Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Call Center Archives

A Contrarian View on The Apple/Foxconn Labor Situation

2012-04-05T18:49:17Z

A few weeks back when the New York Times wrote a story regarding workers making iPhones and other devices in China who aren’t being treated very well, I wondered, this is a story? In other words, is there a person on the planet who doesn’t know that working conditions in China are far worse than they are in the US?

And I absolutely respect the right of the New York Times to run such a story – I just think it shows a broader agenda of being anti-capitalist, and anti-business. After all, we in the US have been buying Chinese products made by people in poor working conditions for decades. Why write this story now? Let’s stop for a moment and consider that if conditions in China are so poor for workers, then why are they working? In other words, they must be worse off – likely far worse off if they don’t have their Foxconn jobs.

The end result of this piece however is that wages across the manufacturing sector – starting with Apple will increase.

The problem is if you are truly worried about Chinese workers you should be concerned to see this happen because as costs for workers rise, the cost of automating gets a better return on investment. In other words if it may have taken seven years to pay back a robotics investment just a few months ago, now it may take just four years.

And guess what… When robotics becomes more prevalent, there will be less jobs meaning many of these workers will have to go back to living in conditions they escaped by working at Foxconnin the first place.

It is worth pointing out that in the US , minimum wage laws have made the ROI on self-scanning equipment at supermarkets better so guess what… There are less people working. The same sort of thing will happen in China.

Of course the situation is not so cut and dry as more and more manufacturing is moving to China meaning workers will likely have steady work for some years.

It’s worth pointing out that what will happen as a result of higher wages in China is Mexico and other countries will become a more logical place to manufacture. As I pointed out last year call center jobs in the US have been increasing because wages in India are rising – but in that case it is the free market working.

Seeking Alpha has an article out today which describes how Apple has made a brilliant move by increasing the wages of its workers because its margins are the highest in the industry. In fact their net margin is 24% while the next highest computer makers are HP and Dell at 5.6% followed by Nokia at around 4.4% and Amazon at 1.3%.

The point they make is the rest of the industry will be squeezed by this move.

The challenge with this line of thinking is if the cost of an Apple product is about twice that of a non-Apple product (of course this isn’t always the case) then these other companies can raise prices and still be far cheaper than Apple.

So while we can applaud the fact that workers in China will be faring better, lets keep in mind that abruptly changing things like inputs costs in the manufacturing sector could have far-reaching implications like inflation for the markets where Chinese good are shipped as well as the potential for more robotics to be used to eliminate the workers altogether.

To get a sense of what I mean, see how Kiva Systems robots operate - Amazon just purchased the company.

Aito Technologies Helps Carriers Leverage Sentiment Analysis

2012-03-20T20:04:19Z

In the US, some of the most challenging times for carrier sentiment had to be when comedians and shows like SNL poked fun at the iPhone for not working properly on the AT&T network. And in such situations where the carrier’s network was slammed with traffic and the company was not able to come up with a solution quickly, there probably want much the company could do to change public sentiment.

But in many cases a reactive carrier can reduce churn due to customer dissatisfaction. And this is one of the goals of Aito Technologies a company in the customer experience analytics (CEA) space. In a meeting with CEO Anssi Tauriainen I learned the company combines business and technology allowing operators to see a comprehensive picture of customers which include devices, faults and revenue. Moreover they deliver results quickly with integration times in weeks not months.

The company touts its products as being able to help carriers increase revenue. For example, by actively targeting customer groups, a customer has seen 30% better response rates. Moreover, data mining requests have dropped as much as 95% at some carriers and churn has dropped by 1% in another example.

Recently the company added Device Insight, which includes a database of 2,200 devices with their capabilities; for example OS, screen resolution, memory and connectivity. Moreover there is also Dynamic Segmentation allowing a carrier to quickly determine top data customers facing a degraded experience or VIP customers who frequently use data.

Another new addition is social network analysis allowing carriers to see changing sentiment on major social networks. This data in turn can be linked to customer acquisition and churn to determine correlations.

Additionally there is an increased focus on profitability and revenue allowing you to see gross margin by customer and lifetime customer value. This information in turn can be compared to acquisition cost which is about 150 euros in Europe. There is also the ability to link with Google maps allowing carriers to see user behavior by geographic region.

As I wrote about in my recent Acme Packet University post, communications is becoming more complicated whether we like it or not. And this complication manifests itself as myriad and ever-expanding log files which eventually turn into databases. Aito Technology can help mine these databases for treasure.

Check out a Webinar on Telecom Visibility 2.0

2012-03-20T17:41:14Z

For over 20 years I’ve been tracking Unimax a company that has been the only pure-play moves/adds/changes solutions provider to large enterprises around the globe. Andrew Hunkins was the founder/CTO/CEO throughout the years and my most memorable meetings with him were at the Harry Newton/CMP Computer Telephony EXPOs also known as CTEXPO in Los Angeles, California. A huge accomplishment for the company Hunkins founded was lasting – it’s been around since 1985!! This is a big deal.

