Aberdeen Group Makes Case for Vertical eCRM Platform for Healthcare; SoftWatch Relationship Server 2.0 Tapped for Technical Leadership.

Business/Health Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2000

Vertical Web-based eCRM (customer relationship management) applications enable the healthcare industry to best manage online customer relationships, a senior analyst for CRM solutions with Aberdeen Group concluded in a white paper issued today.

Vertical applications are those designed to meet the particular needs of a specific industry in contrast to horizontal applications which are developed generally to meet the needs of many industries.

"Nowhere is the need for industry-specific domain knowledge in managing customer relationships more critical than in the healthcare industry," said the analyst, Harry Watkins.

According to Watkins, Aberdeen has noted the emergence of a new class of vertical applications to manage the often unique and complex issues surrounding healthcare in an industry experiencing what he described as "explosive growth" of consumer and professional interest and demand for online health information, support and services. Aberdeen cited U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray in estimating that e-healthcare revenues are expected to top $15 billion in 2005(1), "transforming how healthcare companies, organizations and providers are doing business."

In his paper, Watkins explained that powerful Web-assisted relationship- and community-building methods take eCRM to another level when it comes to healthcare, creating a foundation for an altogether different approach better known as e-healthcare relationship management or eHRM. Watkins outlined the particulars of the health industry's uniqueness noting the sensitivity of health information; a landscape of diverse stakeholders such as researchers, practitioners and payors, as well as patients and their family members; the multi-layered nature of their relationships with one another; and the customer's need for trust, support, empowerment and community. The paper also includes an analysis of the technological requirements of e-business and e-marketing applications in healthcare, including security, content management, data mining and ease of integration with core business systems.

The paper, entitled "eHRM: The Special Case of Healthcare Customer Relationship Management," singles out SoftWatch as meeting the need for a vertical healthcare e-business platform, stating, "Aberdeen's research suggests that SoftWatch can make a credible claim to technical leadership in health-related CRM." Watkins calls the company's flagship product, SoftWatch Relationship Server(TM) (SRS) 2.0, "the first 'best practices' relationship management suite designed from the ground up for the healthcare industry."

Launched July 2000, SRS 2.0 is a fully customizable, "out of the box" solution providing a foundation for addressing the unique data management, customer segmentation, secure communications and legal and regulatory issues healthcare companies face in transitioning to the Internet.

"(The) SRS 2.0 deploys rapidly, is massively scalable, is effective in building and sustaining health-related relationships, and pays for itself quickly," Watkins wrote.

With 20 years experience in market management, research and analysis, Harry Watkins covers the CRM market, with an emphasis on sales and marketing automation and e-Marketing suppliers and solutions. Watkins also covers the closely related areas of e-Marketing - in particular, permission-based e-mail direct marketing - and sales effectiveness tools. He holds a Ph.D. in marketing.

"SoftWatch has already benefited from growing industry interest in a targeted solution that can meet the unique challenges and regulatory requirements of creating an e-business initiative in health both in terms of implementation and deployment and in terms of optimizing ROI," said Amir Kishon, CEO of SoftWatch. "We've built SoftWatch from the ground up to answer the growing need for a vertical solution for e-health from a position of strength."

"The interactive nature of the Web also relates to the circumstances that set healthcare apart from other industries, making the focus on the needs and perspectives of individual customers - in this case patients, professionals and other health consumers - all the more critical," wrote Watkins. "The chronic sufferer of disease requires a different level of attention and depth of information than a newly diagnosed patient searching for product information.

"Increasingly, e-healthcare companies are finding that Web initiatives that can adapt to each visitor's evolving needs are enabling them to build customer loyalty and forge a one-to-one relationship," he wrote.

At the heart of consumers' growing use of the Internet for healthcare purposes is the convergence of a number of trends, according to the Aberdeen paper. In particular, it cited "the aging of the U.S. population, the dissatisfaction with traditional sources of health information, the growth of managed care and the growing volume of health-related online-content." To make his point, Watkins cited a variety of statistics, including that:

-- The number of Internet users globally will grow to 320 million by 2002, up
from approximately 100 million in 1998.(2)

-- Three out of four Internet users use the Web to search for health
information; almost half (48 %) said that they have searched online for
specific information about prescription medications.(3)

-- Approximately 88.5 million people will go online for health information and
55 million people will buy health-related products online by 2005.(4)

-- According to a study funded by AMA, the number of physicians communicating
with patients via e-mail has tripled in less than a year, with 10% of
physicians now sending or receiving e-mail from patients on a daily or weekly
basis.(5)

-- In a physician survey almost 50% indicated that they would prefer
e-detailing to a traditional rep visit even though only 3% of doctors have ever
been offered one.(6)

SoftWatch is providing free copies of the white paper on request. Interested parties can contact Karen Kuller at SoftWatch, [phone], ext. 7108 or e-mail her at [e-mail].

About Aberdeen

Aberdeen Group is a leading provider of technology market consulting and research. Steeped in technology and armed with end-user field research, Aberdeen answers clients' critical business and technology questions in the context of the Internet economy and across the product life cycle. Founded in 1988, Aberdeen is headquartered in Boston, Mass., and has research centers in Palo Alto, Calif.; Ft. Collins, Colo.; and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Aberdeen is located on the Web at www.aberdeen.com.

About SoftWatch

SoftWatch is a leading developer of Internet relationship management software products and services for the global healthcare industry. The company's flagship Web-based product, the SoftWatch Relationship Server(TM) (SRS), is a highly scalable, fully customizable platform solution for building and deploying highly targeted e-health marketing and e-business initiatives, including professional and consumer portals and communities. Global customers include Abbott Laboratories, Aventis, Johnson & Johnson, Glaxo Wellcome, Procter & Gamble, Schering Plough, Merck Medco and CBS-Medscape. Founded in 1994, SoftWatch has offices in Ramat Gan, Israel and in New York. Visit SoftWatch at www.softwatch.com.

-------- (1) US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, Fall 1999 (2) International Data Corporation. (3) American Society of Health-System Pharmaceutical cists, June 2000. (4) Cyber Dialogue, Health Practice Survey, "The Future of e-Health,"

May 2000. (5) Medem, division of the American Medical Association, June 2000 (6) Datamonitor report, "Physicians' Online Information Needs 2000."