SugarCRM (News - Alert) has announced that two SugarCRM customers -- WeberHaus and Kassel Initiative -- won top honors for CRM deployments at the CRM-Expo in Nuremberg, Germany.

 

CRM-Expo, Europe's largest CRM event, was held in Nuremberg on November 7th and 8th. "These awards, which are the most prestigious CRM awards in Europe,demonstrate the impact of SugarCRM's commercial open source model globally," said Clint Oram, General Manager, Sugar Europe.

 

WeberHaus, a builder of high-end, energy efficient homes headquartered in Rheinau-Linx, Germany, secured the award for Best B2C implementation. Founded in 1960, WeberHaus employs over 900 employees and has built more than 28,000 houses in Germany, France, Switzerland and several other countries.

 

In an industry not known for repeat customers, WeberHaus focused its SugarCRM implementation on deploying a marketing and sales management system that offered its existing customers cross-sell and upsell offers to continue to grow the value of the relationship after a home was built. The award cited WeberHaus for its ability to use CRM to build lifelong relationships and create customer loyalty with buyers in the

residential construction industry.

 

The Kassel Initiative is a non-profit focused on attracting tourists and industry to the Kassel region of central Germany. Kassel used Sugar to build an online platform where residents, businesses, and visitors could share information about the Kassel region. Kassel was praised for its modern and innovative implementation of CRM to build and sustain lasting relationships across the community.

 

A couple weeks ago Intelestream, which sells consulting services for SugarCRM applications, announced the release of the Sugar Theme Club, a nonprofit online portal where users of the Sugar Suite line of products can "download and share custom background themes to compliment their CRM experience at no cost."

 

The concept for a theme club was developed by the Intelestreamers, who thought the growing demand for new Sugar background themes could be fueled by graphic designers seeking a forum to showcase their talents to potential clients.

 

"We believe the Sugar Theme Club will make CRM fun to use while putting graphic designers in touch with CRM users interested in services such as logo and Web site design," states Jason Green, founder and CEO of Intelestream.

 

Introductory themes now available for download include designs inspired by automobiles, baseball, scuba diving, night clubbing, and the mountains of New Zealand. Users can download themes for immediate use by registering for a free membership at www.sugarthemeclub.org.

 

Earlier this month Q-Industries, a Web site and business application developer, has implemented a CRM system for Odell, Simms & Associates combining "the best of an open-source CRM platform with the insight provided by social network analysis," according to the Q-Industrialists.