Proposals Software

It seems like there is always some new kind of marketing trend each day.  Between tagging, tweeting, commenting, blogging and joining groups, it seems easy for your business to get lost in the jumble of things. As a social media addict, I at times lose hours to my habit/addiction. But social media marketing should not be one of them.  Social media is a great way to get word out about your business and its capabilities.  Whether it’s through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media outlet, word spreads around and it is a great way to make connections and network with others in your industry. 

As opposed to traditional marketing strategies like advertisements through different forms of standard media, social media marketing is a new-ish method of marketing your business and it is transforming the ways in which we speak today.  With the growth of Internet users and smart phone owners, it is now easier than ever to find information, discuss news and reach a larger audience, all without your checkbook every being disturbed.  According to Dave Evans and Jake McKee, authors of Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement, “A July 2009 Anderson Analytics study found 60% of the Internet population uses social networks and social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.”  Over half of users!     

With such a large audience to reach out to, BigMachines has taken the opportunity to use resources like Facebook, Twitter and blogging to inform both prospects and customers about our capabilities, press releases and best practices.  By taking advantage of new social media trends, BigMachines can reach more people than we could have before.  Our clients can not only be up-to-date about news like the annual BigIdeas Conference and new software releases, but they can discuss these topics together as well.  They can also have more access to information about different aspects of our software including Enterprise Resource Planning software, online sales tools and proposal automation. Best of all, our customers can interact with one another and share ideas and best practices. We have found great success with social media not because we are industry geniuses (even though we like to think we are) but because we center all of our offerings on our customers. We let them guide us on topics to even how we shape our product. 

With social media marketing, we can increase sales and provide more information and resources to our customers and prospects.  Social media marketing is the future in building both the knowledge about your business and its success. If you haven’t done so already, join the movement!

Join the Official BigMachines Facebook Page here.

Join one of BigMachines' LinkedIn Forums here.

Join my network of professionals on LinkedIn here.

Tweet with us here.

See what I have to say about the IT and Sales Industry on Twitter here.

2.6 seconds left.  Down by 1.  A spot in the National Championship on the line.  It all comes down to a full-court pass and making an open shot.  We all remember the epic 1992 East Regional Final game when Duke miraculously came back from a deficit and beat Kentucky in the final seconds of the game.  But that last-second, buzzer-beater shot he took was more than just luck.  It was well-planned.  Every play has been thought out and practiced before being executed on the court.  Without good planning, training, practicing and the right tools, each team would be unable to continue on in the bracket.  With the chance of either going home or staying in the tournament, a team and its members ensure that they are prepared for March and its ensuing madness.  For example, a team must know their opponent’s best zone defense, their sweet spots, their best free throw shooters and how to get past their defense.  A team would not be able to do that without the proper information and resources.  They not only need a coach who knows the ins and outs of how to stay in the tournament and beat your opponent, but each player from the center to the guard needs to be on the same page as well.                                      In keeping up with the spirit of March Madness, BigMachines’ sales team functions in much the same way.  Similar to the basketball coach, Sales Managers must coordinate their team of associates and interns in order to find leads and make contacts.  Ultimately, the manager's goal is to call the plays and close the sale, much like that last-second, buzzer-beater shot that ensured Duke a spot in the championship.  The Sales Associates run out the play and use online sales tools like sales and marketing software, proposal development software, and an order management system to help close the case.  Without the proper resources to research, contact and inform the client of BigMachines’ capabilities, the sales team would end up on the losing side of things like Kentucky. 

As an Ecommerce Solution Company, we strive to provide a Business to Business Ecommerce Solution that helps you sell more and sell faster.   With the right solution, Duke ended up winning that year and becoming the 1992 champions.  Without that well-executed full-court pass and final second shot, Duke never would have become the National Title holder that year.  It’s something to consider, does your sales team have the right tools and resources to close the sale and win it all?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that much has changed since my grandfather’s sales days. Back then, he would travel to customers and prospects with a heavy bag of products so he could demonstrate how the product worked and interacted with its various components. Over the years, sales professionals started to move away from this approach – in part due to the back breaking pain it caused. Instead, some started to carry paper catalogs. While not as heavy to carry, these were (and still are) pricey and much more difficult to use for new and existing customers in terms of visualizing how the product actually worked.

