Technology Solutions Co, the Chicago, Illinois consultant and systems integrator, has received the go-ahead to spin out its customer relationship management unit under the name eLoyalty to cash in on the current vogue for CRM (CI No 3,665). Enterprise customer management (ECM) is TSC’s take on CRM, its slant geared more to customer retention than tracking the relationship between company and customer.
ECM represents 50% of the firm’s revenue but is growing at over 35% globally. TSC wants to gain visibility for its customer retention business, which it feels is being held back in ‘mindshare’ and fettered financially by the declining enterprise solutions division, which sells packaged SAP and PeopleSoft software.
The eLoyalty division will go public later this year, probably in October. The sector hopes to raise around $63.2m with the flotation, which will involve selling a 20% stake in the company, says Arthur Bird, senior vice president at TSC.
The money raised will be spent on both product development and geographical expansion. Bird sees hitting vertical markets as critical to the company’s success. Telecommunications represents a tremendous opportunity for eLoyalty, the mobile transformation is yet to be seen, he says, predicting future business from mobile operators offering focused loyalty schemes to high-volume users. TSC currently derives its revenues in the areas of financial services, travel and leisure and news and media, as well as telcos.
TSC plans to enlarge operations in Europe, which Bird thinks is 18 months behind the US in terms of e-commerce. Currently present in the UK, France and Germany, Bird says that Scandinavia, Holland and Belgium are first on the list, with countries like Poland and even the United Arab Emirates – where TSC is already working – also under consideration for opportunistic project-driven expansion, with temporary operations enlarging into full-fledged offices. On news of the spin-out of eLoyalty, TSC shares rose 7% to $10.4.
