ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

NewVoiceMedia Provides Contact Center in the Cloud

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 September 2012

Our recent benchmark research into the adoption of cloud-based systems to support contact center operations shows that around 10 percent of companies have adopted what is commonly termed communications in the cloud – that is, systems in the cloud to manage delivery of telephone calls to the right location, be it an internal extension number within an organization, a branch office number, a...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, NewVoicemedia, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics

Splunk Bids to be King of Search and Operational Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 September 2012

As I listened to the keynote address at, conf2012, the annual Splunk user conference, my initial impression was that the company was spreading itself too thin. The company highlighted four rather formidable areas of organizational focus: Enterprise 5.0, the company’s flagship data platform, which is now in beta; Development, which is support for building applications and integrating Splunk within...

Topics: Big Data, Splunk, data fabric, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Operational Intelligence, Digital Technology

Companies Should Consider Adopting Contact Centers in the Cloud

Posted by ISG Software Research on 05 September 2012

Our recent benchmark research on the contact center in the cloud shows companies are under more pressure than ever to upgrade their contact centers. The large majority of companies (73%) think it is very important to improve the way they handle customer interactions, and only a small percentage are fully satisfied with their current applications (19%) or their communications (14%). Upgrading...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Force Optimization

Jaspersoft 4.7 Shows Big Data Opportunity and Mobile BI Challenges

Posted by ISG Software Research on 31 August 2012

Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite competes in the open source and broader BI market. Its customer base is mostly in the small and midsized business and OEMs and SaaS providers who can embed Jaspersoft code directly into their offerings. Earlier this summer, the company introduced Jaspersoft 4.7, which features advancements in interactive reporting, big data access and mobile business...

Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Jaspersoft, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications

Gaining Time-to-Value From Big Data

Posted by ISG Software Research on 30 August 2012

I had a refreshing call this morning with a vendor that did not revolve around integration of systems, types of data, and the intricacies of NoSQL approaches. Instead, the discussion was about how its business users analyze an important and complex problem and how the company’s software enables that analysis. The topic of big data never came up, and it was not needed, because the conversation was...

Topics: Big Data, Datameer, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Planview, SuccessFactors, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, IBM, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, PivotLink

SAS Furthers Cloud Computing for Business

Posted by ISG Software Research on 30 August 2012

After this summer’s SAS European analyst event, I wrote that I came away less than convinced SAS was truly committed to the cloud, based largely on the fact that most other vendors are blowing their cloud trumpets much louder than SAS. It seemed developments in and around customer intelligence and its other products were higher priority to the company than its cloud strategy. However, after a...

Topics: SAS, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics

Closing the Analytics Skills Gap

Posted by ISG Software Research on 23 August 2012

A study by the McKinsey Global Institute published earlier this year suggests a coming shortage of more than 140,000 workers with deep analytical skills and a shortage of more than 1.5 million data-literate managers. I’m not sure how the study defined these roles, but I’d guess that those with deep analytic skills are those folks building the complex models, and the data-literate managers are...

Topics: Big Data, Data Scientist, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

Interactive Intelligence Embraces Business Process Management

Posted by ISG Software Research on 22 August 2012

The product page for Interactive Intelligence highlights what the company is best known for – IP-based business communications. This image is further strengthened by its flagship Customer Interaction Center platform, which offers organizations a fully featured multimedia contact center in the cloud. This offering includes multimedia communications in the cloud along with many of the capabilities...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Force Optimization

The Pathetic State of Dashboards

Posted by Mark Smith on 22 August 2012

Over the last several months, my colleague VP and Research Director Tony Cosentino and I have been assessing vendors and products in the business intelligence market as part of our upcoming Value Index. Tony recently wrote about the swirling world of business analytics, covering many of the dynamics of this industry. He and I have been reviewing the breadth and depth of over 15 of these vendors...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Dashboards, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Management, Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Expert Systems

Tibco Bets on Event-Driven Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 20 August 2012

Over the years Tibco has provided infrastructure for enterprise data integration and has built a substantial installed base. Now the company positions itself as supplying next-generation analytics for big data through service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA has been around for a while; Ventana Research has been tracking it since 2006 and conducted benchmark research on SOA. But it remains a...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, SOA, Spotfire, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Complex Event Processing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Tibco, CEP, Service Cloud

Making Better Use of Ratios in Analytics

Posted by Robert Kugel on 17 August 2012

For the past several years Ventana Research has focused more on analytics and their importance to improving business performance. We’ve done extensive benchmark research in business analytics, detailing how they are used generally in business and in major functional areas of companies as well as their application in specific industries. We adopted this focus because technology advances are...

Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Modeling, Office of Finance, Budgeting, driver-based, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, In-memory, Workforce Performance, best pracices, business value, cash management, challenge, financial planning

The Collaborative Enterprise to Support Customer Interactions

Posted by ISG Software Research on 16 August 2012

I’ve challenged a lot of the hype about the social enterprise, because I feel “social” gives the wrong impression. For most people, social media is predominately about socializing. While everyone likes to feel that going to work is partly about interacting with friends, when it comes down to it running a business is about winning customers, selling them your products and services, and providing...

Topics: Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Operational Intelligence, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Force Optimization

Meeting the XBRL Challenge Takes Inventiveness

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 August 2012

For several years the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has mandated that filers apply eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) tags to their financial statements. XBRL was developed to make it easier for investors to use a company’s financial information. Now XBRL US has kicked off its second annual XBRL Challenge, a contest designed to encourage development of open source...

Topics: Office of Finance, Reporting, closing, XBRL, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Information Management, finance, Financial Performance Management, SEC

Calabrio Provides Integrated Workforce Optimization

Posted by ISG Software Research on 08 August 2012

Calabrio offers a suite of workforce optimization (WFO) products used in call centers that includes call recording, quality recording, workforce management and performance management, and it also offers a purpose-built speech analytics product. From a briefing and demonstration, I confirmed that the core WFO products support the capabilities that our research shows companies expect of these...

Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Calabrio, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Workforce Force Optimization

Karmasphere Addresses Big-Data Skills Gap with Collaboration and Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 August 2012

Karmasphere has an interesting story to tell. Much like Datameer, which I recently blogged about, Karmasphere sits on top of the Hadoop distributed platform where companies such as Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR compete. Karmasphere provides a collaborative environment and an analytical workbench that help companies write applications and workflows that run on top of Hadoop. The company’s...

Topics: Big Data, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Collaboration, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Information Management, Karmasphere, Strata+Hadoop

Salesforce.com Advances Customer Interaction

Posted by ISG Software Research on 02 August 2012

Since it was founded in 1999, salesforce.com has been driving other vendors and end-user organizations to rethink how they supply and purchase software. The company has grown from being a supplier of CRM in the cloud to a vendor with diverse offerings that include a development platform, an app exchange, platforms that support marketing, sales and customer service, knowledge management, desktop...

Topics: Salesforce.com, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, LiveOps, NewVoicemedia, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Cisco, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Vocalcom

Enghouse Expands Its Portfolio of Contact Center Vendors

Posted by ISG Software Research on 31 July 2012

A look at Enghouse Interactive’s Products page shows it is not the easiest of companies to understand. Listed are six products – companies actually – that make up the parent: Arc Solutions, CosmoCom, Datapulse, Synellect, TelRex and Trio. As yet this list doesn’t include the latest acquisition, Zeacom. All the businesses in some way connect to multichannel communications and the contact center,...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Enghouse interactive, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Force Optimization

VPI Optimize Agents for Quality Customer Interactions

Posted by ISG Software Research on 26 July 2012

VPI, a well established vendor in the workforce optimization (WFO) space, was recently rated as a Hot vendor in the Ventana Research Agent Performance Management 2012 Value Index, which extends the traditional definition of WFO to include multichannel interaction capture, agent-related analytics, and agent compensation management. VPI’s Hot rating is a tribute to the functionality and...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, VPI, Knowlagent, Nexxphase, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Pipkins, Workforce Force Optimization

Knowlagent Increases Agent Utilization and Customer Satisfaction

Posted by ISG Software Research on 25 July 2012

Knowlagent has carved out a unique position in the agent performance management market. Everyone involved in running a contact center knows how difficult it is to manage agent time so that agents are available within service level agreement specifications to answer inbound customer calls, have sufficient time to carry out other essential tasks such as breaks, training, coaching and making...

Topics: Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Knowlagent, Analytics, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Workforce Force Optimization

Kana Acquires Ciboodle

Posted by ISG Software Research on 24 July 2012

This month Kana announced it had acquired contact center provider Ciboodle. This comes a few years after Ciboodle was acquired by Sword, a marriage that apparently didn’t work out because Sword, a predominantly services company, didn’t make the necessary investment in the Ciboodle products to keep them competitive. Kana, looking to expand its portfolio beyond service experience management,...

Topics: Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Kana, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics