Two High-Profile Consultancies Combine to Form Customer-1; Caribou Lake Acquires High-Yield Marketing's Consulting Practice, Creates Unit to Improve Customer-Centricity Outcomes.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 21, 2002

Minneapolis-based consulting firm Caribou Lake has announced the formation of Customer-1, a consulting practice that provides integrated strategic and technology consulting services to clients making transitions into customer-centric business environments.

The new unit combines the strategic planning, workflow design and process engineering capabilities of High-Yield Marketing with the systems architecture, data integration and web development capabilities of Caribou Lake. High-Yield Marketing, founded by CRM industry pioneer Dick Lee, who will head Customer-1, has provided customer-centric consulting and educational services to a global client base. Caribou Lake, which is 20% owned by German research conglomerate GfK, provides systems design, development and integration services from offices in Minneapolis and San Francisco. Caribou Lake has won national media attention for its leading edge role in applying "agile" project management and extreme (XP) programming principles.

Gilman Anderson, CEO of Caribou Lake, describes Customer-1 as "focused right on a client pain point." Anderson maintains, "You can't change business strategies without changing your information systems. The same applies to workflow and work process. And companies are trying to make all these changes piecemeal--and experiencing horrible results." For Lee, who has been a leading proponent of approaching CRM as core business strategy, not application software, folding his consultancy into Caribou Lake creates an opportunity to "provide end-to-end support--rather than taking clients through the planning and strategy aspects of CRM, then watching some leave ROI on the table because they fail to adapt their information systems to support customer-centric operations."

Lee is especially concerned about the tendency among both buyers and sellers of CRM software to push software to the beginning of the implementation process. "By melding strategy and systems support," Lee says, "we can address things in proper order--strategies first; then the people side, with workflow and process; then systems architecture and integration; and CRM software last, where it belongs."

Under the terms of Caribou Lake's acquisition of High-Yield Marketing's consulting services, the latter's HYM Press business unit will remain independent, and Lee will continue to write for publication and conduct workshops in adopting customer-centric business practices.

For additional information or to schedule interviews please contact Pam Todd of Caribou Lake at 952-837-9802 or [e-mail].