In an effort to differentiate its cloud CRM software from competitor’s products such as Salesforce, Oracle (News - Alert) has rolled out its Oracle CRM On Demand Release 20, offering new capabilities designed to drive revenue, reduce costs and improve the customer experience across industries.

Oracle said since every industry has its own unique customer experience and contact requirements, its Oracle CRM Release 20 includes the functionality to solve industry-specific problems targeted toward the life sciences, insurance, financial services and automotive industries.

In addition to its industry-specific contact management functionality, the core product has several other upgrades, according to Anthony Lye, senior vice president of cloud applications strategy at Oracle. CRM On Demand Release 20 debuts new key user interface changes, including optionally displayed related information as tabs and easier search for users, allowing administrators to create optimal search layouts and restricted searchable fields.

“Oracle CRM On Demand Release 20 delivers the answers in innovation and exceptional business value that both sales representatives and organizations across industries not only want, but also truly need,” Lye said in a company statement. “No industry is left behind with tailored functionalities and nimble, highly adaptable, easy-to-use capabilities. Oracle CRM On Demand 20 sets the bar even higher for dramatic time savings and new revenue generation.”

Oracle said the ability to accurately record and monitor sample product drops helps ensure that organizations adhere to the often complex and mandatory industry rules and regulations regarding sample product distribution within the life sciences industry.

All of the new features are available in every customer’s instance of CRM on Demand, with the tools for specific industries turned on during the configuration process, Lye told PC World.

“Customers who may want to use features that haven’t been switched on just need to go into the management console and enable them,” according to the report.

Oracle officials said the increased coverage of object and analytics allows for improved decision making with “real-time” business intelligence.

Oracle CRM On Demand 20 also includes introduces flexible territory realignment features in an effort to address business continuity, while new territories can be built and tested with minimal disruption to users, company officials said.

In addition, Oracle CRM On Demand Release 20 provides enhanced mobile compatibility for iPad, iPhone (News - Alert), Blackberry, Microsoft Outlook with additional support for mobile browsers, enhancements to both connected and disconnected mobile applications, and new features in CRM On Demand Desktop for synchronization between CRM On Demand and Microsoft (News - Alert) Outlook.

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