Today, sales professionals have a new sales bag – the iPad. With the third generation iPad in the hands of more than three million people, it is having a huge impact on the way we do business – and the sales department is leading their companies through this transformation toward mobility by using the iPad and other tablets as a sales tool while out in the field. Sales professionals are using the iPad while in front of their customers to have a conversation about their products’ features and options, providing an opportunity for product configuration on the spot.

In fact, here at BigMachines, we recently conducted our Second Annual Benchmark Survey, which takes a look at the state of the sales industry today. The findings show that sales mobility is continuously growing with 66.7% of respondents currently using a tablet or mobile device for selling while on the road.  More so, the survey results indicate that face-to-face contact still provides the greatest success with prospects and customers. Taking both those points into consideration, this next statistic shouldn’t be too shocking: a total of 62.5% said their mobile device is important for completing complex sales.

Here are just a few instances as to why the iPad is enhancing the face-to-face interaction between the sales rep and customers and prospects:

• It provides easy access to critical data on-the-go. The more information a sales rep has about a particular customer or prospect going into a meeting, the greater the chance ofclosing a deal.

• It enables quick and professional price quotes on the spot. With the proper applications, an entire proposal can be generated in front of the customer and terms quickly negotiated.

• It adds an extra degree of transparency to the deal, which customers appreciate. As quotes and proposals are generated in plain sight, they have full visibility into what is being negotiated throughout the process.

• While closing deals faster is an obvious plus for sales reps, it is also advantageous to the client. The faster a customer is delivered the product or service it needs, the better off it will be.

• The iPad can minimize, or even eliminate, the confusion that often accompanies complex orders. It is equipped with adequate software applications for pricing and quoting in real-time, enabling sales rep to walk a customer through an entire order in-person, all while allowing the rep to easily explain and iterate through all of the options available right in front of the customer.

It’s pretty incredible how this new, lightweight sales bag is revolutionizing the way the sales professionals do their jobs better while on the road – ultimately leading to increased productivity and an improved bottom line.

So, tell me, is your organization rolling out the iPad to the sales force? What does your sales bag look like?

 

Tim Handorf

VP of Product Management

This is a re-post from www.bigmachines.com:

BigMachines announced that its BigMachines 11 release has achieved Oracle Database Ready status through Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), demonstrating that BigMachines has fully tested and supports its product on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2. BigMachines is a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork.

Oracle Database Ready is part of the Oracle Exastack Ready program, which allows partners such as BigMachines to be recognized by Oracle for developing, testing and tuning their applications on the latest component products of Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud engineered systems. Oracle Database 11g offers BigMachines industry leading performance, reliability and scalability to power the most demanding business critical applications. It also helps customers save money by lowering storage usage, reducing administration tasks, and enabling consolidation onto secure private database cloud environments.

BigMachines software streamlines the sales process and provides solutions for product configuration, pricing, quoting, proposal generation and B2B ecommerce. BigMachines’ Oracle Database Ready status helps ensure that joint Oracle and BigMachines customers will leverage proven technology and quickly receive benefits of an integrated, joint solution including reduced time to implement, seamless user experience and rapid return on investment.


View the entire press release on our website.

For additional information on using BigMachines sales enablement software with Oracle, please visit http://www.bigmachines.com/oracle.php

This is a re-post from www.bigmachines.com:

BigMachines recently announced a partnership between its Japanese subsidiary, BigMachines, Co., Ltd., and Giraffa Factory, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. This partnership will expand the availability of BigMachines' award-winning sales solutions to meet the growing demand for accurate configuration, quote generation and sales process management in the Japanese cloud computing market.

Giraffa Factory, a salesforce.com consulting partner and BigMachines customer, is a rapidly growing company that signed more than 30 new customers in Japan within the first half of 2011. Giraffa will offer and implement BigMachines’ cloud-based selling software to fulfill the configuration, quoting and proposal generation needs of its growing customer base, which encompasses a wide variety of industry verticals. As a BigMachines customer, Giraffa will also use BigMachines SaaS solution for its own configuration and quote generation needs.


