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Acris Technology Launches Mortgage VCO, the Mortgage Industry’s First Complete Virtual Office Solution

Mortgage VCO Website PhotoFireworx Digital just completed a full branding, website and collateral development project and launched this innovative new cloud technology company. Here is the press release that went out this morning…

Cloud-delivered software suite allows lenders to slash IT and office expenses and run an entirely paperless mortgage business – including loan processing, customer relationship management (CRM) and integrated telephone communications – in a secure, centrally-managed virtual environment

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 14, 2011

Acris Technology, formerly Acris Solutions, a software development company and provider of paperless technology for mortgage bankers and lenders, today unveiled Mortgage VCO, an end-to-end, cloud-based “virtual corporate office” suite of software applications, IT and consulting services that enable any mortgage lender to run a compliant, scalable, paperless mortgage business without the expense and complexity of on-site servers, software, maintenance and upgrades. The announcement was made at the 39th Annual Western Secondary Market Conference in San Francisco.

Developed and refined over a period of 12 years, Mortgage VCO had been in use privately for years by Laguna Hills, California-based Millenia Mortgage to process over $10 billion in funded loans and is now available to mortgage bankers, regional and community banks, credit unions, and other mortgage lenders. Mortgage VCO’s suite of solutions includes cloud-delivered virtual desktops, sophisticated loan origination and processing software, paperless document storage, digital signature technology, IP telephony, and mortgage-specific consulting and IT services. As a virtual, cloud-based office solution, Mortgage VCO drastically reduces lenders’ IT costs so they can focus on what matters: closing more loans in less time. It also removes all geographical boundaries from a lender’s hiring criteria and integrates all communications among all parties – including emails and phone calls – into the mortgage production process, enabling ultimate transparency and accountability within a lender’s operations. Lenders simply need a high-speed Internet connection to run Mortgage VCO.

“The enormity of the changes sweeping through the mortgage industry is having a fundamental effect on how lenders do business,” said Richard Johnston, president of Acris Technology. “If there was ever a time to reinvent the mortgage office, this is it. For the first time, lenders can have one office solution that does everything they need it to do and more – including a completely integrated communications platform that provides total control over leads and call campaigns, and the ability to run an entirely paperless operation. Simply put, Mortgage VCO makes lenders’ lives easier and more productive.”

The Mortgage VCO suite begins with the VCO Desk platform, which delivers a Windows desktop environment to any computer, laptop, thin client, iPad or tablet PC with a high-speed Internet connection. VCO Desk also includes the Microsoft Office® suite and MS Exchange® Server. Any third-party or proprietary software can also be hosted and delivered through VCO Desk’s secure Citrix® environment. Each of the five separate components described below can be added individually or together as part of the integrated suite:

VCO Lend – Loan origination and processing software that lets lenders enjoy increased productivity from their sales and processing teams, get real-time visibility into their operations and staff, reduce errors and ensure complete, compliant loan files. Designed for a compliance-driven marketplace, VCO Lend features highly-advanced task parsing and file queuing technology, custom rules-based workflow management, real-time performance reporting, incentive-based compensation, lead tracking and distribution, and comprehensive secondary marketing tools. VCO Lend allows multiple people to collaborate on the same file at the same time, improving turn times from application to funding. VCO Lend is packed with features yet can be fully customizable to a lender’s unique business needs.

VCO File – An easy-to-use paperless document management and hosted storage solution that integrates seamlessly with VCO Lend and other loan origination systems, VCO File saves time, money, and eliminates the need for on-site servers and file cabinets, enabling instantly-searchable digital file sharing anywhere, anytime.

VCO Sign – A digital electronic signature tool that uses public key encryption to ensure security, turbo-charging a lender’s pre-disclosure and document signing processes.

VCO Link – Provides seamless integration links with a variety of title, escrow, flood, credit, appraisal management, compliance and other settlement service providers – plus the ability to integrate with most pricing or automated underwriting engines.

VCO Voice – Based on IP-PBX technology, VCO Voice integrates call center phone service capabilities into the mortgage production process, with features such as a CRM-driven dialer that provides click-to-dial capabilities directly from a borrower’s file and the ability to have a borrower’s loan file appear on the loan officer’s screen when the borrower calls. Integrated call reporting ensures company-wide accountability and performance monitoring.

Mortgage VCO also provides a full range of integrated IT, technology and managed services, infrastructure support, customer training, and software customization, all tailored specifically to mortgage lenders. Mortgage VCO was originally developed by Millennia Mortgage, which has been processing loans in a paper-free environment since 2003. Acris Technology was founded to market the continually-developing proprietary software technology to the industry.

“It’s important to understand that while Mortgage VCO is new to the market commercially, it is a tried and proven platform that benefited from full-time developers and mortgage banking professionals, working side-by-side for many years – with innovation and process improvement as two of our primary core values,” said Martin Williams, CEO of Acris Technology. “We believe it’s the ultimate complete office solution for mortgage lenders that want to minimize overhead costs and IT complexity, increase efficiency and improve business processes.”

