In never ceases to amaze me, the number of new terms and acronyms the contact center market generates. Just as everyone is getting used to the fact that customers interact with companies through multiple communication channels (multichannel for short), someone invents the term omnichannel and we all have to get our heads around what this means. My research into the contact center in the cloud shows that companies now support on average nearly five communication channels, and although the...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Echopass,
Enghouse interactive,
Five9,
LiveOps,
Mobile Apps,
NewVoicemedia,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Interactive Intelligence,
Unified Communications
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
IBM,
Call Center,
Cognitive Computing,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
IBM Watson,
Text Analytics
Much is being written about the impact of social media on customer service, although my research into the agent desktop shows it hasn’t reached the fever pitch that many commentators would have us believe. It is true that the number of consumers using social media and as a consequence the volume of posts are astronomical. But I wonder how many of these posts actually have to do with customer service and how organizations filter out the relevant ones to help them decide on customer service...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Social Media Analytics,
SoCoCare
At this year’s annual SAP user conference, SAPPHIRE, the technology giant showed advances in its cloud and in-memory computing efforts. It has completed the migration of its conventional application suite and portfolio of tools to operate on SAP HANA, its in-memory computing platform, and made improvements in its cloud computing environment, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. The last time I analyzed SAP HANA was when it won our firm’s 2012 Overall IT Technology Innovation Award. Now HANA has been...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
SAP,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Teradata,
Mobile Technology,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
HP,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
CMO,
SAP EPM,
SAP HANA,
SAP Lumira,
SAPPHIRE,
Tagetik
One of the most important ongoing challenges in human capital management is to do master data management (MDM) of core human resources information more effectively. This challenge is often most complex for large organizations that have operations spread around the globe and HR management systems in each country or each operating division. To address this issue, SumTotal Systems recently announced the release of elixHR Platform at its TotalConnection user conference. This is the latest evolution...
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Topics:
Master Data Management,
Social Media,
HCM,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
Workforce Analytics,
HR Management(HRMS),
SumTotal
At its recent user conference, Interactions 2013, Interactive Intelligence (Nasdqaq: ININ) showcased its extensive product portfolio and its ambitious plans to improve the products both technically and functionally. I have written more than once about the complexities of building a contact center, which is getting even more complex as companies begin to support more channels of interaction as inbound ones are distributed around the organization including sales (59%), marketing (46%) and CRM...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
I attended the 2013 Ceridian’s analyst day in Chicago to hear about and evaluate the progress the company has made over the last year and see the latest updates to its products since our firm last commented on them. Last September my colleague Mark Smith assessed Ceridian’s workforce management product Dayforce. As well we selected Ceridian’s customer Guitar Center for the 2013 Ventana Research Leadership Award for Overall Business Leadership.
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Topics:
Social Media,
HCM,
Office of Finance,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Ceridian,
HR,
HRMS,
Talent Management,
Workforce Management
I was recently at Oracle Analyst World which is the vendor’s annual gathering of technology industry analysts. Its executives and others in the products organization deliver the latest news on where the titan is focusing efforts to expand its technology and markets. This year, against the background of the consumer and business markets embracing mobile and cloud computing, Oracle is working to sound like a more friendly supplier that can help remove legacy issues and inefficiencies that plague...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Social Collaboration,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
COO
I recently attended NICE Systems’ annual user conference, this year called Interactions 2013. In discussions of its different products and latest releases and testimonials from selected clients, I was surprised by how the messages were packaged. NICE has a long history of acquiring companies, and it has let many of them continue to operate as autonomous lines of business. Often there was minimal integration with other NICE products, a variety of user interfaces, no common software...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
NICE Systems,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Responding to the trend that businesses now ask less sophisticated users to perform analysis and rely on software to help them, Oracle recently announced a new release of its flagship Oracle BI Foundational Suite (OBIFS 11.1.1.7) as well as updates to Endeca, the discovery platform that Oracle bought in 2011. Endeca is part of a new class of tools that bring new capabilities in information discovery, self-service access and interactivity. Such approaches represent an important part of the...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
endeca,
IT Performance,
OBIEE,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Exalytics,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance
At this year’s Inforum user group conference, Infor representatives showed the progress the organization has made since last year in transforming itself from a ragbag of mostly small, often obsolete software companies to a competitive vendor of a modern enterprise management software suite. Infor was created by private equity investors employing a “rollup” strategy, aimed at combining smaller companies within an industry to form a single larger company that could achieve economies of scale and...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Planning,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
GRC,
Office of Finance,
Budgeting,
closing,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
Infor,
Risk,
FPM,
SEC
When I last wrote about Attensity I classified it as a “pure play” text analytics vendor, but the latest release of its product has lead me to revise my opinion. Its product Respond uses natural language-based analysis to derive insights from any form of text-based data and among other results can produce analyses of customer sentiment, hot issues, trends and key metrics. The product supports what Attensity calls LARA – listen, analyze, relate, act – which is a form of closed-loop performance...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Kana,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
At the beginning of the year I wrote analyst perspective outlining why I think Salesforce.com is a vendor to watch during 2013. I followed this up with a post noting that Salesforce has shifted its headline messaging from becoming the “collaborative company” to becoming the “customer company” – a message that resonates better with me. During a recent analyst event, the theme of becoming a customer company remained the main message, but this time the emphasis moved to marketing, as the...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
The last time I reviewed ClickFox it was primarily focused on capturing how callers transverse IVR menus. It produced visual maps of what options callers used and thus how they navigate what can be quite complex menus, allowing users to identify the most common paths and thereby optimize these to meet common customer requirements and business needs. Since that time the market has changed considerably, and ClickFox’s current products now support companies as they try to identify how customers...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Clickfox,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