Visit www.bigmachines.com for additional information and to read the complete press release.

BigMachines recently announced the release of BigMachines 12, the latest version of the company's award-winning SaaS selling solution. BigMachines software assists sales teams, channel partners and resellers in product configuration, pricing and quoting, proposal generation and B2B ecommerce.

Customers will benefit from enhancements and new features in BigMachines 12 including:

• The improved Migration Management Center allows customers to easily transfer changes between their BigMachines test and production sites. Customers can easily compare changes between two BigMachines instances, filter results, and select specific components to update. The new migration management center allows for greater visibility of changes and speeds up the migration process.

• BigMachines’ new Configuration Layout Editor allows customers to create complex configuration and search layouts with an easy to use drag-and-drop editor for pixel perfect control of the page layout. The results are web pages are easier to design, faster to load, and allow for richer functionality.

• BigMachines updated Commerce Rules Wizard now provides customers with a centralized location to create and edit all commerce rules.  The new functionality adds more flexibility in the BigMachines commerce process and improves the user experience by providing a more scalable, standardized way to create hiding attributes, constraints and validations within BigMachines.

Additional information can be found at www.bigmachines.com. Customers can view the BigMachines 12 release notes and learn more about scheduled upgrades by visiting support.bigmachines.com.

Annual conference focused on customer innovation, best practices and product enhancements to drive business value using BigMachines

BigMachines today announced it concluded the 7th annual BigIdeas conference in Chicago, one of the largest cloud innovation conferences to date. More than 400 attendees participated in the two and a half-day event at the Swissôtel Chicago from October 23-25, sharing best practices for increasing productivity and generating high value by streamlining their sales processes.

BigMachines President David Bonnette led the conference with a strong keynote presentation emphasizing the company’s mission to deliver unmatched customer success, with a commitment to becoming more prescriptive, predictable and focused on out-of-the-box products to help bring innovation back to its customers’ businesses. These themes carried throughout the conference presentations, along with sessions showcasing customers’ innovations and successes, demonstrating how they have increased productivity and generated measurable business value through the adoption of BigMachines software and other cloud-based solutions. Featured speaker Kaihan Krippendorff, a blogger for Fast Company who has been featured in Business Week and Harvard Business Review, and author of three business strategy books, inspired attendees on how to out-think the competition. Additional keynote speakers included Peter Gaylord, Director of Product Marketing, salesforce.com Sales Cloud, Justin Shriber, Regional Vice President, Oracle SaaS Applications Group, and Frederic Kerrest, President and Co-Founder, Okta.

BigMachines 12, the latest version of the company’s flagship on-demand software, was also previewed at the conference, delivering an enhanced user experience, easy administration and enterprise agility as key enhancements to the sales automation platform. With more than 40 new enhancements, BigMachines 12 incorporates 75 percent of customers’ input and ideas gathered over the past year, along with new innovations that help customers sell more and sell faster.

Recognizing excellence within the BigMachines customer community, the winners of the third annual Customer Innovation Awards were announced acknowledging the innovative ways these companies utilize the BigMachines’ sales quoting and proposal software. Award winners include: 

• Terremark as the recipient of the Big Innovation Award for demonstrating innovation in their use of BigMachines within their company;
• Brocade as the recipient of the Big Success Award for demonstrating a significant ROI from using BigMachines;
• Sergey Heyphets with Acme Packet, honored with the Biggest Idea Award for contributing the most innovative idea to enhance BigMachines’ product as voted by other BigMachines customers; and
• Jason Parpart with Schenck AccuRate, honored as Administrator of the Year for his skills and knowledge as well as his exemplary teamwork within his company and with the BigMachines team.

“The continued success of our BigIdeas conferences is a true indicator of the value it delivers to our customers, prospects and partners across the BigMachines community year after year. BigIdeas provides an opportunity for collaboration among attendees and the BigMachines team, and for uncovering valuable insights that can be brought back to their companies to drive more revenue and increase growth,” said David Bonnette. “It’s a tremendous event to experience and we look forward to helping our customers deliver value based on what was shared and learned at BigIdeas and through the BigMachines 12 enhancements that will drive future success and innovation.”


