Award-Winning Tool Built with Rocket Software’s ActiveGuide Suite
Newton, MA —December 14, 2005—Rocket Software (www.rocketsoftware.com), a Boston-based developer of Enterprise Infrastructure products, today announced that the performance support solution developed with its ActiveGuide product for Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) has won the 2005 Performance Centered Design Award. The Salesforce.com Interactive Coach is an independent performance support tool that enables first-time users to effectively use Salesforce.com without the need for prior training and thereby accelerate product adoption and ROI. The prize was awarded in the “embedded performer-centered solution” category, which focuses on supporting task completion rather than application learning. The PCD Awards have been presented by EPSScentral LLC since 1997, and are adjudicated by an independent panel of design experts.
The Salesforce.com Interactive Coach was created by performance support development specialists Christensen/Roberts Solutions using the ActiveGuide Suite. “Most enterprise applications use adoption strategies that train users to realign their thinking and way of working to conform to unfamiliar applications,” said founding partner Hal Christensen. “The performance-centered solution we were able to create with ActiveGuide makes users fluent with the application right from the start without any training.”
“The 2005 PCD Award recipients have focused on business performance through human performance in unique and innovative ways, with particular attention to return on investment,” said Gary Dickelman, President of EPSScentral, director of the awards. “What set the ActiveGuide-C/RS submission apart from the others is its direct impact on the sales process from prospecting to cash,” added Dickelman. “When salespeople are able to take advantage of the outstanding features of Salesforce.com immediately, without training or outside assistance, sales performance is accelerated and results are clearly measurable.”
“User adoption is widely recognized as the biggest barrier to enterprise application ROI and Christensen/Roberts has demonstrated the impact that well-crafted performance support created with the ActiveGuide Suite can have on user adoption and therefore both ROI and Total Cost of Ownership,” said Rocket Software CEO Andy Youniss. “If a customer of Salesforce.com can eliminate just two hours of training for 40 users that would eliminate the equivalent of two full weeks of non-productive time. The Interactive Coach is not only a great tool from a technical standpoint, but it also delivers a clear financial benefit to the organization by reducing the need to provide expensive and time-consuming training.”
Founded in 1990, Rocket Software is a global development firm that builds Enterprise Infrastructure products for the world’s leading OEMs, networks and software companies. Its ActiveGuide technology mostly recently won the 2005 Performance Centered Design Award for the Salesforce.com Interactive Coach. The company’s current lines of business complement and extend strategic OEM offerings in the areas of enterprise and mobile security, relational databases, mobile and wireless computing, and operational support systems (OSS). Rocket’s current OEM relationships and technology partners include IBM, RSA Security, Microsoft, NEC, and Toshiba. Rocket Software is based in Newton, Mass., and employs more than 200 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.rocketsoftware.com. For more about ActiveGuide visit www.rockeTools.com.
C/R Solutions was formed in 1994 to provide expertise and tools for design, development, and delivery of solutions that ensure business performance through human performance—at a fraction of the cost and with greater effectiveness than all other alternatives. Together, C/R Solutions partners and staff bring over 100 years of instructional design and development experience to each client engagement. For more information visit www.crsol.com.
The PCD Awards have been presented by EPSSCentral since 1997, and are adjudicated by an independent panel of experts. EPSScentral LLC, is a worldwide provider of Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) and Performance Centered Design (PCD).
