Benchmark commenced the development of Phase III of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution on December 14th 2007. This follows the successful completion of CRM Phase II. 

CRM Phase III targets mainly at generating reports intended to create a customizable view for every module available in the system. This application will chiefly help top management and reporting authorities for drawing metrics or statistical information of the project status based on the report generated.

The CRM solution will be developed using ASP.Net 2.0, Crystal Reports 10.0, SQL server 2000, Cruise Control 2.0 and N-Unit 2.3. The solution is expected to be released in the third week of March 2008.

Benchmark has been nominated to head the Steering Committee (SC) of a Global European Corporation. This is a testimony to the tremendous confidence and trust that customers have on Benchmark.

Benchmark’s role as Head of the Steering Committee will include advising the Corporation on Corporate Strategy, leveraging IT to expand their business with all their global customers and enabling solutions that enhance the business of their customers.

The nomination of Benchmark as the head of the Steering Committee is an endorsement of Benchmark’s competence and ability to build customer confidence in a very short period. The achievement has further reinforced Benchmark’s competence in offering high quality customer-centric solutions.

On Dec 28th 2007, Benchmark announced the beginning of research-based healthcare application eBalance for its client HealthEra. The application will involve monitoring the physical movement of the researchers’ subjects by means of a web service that communicates with a dedicated cell phone. It also includes a project website that defines a research protocol and the sensors with sensor parameters required to execute the protocol.

Benchmark will work along with the researchers during the Requirement gathering phase and subsequently begin the application development activities. The project is likely to be completed in the first week of May.

The eBalance will be developed using MS IIS, MS .Net 2.0, SQL 2005 and MS Windows OS.

Benchmark commenced the offering of Maintenance & Support services to one of UK’s leading business solutions company Advanced Innovations (AI) in the final week of October. This follows the signing of a strategic deal between AI and Benchmark, wherein Benchmark was selected by AI as its Strategic Technology partner.

Benchmark will provide Maintenance & Support to AI in areas relating to E-Business Application, Portal Dashboard Creation and Designing, DBA Monitoring, Website Designing, Training & Creation of Knowledge database, Quality Assurance, all leading to a Technology Roadmap.

Further, Benchmark’s services to AI will involve providing support to troubleshooting problems and issues through web and telephone on a continuous basis. This is likely to include extension of services, addition of new features and functionalities, creation of comprehensive areas for AI’s customers and suppliers with administration functionalities and privacy controls.

Benchmark has tied up with a leading business solutions company in the UK for providing services that would enhance the client`s efficiency in areas of Consulting, Support, Design and Development. 

Through the partnership, Benchmark will pro-actively contribute to the business of the solutions provider by arriving at a 5 year technology road map that will pave the way for growth of the latter`s businesses worldwide.

Benchmark has been chosen as the Strategic Technology Partner to provide integrated Manufacturing, Innovation Support and Financial Engineering services. This partnership will clearly establish Benchmark not just as a software services provider but as a company that participates and adds value to its customers` business in various ways.

On October 10th 2007, the project team of iMOM commenced the Kick Off of its E-Commerce Application, which will make the existing iMOM Research Application into a Commercialized Project.

Commercialization includes online user registration process, inclusion of advertisement module, enhancements in Admin feature and comprehensive reporting feature on advertisement and user statistics.

The team, which has completed the requirement analysis, is in the process of drafting the detailed SRS and preparing the design documents, which are carried out as parallel activities.

Benchmark commenced the development of Phase II of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution on September 21st 2007. This follows the successful completion of CRM Phase I.

Modules covered under Phase II include Global Database, Employees, Customer, Prospects, Action Tracking, Campaign, Supplier, Products, SMS Integration and Outlook.

The CRM solution will be developed using ASP.NET 2.0, C#, AJAX, Outlook Add-Ins and SMS Service with SQL Server 2000 as database. Dev Express components will also be used for the purpose of development.

The solution is expected to be released in the first half of December.