Like all analysts, I have a series of classifications to help group together vendors with similar capabilities. My challenge is to create categories that align with most users’ expectations so I don’t confuse readers when I define which category a vendor falls into. My “big five” are WFO or agent performance management (quality monitoring, workforce management, training and coaching, remuneration, and agent-related analytics); contact center infrastructure, including cloud-based systems...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Interactive Intelligence,
Unified Communications
Cloud computing has given business a new way to improve the effectiveness of business processes and ultimately the outcomes of their efforts. In the last five years, business across marketing, customer service, sales, human resources, finance and other areas have embraced the practice of renting access to the applications and technology they need when they need them. Organizations’ use of operational expense budgets helps them get what they need and avoid IT politics or standards that impeded...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Mobile Technology,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
Business Applications
IBM recently announced its new Customer Experience Lab. During a briefing I learned that the lab is a response to what IBM discovered by interviewing more than a thousand CMOs, who are concerned about the explosion of data companies collect about their customers. This explosion is being driven by changing customer communication preferences and the way customers now interact with organizations, which I recently highlighted in my post about the 2.0 world. My research into the contact center in...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
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,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Mobile Technology,
Vitria,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Complex Event Processing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence
Saba held its annual People 2013 customer and analyst conference recently in San Francisco, with approximately 700 customers in attendance. At the conference the company provided analysts a perspective on its progress over the last year and its product roadmap. My colleague Mark Smith wrote about Saba’s acquisition of Human Concepts last year; today Saba says it has 31 million users and 2,100 customers, including names such as Yum Brands, ADP, Proctor & Gamble, Intel and Five Guys Burgers and...
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Topics:
Social Media,
LMS,
Social Collaboration,
Learning Management,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Information Applications,
Workforce Performance,
Saba,
Talent Management,
People Cloud
Organizations have been talking about how to effectively analyze customer data for more than three decades. This has evolved into a desire for a “360-degree view of the customer” - a comprehensive picture drawn from all available data. As yet, not many organizations have achieved it. Our recent research into customer relationship maturity shows that fewer than one-third (31%) of organizations produce a single set of reports and analysis that the whole organization uses to support...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
I recently wrote that Salesforce.com was a vendor to watch during 2013, and during a recent briefing I heard more messages that support this view. First there was confirmation about financials. Even though the company is only 14 years old and the overall economy is not exactly booming, revenues for 2012 were up 35 percent to $3.05 billion, with Europe matching this with a 37 percent year-on-year growth. This not only shows the company is here to stay, but that the cloud is now well and truly...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Clarabridge is a well-known text analytics vendor that markets its products under the banner of customer experience management. As I wrote last year, its products allow organizations to take a closed-loop approach by capturing all forms of text data, analyzing it, categorizing it, understanding root causes of customer issues and raising alerts so that action including collaboration can be taken based on these insights. Such a process is supportive of customer experience management, but for me...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Clarabridge,
Mobile Apps,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
Like me, you have no doubt spotted the propensity for software vendors and consultants to call anything new “2.0”; for example, we have ERP 2.0 and CRM 2.0. Just recently during a joint Aspect and Microsoft presentation, the companies went one step further and introduced the concept of the 2.0 customer meeting the 2.0 company. My first reaction was one of horror, but as I thought about it, it became clear that customers have changed and so companies need to change to keep up – welcome to the...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
I recently attended the Unified Communication Expo exhibition and conference in London to find out how much communications has been changing. As I entered the exhibition center the first thing I noticed was the huge variety of vendors on show, everything from major brands in the telecommunications industry (Aspect, AT&T, BT, Cisco, Mitel, Nokia and Siemens Enterprise Communications) to some major brands perhaps not so associated with telecommunications (Dell, Citrix, Google and Microsoft), to...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
The first positive signs for the “the new Genesys” emerged just 100 days after its sale by Alcatel was completed last year, and those positive signs have continued. The company has not only maintained strong development of its core products but has also made an aggressive move into the contact center mid-market, the contact center in the cloud market, and the multichannel communications management market. It strengthens its position now with the announcement of its acquisition of Angel.com.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Genesys,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Improving how employees and managers can improve talent management activities through changes in process, technology and better access to information is both a theme of my research agenda this year. It is also what the key technology vendors in this space have been focused on developing products to do. Cornerstone OnDemand is one of those vendors that has been in the talent management space since 1999, when it launched its original CyberU learning management product, and now offers a broad...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
HCM,
Learning,
Performance,
Recruiting,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Workforce Performance,
Cornerstone OnDemand,
HR
Cisco is without doubt best known as a supplier of networking systems. Its products have been used by companies large and small to build local and wide area networks. It has played in the contact center space as a provider of network and call management systems that sit between public networks and contact center agents to manage the delivery of interactions to the right extensions and provide agents with softphones so they can manage inbound and outbound calls. These systems were designed to...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Logitech,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Cisco,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Unified Communications,
Upstream Works,
Social,
Workforce Force Optimization
Learning management software (LMS) has evolved over the past 25-plus years from a classroom scheduling tool that helped streamline instructor-led and classroom training to a rich, integrated enterprise application that delivers and tracks training across an entire organization. These applications are effective at enabling organizations to share knowledge and track the knowledge-sharing process. Typically they use a top-down model involving classic instructor-led training and online courseware....
