A pair of Steelwedge deals

Steelwedge Software has been in the news as of late as well. Yesterday, the Pleasanton, Calif.-based firm announced that Tellabs, a provider of data networking and bandwidth management solutions, has gone live with a new Steelwedge collaborative sales and operations planning process to improve executive visibility across the organization.

The Steelwedge S&OP implementation includes integration with the Tellabs CRM system used for sales pipeline management and with the SAP r/3 ERP system. Based on Steelwedge’s earlier Global Demand Management Initiative product, the Steelwedge process seeks to assist in incorporating extensive supply, demand and financial input and feedback from sales, marketing, operations and finance departments. It is based on the earlier Global Demand Management Initiative which is also driven by Steelwedge Software.

Using Steelwedge Software, Tellabs seeks to create a consensus sales forecast incorporating direct feeds from the Tellabs sales pipeline system, to manage operational systems with quantitative and qualitative input from cross-functional teams, and to provides visibility into supply / demand imbalances. The live-going was excellent news for Steelwedge, who could use the continuing relationship. After all, as Steelwedge EVP Services Glen Margolis claimed, “In less than four years Tellabs has completely reworked its sales forecasting and demand management process, and now sales and operations planning.”

Flashing back one week, Steelwedge Software representatives were able to announce that Aurora Networks had selected the Steelwedge sales forecasting and planning on-demand solution to automate sales opportunity configuration and pipeline management. Aurora Networks is a leading manufacturer of optical transport systems for broadband networks that support the convergence of digital broadband, voice, video and data applications.

The burgeoning Aurora need an automated, on-demand solution for its sales department via information tied to BOM-level configuration detail. In this implementation, too, Steelwedge representatives believe themselves to be getting in on the ground floor: “Aurora Networks is in a high growth mode,” Steelwedge vice president of sales Chris Whitted said, “and they need scalability in managing sales opportunities and the configuration associated with each sales opportunity.” Founded in 2000, Steelwedge Software, Inc. dubs itself “the leading innovator in the emerging field of sales planning and performance management.”

Among an interesting Steelwedge clientele are Ciena, Enterasys Networks, Harley-Davidson, Juniper Networks, Qlogic, and Tellabs. Intelligent Enterprise magazine called Steelwedge “A Company to Watch in 2006.”