A whale of a sale for Lagan

Rockville, Md.-based CRM / 311 solutions supplier Lagan today announced it will provide its Frontlink solution to no small a company than the 122,000-strong city of Hartford, Connecticut. Hartford is the fourth American city to implement Lagan’s CRM software platform, after Hampton, Va., Minneapolis, Minn. and Yonkers, New York. (Lagan, too, makes specific use of a different meaning of “CRM.” When selling to a city, the company’s services are geared slightly differently and become “citizen relationship management.”) Specifically, the city purchased Frontlink software in the hope of providing easy access to all local government departments and services. The Lagan CRM solution supports a city’s existing call center by offering support in the form of a database. When a citizen phones in a complaint, the complaint is logged into the system. As in a business CRM, the complaint is tracked, with the citizen subsequently contacted when the issue has been resolved. Reportedly, 311 call centers are currently de rigueur, as public servants seek to provide their citizens with assistance in non-emergency issues.

Having a 311 numbers also eases 911 of the burden of many non-emergency calls. A few little tidbits about Hartford are provided in press material from Lagan: the state capital is also known as “New England’s Rising Star” and was once the home of Mark Twain. The city was also once the home of professional hockey, with a team known as the Whalers. Lagan was established in 1994 as a spin-off from Queen’s University Belfast, with backing from QUBIS Ltd. Lagan specializes in CRM solutions, principally for government. Lagan’s award-winning Frontlink solution promises a full range of functionality required by government. The firm has recently received kudos with its This appearance in the Deloitte Fast 50 for four successive years and a listing in the Sunday Times ARM Tech Track 100 as one of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies. Financially speaking, the firm has also been looking well.

To the surprise of few, Lagan was short-listed for the UK government’s Commuting BT Awards for Innovation 2006. In competition with over 150 entries form ninety-eight different organizations on the islands, Lagan is already large enough a presence in the UK industry – in April, company representatives were able to pop the corks on some champagne with the announcement of their ten millionth UK citizen served — to be recognized as top of their class in the nominations. Naturally, they were more than notable at the Belfast Telegraph Northern Ireland Business Award as well. And what else can we say to that but “cheers!”