For the latest BigMachines news, visit http://www.bigmachines.com/press_releases.php.

BigMachines is the global leader in product configuration, pricing and quoting, proposal generator and B2B ecommerce. With many new and existing users worldwide, we're pleased to offer two levels of administrator certification: Yellow Belt and Blue Belt.

Our software certification programs are available to all current BigMachines customers and consulting partners.

BigMachines interactive training classes are designed to teach administrators and users the fundamentals of setting up, customizing and maintaining their BigMachines software solution. Yellow Belt certification classes provide the building blocks for implementing and administering BigMachines, and are a prerequisite for more advanced classes that lead to Blue Belt certification.

Blue Belt Certification classes offer advanced content in focused areas of the BigMachines platform. Students who successfully complete all four Blue Belt classes, and pass the Certification Exams at the end of each of those classes, will obtain the Blue Belt Advanced Administrator Certification.

BigMachines customers and partners can choose to take certification classes in the way that best fit their schedules, learning styles and budgets. Classes are offered at BigMachines Learning Centers in Deerfield, Illinois; San Mateo, California; Frankfurt, Germany; and London, UK; can be delivered on-site at your location or can be taken via an online learning platform. The online option allows each customer to learn at his or her own pace, save on travel costs and still receive the same high level of administration training that an in-person class offers.

Learn more about upcoming training at www.bigmachines.com/training1.php

This is a re-post from our website.

BigMachines, Inc., the leader in product configuration, pricing and quoting, proposal generator and B2B ecommerce, today announced that its third annual Customer Innovation Awards will be presented at the BigIdeas Chicago 2011 conference. These awards recognize customers who have demonstrated business success and innovation using the BigMachines Selling Platform and those who have contributed the most popular enhancements to the BigMachines product roadmap. BigIdeas, the annual BigMachines customer and cloud conference, will be held October 23 to 25, 2011 at the Swissôtel Chicago.

Customer Innovation Awards will be presented for the following categories:

• Big Innovation Award is presented to the BigMachines customer that demonstrates the most innovative use of BigMachines within their company.
• Big Success Award is given to the company that demonstrates a significant return on investment (ROI) from using the BigMachines Selling Platform or demonstrates how BigMachines enabled them to eliminate costly tools and processes in their company.
• Biggest Idea Award recognizes the customer that contributes the most innovative idea to enhance the BigMachines' platform. Ideas are submitted online through the My BigIdea innovation portal on the BigMachines Customer Support Center.

For more information on the Customer Innovation Awards, or to submit a nomination, visit http://www.bigmachines.com/bigideas/big-awards.php

"The Customer Innovation Awards program recognizes excellence within our customer community," said Will Wiegler, Vice President of Marketing at BigMachines. "At BigMachines, we not only deliver innovative software to enable our customers to sell more and sell faster, but we also deliver customer success. At BigIdeas, we take the opportunity to highlight truly inspiring examples of innovation and accomplishment among our customers. The conference offers attendees to hear from many BigMachines customers in a variety of industries, to learn from their achievements, and leave with best practices that they can incorporate into their own business processes."

For more information and to read the full release, visit: http://www.bigmachines.com/third-annual-customer-innovation-awards.php

This is a re-post from our website.

BigMachines, a Gold level member of Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced that BigMachines 11.1 software has achieved Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle CRM On Demand Release 19. BigMachines' on-demand selling platform enables customers to help increase sales and revenue. BigMachines provides innovative solutions for product configuration, pricing and quoting, proposal generation and B2B ecommerce. With this Oracle Validated Integration, key quoting activities from BigMachines can be accessed directly from Oracle CRM On Demand, providing customers with a seamless user experience, and ensuring accurate and convenient data flow between BigMachines and Oracle CRM On Demand.

