ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (81)

Envision Offers Comprehensive Suite for Workforce Optimization

Posted by ISG Research on 29 June 2015

Envision is a vendor of workforce optimization software that I have been following for many years. It is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It offers a full suite of products, including interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, agent compensation management and workforce analytics. In an analysis last year I wrote about... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

OnviSource Opens Up Workforce Optimization for Contact Center Excellence

Posted by ISG Research on 19 June 2015

OnviSource is a 10-year-old vendor of workforce optimization software whose core product, OnviCenter 7, includes interaction capture, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching and training, and workforce analytics. The company is rated a Hot vendor in our 2015 Workforce Optimization Value Index. It scored highly in the Manageability, Usability and Reliability categories but was held back... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Experience, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

IBM’s Vision Features Analytics

Posted by ISG Research on 12 June 2015

IBM’s Vision user conference brings together customers who use its software for financial and sales performance management (FPM and SPM, respectively) as well as governance, risk management and compliance (GRC). Analytics is a technology that can enhance each of these activities. The recent conference and many of its sessions highlighted IBM’s growing emphasis on making more sophisticated... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Planning, Predictive Analytics, Governance, Human Capital, Budgeting, Customer Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Visualization

Corvisa Brings New Generation of Contact Center Communications in the Cloud

Posted by ISG Research on 12 June 2015

Contact centers in the cloud are increasingly popular alternatives to managing them on a company’s own premises. Running many business applications on hardware owned and managed by a third party is relatively straightforward and requires less support internally. Also the payment model changes from a license to a recurring fee, and typically the vendor provides updates as part of the fee. The... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Call Center

Salesforce Helps Companies Innovate in Customer Management

Posted by ISG Research on 04 June 2015

In recent years I have tracked Salesforce, its product development and its announcements. Despite having grown into a giant corporation, it continues to introduce innovations. At a recent analyst day in the U.K., I followed up on the company’s overall direction, some key product developments and a new service to help drive adoption of innovative customer-related processes. Salesforce’s primary... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Call Center

Vertex Enterprise Supports Tax Department’s Effectiveness

Posted by ISG Research on 04 June 2015

Companies trust their tax departments with a highly sensitive and essential task. Direct (income) taxes usually are the second largest corporate expense, after salaries and wages. Failure to understand and manage this liability is expensive, whether because taxes are overpaid or because of fines and interest levied for underpayment. Moreover, taxes are a political issue, and corporations –... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance

Order-to-Cash Cycle for Revenue Recognition

Posted by ISG Research on 27 May 2015

Revenue recognition standards for companies that use contracts are in the process of changing, as I covered in an earlier perspective. As part of managing their transition to these standards, CFOs and controllers should initiate a full-scale review of their order-to-cash cycle. This should include examination of their company’s sales contracts and their contracting process. They also should... Read More

Topics: Planning, Governance, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Reporting, Revenue Performance, Budgeting, Tax, Business Performance, Financial Performance

Genesys Advances Omnichannel Experience for Customer Engagement

Posted by ISG Research on 20 May 2015

I recently wrote about six technologies that can help companies deliver experiences that live up to their customers’ expectations: an integrated multichannel infrastructure, analytics, a smart agent desktop, business applications such as workforce management and knowledge management, collaboration and mobile apps. They should be closely integrated to simplify system administration, to support... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Call Center

Verint Introduces Gamification Software to Motivate and Engage the Workforce

Posted by ISG Research on 14 May 2015

Some new words can give the wrong impression. Take “gamification,” for example. It may sound as if employers are inviting their employees to play games just for fun, when actually this is a technique increasingly being used to recognize achievement and thus help improve performance. Several workforce management software vendors have introduced gamification systems that support setting targets,... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

NICE Systems Engages Analytics to Optimize Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Research on 12 May 2015

NICE Systems is an established vendor of workforce optimization products that has long included analytics in its portfolio. Its latest release in this area, NICE Customer Experience Analytics, focuses on mapping, understanding and managing customer journeys and metrics. The product is built on NICE’s common technology platform, which consists of three functions: collect, understand and optimize.... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Performance, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Call Center

New Revenue Recognition Rules Require Software

Posted by ISG Research on 12 May 2015

For most of the past decade businesses that decided not to pay attention to proposed changes in revenue recognition rules have saved themselves time and frustration as the proponents’ timetables have slipped and roadmaps have changed. The new rules are the result of a convergence of US-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles – the accounting standard used by U.S.-based companies) and IFRS... Read More

