ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (85)

Verint Brings New Business Solutions to Optimize Customer Relationships

Posted by ISG Software Research on 15 August 2013

Earlier this year I wrote that Verint Systems, which makes workforce optimization and analytics products for customer engagement, has changed its focus from individual product capabilities to packaged business solutions that include specifically configured versions of its products. The first of those was real-time personalized guidance; it uses several of the company’s Impact 360 workforce...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Verint, Workforce Force Optimization

Three Major Trends in New Discovery Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 13 August 2013

A few months ago, I wrote an article on the four pillars of big data analytics. One of those pillars is what is called discovery analytics or where visual analytics and data discovery combine together to meet the business and analyst needs. My colleague Mark Smith subsequently clarified the four types of discovery analytics: visual discovery, data discovery, information discovery and event...

Topics: Datameer, SAP, Splunk, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, IBM, Information Applications, Information Builders, Operational Intelligence, Oracle, Data Discovery, Information Discovery

Agent Desktop Management in 2013 Is Hot for Improving Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Software Research on 13 August 2013

Ventana Research has just released its 2013 Value Index for Agent Desktop Management, in which we evaluate the competency and maturity of vendors and products that support the management of the desktop systems that agents use to handle customer interactions. Our firm has researched this software category for many years, and our benchmark research into customer service and the agent desktop shows...

Topics: Salesforce.com, Customer Experience, NICE Systems, Cincom, Genesys, Jacada, Kana, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Upstream Works, OpenSpan

IBM SPSS Analytic Catalyst Makes Sophisticated Analytics Accessible

Posted by ISG Software Research on 08 August 2013

IBM’s SPSS Analytic Catalyst enables business users to conduct the kind of advanced analysis that has been reserved for expert users of statistical software. As analytic modeling becomes more important to businesses and models proliferate in organizations, the ability to give domain experts advanced analytic capabilities can condense the analytic process and make the results available sooner for...

Topics: analytic catalyst, driver analysis, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, IBM, SPSS

Spreadsheets Consume More Time Than It Seems

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 August 2013

The spreadsheet is one of the five most important advances in business management over the last 50 years. It has changed all aspects of running an organization. It was the original “killer app” that made people go out and buy personal computers. So you see I’m enthusiastic about spreadsheets, but I realize they have limits that must be respected to work efficiently. One of the more important...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, Reporting, enterprise spreadsheet, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Information Management, Visualization, Workforce Performance, Risk, benchmark, Financial Performance Management

Profitability Management vs. Managing Profitability

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 August 2013

Pricing and profit margins appear to be trending topics, which is normal at this stage of the business cycle. North American companies achieved high levels of profitability coming out of the last recession by staying lean, but this trend has run its course. Margins are being squeezed, and companies are looking for ways to add to the bottom line.

Topics: Planning, Sales, Sales Performance, Office of Finance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, costing, FPM, Price Optimization, Profitability, S&OP

Pricing, Planning and Performance Management Software Creates Business Value

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 July 2013

People who don’t spend much time analyzing the software market may have trouble understanding the differences between products in a given software category or the difference between two categories. This happens because vendors and commentators use the same words to describe different depths of functionality and degrees of comprehensiveness in one type of application. As well, there can be...

Topics: Performance Management, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Office of Finance, dashboard, PRO, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, Supply Chain, CEO, demand management, FPM, S&OP

Mercer Unifies Talent Management Practice and Announces Product Suite

Posted by ISG Software Research on 30 July 2013

Mercer is a global consulting company that has more than 19,000 employees in more than 40 countries. One of the company’s major consulting practices is talent management. My colleague Mark Smith assessed Mercer’s survey delivery product WIN for compensation management in September 2011. Mercer recently held an analyst day in Boston where speakers discussed the launch of a new internal group...

Topics: MicroStrategy, Mercer, Towers Watson Talent Management, Analytics, Business Analytics, Workforce Performance, Compensation

BIRT Analytics Strives To Make Analytics Business Friendly

Posted by ISG Software Research on 22 July 2013

Actuate recently announced BIRT Analytics Version 4.2, part of its portfolio of business intelligence software. The new release includes several techniques used by analytics professionals placed behind a user-friendly interface that does not require advanced knowledge of statistics. Beyond the techniques themselves, release 4.2 focuses on guiding users through processes such as campaign analytics...

Topics: Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Customer & Contact Center, Data Discovery

Enkata Optimizes Claims Processing

Posted by ISG Software Research on 20 July 2013

Enkata used to focus its products on improving agent performance in the contact center. It has gradually expanded that focus to include improving the performance of workers in the back office, an effort that has culminated in a suite of products that help companies improve processing of healthcare claims.