To achieve Oracle Validated Integration, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customers. BigMachines integration with Oracle CRM On Demand Release 19 allows customers to extend the value of their CRM investment by providing a streamlined opportunity-to-quote-to-order process. Data stored in Oracle CRM On Demand can be accessed by BigMachines during the quoting process, helping ensure accurate product configurations and quotes. This data sharing also enhances CRM reporting and forecasting capabilities and eliminates redundant data re-entry into multiple systems.

"Our relationship with Oracle ensures that our customers experience seamless integration between Oracle CRM On Demand and BigMachines, enhancing user adoption and delivering more meaningful results," stated Tim Handorf, VP Product Management, BigMachines. "Many mutual customers have demonstrated measurable benefits from extending Oracle CRM On Demand with BigMachines, and the Oracle Validated Integration further demonstrates our product alignment."

Read the full press release on our website.

BigIdeas Chicago, BigMachines' Customer & Cloud Conference, is just a few weeks away and we are looking forward to seeing you there! At each BigIdeas conference we celebrate the BigMachines community and this year is no exception as we focus on the theme of Customer Success. BigMachines has grown to be the industry leader by recognizing that customer success equals our success. We live and breathe this philosophy at every level in the company. At BigIdeas, much of the focus will be on YOU: our customers, prospects and partners. We will examine best practices that enable our customers to become successful and how BigMachines, as well as our partners, can help accelerate that success. We continue to develop innovations and focus on best practices to help your business grow and be more productive, and we will showcase powerful solutions to help your organization sell more and sell faster.

At BigIdeas 2011, we will introduce BigMachines 12 – the newest release of our award-winning selling platform, designed to empower all your sales channels with innovative solutions that include guided selling, configuration, pricing, quoting, proposal and contract output, and much more.

Throughout the conference you can choose from a variety of customer panels to hear first-hand experiences from other companies that have improved their business processes and grown revenue. If you are more the hands-on type, you can attend training classes to learn all about the new capabilities of BigMachines 12. Participate in interactive product roadmap sessions and share your input and ideas with our Product Management team. For new customers and prospects, we'll discuss best practices for getting started with BigMachines and how to drive adoption across your organization. And we’ll engage in conversations with you throughout the event to learn how we can help your business succeed and generate more sales, faster and with more accuracy.

Interested in sharing your success at the event? Contact us to learn more about presentation and customer panel speaking opportunities.

2011 also marks BigMachines' third annual Customer Innovation Awards, presented to customers who show innovations in their use of the BigMachines Selling Platform, demonstrate measureable ROI, and have contributed to BigMachines product enhancements. Previous award recipients include Solar Turbines, SPX Process Equipment, Acme Packet, and Williams. Nominate your organization for the Big Innovation Award and Big Success Award. Our third award, the Biggest Idea Award, goes to the BigMachines customer who has submitted the most popular idea via the My BigIdea online community. Ideas submitted to My BigIdea help ensure that each new release of our BigMachines software includes the features that are most valuable to you.

And if all that isn't enough, we're throwing a party to celebrate our growing community at House of Blues Chicago! We hope to see you at BigIdeas in Chicago. It's October 23-25 and we still have a few seats left, so don't wait!

CRM Magazine recently featured an article by Tim Handorf, BigMachines' Vice President of Product Management, titled Successful Sales Mobility Practices.  In this article, Tim describes the results of a recent sales mobility survey conducted by BigMachines. He reports on how salespeople have led the charge for mobile device adoption, not only as a means to facilitate selling, but to also enhance face-to-face customer interaction. 


Excerpt from Successful Sales Mobility Practices:

Customers appreciate mobility because it adds an extra degree of transparency to the deal. As quotes and proposals are generated in plain sight, they have full visibility into what is being negotiated throughout the process. While closing deals faster is an obvious plus for sales reps, it is also incredibly advantageous to the client. The faster a customer is delivered the product or service it needs, the better off it will be.

Another benefit that applies to both the sales rep and the customer is how mobile devices minimize, or even eliminate, the confusion that often accompanies complex orders. Devices, equipped with adequate software applications, enable a sales rep to walk a customer through an entire order in-person, allowing the rep to easily explain and iterate through all of the options available right in front of the customer.


To read the entire article, visit CRM Magazine's Viewpoints section.

