ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (68)

Five9 Launches Global Engagement Center

Posted by ISG Research on 03 September 2017

Our benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement shows the telephone is far from dead as a channel of customer engagement. Although the research shows other channels are likely to grow more quickly over the next two years, nearly half (46%) of organizations said they expect to see significant or some growth in the volume of calls they need to handle. So, as well as supporting... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Contact Center, Omnichannel, Workforce Optimization, Revenue

Centage’s Budget Maestro Version 9 is a Big Step Forward

Posted by Robert Kugel on 03 September 2017

Centage recently released Budget Maestro Version 9, a complete revamping of its longstanding budgeting application designed for midsize companies. The software, now offered as a multitenant cloud-based offering, delivers several structural improvements that can enhance the effectiveness of a company’s planning processes and at the same time is easier to use. Budget Maestro Version 9 is designed... Read More

Topics: Planning, Reporting, Budgeting, Consolidation, Analytics, Business Planning, headcount planning

Natural Language Generation Broadens the Reach of Analytics and BI

Posted by David Menninger on 01 September 2017

Natural language generation (NLG), the process of generating text or narratives based on a set of data values, can reach a broader audience. NLG narratives can be used for a variety of purposes, but in this perspective I focus on how NLG can be used to enhance business intelligence (BI) processes. In the case of BI, NLG can be used to explain what has happened and why it is happening, and even... Read More

Topics: Machine Learning, Natural Language, Analytics, Business Intelligence

NICE Integrates Cloud Platform for Customer Engagement

Posted by ISG Research on 28 August 2017

Our benchmark research over the last couple of years confirms what we all instinctively know: Consumers engage with each other and organizations using an increasing number of engagement channels. Indeed, our latest research into the next-generation contact center in the cloud shows the average number of channels organizations now support has grown to almost eight. The same research confirms that... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Service, Contact Center, Omnichannel, Robotic Process Automation, Customer Journey Maps, Workforce Optimization

Zuora RevPro Addresses Revenue Recognition Compliance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 August 2017

Earlier this year Zuora acquired revenue recognition software vendor Leeyo. Zuora, which initially focused on taming the complexities of subscription billing, has been broadening its software offerings to handle a wider set of the operational and financial requirements of a subscription business. Leeyo held a Revenue Recognition Summit in 2016 and the event was recently repeated. The need for the... Read More

Datawatch Gets Social with Data Preparation

Posted by David Menninger on 24 August 2017

Many organizations continue to struggle with preparing data for use in operational and analytical processes. We see these issues reported in our Data and Analytics in the Cloud benchmark research, where 55 percent of organizations identify data preparation as the most time-consuming task in their analytical processes. Similarly, in our Next-Generation Predictive Analytics research, 62 percent of... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Collaboration, Data Preparation, Datawatch

Aspect Software Makes Progress with New Customer Engagement Center

Posted by ISG Research on 02 August 2017

Not many years ago, building and running a contact center was a complex task. Organizations typically had to license all the systems they required (most of them proprietary and on-premises), customize them to meet their requirements and integrate them into a workable architecture. But beyond all the systems issues, the key to running the center was forecasting the right number of skilled agents... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Service, Contact Center, Omnichannel, Robotic Process Automation, Customer Journey Maps, Billing and Recurring Revenue, Workforce Optimization, Digital transformation

RingCentral Integrates Contact Center and Unified Communications

Posted by ISG Research on 02 August 2017

Customer engagement is undergoing its biggest transformation in decades. Consumers now use a significantly greater number and variety of channels to engage with organizations – everything from phone, email and the corporate website to social media, text messaging, chat, mobile apps and video. This is forcing organizations to change in order not to miss out on business opportunities. We have... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Service, Contact Center, Omnichannel, Robotic Process Automation, Customer Journey Maps, Billing and Recurring Revenue, Workforce Optimization

Amazon Web Services Introduces Turmoil to Contact Centers

Posted by ISG Research on 26 July 2017

I have been involved in the call center market for around 30 years, first as a consultant building call centers for organizations and later as an analyst covering developments in organizations’ customer engagement best practices and vendor product developments. Looking back over the first 20, maybe even 25 years, it has been a slowly developing market. Early call centers essentially included an... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Contact Center

Verint Ups Its Game in Knowledge Management

Posted by ISG Research on 21 July 2017

Customer engagement is nothing new – organizations have been engaging with customers in one way or another ever since business began. Over the years, however, the nature of this engagement has changed dramatically, from largely face-to-face encounters and the written word to telephone, email, fax and text messaging and now to text-based applications, social media, mobile apps and video. These... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Contact Center, Workforce Optimization, Knowledge Management