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
HCM,
LMS,
Social Collaboration,
Learning Management,
Operational Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
HR,
Talent Management
Business analytics have become mainstream in most organizations. Our latest research in technology innovation found analytics was the top-ranked technology in 39 percent of organizations. To deepen the sophistication of their analytics, businesses can add geographic context and maps to business intelligence applications to create what we call location intelligence. Applications and tools with a geographic and spatial context can help deliver new and deeper insights to business. Information...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Geographic Information Systems,
GIS,
Location Analytics,
Spatial Data Quality,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence
My recent research into the contact center in the cloud shows the typical agent’s life is not an easy one. Agents are expected to handle more types of interactions that arrive through more communication channels as found in our research with inbound, email and outbound in use by more than 74 percent of organizations, meet an increasing number of performance metrics, and leave each caller feeling happy with the interaction. And they have to do this with a desktop that my research shows can only...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
LiveOps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Workforce Force Optimization
Managing data efficiently across the enterprise continues to be a large challenge for both business units and IT. Organizations need data supplied in a consistent format and timely manner to help manage their activities and processes, but some do not look beyond conventional approaches to improvement. Today’s large volumes of data make it more difficult to understand the relationships among data and the role of location-related data. Our 2012 benchmark research on information management found...
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Topics:
Master Data Management,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
MDM,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Governance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
DG
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has a keen sense of where things are headed. He sees mobile and social as the two drivers of a world based largely in software. Last year I covered the announcements at the MicroStrategy events in Amsterdam and the vision Saylor put forth in his keynote speech. MicroStategy World 2013 last month finds the company delving into such diverse areas as identity management, marketing services and integrated point-of-sale applications. The uniting factor is mobile...
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Topics:
MicroStrategy,
Mobile,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
alert,
Mobile Intelligence,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence
Read More
Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Human Capital Management,
Kenexa,
Learning,
Performance,
Recruiting,
Smarter Analytics,
Smarter Workforce,
Social Business,
Social Collaboration,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
IBM,
Workforce Performance,
Compensation
NewVoiceMedia recently announced it has raised $20 million of investment funds to aid its expansion overseas, including offices in North America. The company was founded in the UK in 2000 and originally offered telephony and call management in the cloud. It now has a close partnership with Salesforce.com, which has allowed it to expand into a multichannel contact center in the cloud. During the last 12 years it has achieved considerable success, both financially and in acquiring prestigious...
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
NewVoicemedia,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
The proper use of technology enables businesses to be more efficient. Our recent research into technology for business innovation found that 56 percent indicate innovative technology is very important, yet only 9 percent are very satisfied with theirs, showing plenty of room for improvement. As we enter 2013, businesses have more choices than ever for technology to improve business and IT. Our firm has identified six key technologies that give organizations significant competitive advantages:...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Mobile Technology,
Social Collaboration,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
CMO,
COO,
CTO
I hadn’t come across Vertical Solutions until a recent briefing, from which I found that the company offers an interesting combination of field service management and CRM. Vertical Solutions has offices around the world, and its target market is companies with between 50 and 2,500+ users in the manufacturing, outsource contact center services, healthcare and residential services markets. It began with a focus on field service and has expanded to include CRM, or, as I would call it, customer...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Vertical Solutions
HireVue has announced the release of a new add-on module for its HireVue Digital Interview Platform. CodeVue is intended to improve the way organizations identify, screen and assess technical or developer positions. Potentially it will benefit companies that need to fill large numbers of technical positions that involve writing code, helping to automate a recruiting process that has been manual and inefficient.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Cloud Computing
Human capital is most organizations’ largest investment and one of their largest differentiators against the competition. So it follows that those that take advantage of the compelling, game-changing technology now available in human capital management (HCM) will place themselves at a competitive advantage.
