History of JI Group
JI Management Consultants began as a practice working on leading-edge IT projects and IT Strategy. Clients then as today, were concerned to focus IT investments on bottom line contribution. The business was set up in 1985 with David Jefferson as Principal Consultant. Previous to this he had been doing management consultancy work in larger organisations like Unilever, Imperial Group, British Aerospace, and BP, and had been involved in a number of pioneering projects introducing IT into the sales function.
In 1990 JIMC acquired the UK rights to distribute the Maximizer system for contact management and sales force automation. JI Software was born! During this period JI Software developed awareness in the professional selling community that a PC and a database could increase sales productivity.
In 1996 JISoftware began dealing with larger organisations seeking to implement 100+ user Maximizer projects. Comapnies like British Aerospace, EMAP, BBC, and Salomons Bank were examples.
In 1997 JI Software ceased distributing Maximizer through resellers in Europe and focused their resources on the needs of major users of Maximizer.
In 1998 JI Software joined the Computing Services and Software Association and became active in their industry programmes.
In 2000 JIMC began undertaking corporate strategy and sales force transformation work independent of the choice of CRM system.
In 2001 JI Group expanded the range of skills available through a virtual organisation of quality-assured associates. This took the Group's capabilities into complementary areas like:
- Sales Force Development and Training
- Sales Methodologies
- IT Infrastructure and multi-country deployment
- Re-inventing the IT function and thin-client strategies
In 2002 JI Software became a founder-member of Intellect, the Association of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Electronics Industries.
In 2003 JI Software became involved in Community Work through the IT4Communities.org.uk project, designed to deal with a serious IT problem in not-for-profit organisations. The objective was to address the lack of IT knowledge which was making it difficult for charities to use IT effectively in their offices. The initiative was sponsored by Intellect, The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, Business in the Community (Prince's Trust) and others. David Jefferson served on the steering group and was involved in the e-CRM elements of the system.
JI Software began undertaking Pro-Bono work for charities needing specialist network support. Our first project was with Victim Support in Bedfordshire.
In 2004 JI Software expanded the work it had been doing with universities serving the needs of the growing community of students with disabilities. JI's unique approach to relationship support and service quality has helped increase productivity in Student Services during a period of budgetary constraint. The 'StudentRelate' brand was born!
In 2005 JI Software celebrated 15 years with Maximizer! With the evolution of the CRM markets JI Software has intorduced new customising services to meet changing customer requirements. JI Software has now been longer in the Sales and Relationship Management Systems business than most organisations currently trading in the CRM sector and as a result, brings a mature perspective to every customer-facing project.
In 2006 We announced first the upgrade of Maximzier to version 9.0 and then in August the further upgrade to 9.5. Our StudentRelate system for University Student Services published its full colour brochure in June, construction was started on a new StudentRelate website, and a new release of our Classroom Support Worker Timetabling system was launched.
In 2007 We were pleased to announce the arrival of Maximizer CRM 10 in November.
In 2009 Maximizer announced Version 10.5 Freedom and a special co-marketing relationship with Blackberry based on the MaxMobile package designed for smart phones. JI became an advisor on deployment strategies for 'work anywhere' CRM.
In 2009 We implemented our StudentRelate system in our 14th university. Our longest estblished team has been using the system continuously for over 10 years!
