McGraw-Hill Construction, a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, this week launched Network Express, which provides project information from the McGraw-Hill Construction Network (built on the company's Dodge database) that can be integrated into customers' CRM systems. The new service also offers company data from the McGraw-Hill Construction Sweets Network, media sites and Target Leads/Spec Alerts.
Customers will now be able to integrate Dodge information into their CRM systems and immediately yield results for their sales and marketing efforts. The Dodge database contains more than 90 percent of all U.S. and Canada-based construction projects with values of $500,000 or more.
With this information in their CRM systems, McGraw-Hill's sales customers will be able to identify people, companies and projects that they want to follow up with. They will also be able to follow up on sales leads from McGraw-Hill Construction Media and the Sweets Network, access plans and specifications and track progress through the entire sales cycle.
Customers can access content through a direct feed from Network Express and a set of certified partners who have experience integrating content into CRM platforms, noted Andrew Fischer, senior director of the McGraw-Hill Construction Network, in a company statement. Those partners include Astadia (Salesforce.com), Code Theatre (Siebel On Demand), Infinity Info Systems (Microsoft CRM and Sage SalesLogix) and Ingenium (Construction Points).
This is yet another example of the power of combining content with services. McGraw-Hill recognizes the limits of content at face value. Customers will always need great content, that's for sure. But they need to make it actionable as well--and quickly yield benefits from that content.
Network Express is designed to do just that. If it delivers as promised, McGraw-Hill will have a real winner.