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Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
HCM,
Human Capital Management,
Learning,
Office of Finance,
Social Collaboration,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
Compensation,
finance,
HR,
Talent Management,
Workforce Management
My research into the customer service agent desktop shows that most centers expect a lot of their contact center agents: more than half (59%) handle between two and five different services (such as general queries, complaints and sales) and 14 percent handle seven or more. Nearly half (49%) are expected to handle between six and 15 calls per hour, and as well as calls, the majority (75%) are expected to handle other forms of interactions, with most handling between one and five per hour. To...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Did you catch all the big data analogies people used in 2012? There were many, like the refinement of oil analogy, or the spinning straw into gold analogy, and less useful but more entertaining ones, like big data is like a box of chocolates, or big data is like The Matrix (because “there’s no way Keanu Reeves learns Kung Fu in five seconds without using big data”). I tend to like the water analogy, which I’ll use here to have a little fun and to briefly describe how I see the business...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Data
Hi; pleased to meet you! I’m tremendously excited to be joining the team here at Ventana Research, and I’m looking forward to adding my experience, observations and opinions to this team of very talented industry analysts! Let me start by telling you a little about my background, and then why a chose to come to work here and what I will be covering at Ventana Research.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Human Capital Management,
Market Research,
Office of Finance,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
HR,
Talent Management,
Workforce Management
At the beginning of 2012 Ventana Research predicted that six major technologies would have an impact on the provision and supply of IT systems, and that these would bring about innovation in the way organizations support their business. Each of the six – business and social collaboration, mobile, analytics, cloud computing, social media and big data – has affected how organizations engage with their customers, but I don’t believe the full impact has yet been fully realized. Indeed, in some...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Despite the recession, 2012 was a busy year in the contact center, customer service and customer experience markets. Ventana Research completed four benchmark research studies into customer relationship maturity, contact center in the cloud, customer feedback management and agent desktop. Overall these show that organizations are slowly maturing in the processes, people, information and technology they use to support customer-facing activities. However, they also show many of the old issues...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Happy New Year to all my readers and followers. I hope everyone has gotten some rest and is ready for a great 2013. 2012 was a busy year in which we saw a critical inflection point, where an elevated focus on new methods and innovative technological approaches such as big data, business analytics, business and social collaboration, cloud computing, mobile technology and social media become part of the mainstream business and IT dialogue. These technologies are beginning to be part of or...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Market Research,
Mobile Technology,
Social Collaboration,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Technology
It’s hard to believe that Salesforce.com was launched only 14 years ago. It has since grown into a multi-billion-dollar company that has changed the way companies source software. Back in the early days its two primary messages were “the end of on-premises software” and “a new era of CRM in the cloud.” Today the first message seems to have softened somewhat, with its own website talking about products and applications, and of course many companies still use traditional on-premise applications....
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Organizations have been struggling for years to find effective systems to support customer self-service. One of the most popular techniques has been to deploy an IVR system, but my research into customer experience management shows that nearly two-thirds (61%) of customers using IVR end up taking the option to speak to an agent, and the old saying “customers hate IVR” still prevails. The same research shows that web-based self-service is achieving similar low levels of success.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Interactions,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM
We recently completed our benchmark research on next-generation business intelligence. Ventana Research looks as next-generation BI as a function of traditional BI that is converging with new technologies such as mobility, collaboration and cloud computing. Just a few years ago business intelligence might have been considered a mature category with incremental growth, but now it’s growing in new directions and it’s difficult today to call business intelligence mature.
