Brainiac: A web interface highlights the latest version of Brainworks Software's billing software; here a billing statement is displayed in a web browser.

Brainworks: The Swiss Army Knife of systems suppliers

NEW ORLEANS -- Ron Popeil would be quite at home at Brainworks Software.

Any company with a Swiss Army mouse for a logo -- containing screwdrivers, can openers and even a corkscrew -- should have a home for the inventor of something that slices and dices your life away.

Though the company recently acquired Freedom System Integrators (FSI) of Wichita, Kan., that company's editorial product lineup was not on display at NEXPO. Executives said new versions, scheduled to be released this fall, are under development. It didn't make sense, they said, to show something that won't be sold and the new versions are not yet ready.

But on advertising systems, Sayville, N.Y.-based Brainworks can give the erstwhile Mr. Popeil a run for his money. Brainworks has created software that slices and dices by adding a data mining component across much of its product line, including accounts receivable, billing, classified, display and pagination.

The classified applications on display, from FSI, had all the usual suspects. Whether run in-house or across the Web, there were the usual prompts for upselling clients, along with pricing info for the various ways of scheduling an ad.

Using a database of restricted words supplied by the Pennsylvania Press Association, the system looks at the classification of an ad being entered, reviews the list of restricted words and then examines the ad. It flags words that may not be allowed in certain types of ads and, when possible, offers alternatives that don't run afoul of the rules.

Client applications built with standard 32-bit Microsoft Windows tools tie into a database -- Oracle or Microsoft SQL -- where all the data reside. Customer contact info, classified sales, display sales, classified pagination and possibly even a French fry slicer all reside in that one database, giving users a single client structure and a single billing system, among other things.

The advertising management system client is Windows only, but can be run on Macintosh or UNIX machines using Citrix Winframe or a web browser. Classified and the existing editorial systems are Macintosh natives; the classified and ROP pagination systems are cross-platform.

When it comes to advertising management, a sales rep has a single interface for information about all his customers and everything they do.

In a typical newspaper, information about a sales call is kept only if an ad is sold, and the information can be attached to the ad. If a sales person uses a contact manager such as ACT! or Goldmine, that sales person can better track sales calls, but the information is rarely available -- especially at smaller sites -- for managers and other sales employees to see.

But it's more than scheduling. By using the contact management tools in conjunction with the other products, sales representatives -- and their supervisors -- can see where time is being spent and how effectively it is being used.

Brainworks has taken that sort of contact management and built it into the advertising application, using Microsoft Foundation Class libraries and tools. Using those tools for the development gives the products an interface that is quite similar to that of Microsoft's own products, presumably cutting staff training costs.

The time management piece of the pie, for example, looks identical to Schedule Plus, the scheduling application in earlier versions of Windows. Users familiar with Schedule Plus or Microsoft Outlook should be able to jump right into this.

But wait, as Mr. Popeil might say, there's more.

Using the data mining tools, it's possible to quickly generate reports that show year-to-year, month-to-month, week-to-week or pretty much any other kind of comparisons. If an advertiser hasn't bought anything lately, it's easy to cross-reference and see if the sales person has stopped calling; if so, managers and sales people can coordinate a special sales call.

Or, if an advertiser bought space in a special section last year, the reports will prompt you to send them a mailer to remind them of the opportunity again this year.

Added to the data-mining aspect is the ability to tie directly into Dun and Bradstreet databases as well. If you have regular advertisers, look up similar companies and put them on the prospects list. D&B and other databases can be mined for yet more prospects who, using the contact management window, can be assigned to sales people for follow-up for special marketing campaigns.

It's possible to select people based on what they've done in the last year, cross-pollinating with data from other campaigns to pull into new campaigns.

That contact management interface gives sales reps the ability to send e-mail or faxes -- mail merge capability in one spot. From that window, the sales staff can look at a graphical representation of what a customer has spent and what subordinates are doing. Managers can tie work to customers, move prospects from one salesperson to another, and manage subordinates.

And, just like the late-night infomercial, there's still more.

Before adding data mining, the company had to keep adding custom reports for customers. Customers would ask for a special report or view of the sales data, which the company would add and distribute. Customers would then ask for a custom variation on that report, which the company would design and distribute.

"People kept asking for reports, we kept adding them, they would want a modification, we would send it and they would want a change," said Brainworks President John Barry. "We designed the data mining interface like the cash registers at McDonald's, with buttons for most of the fields. Using the built-in logic, looking for things like companies who were in a section or weren't in a section, and you can build millions of reports to look at your data in different ways."

And the company can make much of that available across the Web, giving sales people -- and customers -- the ability to look at open orders, statements and the like without having to call the office.

If that's not enough, much of this sales force automation can be done on a Personal Digital Assistant, too. The classified database, billing and other components can be accessed by mobile workers, who can check and update information remotely. They don't bother the billing department, and hopefully they cut down on mistakes in the process.

Now, if they can only julienne the potatoes.

-- S.E.B.

Brainworks Software,
(631) 563-5000, e-mail: info@brainworks.com.

From THE COLE PAPERS, July 2001, Copyright © 2001, All Rights Reserved.