Topics: Customer Experience, Enkata, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Customer & Contact Center, Call Center, Contact Center, Desktop Analytics, Workforce Force Optimization

PivotLink Makes Attribution Modeling More Approachable

Posted by ISG Software Research on 20 July 2013

PivotLink is a cloud-based provider of business intelligence and analytics that serves primarily retail companies. Its flagship product is Customer PerformanceMETRIX, which I covered in detail last year. Recently, the company released an important update to the product, adding attribution modeling, a type of advanced analytic that allows marketers to optimize spending across channels. For...

Topics: Retail Analytics, Sales Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, PivotLink

Datameer 3.0 Introduces Advanced Big Data Analytics for Hadoop

Posted by ISG Software Research on 17 July 2013

Datameer , a Hadoop-based analytics company, had a major presence at recent Hadoop Summit, led by CEO Stephan Groschupf’s keynote and panel appearance. Besides announcing its latest product release, which is an important advance for the company and its users, Datameer’s outspoken CEO put forth contrarian arguments about the current direction of some of the distributions in the Hadoop ecosystem.

Topics: Big Data, Datameer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Strata+Hadoop

Hadoop Summit and Hortonworks Promise To Make Big Data More Engaging

Posted by ISG Software Research on 10 July 2013

Hadoop Summit is the biggest event on the West Coast centered on Hadoop, the open source technology for large-scale data processing. The conference organizers, Hortonworks, estimated that more than 2,400 people attended, which if true would be double-digit growth from last year. Growth on the supplier side was even larger, which indicates the opportunity this market represents. Held in Silicon...

Topics: Big Data, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Strata+Hadoop

Salesforce.com Is Full of Surprises

Posted by ISG Software Research on 10 July 2013

Anyone who follows salesforce.com is used to surprises, but over the last couple of months the company has come up with some that go beyond the usual. It rebranded the recent user conference in London as a customer company event. This follows from changing its messaging to urge every company to become a customer company not a social company. The event itself was everything we have come to expect,...

Topics: Sales, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Voice of the Customer, Mobile Apps, Self-service, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Call Center, Contact Center, CRM

Making Treasury More Strategic

Posted by Robert Kugel on 10 July 2013

Along with other aspects of the finance organization, there’s increasing emphasis on having the treasury function play more of a strategic role in the organization. Typically, Treasury is charged with keeping track of and managing cash. Especially in larger organizations, this can be complicated because of multiple bank accounts, complex financing requirements and many methods of receiving and...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Office of Finance, Controller, credit, debt, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, cash management, Financial Performance Management

Peoplefluent Innovates with Video and Collaboration and also Unifies Recruiting

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 July 2013

To strengthen its position in both core talent management and the social form of it, Peoplefluent has purchased a video collaboration platform and enhanced its existing recruiting products. My colleague Mark Smith wrote about Peoplefluent’s evolution toward a social talent management platform with its acquisition of Socialtext. In addition, our firm selected Peoplefluent’s customer Citrix for the...

Topics: Social Media, Customer Experience, HCM, Peoplefluent, Recruiting, Business Collaboration, Collaboration, Workforce Performance

IBM Improving the Science to Apply Business Analytics for Better Customer Engagement

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 July 2013

I recently wrote how IBM is making customer analytics smarter. Since then IBM has run events in North America and Europe to demonstrate how it is continuing these efforts and expanding into other areas. Outside of the customer space you can read how my colleagues assess its efforts: Mark Smith discusses HR, Robert Kugel sees its impact on business overall, and Tony Cosentino addresses it in IT....

Topics: Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Mobile Apps, Self-service, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, IBM, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, IBM Watson, Text Analytics

Roambi Means Mobile Business in the Cloud

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 July 2013

Roambi, a supplier of mobile analytics and visualization software, announced the release of a cloud-based version of its product, which allows the company to move beyond the on-premises approach where it is established and into the hands of more business users. Roambi Business enables users to automate data import, create models and refresh data on demand. Furthermore, the company announced a ...

Topics: Mobile, Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Operational Intelligence, Roambi

KXEN Provides Good Enough Modeling for Predicting Business Outcomes

Posted by ISG Software Research on 28 June 2013

Predictive analytics in an inherently difficult task and often takes specialized skills. While not easy, the business results of predictive analytics can be significant. 68% of companies say they use predictive analytics to create competitive advantage while 55% say that they increase revenue. KXEN is a software company that specializes in making predictive analytics easier to use by automating...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, KXEN, Operational Intelligence, commodity models

Cornerstone Doubles Down on Talent Management

Posted by ISG Software Research on 27 June 2013

Cornerstone OnDemand is a vendor of cloud-based systems for talent management. In February I covered the launch of its Cornerstone for Salesforce application and its announcement of annual earnings. Cornerstone has approximately 1,300 clients and 11 million users in companies with on average 9,000 employees. The company released its financial results for the first quarter of 2013 in May, showing...

Topics: Social Media, HCM, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Cornerstone OnDemand, Talent Management, Project Management