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Topics:
Mobile,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance
Recently I completed a benchmark research project into the adoption of a contact center in the cloud, which I defined as the combination of contact center-related communications, applications and analytics in the cloud. Furthermore I defined communications in the cloud as the systems to manage interactions, inbound and outbound, through different communication channels: telephony, email, post, web-based chat, mobile chat, web-based messages, video, mobile apps and social media. The research...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Big data was big news in 2012 and probably in 2013 too. The Harvard Business Review talks about it as The Management Revolution. The Wall Street Journal says Meet the New Boss: Big Data, and Big Data is on the Rise, Bringing Big Questions. Given big data’s popularity in the press, you might think that the technology market is only about big data and how companies use the vast and growing amount of data now available to organizations. While this technology can provide a significant opportunity,...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Data Warehousing,
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
Harvard Business Review,
Wall Street Journal,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Management,
Technology Innovation,
Strata+Hadoop
Much is written these days about how consumers have changed their buying and communication habits, and how more are turning to social media to search for product and service information, complain, exchange news and opinions, and, well, to be social. This has led to predictions such as the demise of the contact center, marketing becoming the prime leader of customer experience, and social media becoming the dominant channel for customer service.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
I recently started a series of blog posts on what CEOs (and for that matter, all senior corporate executives) need to know about IT. The first covered the high-level issues. As I noted there, it’s not necessary for a CEO of a company to be able to write Java code or master the intricacies of an ERP or sales compensation application. However, CEOs must grasp the basics of IT just as they must understand basic corporate finance, the production process and – at least at a high level – the...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
SaaS,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Customer,
ERP,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Complex Event Processing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
In-memory,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
CEO,
PaaS
Over the last few weeks SAP has run several events for both customers and the analyst community to herald the launch of SAP 360 Customer in an attempt to regain ground in the CRM market and convince everyone that it has sorted out its cloud, mobile and collaboration strategy. One of the main user events was Sapphire NOW in Madrid earlier this month. From reports that I have seen, it seems that customers at that conference were far from convinced – and if customers are not convinced then...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
SAP,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
CRM
The parent company of mplSystems, Message Pad Ltd., was founded in the U.K. in 1994 and provides the infrastructure to support contact center operations. mplSystems’ main product family is intelligentContact (iContact), which is available either on premises or in the cloud. It is an interesting mix of products that covers call, email, chat, SMS, social media management and routing from a universal queue, a new social media product that routes social media posts to agents and provides the...
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Topics:
Microsoft,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
The technology ecosystems are expanding rapidly and the use of big data and cloud computing challenge organizations to process information efficiently and deliver consistent high-quality data. To address these issues, Informatica has introduced two new offerings.
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Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Data Integration,
Informatica,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Strata+Hadoop
Business analytics has become the highest ranked technology innovation, according to our benchmark research on business technology innovation, but a lack of trained resources and inefficient technology have hampered the best of organizations when they attempt to roll out analytics. Our benchmark research on business analytics in 2012 found that the majority of analysts in organizations spend more of their time on data-related activities than on analytic tasks, and our 2013 research on business...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Narrative Science,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Workforce Performance,
Expert Systems,
Digital Technology
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
Read More
Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Twitter,
Workforce Performance,
CMO,
COO,
Industry Analyst,
Technology Vendors
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
SAP,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Peoplefluent,
Planview,
Research,
Splunk,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
IBM,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Ceridian,
CFO,
CMO,
COO,
Datawatch,
Saba,
Technology
I have challenged some of the hype about the social enterprise because I feel “social” gives the wrong impression. For most people, social media is predominately about being social. While everyone likes to feel that going to work is partly about being social, when it comes down to it running a business is about winning customers, selling them your products or services, and providing customer service when needed. In today’s competitive markets, none of these is an easy task.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
Vocalcom is one of the up-and-coming names in the contact center market. Founded in 1995, it is headquartered in France but has a worldwide presence, with 4,500 customers and more than half a million users of its services. It may not be as well-known as other companies in the same space because many of the customers are in southern Europe, and a high percentage are outsourcers who use its services to provide contact center services based on its platform. It offers what I call multichannel...
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vocalcom
The idea of devising and using maturity assessments to improve business performance has been a staple of management, functional and strategic consultants for decades. It’s based on two unassailable principles. One is the general assertion that companies differ in their ability to do anything along a range from nonexistent to advanced. The second is that at any time it’s possible for a knowledgeable individual to construct a scale of competence for some business function from least to most...
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Topics:
Performance Management,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Customer Experience,
Governance,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
benchmark,
FPM
Ventana Research has just released the 2012 Value Index for Business Intelligence, in which we evaluate the competency and maturity of vendors and products. Our firm has been researching this software category for almost a decade. Our latest benchmark research in business intelligence found that new technology advancements in business intelligence are critical to its future; more than two-thirds of organizations will use BI on mobile technology in the next year, and more than a fifth will do so...
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Topics:
Microsoft,
MicroStrategy,
Pentaho,
QlikView,
Sales Performance,
SAP,
SAS,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
IT Performance,
Jaspersoft,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
IBM,
InetSoft,
Information Applications,
Information Builders,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Oracle,
Tibco,
Workforce Performance,
arcplan,
LogiXML,
Spago Solutions
Salesforce.com launched more than 12 years ago as the founding CRM vendor in the cloud. Today it has grown to be the kitchen-sink vendor in the cloud. It seems every month it announces some new cloud service, and its services now cover almost the entire enterprise: sales, marketing, service, HR, finance and a list of supporting services that make it hard to determine just what the company now has to offer. Two things remain clear, however: Salesforce.com has established cloud computing as a...