BigMachines booth at Dreamforce was buzzing throughout the event with many new and experienced salesforce.com CRM users interested in learning more about product configuration, pricing, quoting, proposal and eCommerce software.

In addition to showing our BigMachines selling platform, we also shared demos of QuickConfig integrated with Salesforce Real Time Quotes and Conga Composer - which creates a complete quoting and proposal solution for small business in need of guided selling and configuration.

In addition to live product demos of our award-winning software, BigMachines could be found during general sessions with our customers from ArcSight (an HP Company), Brocade Communications and Acme Packet who shared how they use the BigMachines selling platform and the measurable benefits achieved after implementation.

If you had a chance to stop by and say hello - thank you! We hope you will join us later this year at our customer and cloud computing conference, BigIdeas. If you were not able to make it, join us on September 22 at 2 PM Central Time to learn how you can streamline the sales process from inquiry to order with product configuration, workflow approvals and proposal generation.

This is a repost from our website.

BigMachines, Inc., the leader in product configuration, pricing and quoting, proposal generation and B2B ecommerce, was named to Inc. magazine's fifth annual Inc. 5000 list. BigMachines is number 1307 on this exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent entrepreneurs.

This announcement marks the fourth consecutive year that BigMachines has been named to the Inc. 5000 list.  The company also ranked number 42 on the list of Top Companies in the Chicago Metro Area and number 105 on the list of Top Software Companies in America.

The company has seen a three-year revenue growth of 221 percent. The first half of 2011, BigMachines achieved 92 percent growth in contract bookings and added over 30 new customers. BigMachines has also added to its worldwide team by hiring employees in the areas of product development, services and support, and sales.

"BigMachines' sustained growth can be attributed to ongoing innovations in its industry leading selling platform; the company’s unwavering focus on customer success and delivering measureable business results; and in hiring world-class talent," said David Bonnette, President, BigMachines. "Our SaaS solution helps customers streamline their sales processes, so they can sell more, sell faster and drive more revenue. "

BigMachines will showcase its ongoing innovation at BigIdeas 2011, BigMachines' annual Customer and Cloud Conference, at the Swissotel Chicago on October 23 to 25.  Attendees of BigIdeas will discover the latest solutions and best practices to streamline their sales processes reduce costs and increase revenues.  Information is available at www.bigmachines.com/bigideas.

"Kodak...recognized that by implementing an on-demand solution from BigMachines, it would minimize the capital and time needed from Kodak's IT department...Plus we've shortened our sales cycles."
- Mark Moran, Global Sales Operations Director

Streamlining your sales process and eliminating non-value added activities -- manual data entry & order processing, sales forecasting via spreadsheets, manual editing of contracts, SOWs, and license agreements --  can make a dramatic improvement on your bottom line.

Industry leader Kodak Graphic Communications Group successfully deployed BigMachines product configuration, quoting and proposal software to bring order and efficiency across multiple sales teams.

Following certain acquisitions, Kodak faced the challenge of integrating different units into one consistent sales process. "All units had different processes, yet were selling to the same customers," said Mark Moran, Global Sales Operations Director, Kodak's Graphic Communications Group. "BigMachines was the only vendor that proposed a flexible solution that fit our complex model and, just as important, could integrate seamlessly into our Oracle CRM On Demand and SAP ERP systems. With the BigMachines solution in place, we are now able to present a single face - one look and feel - for our integrated solutions to any customer."

Read more about how Kodak automated multiple sales processes to speed sales quoting and proposals by downloading our customer case study.

If you sell directly to other businesses or consumers, you already know how important speed, accuracy and presentation are to close deals.

BigMachines offers a variety of solutions to add speed and accuracy to the quoting and proposal, and order process. Here's how a BigMachines Customer utilizes product configuration, quoting and proposals to sell more and sell faster.

Configure products and services in minutes instead of days using BigMachines Guided Selling, which organizes product specifications as a series of question menus to guide users through the configuration process.

Send custom, validated, configurations on for review and approval via automated workflows. Sales Management, Product Engineers or Finance teams can approve sales quotes on the go via email and eliminate bottlenecks.