For more on the Mortgage VCO story, visit http://mortgagevco.com/our-story.

About Acris Technology
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Laguna Hills, California, Acris Technology is a technology provider offering custom software development and a full range of IT services and infrastructure support. Its flagship product, Mortgage VCO, is a virtual corporate office solution that provides all the necessary software and tools to run a completely paperless, cloud-based mortgage office, enabling clients to realize increased productivity, shorter loan life cycle times and reduced expenses. The virtual suite includes loan origination and processing software, paperless electronic document management (EDM), digital e-signature tools, IP telephony, virtual desktops with Microsoft Office® and Outlook®, plus software customization and development services, IT, telephony and Citrix® virtual office consulting. For more information, visit http://www.mortgagevco.com.

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Cause Marketing Works (But it must be authentic!)

Fireworx Digital has had the privilege of working with Guy Harvey Sportswear, Guy Harvey’s exciting growing clothing line, over the last year and a half or so. CNN featured Guy Harvey’s cause marketing success recently and I thought Colleen McEdwards did an excellent job communicating how cause marketing must be authentic to be effective. It’s not enough to slap a cause on your website’s homepage. It’s exciting to work with a client like Guy Harvey and AFTCO Bluewater, Guy Harvey’s clothing licensee and manufacturer. For them, cause is a part of their DNA. It’s who they are, not something tacked on to increase sales. Guy Harvey and Bill Shedd, President of AFTCO Bluewater have a love for the ocean and it’s inhabitants that goes beyond cause. Ocean conservation is truly their passion…and it shows.

Check out the video report on CNN.

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I Love Fireworks

I love fireworks. Always have. Hence the name of our digital marketing agency. Fireworks always inspire. They exhilarate. They can’t be missed. This animation by PES is a creative take on fireworks. I had to post it!

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How Do You Spell Social Media? R-O-I

We live in a world where interruption marketing continues to slide into oblivion. Our lives are busier than ever and the clutter around us is deafening. How do we reach our target audience in this changing marketplace without interrupting them? Are Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and social bookmarking just a fad?

I challenge you to watch this video and consider if social media has a place in your marketing budget. Yes, it’s time-consuming, takes a big commitment to stick with it, and it’s hard to track ROI, but the fact is, social media is here to stay and it’s changing the way we market all products and services to consumers and to other businesses.

We’d love to talk with you about your social media marketing challenges. Give us a call if you’d like to discuss the possibilities for your business.

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Think Social Media is Just a Fad? Think Again and Get on Board!

This is a great video to open your mind to this exploding thing called Social Media.  It will affect every area of your lives, especially your marketing and communications!

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Are the Four P’s of Marketing Dead?

Are the Four P’s of Marketing Dead?

There is no question that marketing as a whole is going through a major paradigm shift. Many long-held principles and practices that worked even five to ten years ago are now quickly becoming outdated as the world around us changes through technology and morphing behavior patterns of consumers.

But having said that, is it possible that the very foundation of modern marketing principles, The Four P’s are now outdated as well? They are, according to Denise Shiffman in her very enlightening book, The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today’s Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture . The Four P’s; Product, Price, Place, and Promotion have been the basis for all marketing strategy for the past 50 years, ever since E. Jerome McCarthy invented them in his 1960 book, Basic Marketing.

It could be argued that each of the Four P’s are in fact still viable as each one still exists albeit in a more complex selling environment. But I do find Shiffman’s proposal of the Six V’s very intriguing, though slightly contrived to make the acrostic memorable. They are: Venture–the deep integration of product, service and channel of distribution, Value–Creating inherent “marketingness” through unique, defendable, sustainable and engaging value, Voice–The perception created and the followers gained through vision and story, Verification–Developing credibility through proof, truth and transparency, Vicinity–Harnessing the communities and myriad voices of the live web, and Vehicle–Incorporating Marketing 2.0 strategies to attract and delight customers.

I’m convinced enough to introduce these guiding principles into my clients’ marketing strategies and will be interested to see how mainstream her Six V’s become in the marketing community.

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Why Another Marketing Blog?

In an online world filled with blogs and online articles by self-proclaimed marketing gurus, is there really room for one more? I believe so, since so much of what I see is either marketing industry techno-babble or online marketing-specific information, neither of which does much for the average business owner trying to cost-effectively promote their business in a hurting economy.

My blog will hopefully shed some light on tips, techniques and strategies that really help in a practical, affordable way. I’ll do my best to keep it simple enough for the layman to understand, yet cutting edge enough to keep you coming back for more.

As I see it, there is no shortage of good information out there. It just needs some filtering to bring the gems to the surface. That is what this blog is all about. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful!

Here’s to your success,

Paul McQuade

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