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Topics:
Sales,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
During its annual industry analyst summit this week, human capital management software vendor SumTotal Systems introduced new heads of finance, marketing and sales, and talked about expanding operations in Europe and Asia-Pacific – all part of a business growth strategy that I am sure the company’s private equity owner is expecting. While I wrote about the company earlier this year, SumTotal now says it has signed up 85 new customers so far in 2012 for its human capital management suite, and...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Human Capital Management,
Mobile Technology,
Recruiting,
Social Collaboration,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Workforce Performance,
Talent Management,
Workforce Management
Our benchmark research into retail analytics suggests that only 34 percent of retail companies are satisfied with the process they currently use to create analytics. That’s 10 percent fewer businesses satisfied than we found for all industries combined. The dissatisfaction is being driven by underperforming technology that cannot keep up with the dramatic changes that are occurring in the retail industry. Retail analytics lag those in the broader business world, with 71 percent still using...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Retail Analytics,
SaaS,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Operational Intelligence
This week I’m at the 2012 HR Technology Conference (Twitter: #HRTechConf) where the scene is more than cool – it is hip. In the past several years technology for human resources – now more often called human capital management – has transformed from administrative software to applications anyone in the workforce can use to access information about their company, job, goals, performance, pay, benefits and even what they can do to advance in the organization. HR technology is embracing the six...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Human Capital Management,
Mobile Technology,
Social Collaboration,
Operational Performance,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
HR,
Talent Management
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Market Research,
Research,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
CMO,
Industry Analyst,
Influencers,
Technology Vendors
Call Centre & Customer Management Expo has been running for several years now. The event provides an opportunity for contact center and customer service managers in Europe to catch up with all the latest and greatest going on in the market. At this year’s event earlier this week, as usual, I found the normal mix of presentations, vendor exhibition stands and other side events. The vendor show included a mix of core contact center vendors (interaction management, CRM, WFO, customer experience...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
I attended Oracle’s annual OpenWorld conference this week. The company claims it holds the world’s largest technology conference, with 50,000 attendees and a million people viewing sessions online. It was a great opportunity to get close to the Oracle Fusion Applications, which the company presented as proven and ready, with customers using them on-premises and in private and public cloud computing usage methods. In keynotes from executives Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd and Thomas Kurian and...
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Topics:
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
SAP,
Social Media,
Mobile Technology,
Social Collaboration,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Information Management,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance,
CRM,
SFA,
Workday,
Workforce Analytics
IBM acquired SPSS in late 2009 and has been investing steadily in the business as a key component of its overall business analytics portfolio. Today, SPSS provides an integrated approach to predictive analytics through four software packages: SPSS Data Collection, SPSS Statistics, SPSS Modeler and SPSS Decision Management. SPSS is also integrated with Cognos Insight, IBM’s entry into the visual discovery arena.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
IBM,
Workforce Performance,
SPSS
Salesforce is a global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company to be reckoned with. The swarming crowds at its Dreamforce event last week were estimated to exceed 90,000. The company is rapidly growing an ecosystem that includes Sales, Service and Marketing Clouds; Force.com for building applications; and Data.com for storing data in the cloud centrally for use across Salesforce products. It is also focusing on social computing, as I outlined at the beginning of the event. Hundreds of Salesforce...
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Topics:
Master Data Management,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
SnapLogic,
Zyme Solutions,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Governance,
Data Integration,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Informatica,
Information Builders,
Information Management,
Data,
data integrity,
database.com,
Kapow
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
I was at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference this week to hear about the latest advancements from the cloud computing software giant. Salesforce has helped revolutionize cloud computing for business, and its social media and collaborative technologies help advance business processes in sales, customer service and improve the interactions between employees, partners and customers. Salesforce has made great advancements in cloud, social and mobile technology, as I have assessed and my...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
QlikView,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Gooddata,
SnapLogic,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
InetSoft,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
KXEN,
Operational Intelligence,
Cloud9 Analytics,
Domo,
Information Builder iway,
Roambi
With more than 90,000 attendees registered and 100,000 more expected to watch via live stream on Facebook, Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce is the biggest technology event of this year. The conference kicked off yesterday morning with MC Hammer letting the packed house know that it was “Chatter time” and leaving little doubt about the theme of the Marc Benioff’s keynote speech: Social. Citing numbers from McKinsey and IBM, Benioff suggested that social adds $1.3 trillion to the economy and that CEOs...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Mobile,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Location Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Social
I cover the meat-and-potatoes aspects of corporate computing. I also pay attention to the special needs of midsize companies (by our definition, those with between 100 and 999 employees), which are unlike those of either small business or large corporations. After attending this year’s Dreamforce conference, Salesforce.com’s annual user meeting held this week in San Francisco, I can appreciate how difficult it is for executives and people who work in back office functions to cut through the...