It is worth mentioning that Hunkins has moved on from the company but he/Unimax made national news when after the Iraq war they were featured in BusinessWeek because they lost a partnership deal in France because there was a brief spat between the US and the French over the Iraq war.

You remember, when we were briefly calling French Fries, Freedom Fries and body odor French perfume – admittedly I might have been the only one speaking the latter – but I know you were thinking it.

Unimax has evolved over the years and Minnesota-based company is sponsoring a webinar on TMCnet which will discuss how organizations can increase their telecom visibility and reporting. I would have called the webinar using big data and analytics to manage your disparate PBX and communications systems across the campus and/or globe but admittedly that is a really long headline.

But you get the idea. The webinar takes place in a couple of days and thanks for working with me during this brief commercial message from our sponsor.

Chinese Nortel Hack Unconfirmed by my Sources

2012-02-16T01:33:35Z

Although reports have been swirling regarding Chinese hackers breaking into Nortel's computers for over ten years in order to steal trade secrets, I have been unable to confirm such a breach took place. I have tapped into a few high-level sources and they were unaware of anything like this happening - the internal Nortel employees would almost certainly need to know if such an attack was taking place.

After all, reports say that even Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski had a computer which was compromised.

One of the reasons Nortel went bankrupt had to do with Chinese competitors Huawei and ZTE undercutting Nortel on price for carrier wireless and other products. So it easy to understand why many would easily believe that Nortel had been hacked.

And hacks from China are not unusual - they have happened to numerous US companies and even government agencies.

But again, would you not let your company workers know if this was the case?

Siobhan Gorman has a story in the Wall Street Journal on what happened at Nortel and it seems there is enough information to make you believe the hack was real. But still, I remain skeptical that the breach if it happened was on such a massive scale. I reached out to Siobhan in order to see if there are any public documents which would enlighten us. I will advise you if I hear of anything - please drop me a line if you know of anything as well.

Will Nimble 2.0 take Social CRM Mainstream?

2012-02-14T17:01:00Z

Recently consumer products manufacturer P&G – one of the largest advertising spenders at over $9B announced it will cut its marketing headcount in-part because advertising on Facebook and Google is more efficient. The maker of Gillette and Pantene products is not alone; in-fact the business world is focusing heavily on social media including Google+ and Twitter.

But while it is understood by many web-savvy companies that social is important – how many of them are embracing social CRM? My informal analysis shows the numbers are very low meaning there could be huge room for growth.

That is of course if you don’t ascribe to the idea that it is important for companies to help shape the dialogue about themselves online. More importantly, you don’t believe that tying social media into CRM systems can boost sales and service levels and perhaps even increase productivity.

One person who believes in the power of social CRM is Nimble founder and CEO Jon Ferrara. Around 1991 or so he told me at a dinner that his new company contact management/CRM company Goldmine has lots of potential because, “There is no Lotus in the market.” Ironically, Goldmine did in fact become a major player in the space while Lotus faded from the scene.

Last year Nimble rolled out its initial cloud-based social CRM solution and there are now 30,000 users and 3,000 of them spend almost half their day on the platform. The newly released Nimble 2.0 aims to increase the first if not both of these numbers. In Ferrara’s own words, “Nimble is an integration of social listening and engagement platform, internal collaboration with sales and marketing capabilities of traditional CRM and elegance and simplicity of contact manager rolled into one easy to use system.”

He contrasts the look of Nimble – which is similar to a Facebook page to Salesforce which he says looks like a mainframe screen. Additionally, he believes that while Hootsuite is useful it’s limited because it doesn’t allow you to drill down on specific contacts.

Successful salespeople have always known that information related to a certain prospect could help increase the chance of a sale. In other words, if you know where a potential customer went to college, that information could be helpful in relationship-building which in turn could give you the edge in a competitive sales situation. Although people like to believe they purchase based on objective facts, likeability and/or trust of a salesperson is a major factor in pulling the purchasing trigger.

And one of Nimble’s objectives is to boost relationships by enabling companies to get a better overall picture of their prospective customers.

Ferrara likens Nimble 2.0 to fishing in the social river where salespeople can find a needle in a haystack. By tying in traditional CRM data, a company can ascertain which people on social networks have also downloaded documents from the corporate website. Moreover, companies can also determine who in the social stream is interested in which products.

For a few years now I have swept all my Twitter follow emails into a special folder and I’m frankly amazed at the quality of the follows on this network. Not only do I find numerous related companies I never heard of and are worthy of coverage. Often these follows turn into prospects and sometimes become new customers of TMC.

Tying these follows into a CRM system makes infinite sense if for no other reason than to justify the spend companies are making on social media.

In other words if you are to put aside the passion that Jon and I share for the future of commerce being closely aligned with social CRM, then at least you should be onboard with using an integrated Social CRM tool to evaluate the ROI of the effort your company is putting into social networks.

