On December 8^th of last year I posted an article in which I discussed the contact center and unified communications markets relative to the state of the U.S. economy titled “Unified Communications and the Economy: Quit Wringing Your Hands and Get Back to Work. In that article I cited cases of companies that have faced past recessions head-on rather than retreating into a panic of fear-induced cost cutting and irrational management decisions.  I wrote about Proctor and Gamble, which has emerged from every recession over the last 100 years stronger than they were when each recession began.  Companies like Hewlett Packard and Microsoft were started in the middle of recessions, as were General Electric and Disney.  Compared to companies that have failed during recessionary periods, these companies maintained a positive business attitude and continued to operate with confidence in their products and with confidence in the buyer’s ability to recognize the quality of those products.

Apparently those lessons from the past have not been lost on Aspect Software which, on January 7^th, announced the acquisition of Applied Information Management Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary, AIM Technology Inc., commonly known as AIM in the contact center industry.  AIM was one of the original contact center analytics companies and had a previous relationship with Aspect about five years ago.  That relationship was dropped in favor of an OEM agreement with Merced Systems last year but Aspect must have felt the timing was right to take control of their performance management analytics solution.  Although I don’t know what Aspect’s internal rationale was that led them back to their original performance management partner, I have a feeling it might have had something to do with the common Microsoft technology platform that both Aspect and AIM share. 

If there is a downside to this acquisition, I can’t find it.  Aspect customers with the Merced Systems OEM solution installed will continue to be supported without change.  Customers with Merced-based Aspect Performance Management solutions currently on order but not in production will have the option of implementing those systems or moving on to the new system, which will be called PerformanceEdge Performance Management.  Also important to consider is the unified communications partnership Aspect has with Microsoft.  Given the common Microsoft technology base that Aspect’s PerformanceEdge performance optimization suite now has and the company’s commitment to unified communications, I think there is a good possibility that there will be some new product surprises on the horizon.    

Beyond Aspect’s move to bring their performance optimization solution entirely in-house, I applaud the confidence and character the company has shown in making this acquisition when so much of the contact center industry stands paralyzed in fear of what may or may not happen this year.  Aspect has given notice to the industry that it does not intend to back down regardless of the stories of economic doom-and-gloom so gleefully delivered to us each day by the news media.  Aspect continues to position itself for long-term success and I believe that when this recession ends, as every recession in U.S. history has, lots of Aspect’s competitors will look at Aspect’s achievements, will look at how Aspect faced-down this recession and will wish they had that kind of sand.

Tags: Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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I have a love/hate relationship with Avaya.

Way back in the pre-email, pre-cell phone days, when I started as an industry analyst with Dataquest, one of my clients was AT&T.  AT&T was a company I always admired and at one time in my checkered career I even tried to get a job with them.  Their human resources function was as screwed up as most big companies’ but that’s another story.  While AT&T was my client at Dataquest I had a great relationship with them.

As you know, AT&T begat Lucent which begat Avaya.  As the voice messaging industry was winding down in the ‘90s Avaya stepped in and acquired another company that I admired and had as a client, Octel.  As a result, I had lots of former Octel friends and former AT&T friends at Avaya.

This past Saturday, November 1^st 2008, marks the ninth anniversary of the founding of my company, Saddletree Research.  It also marks the beginning of my relationship with Avaya hitting the skids.  The love affair still existed back in 1999 due to the many friends I still had at Avaya from my Dataquest and In-Stat days, but I could instinctively feel things starting to change as any jilted lover can.

These days my relationship with Avaya is something akin to Avaya being a former girlfriend after a particularly acrimonious breakup.  We don’t have anything to do with each other except once a year when Avaya invites me to their annual analyst briefing.  We smile at each other and reminisce about the old days and better times, but I think we both know that we’re never going to get back together.  Avaya only dances with the big guys these days, like Gartner and Yankee, and select special friends.  I’m an independent in every sense of the word.  Gartner and Yankee are the football players.  I’m the soccer playing nerd.  A polite exchange of smiles is about as far as I get with Avaya.

When I go to their annual analyst fandango I endeavor to be civil and take in what they have to say.  Still, I have to admit it’s like seeing the old girlfriend that you never really got over.  Life has moved on and all parties have survived, but there’s still that faint feeling in the pit of the stomach.  The truth is I really don’t want to like Avaya anymore but they occasionally do something that still brings back happier memories of days gone by.