Topics: Planning, Customer Experience, Governance, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Reporting, Revenue Performance, Budgeting, Tax, Customer Performance, Business Performance, Financial Performance

Infor Makes User Experience A Reason for New Business Applications

Posted by ISG Research on 08 May 2015

Recently, Infor held its second innovation conference with industry analysts at its New York City headquarters. Infor’s products include the major categories of ERP, human capital management and financial performance management applications. Behind the marketing aspects of its use of “innovation” is a business strategy for retaining existing customers, migrating a sizable percentage of those... Read More

Topics: Human Capital, Office of Finance, UX, Customer Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance

Adaptive Insights Highlights Importance of Strategic Finance

Posted by ISG Research on 30 April 2015

Adaptive Insights held its annual user group meeting recently. A theme sounded in several keynote sessions was the importance of finance departments playing a more strategic role in their companies. Some participating customers described how they have evolved their planning process from being designed mainly to meet the needs of the finance department into a useful tool for managing the entire... Read More

Topics: Planning, Predictive Analytics, Human Capital, Marketing, Reporting, Sales Forecasting, Budgeting, Customer Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Business Planning, Supply Chain, Demand Planning, Integrated Business Planning, Project Planning

Panviva Embraces Cloud Computing for Guiding People and Business Processes

Posted by ISG Research on 29 April 2015

When I last wrote about Panviva I likened its product SupportPoint to a smart agent desktop – a system that helps contact center agents access the information they need to handle customer interactions, guides them through the process of handling interactions and offers advice on what to say next (for example, which product to upsell). Several trends have emerged since then. Two of our recent... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

Nomis Solutions Targets Price and Revenue Optimization in Financial Services

Posted by ISG Research on 29 April 2015

Price and revenue optimization (PRO) software uses analytics to help companies maximize profitability for any targeted level of revenues. PRO utilizes data about buyer behavior to gauge individual customers’ price sensitivity and predict how they will react to prices. It enables users to charge buyers who appear to be less sensitive more than those who appear more price-sensitive. PRO is a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Revenue Performance, Nomis Solutions, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Financial Services

SaaS Buyers and Customers Beware: Data Issues are Cloudy

Posted by ISG Research on 27 April 2015

There’s a long history of companies not paying close enough attention to the contractual elements of acquiring software. Today, this extends into the world of cloud computing. Many companies are choosing to acquire software services through cloud-based providers and increasingly rely on access to cloud-based data, as is shown by our forthcoming benchmark research, in which a large majority of... Read More

Topics: SaaS, Sales, Customer Experience, Governance, contract, e-discovery, Customer Performance, Operational Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Business Performance Management (BPM)

Who’s Hot in Analytics and Business Intelligence

Posted by ISG Research on 21 April 2015

Ventana Research recently completed the most comprehensive evaluation of analytics and business intelligence products and vendors available anywhere. As I discussed recently, such research is necessary and timely as analytics and business intelligence is now a fast-changing market. Our Value Index for Analytics and Business Intelligence in 2015 scrutinizes 15 top vendors and their product... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Data Quality, Predictive Analytics, Gartner, Governance, Customer Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Value Index, Strata+Hadoop

In the Digital Economy, the Customer Experience Is Critical

Posted by ISG Research on 17 April 2015

Advertising and marketers tell us we now live in a “digital economy.” That implies the economy is based on and depends on digital technologies. It certainly is true that many consumers, especially younger ones, have changed the ways they interact with each other and businesses; they are now more likely to use digital channels of communication, particularly email, websites, text messaging, instant... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

New Research to Examine Best Practices in Customer Interactions and Experience with Cloud Computing

Posted by ISG Research on 14 April 2015

In 2013, Ventana Research carried out groundbreaking benchmark research into contact centers in the cloud. It revealed that customer pressures have forced companies to support an increasing variety of channels of interaction. This research investigated the systems companies were using then or were planning to use, particularly cloud computing, to manage these channels. The research uncovered... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Cloud Computing, Call Center

Verint Engages on Customer Engagement

Posted by ISG Research on 08 April 2015

In covering Verint for several years I have watched it go from selling call recording systems to adding workforce optimization software, analytics, and support for multiple channels of interaction with customers. Its latest product, Customer Engagement Optimization, increases support for customer engagement and managing the customer experience. Verint has achieved this expansion through a... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Customer Feedback Management, Customer Performance, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Call Center