Benchmark announced the Kick Off of its Jewelry Management Software - Glitz on August 3rd 2007. This product is being developed to help retail jewelry merchants to handle operations relating to Jewelry industry.

The modules that would feature Glitz comprise Inventory, Purchases, Sales and Accounts. The scope of the application also includes providing Online Order Status, Management Information Reports, EDI with customers and vendors and Cost Estimation.

The solution will be developed using the technologies of .Net and SQL Server database and is expected to be completed in the final week of December.

Benchmark commenced the development of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution in grand style on July 13th 2007.

The solution will entail development of ‘Single-Point Information Repository’ which will contain comprehensive information of organizations, their employees, prospects and related business entities, all in a single package.

The CRM solution is expected to be developed using ASP.NET 2.0, C#, AJAX, Outlook Add-Ins and Windows Service with SQL Server 2000 as database. Dev Express, a customized tool for web applications will be used to reduce about 40% of coding time and Microsoft Exception handling block will be used to handle logical errors in the form of exceptions.

Benchmark successfully completed on 3rd July 2007 the Time Line Management System (TLMS) project for a leading Engineering Consulting Company in record time.

TLMS is a web based intranet application for automating the client’s daily activities like Resource Management, Timeline Management, Project Management, Human Resource Management, Project Planning & Attendance.

The essential feature of the system was to generate reports for the above activities on user request. IIS 6.0 was used as web server for the project, ASP.NET for server scripting, C# 2.0 as code behind language, XML, SQL server 2005 as Database and Crystal Reports for Reports.

Benchmark has tied up with UAE-based Foresight Technology to offer complete offshore development activities. Foresight is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alpha Data, one of the largest ICT companies in the United Arab Emirates.

Through the agreement, Benchmark will provide Foresight offshore development activities that include:

• Outsourced Product Development
  
  
• Custom Application Development
  
  
• Implementation & Customization of MS Navision

On 28th Feb 2007, the project team celebrated the kick-off of the iMOM project, which is for a US based leading Healthcare Company. The overall goal of this project is to decrease the BMI (body mass index) in mild to moderately overweight women (ages 18-45), who are at least 6 weeks post-delivery, by the end of a 16-week online intervention.  Weight loss is promoted by disseminating targeted physical activity and nutrition information, goals, related educational materials, and behavioral skills via a dedicated website designed for this intervention.

The scope of the project includes development of iMOM Intervention Application, integration of message board, publishing library content from library application, integration of site statistics information, integration of automatic e-mail scheduling functionality and development of an Admin module. 

The project development environment includes Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005, Asp.NET 2.0, C#, XML 1.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 at the backend. FusionChart will be used for the reporting needs.

The project is being developed using ASP.Net 2.0 and C# with MS-SQL Server 2000 as the database.

There is a reason behind all the smiling faces at Benchmark. On November 2nd 2006 we were awarded the re-certification as an ISO 9001:2000 company. There was a sense of satisfaction all round, but that is not surprising because quality is a way of life at Benchmark. Strict adherence to processes, a well structured testing and review process ensures that quality standards are sustained even to the smallest detail.

Everyone in Benchmark is accountable for comprehensively satisfying our customers by meeting or exceeding their needs and expectations with best-in-class solutions and services.

As our CEO says, “It is Benchmark`s objective to be perceived by our customers as their provider of choice for software services and solutions.”

Our Quality Policy is defined and strongly driven by the following Management principles and practices:

• Build a mutually profitable relationship with our customers, ensuring their long-term success, through the understanding of their needs and the needs of their customers as well.

• Achieve our commitments for quality, cost and schedule.

• Enhance competence in technology and ensure use of best practices at all levels.

• Drive continual improvement and innovation based upon efficient business processes, well-defined metrics, best practices and customer surveys.

• Promote teamwork and ensure use of common methodologies and processes.

• Develop staff competencies, creativity, empowerment and accountability through appropriate develop

We are confident of our ability to maintain standards that win customer satisfaction and appreciation. We are gearing up to meet CMMI Level 5 certification in 2007.