Once approved, use BigMachines Document Engine to send a dynamic, personalized sales quote, proposal or contract to customers. Easily add product datasheets, custom terms and conditions, customer logos and more via print, email, or fax in MS Word, Adobe PDF, and/or HTML format.

Need your document signed? BigMachines supports integration of leading electronic signature vendors to provide convenience and fast turnaround for your customers.

When you're ready to submit, use BigMachines to eliminate manual order entry and send approved quotes automatically to back end accounting or ERP systems; orders can even be routed through another approval process as needed with the electronic workflow.

Finally, take advantage of BigMachines Reporting and Analytics to stay on top of the pipeline by generating reports to help you improve quote management, forecasting, and product management.

Now what? Let BigMachines help streamline the renewal process for your existing customers. Quickly and accurately repackage or extend agreements for service and support, software licenses, subscription annuities and more.

In the field and on the go? Generate quotes even when you're offline from the Internet using BigMachines Unplugged. Offline users can configure, price, and generate quotes as well as go online to upload and download quotes to and from a central database.

Ready to extend your reach? BigMachines eCommerce Engine allows you to build a self-service, guided selling and configuration platform for your B2B and B2C customers to shop online.

With 30 new customers and 92 percent growth in contract bookings compared to the same period last year, it gives me great pleasure to announce that BigMachines grew significantly throughout the first half of 2011. In the second quarter of 2011, BigMachines achieved record bookings for a single quarter with total contract value increasing 132 percent and annual contract value (ACV) increasing 114 percent year-over-year. The company continued to show a profit from operations in the first half of 2011.

Our continued growth helps to support our findings that businesses worldwide are looking for solutions to improve productivity and increase sales. BigMachines has been in the forefront of cloud computing and sales process improvements for over a decade, helping companies sell more and sell faster. Our ongoing innovation and dedicated global team ensure that we can deliver and support the most robust selling platform to companies across a wide variety of industries.

BigMachines continued to grow its team of professionals this year, expanding its product development, service and support, sales and marketing teams in order to accelerate product innovation and provide a premium level of service to its growing customer base. BigMachines customers now include over 260 companies and more than 150,000 licensed users in a wide variety of industries including high tech, software, medical instrumentation, manufacturing, telecom, media, business services, and financial services.

During the second quarter of 2011, BigMachines also released the newest version of its award-winning SaaS software, BigMachines 11.1, enabling sales teams, channel partners and resellers to easily configure products, generate quotes and proposals, manage complex pricing, generate legal contracts, submit and manage orders more efficiently and securely. With BigMachines 11.1, customers enjoyed real-time upgrades, ensuring that they quickly received the benefits of the new release including a faster, more dynamic user experience, increased flexibility in creating sales documents using the BigMachines Document Engine, and many more enhancements. BigMachines also continued to drive innovation through the accelerated adoption of its My BigIdea web portal, where customers submit and discuss product enhancements and interact directly with the BigMachines product team.

BigMachines has also continued to gain recognition from industry analysts, the media, and its partners. BigMachines received a Positive rating in Gartner's report entitled "MarketScope for CPQ Application Suites, 2011." BigMachines was also selected as a 2011 CODiE Award Finalist as "Best Integration Solution."

Will Wiegler, Vice President of Marketing at BigMachines shared with me that, "A large contributor to our growth as a business has been our dedication to customer success. In 2011 we have held a series of five Customer Success Forums around the United States, engaging more than 150 customers to share best practices, learn and provide feedback on our product roadmap. As we continue to grow BigMachines, our customers remain the core of our business."

In addition, BigMachines is preparing for its biggest event ever, the BigIdeas Customer Success & Cloud Innovation Conference, taking place in Chicago on October 23-25, 2011. I look forward to meeting more than 500 BigMachines customers, partners, and industry experts during the conference, who will come together to learn about and collaborate on the big ideas that will streamline their sales processes, reduce costs and increase revenues. 

