce the Shopping Cart during the highly anticipated Dreamforce 2008 Conference and will be offering this product at a discounted rate for conference participants. Visit www.mkpartners.com for more information on the Shopping Cart and their entire suite of products and services.

About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange:

Force.com is the only proven Platform as a Service for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 800 ISV partner applications like those from CODA and Fujitsu, and more than 85,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 47,700 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel.

Force.com is the fastest platform for building and deploying complex business applications. Unlike a stack of disparate client/server hardware and software products, Force.com unifies the development and deployment model from the database to the device, allowing developers to easily assemble applications with clicks, components and code, and then instantly deploy them on salesforce.com’s trusted global infrastructure. Customers and partners are using Force.com to build all kinds of business applications from supply chain management to compliance tracking, brand management, accounts receivable, claims processing applications and much more. Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire SaaS community through the Force.com AppExchange marketplace at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

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About MK Partners

MK Partners is a leading management and technology consulting firm specializing in both the development and implementation of salesforce.com products and services. Their expert consultants have worked with a variety of industries and hundreds of companies throughout the country, implementing and developing tools to ensure businesses operate more efficiently and increase return-on-investment. Please visit their website at www.mkpartners.com.

About Arrowpointe

Solution provider Arrowpointe builds tools and utilities that integrate with salesforce.com. Arrowpointe also provides clients a number of salesforce.com related services including implementation and best practices, demonstrating the capabilities of Salesforce’s cutting-edge CRM technology. For more information, visit them online at http://www.arrowpointe.com.

Media Contact:
Lindsey Caplan
MK Partners, Inc.
650-464-2217
lcaplan@mkpartners.com

Just a few years ago, if you asked someone how email got from a pc in LA to a mac in NYC, they may have told you that it happens in the Aether.  The whole concept was filled with vagueness, uncertainty, and a lot of crossed fingers.  Today, explanations for internet services reference the Cloud.  The Cloud consists of reliable services with 99%+ uptime reliability, massive scalability, and robust APIs.  The Aether was regarded more like a series of tubes that somehow worked, but not always.

Last week at Dreamforce, there was a lot of talk about Cloud computing and using services like salesforce.com, Google and, Amazon.com.  There was little talk about smaller email vendors, hosting providers, or other web-based services.  So is this just another marketing gimick?  Yes, definitely.  Can we just ignore this fad and keep the status quo?  Unfortunately no.

The Cloud is being marketed as everything good about the internet: reliability, scalability, client-independence.  By marketing themselves as part of the Cloud, salesforce.com is raising the bar, not only for all web-based services but for software too.  Companies that don’t operate on the Cloud will be associated with the Aether: confusing, unreliable, not trustworthy.

So when and where does the Aether turn into the Cloud?  I think it starts with providing open communication. How reliable have your services been?  What security measures do you have in place?  How does your solution scale as your clients grow or as you grow?  Answering these questions removes a lot of the uncertainty around new SaaS vendors.  Providing the answers people want to hear adds a lot of confidence.  Meeting or exceeding the expectations you set builds trust.

To practice what we preach, MKPartners.com is powered by: mediatemple.com, wordpress.org, google.com, salesforce.com, and of course a dedicated staff of employees.  While our site has yet to have any unscheduled outages, our employees try to get offline every evening, weekend, and holiday.  Finally, to keep up with our clients’ increasing demand, we are currently looking to hire additional salesforce.com consultants, so if you know any, send them our way.

MK Partners Redesigned Nonprofit Template Now Available on the Force.com AppExchange from Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com Customers Can Now Deploy an Updated Nonprofit Template for Ease-of-Use within Salesforce CRM

SAN FRANCISCO – Salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference – November 3, 2008 –
MK Partners today announced the availability of a newly updated nonprofit template on the Force.com AppExchange. Redeveloped by MK Partners, the new template streamlines the adoption of Salesforce CRM for nonprofit organizations by providing a customized base application for the nonprofit sector. Built using the Force.com platform, the Nonprofit Template is immediately available for existing salesforce.com customers to test drive and deploy from here.

The announcement was made today at Dreamforce ‘08, salesforce.com’s User and Developer Conference.

The nonprofit template was first developed by the Salesforce.com Foundation and volunteer consultants like MK Partners to meet the specific needs of nonprofits who could benefit greatly from a customized version of the standard Salesforce CRM application already in use by thousands of for-profit companies. This updated template serves to further alleviate concerns of adopting new technology within small organizations. The nonprofit template provides a user-friendly interface and simple adoption to configure Salesforce CRM specifically for nonprofits and their goals of fundraising and donor management. Improvements to the new template include the use of Apex Code enabling customers to decide how they want to relate contacts and accounts, and new functionality such as organization affiliations and contact relationships. Additionally, custom code helps existing customers transition from the old template to the new one.

“We are thrilled to have led the redevelopment on this important application for nonprofits working with the Salesforce.com Foundation,” said Matt Kaufman, CEO of MK Partners, “We see this new template as an opportunity to reach many more nonprofits and really make a difference in enabling them to get up and running on Salesforce CRM quickly and easily.”

“This updated application on the Force.com AppExchange helps nonprofits use Salesforce CRM to upgrade their contact management and fundraising tools. MK Partners is a true leader for their work with the Salesforce.com Foundation and their continual support of the nonprofit community,” said Clarence So, Chief Marketing Officer, salesforce.com.

About the Force.com Platform and AppExchange
Force.com is the only proven Platform as a Service for building and running business applications in the cloud. The Force.com platform powers the Salesforce CRM applications, more than 800 ISV partner applications like those from CODA and Fujitsu, and more than 85,000 custom applications used by salesforce.com’s 47,700 customers such as Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE and Sprint Nextel.

Force.com is the fastest platform for building and deploying complex business applications. Unlike a stack of disparate client/server hardware and software products, Force.com unifies the development and deployment model from the database to the device, allowing developers to easily assemble applications with clicks, components and code, and then instantly deploy them on salesforce.com’s trusted global infrastructure. Customers and partners are using Force.com to build all kinds of business applications from supply chain management to compliance tracking, brand management, accounts receivable, claims processing applications and much more.

Applications built on the Force.com platform can be easily distributed to the entire SaaS community through the Force.com AppExchange.

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About MK Partners

MK Partners is a leading management and technology consulting firm specializing in both the development and implementation of salesforce.com products and services. Their expert consultants have worked with a variety of industries and hundreds of companies throughout the country, implementing and developing tools to ensure businesses operate more efficiently and increase return-on-investment.

CEO Matt Kaufman began volunteering with the salesforce.com Foundation in 2002, providing services to Nonprofit Organizations. He remains active in the Nonprofit Salesforce.com Practitioners community. For more information on MK Partners’ suite of products and services, please visit their website at www.mkpartners.com.

Media Contact:
Lindsey Caplan
MK Partners, Inc.
650-464-2217
lcaplan@mkpartners.com