ELOQUENT SYSTEMS INC.
Founded: 1975
CEO: Merv Richter
Product(s): Eloquent Knowledge Management Suite & Eloquent Heritage Management Suite
Location: North Vancouver, BC
Website: www.eloquent-systems.com
Clients Include: Alberta Human Resources & Employment, Alliance Atlantis, Bahamas Library Service, BC Ministry of the Attorney General, California State Archives, City of Toronto Archives, Clark, Wilson LLP, Duke Energy Archives, Insurance Bureau of Canada, International Monetary Fund, MDS Laboratory Services, etc
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Eloquent Systems Inc. has been involved in solving the knowledge management needs of corporate, government, legal, medical, education and heritage institutions around the world for almost three decades. Eloquent Knowledge Management Suite and Eloquent Heritage Management Suite, its flagship products, are made up of the traditional applications for library, archives, museum and records management.
The first break for Merv Richter, founder of Eloquent Systems came in the early 1980's when he made a presentation to a week-long Exxon Information Users Group meeting in New York, convincing some of the smaller members to use his mini-based library software while waiting for the development of their own enterprise-wide information database. That sale of multiple copies attracted many other research libraries in the oil industry.
The prestigious client list attracted a purchase offer from a publicly traded company, Sydney Development Corp. that was cash-rich with tax shelter money from the mid-1980's. Mr. Richter took the offer and after a short retirement reactivated his company, building the internationally popular GENCAT software. It has evolved into WebGENCAT and the current family of Web-based applications.
The company encountered turbulent times in the late 1990's when they had to downsize. The main reason was the failure to satisfactorily replace its popular DOS-based product line with a Windows upgrade. By 2000 all R&D effort went into the Web-based replacement that is now used by all Eloquent customers.
The library, archives, and records applications are not mission-critical for most organizations. Automation decisions are very slow and are often influenced by the convenience of the IT departments rather than the functional needs of the professionals in the application areas. Librarians, archivists, and records managers are guided by their professional organizations, but they often have difficulty in selling their requirements to upper management and the IT departments.
"Our hosting option is gaining a lot of attention," said Merv Richter. "The knowledgeable professionals usually find our service and consulting much more responsive and often less expensive. We understand the international standards they are trained to use."
In all of our applications, competitive pricing ranges from half to double ours and it often does not reflect the quality of product or service. Our sales cycle is long and often requires unpaid education of the buyer, especially with the many leading-edge Internet/Web-based features that set us above the competition.
Eloquent offers free hosting of a Pilot Project for any knowledge of heritage professional to build a proof-of-concept database. They get access to their application consultants during the project which provides a great way for potential buyers to test-drive the new technology.
The company's first-line prospects are professionals that belong to associations, attend conferences, read the newsletters, and belong to electronic services. They are easy to reach if you have the marketing budget. Most of the company's promotion is done over the Web and occasionally through conferences. A recent memorable one was the Society of American Archivists in New Orleans one week prior to Hurricane Katrina.
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