BigMachines today announced that our corporate leadership team is expanding to further support our continued rapid growth. Godard Abel, the company's co-founder and CEO, is moving to the role of senior advisor to the company's Board of Directors, and in conjunction with this move will transition his day-to-day responsibilities to David Bonnette in his capacity as President. The company is also appointing Sean Fallon in the dual role of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Fallon most recently served as CEO of Accero, a leading on-demand human capital management software and solutions provider. With BigMachines' bookings growing at over 100 percent year over year, this expansion rounds out the company's leadership to form a seasoned team with deep experience in managing rapidly growing, global software businesses. You can read our full press release about this news at www.bigmachines.com/bigmachines-expands-leadership-team.php

David Bonnette, President of BigMachines, spent 15 years at Oracle Corporation prior to assuming all customer-facing functions at BigMachines. Bonnette will now assume day-to-day leadership of the entire business. I had the pleasure of speaking with David about the news, here's what he had to say, "My time with BigMachines has further expanded my view of the incredible opportunity that we have to continue to accelerate our growth trajectory. I look forward to working with our deep and experienced team to extend our leading position within the market."

Sean Fallon represents the most recent addition to the BigMachines leadership team. Fallon is a seasoned software executive who has spent the last 12 years of his career in senior leadership positions with enterprise software providers that serve Global 2000 customers. He has held executive positions with Trilogy Software, Brazos Software and Accero. Prior to his role as CEO at Accero, Fallon spent 10 years at Trilogy, a leading provider of enterprise software and technology-based business services, the last six of which were in the role of CFO. Sean oversaw rapid profitable growth of Trilogy's Versata software business while managing Trilogy's global financial operations, making numerous international acquisitions and investments, raising a significant amount of debt capital and completing a tender offer for a publicly-held subsidiary. Fallon started his career in Corporate Finance at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. As COO and CFO, Fallon will lead the Company's finance group and oversee its economic strategy and forecasting and work closely with Bonnette to manage the company's operations.

Godard Abel, having grown the company from a Silicon Valley start-up in 2000 to its current market leadership position, will move to the role of a senior advisor to the Board of Directors. Godard shared these thoughts with me about the news, "I am very proud of the company that BigMachines has become and am grateful to have had the privilege of working side by side with many extremely bright and talented people along the way. David Bonnette has already proven a strong addition to our world-class team, and together we have delivered a record first half performance for the company. Sean Fallon represents another high-caliber executive who we are excited to add, and who will help ensure that we continue to provide the best experience to our current and future customers. The company has an amazing opportunity ahead of it, as demonstrated by its continuing rapid growth, and I look forward to staying involved in the business as an investor and Board advisor."

Finally, Alan Cline, a Principal with Vista Equity Partners and a member of the Board of Directors for BigMachines shared his thoughts about the news, "We are very excited about the growth and evolution of BigMachines over the past decade. Godard's contribution has been outstanding and his continued involvement as an advisor to the Board will be valued by all. The company is having another fantastic year, with record growth and continued success on all fronts. David Bonnette and Sean Fallon represent tremendous additions to the senior leadership team and our ability to attract this caliber of talent is a real testament to the opportunity ahead of BigMachines for years to come."

As the global leader in enabling B2B sales, BigMachines will continue to help companies sell more and sell faster. I look forward to sharing more news with you about BigMachines' award-winning on-demand configurator, pricing and quoting, proposal generator, and B2B eCommerce software solutions, which empower sales across customers' channels by streamlining their sales processes from opportunity to order. I invite you to stay informed by subscribing to our newsletter or RSS-feed for our blog, following us on Twitter or Facebook, and visiting our website regularly for all press announcements and media coverage.

Join us on Thursday, July 21, 2011 when we share the success of BigMachines customer Illumina!

A leader in life science tools and #4 on Forbes Magazine's list of Fastest Growing Technology Companies, Illumina has streamlined product configuration, workflow approvals and proposal generation, as well as automated management of custom Terms & Conditions for their customers.

Manager of Sales Systems, Mark Santero will discuss how Illumina utilized BigMachines to transform their sales and quoting processes.

In addition, BigMachines Certified Strategic Implementation Partner, Pierce Washington, will join in to review best practices when planning a new software implementation.

Learn more about this webinar and register at http://www.bigmachines.com/webcasts.php