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Topics:
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
ERP,
Office of Finance,
CRM customer service,
SMB,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Dreamforce,
finance,
Security,
FPM
Many people these days talk about voice of the customer (VOC) programs and how they can improve business performance. The foundation of any VOC program is collecting customer feedback, analyzing it and using the insights to improve customer-focused processes, training and the use of technology. Changes usually focus on customer service, but increasingly companies are focusing on the customer experience – how companies engage with customers to resolve issues, provide information, close sales and...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
I attended Taleo World to see how well Oracle is integrating Taleo after acquiring the company in 2012. I assessed the announcement by Oracle earlier this year; it was clear then that Oracle needed to make this acquisition to boost its cloud computing and talent management efforts. In the three-hour keynote session, a business overview and software demonstrations indicated what Oracle has in store for the applications and how it plans to fuse its applications and technology to add value to...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Human Capital Management,
Recruiting,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Financial Performance,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance,
HireVue,
Hiring,
HR,
JobVite,
Talemetry,
Taleo
Ventana Research has just released the 2012 Value Index for Data Integration, in which we evaluate the competency and maturity of vendors and products. Our firm has been researching this software category for almost a decade. Our latest benchmark research in information management found that data integration is a critical component of information management strategies, according to 55 percent of organizations. Our benchmark research on organizations using this software not only uncovers best...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Master Data Management,
Microsoft,
Pentaho,
Sales Performance,
SAP,
SAS,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Talend,
SnapLogic,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Data Governance,
Data Integration,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
IBM,
Informatica,
Information Applications,
Information Builders,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Oracle,
Workforce Performance,
Syncsort
IBM has announced its intention to acquire Kenexa as part of IBM Smarter Workforce initiative and social business software division. It’s a billion-dollar-plus investment to bolster IBM’s social business and give the company more depth in the human capital management software market that comprises human resources, talent management and workforce management. A lot of surface-level analysis I’ve seen on this announcement is not worth reading, but the deeper review below may help Kenexa and IBM...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Human Capital Management,
Kenexa,
Recruiting,
Operational Performance,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
IBM,
Workforce Performance,
Talent Management
In my last rant, on business analytics and the pathetic state of dashboards, I pointed out significant flaws in business intelligence software created by technology providers and in how it is being deployed by business and IT. Now I want to follow up with some insight on disconnects to a critical asset that is essential to the success of business analytics. I mean key performance indicators (KPIs), a term used in inaccurate ways that have diminished the value of the concept for business.
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Sustainability,
KPI,
IT Performance,
Key Performance Indicators,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance
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 customer service when needed. In today’s competitive markets, none of these are easy tasks. As I look...
Read More
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
Our benchmark research on business analytics suggests that it is counterproductive to take a general approach to the topic. A better approach is to focus on particular use cases and lines of business (LOB). For this reason, in a series of upcoming articles, I will look at our business analytics research in the context of different industries and different functional areas of an organization, and illustrate how analytics are being applied to solve real business problems.
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Topics:
Big Data,
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance
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 technology, collaboration, website development, social media support and analytics. Along the way it...
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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
Our research agenda for 2012 in human capital management outlined the importance of workforce management for all organizations. One provider, WorkForce Software, provides systems that support scheduling, time and attendance, leave and absence and fatigue management. As I noted in my last analysis on WorkForce Software, the company’s focus on the fatigue aspect of workforce management, especially in white-collar environments such as transportation, utilities and healthcare, has provided them...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
SAP,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Sustainability,
Human Capital Management,
SuccessFactors,
Business Technology Innovation,
IT Performance,
IT Research,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
HTML5,
Time & Attendance,
Workforce Management
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, spotted that Ciboodle, with its customer experience management portfolio, provided a good, complimentary...
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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
Our benchmark research into agent performance management shows that the majority of companies are not very mature in their use of people, processes, information and technology in handling customer interactions. Companies are most mature is their use of information, but even in this area they are hampered by their failure to use the latest technologies available to support their efforts.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
NICE Systems,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
VPI,
Call Copy,
Enkata,
Envision,
Genesys,
KnopahSoft,
LiveOps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
coaching,
Compensation,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
OnviSource,
Training,
Verint,
Workforce Force Optimization
Callminer is best known as a vendor of speech analytics software. Along with its own suite, its products also are embedded in those of several other vendors to provide speech analysis. During a recent briefing, I learned that the company has not only expanded into text and social analytics but also that its latest release includes more features and a friendlier user interface, two requirements that my research shows are essential in persuading companies to more widely adopt analytics for...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Callminer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Kognitio has been serving the analytics and data needs of organizations for more than 20 years with an in-memory analytics platform that meets many of the big-data needs of today’s organizations. Kognitio Analytical Platform provides a unique massively parallel processing (MPP) in-memory database that can rapidly load data and calculate analytics; it is available both in an analytical software appliance and via cloud computing.
