Over the past four years Siemens has made it pretty clear to industry that they are not interested in the contact center market. The company’s commitment to that market has continued to wane over the years to the point where many industry watchers, me included, consider Siemens to be a non-player in the contact center industry today.

That’s why yesterday’s announcement of Siemens’ joint venture with The Gores Group barely caused a blip on the contact center industry radar. While the unified communications (UC) industry was fairly excited about the possibilities this new JV could bring to the burgeoning UC market, the contact center industry reacted with a collective yawn. There is a bit of irony here.

In earlier posts to this blog I took the position that the contact center will be the launching point for UC into the greater enterprise. Of course there will be exceptions to this, but I still believe that UC will begin to see mass market momentum when the contact center adopts it for its own. Siemens in unquestionably a power to be reckoned with in the emerging UC market, but they’re a non-entity in the well-established contact center market. Thus we have the irony that seems to have kept the contact center industry politely disinterested in the Siemens/Gores Group announcement.

There’s another small but potentially interesting kink in this new arrangement and that is the fact that The Gores Group owns SER, the contact management/predictive dialer company out of Dulles, VA, and they’re throwing SER in as part of the deal. Now, SER is no Aspect but it’s no slouch either and I question whether the new Siemens/Gores JV can afford to ignore it in deference to Siemens’ apathy toward the contact center industry. I foresee a bit of a quandary as the new Siemens Enterprise Communications comes to life.

Long term, the problem will probably take care of itself. Siemens is not going to take its eye off the UC ball but it is going to have to come to terms with the role of UC in the contact center. For the short term Siemens will have to follow the majority stakeholder Gores Group in its support of SER’s products and the contact center industry. This is not, however, where I see Siemens in the long run.

Long-term, I believe Siemens’ role in the industry will evolve with the industry itself. As the UC industry sorts itself out, I believe the players will become increasingly specialized. For example, one company might specialize in UC software. Another might specialize in infrastructure. Siemens’ specialization will be services. Siemens Enterprise Communications has made noise about transforming itself into a services company for years. Now it is out from under the heavy hand of Siemens AG, it finally has the chance to actually do it.

As for SER? Probably acquired by Aspect.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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Marty, let me add further to your “modest proposal”.  My suggestion is that Gores and SEN strive to become the systems integrator of choice for integrating voice communications into business processes. 

As we look at the developing unified communications market, we see strong parallels to the way contact centers developed.  Companies are willing to spend thousands of dollars per agent seat gathering and integrating applications, communications, customer data, and knowledge systems into processes to solve a specific business problem - handling incoming customer contacts efficiently and effectively. 

Unified Communications holds a similar promise for many places in the enterprise - linking people, processes, and technology in a way that solves a specific business problem.  Our consulting work, and numerous published case studies point to the fact that applying UC to business processes is the road to the best ROI opportunities.   But achieving these results sometimes requires integrating voice communications into business applications.  And that’s a lot of potential revenue for innovative services companies.

Who better to tackle the subtle challenges of voice communications than a multi-billion dollar company with deep roots in the voice business.  Moreover, Siemens has, with their OpenScape UC Server, gained experience understanding other systems with which it will integrate. 

There are several paths.  Siemens could “go it alone” and choose one of several models such as Genesys Labs, IBM Global Services, DiData, Accenture, or others.  Or, they could work closely with their VAR network to develop an ecosystem of integrators. 

So, Gores and SEN, go beyond the traditional voice communications business.  Integration services is where it’s at in the unfolding unified communications marketplace! 

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Don Van Doren
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Our UCStrategies.com team has been discussing the acquisition of Siemens Enterprise Networks (SEN) into a joint venture with The Gores Group, who also owns Enterasys and SER.

As we pondered the situation, it became clear that this is an ideal time for some dramatic action.  SEN has arguably the best software stack for UC solutions in the entire industry in their OpenScape Communications Suite.  (Yes, we mean just the OpenScape Suite, not all the updated telephony-centric products such as the HiPath 8000, et al.).  

Our modest proposal is that the new SEN look past the traditional converged voice and PBX market, in which they are in a money-losing fourth place position (this according to their own slides from yesterday’s announcement) and look instead to the future via Unified Communications. 

What if they told all of their installed base customers that the new SEN is different?  The new SEN will not declare end-of-support on all that good Siemens technology that still works.  Instead, the new SEN recommends that the customers don’t waste their time replacing PBXs with IP PBXs and buying new phones, but rather spend their time and money installing OpenScape, connected to any PBX they own (old or new, of any brand).  Since OpenScape provides the complete set of communications tools that integrate seamlessly with both Microsoft and IBM (SEN has alliances for this with both companies) and with the enterprise back-office or hosted solutions (think SAP, Salesforce.com and more), SEN has the best chance of any company to come out as the market leader in Unified Communications. 

Hmmm. So the choice is to continue to sell PBXs, where SEN lost 602 million Euros on revenues of 3,200 million Euros in FY2007 and try to hold on to fourth place with declining market share, or to use this opportunity to truncate the loses in PBX selling (but continue the more profitable servicing business) and shoot for the leadership position in UC.  Losses/share laggard or smaller but profitable leader?  Oh, yeah, let’s be the leader! 

So, there’s our modest proposal.  What do you think?  Please post away on our blog here.

Tags: Unified Communications Information, Unified Communications Information by Marty Parker
1 Comment »