Genesys Doubles Down on Customer Experience Platform

Posted by ISG Research on 17 July 2017

Today many conversations about contact centers and CRM focus on customer engagement and the customer experience. Customer engagement should be relatively straightforward, addressing how organizations interact with customers through different channels of engagement. However, when it comes to customer experience, I believe many miss the point. The key word is experience, which means it is... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Contact Center, Billing and Recurring Revenue, Workforce Optimization

Longview Solidifies Tidemark for Cloud-Based Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 July 2017

Longview recently completed the acquisition of Tidemark Systems, a planning software vendor. Longview Plan powered by Tidemark is a suite of cloud-based applications that enable corporations to plan, assess performance and communicate results more effectively. The software facilitates what Ventana Research calls “continuous planning.” This is a highly collaborative, action-oriented approach to... Read More

Topics: Mobile, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Sales Planning and Analytics

Choose Your IoT Technologies Wisely

Posted by David Menninger on 03 July 2017

This is my second analyst perspective based on our IoT Benchmark Research. In the first, I discussed the business focus of IoT applications and some of the challenges organizations are facing. Now I’ll share some of the findings about technologies used in IoT applications and the impact those technologies appear to have on the success of users’ projects. The IoT market has developed unevenly up... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Analytics, Business Intelligence, IOT, NoSQL

Technology Improves Customer Experience: Does Yours?

Posted by ISG Research on 29 June 2017

Our benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement finds that three-quarters (77%) of organizations participating in the research said it is very important to improve the way they engage with customers. The two main drivers behind this are improving the customer experience (cited by 74%) and improving performance of the customer service organization (70%). This is important because... Read More

Topics: Mobile, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer Service, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Digital Technology, Omnichannel, Customer Journey Maps, Billing and Recurring Revenue

Broken Analytics and BI? Natural Language and Notifications Can Help

Posted by Mark Smith on 15 June 2017

If we look at the focus of technology vendors for analytics and business intelligence or business applications providers deploying these capabilities in the last five years, we see that they have elevated the importance on the value of visualization and dashboards. These promotions might be understandable, but will they make business and the people using them more intelligent? If you have... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Machine Learning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Information Optimization, Digital Technology, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing

Salesforce Fails Again in Customer Experience

Posted by Mark Smith on 14 June 2017

More than a year ago I wrote from personal experience about the challenges our firm encountered with Salesforce’s cloud computing systems and customer service and if we can trust them for business in the cloud. That perspective covered a range of issues that the behemoth cloud computing applications and platform company is facing regarding its service and technology. While Salesforce has shifted... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Sales, Office of Finance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Digital Commerce, Sales and Operations Planning, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Sales Enablement and Execution, Machine Learning Digital Technology, Sales Planning and Analytics

Customer Expectations Remain a Business and Technology Challenge

Posted by ISG Research on 14 June 2017

Our benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement shows that companies use, on average, seven channels of communication to engage customers. It also finds that supporting multiple channels leads to several challenges for organizations, chiefly difficulty of integrating systems (49%), channels managed as silos (47%) and inconsistent responses across channels (33%). Today’s customers... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Customer Service, Contact Center

NetSuite Presents New Suites at SuiteWorld

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 June 2017

I recently attended SuiteWorld, NetSuite’s annual user conference. In the opening keynotes and throughout the event speakers emphasized benefits for NetSuite users resulting from the merger of NetSuite and Oracle, completed last fall. I wrote about this at the time. NetSuite users are likely to benefit from Oracle’s sales and core technology infrastructure. Before the merger, NetSuite’s R&D... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Cloud Computing, HRMS, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting

The Year of Machine Learning

Posted by David Menninger on 01 June 2017

This year various types of organizations are embracing machine learning like it is going out of style – or maybe it would be better to say coming into style. And now with a little investigation on LinkedIn finds over half million professionals with machine learning in their job title. Machine learning is the application of specific data science algorithms that become more accurate as the system... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Machine Learning Digital Technology

NICE Evolves Workforce Optimization Portfolio for Customer Excellence

Posted by ISG Research on 01 June 2017

I recently discussed how NICE continues to invest in its core products while creating a full customer experience platform, combining its core offerings with products newly acquired from inContact and Nexidia. During two recent briefings, I learned that these investments continue at quite a pace; the company announced a new product to address the ever-increasing number of channels of engagement,... Read More

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Customer Service, Contact Center