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Topics:
Big Data,
Data Warehousing,
Social Media,
alteryx,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Hortonworks,
Information Management,
Kognitio,
Strata+Hadoop
Many companies have legacy systems in their contact centers, especially systems to manage telephony. My research into the use of technology in centers shows they can create headaches for center managers whose budgets don’t allow them to invest in new systems to match emerging business requirements and changes in consumer behaviors. My research into customer relationship maturity shows that consumers now want to interact with companies through multiple communication channels, with social media...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM
Recently a flurry of vendors have announced new products that enable companies to build mobile customer service applications that I have analyzed, including Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Jacada and NICE Systems. All are intended to respond to customer demands for self-service through mobile devices. At a recent customer engagement day, I gave a keynote address on the likely impact of mobile apps and social media on customer service, and I chaired three round-table discussions on the...
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Topics:
Mobile,
Social Media,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Vendor(s)
It is hard to avoid seeing the impact of social media on our daily work, from marketing and sales to customer service. Consumers and customers can interact on the Internet to share their experiences and opinions often and easily, but internally we in business are still operating in the era of electronic mail and phone calls. Fortunately, that archaic state is changing. A new generation of technologies called social collaboration has evolved from social media to adapt to business needs. These...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
HCM,
Human Capital Management,
Social Collaboration,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
HR,
Talent Management
The use of social collaboration to support human capital management is increasing as the need to engage talent becomes a higher priority in organizations. In particular, those that have a growing population of workers from the millennial generation see social media as a primary means of communication. Social collaboration is growing in acceptance – 58 percent of organizations now permit it, according to our benchmark research on social collaboration and human capital management (HCM). For many...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Sustainability,
Globoforce,
Human Capital Management,
Social Collaboration,
Social Recognition,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance
It’s clear that sales organizations need to be efficient, but many are unaware of critical applications they could deploy to establish sales excellence. In my recent analysis, “Sales Organizations Need a Swift Technology Kick”, I outlined why sales departments have to look beyond using sales force automation (SFA) and spreadsheets and examine dedicated applications for improving productivity and effectiveness. Our benchmark research in sales applications found a new set of application...
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Topics:
Sales,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Sustainability,
Sales Forecasting,
IT Research,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
SFA
Anyone who focuses on the practical uses of information technology, as I do, must consider the data aspects of adopting any new technology to achieve some business purpose. Reliable data must be readily available in the necessary form and format, or that shiny new IT bauble you want to deploy will fall short of expectations. Our research benchmarks cover a range of core business and IT processes, and they regularly demonstrate that data deficiencies are a root cause of issues organizations have...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
GRC,
IBM Business Analytics,
Business Technology Innovation,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
CIO,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
CFO,
finance
Pitney Bowes (PB) opened its annual technology summit (Twitter: #TechSummit12) with a review of its organizational assets and its rich history of engineering hardware and systems for physical and now digital delivery of communications. The multibillion-dollar technology giant is transforming itself to address the digital needs of business for interaction with consumers. It also is working to transform how business communications and interactions work across all channels. Handling new media...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Communications,
Pitney Bowes,
Portrait Software,
Volly,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance
I hear a lot of talk about the impact of social media on customer service and the contact center. My research into customer relationship maturity shows much of this is only talk. The research shows that while many companies have rushed to create a Twitter handle and a Facebook page and put video on YouTube, most are struggling to integrate social media into their customer service or more broadly their customer engagement strategy and processes.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
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,
Social Dynamx
On the first morning of the Pitney Bowes (PB) Insights 2012 User Conference in New Orleans I had the opportunity to meet with John O’Hara, president of Pitney Bowes Software, and his management team. Given the staid reputation of the company, I expected to encounter more formal behavior and a highly structured meeting format. Instead I met an engagingly curious and purposeful management team with a fresh perspective and a portfolio of products that puts the company in the middle of the business...
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Topics:
Mobile,
Social Media,
Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Location Intelligence,
InfoMgt; Location
After the SAS analyst event last year, I wrote that it is hard to keep track of everything SAS has to offer because it had so many products and developments in the pipeline. Back from this year’s event, I can report that 2011 was successful, its revenue and worldwide presence are up, and SAS continues to expand its channels to market. On top of everything I saw last year even more products and developments are in the pipeline, but the theme and focus remain the same: enabling business analytics.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Management,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Vendor(s)
I attended SuccessConnect (Twitter: #sconnect), the annual SuccessFactors conference, to hear the latest from this talent management applications company. A lot has changed for the formerly independent company since it acquired Plateau less than a year ago and Jobs2Web. In turn, earlier this year SAP acquired SuccessFactors to expand its cloud computing business. Its recently outlined expansion as part of SAP’s overall cloud computing strategy is beginning to take shape.
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
HCM,
Human Capital Management,
Performance,
Recruiting,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
HR