This year I connected with the usual Avaya suspects who gave me the simultaneous polite smile/brush off combo, but I also met some interesting people with surprisingly innovative ideas.  Most of these interesting people are recent additions to Avaya so they may not have been told the analyst relations rules yet.  I found these people to be candid and sincere, which were not traits that I had come to associate with Avaya over the past few years. 

One of these interesting, mold-busting people I met was Avaya’s relatively new vice president and general manager of unified communications, Steve Borcich.  When we sat down to talk I was expecting the rote Avaya company recitation from Steve but instead I found a guy who was, to use an already overused expression, thinking outside the box.  We talked about UC in general and in particular about how it could be applied in various business environments.  For example, Steve had thought through how UC could be applied in retail settings like the big box do-it-yourself stores to locate expert help regardless of which store an individual worked in.  He even talked about bringing in experts from outside the store who would provide customer assistance while at the same time promoting their own businesses.  Common sense but pretty smart nonetheless.

The idea of federation, as Steve described it, isn’t a new one but the way he described the use of UC in a federated arrangement showed that Avaya has been giving UC some serious thought beyond just beating the competition.  Steve’s idea of extended customer service could certainly be applied to the contact center and beyond.  I was impressed.

I still met plenty of Avaya people who looked me straight in the eye and told me they would do something when I know they had no intention of actually doing it.  I can usually tell who these people are and they haven’t let me down yet.  On the other hand there are plenty of new people at Avaya and they have to be given a chance to prove they’re different.  I hope some of them are reading this blog.  Don’t let us down.  People like me are counting on people like you, Steve.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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It all starts in the contact center.

That’s my contention anyway. When you look for the obvious launch point for unified communications in the enterprise, it has to be the contact center. Almost all discussions about UC in the enterprise include a mention of Presence, the UC concept that provides users with an overview of the availability and status of other knowledge workers in the organization and a means to efficiently tap into those resources as necessary.

If you think about it, the contact center is the most logical place for the initial use of Presence and UC in the enterprise. The goal of most, if not all, customer contact centers is first call resolution. In other words, the folks in charge of running customer service generally prefer to have a customer issue resolved in one call. There are two reasons for this, the first of which is customer satisfaction. As a consumer or customer, aren’t you generally happier if the company you call can resolve your issue in one call without repeated call transfers or without asking you to call back in order to speak with someone else later? Everyone’s time is valuable these days and no one likes to have to make repeated phone calls to get a question answered or an issue resolved.

Presence would allow an agent the ability to pull in enterprise resources from outside the contact center in order to resolve a customer call. Agents would be able to identify which internal subject matter experts might be available and the best way to reach them. While still engaging the customer, contact center agents would have the additional resources at their fingertips to keep the customer happy or at least resolve an issue without repeated call transfers or callbacks.

The second reason customer service professionals strive for first call resolution in the contact center is cost. Each time a customer service agent picks up the phone, it costs the contact center in terms of salary, benefits, etc., and if they’re paying for an agent to address the same problem with the same customer more than once, that is usually money down the drain. UC in the contact center makes absolute sense from a cost savings perspective. Here’s where we run into our conundrum, though.
If you’ve been around the contact center long enough you’ve undoubtedly heard the discussions about the strategic importance of the customer service center in terms of its value to operational success and profitability. To hear some people talk you’d believe that the business universe revolved around the contact center. If you haven’t been around the contact center and heard this talk, trust me when I tell you that it’s mostly lip service.
The truth is, the contact center is as important as all the pundits claim it is but the fact is that most businesses look at the contact center as a cost center. As you probably know, it is generally very difficult to get a business to invest in a cost center. Thus our conundrum: an investment in UC on the contact center would undoubtedly lead to cost savings and a tangible return on investment, but there is a general reluctance to invest in cost centers such as the contact center.
I think we may be able to find our way out of this potential quagmire if the industry in general follows the lead of the small percentage of companies who really do view their customer service function as a strategic advantage or differentiator and will invest in UC in order to provide their agents with Presence functionality. It’s going to take time and there will still be those executives who will drag their contact centers into the 21^st century kicking, screaming and protesting the whole way.

Any other ideas?

Tags: Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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