In using the platform I am happy to report it has proper hooks into a number of social networks including Google+. A number of other social aggregation platforms don’t yet connect to Google+ for some reason. Moreover, although I am a Nimble dabbler, not a frequent user, I find its daily email digest of job changes from my social networks very useful.

Jon also feels his company’s integrated solution is better suited to the world of social-CRM than a CRM system with social bolted on. While this is a logical statement, I wouldn’t count out Oracle, Salesforce or any other CRM vendors as social integration should be straightforward. Sure, some will always do it better and Nimble is a pioneer but that doesn’t mean the CRM world won’t be watching like a hawk and emulating like a cheetah.

Nimble is free for standalone personal users and business and multi-users can sign up for $15 per user per month. At that price it is certainly worth trying.

Need a New Car? Win a Mustang at ITEXPO in Miami Next Week

2012-01-27T15:48:11Z

I think I may have one of the best jobs in the world. I admit it is a bit ADHD-inducing as I get involved in lots of areas from new media to the latest technologies in the market as I run this major media company which is TMC. Not only do I get help influence tens of millions of people online I also get to host live events where I meet many of the readers who frequent my blog and TMCnet - the main web portal of TMC where I am CEO.

But the most exciting part of my job comes twice a year when I give away a car to an unsuspecting attendee at ITEXPO. Next week - Friday Feb 3rd at 1:45 pm at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I get to give the next car away and it will be a Ford Mustang. In order to be eligible to win you need to pick up a card at registration and get it stamped by all the sponsors of the car giveaway.

Thank you sponsors for making these giveaways possible. If I were an attendee at a show I would want a mix of solid education, a chance to network with peers, see the leading exhibitors in the space but also to have some fun and that is what events like our various receptions and giveaways are supposed to provide.

The TMC team and I look forward to hosting you next week. Thank you all in advance for coming to our event and hats off to the TMC team who is managing not only ITEXPO but a host of collocated and unparallelled events such as Super WiFi Summit, MSP World, our SUITS technology patents event, M2M Evolution, Mobile LATAM, HTML5 Summit, Cloud Communications Expo, The Channel Vision Expo (CVx), Business Video, Asterisk 123, 4GWE, StartupCamp5, Avaya Tech on Tap, the Blackberry Hackathon, SIP trunking workshop, business development workshop, telecom reseller week, to name a few.

http://itexpo.tmcnet.com/sip-trunking-workshop/miami/

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Schedule

2012-01-25T20:49:34Z

One of the most frequent question I get regarding TMC’s ITEXPO which takes place next week in Miami – is with all that is going on – how do you make a decision as to which parts of the show to attend. Truth be told I believe the event and its collocated conferences and educational sessions rivals just about any other tech show in terms of education.

Some of the hot topics to be discussed include not only general communications and technology but 4G wireless, mobility, Asterisk, open source, business video, the channel, cloud computing and communications, HTML5, Mobile Latin America communications, M2M, technology patents, the MSP market, Super WiFi/white spaces and much more.

The following is a list of important details you will need to help navigate ITEXPO East 2012 Miami. I warn you – this is a subset of what is happening. To keep you posted on not only these items but other important events at the show please follow @itexpo on Twitter and turn on mobile notifications – it is pretty simple – just follow the menu below. Twitter also allows you to turn off notifications at certain hours in its settings tab.

Also, please download the show directory/guide (PDF) and read through it before you get there to get the most out of the event.

ITEXPO East 2012

January 31 - February 3, 2012

Miami Beach Convention Center

If you are staying at the Loews in Miami or a hotel nearby the best route to walk is down 16^th street making a right on Washington after a block. Most concierge personnel will tell you to walk down Collins which is longer and if the sun is strong may be a bit uncomfortable.

View Larger Map

Registration counters are located in the Hall B Lobby. This is the section of the convention center on Washington Blvd., closest to the show hotels.

When you arrive, proceed to the registration counter to receive your badge. You will need a photo ID.

SHOW HOURS

Tuesday, January 31

Registration: 7:30am – 5:00pm
Workshops begin at 9:00am
POST POTS Special Sessions: 2:00pm
Avaya Tech on Tap: 5:00pm

Wednesday, February 1

Registration: 7:00am – 7:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 12:45pm; 3:30pm
Exhibits Open: 4:30-7:30pm
Free Networking Reception: 5:30-7:30 on expo floor - Sponsored by Broadvox.

Thursday, February 2

Registration: 7:00am – 4:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 9:00-11:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Networking Reception: 4:00pm
StartupCamp5, featuring keynote by Terry Matthews: 4:45pm
ITEXPO Party on South Beach - Mangos Tropical Cafe: 9:00pm

Friday, February 3

Registration: 7:30am – 2:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 2:00pm
New Mustang Giveaway at 1:45pm – Must Be Present to Win

Updated schedule. Visit the show site for additional details

Keynotes and Special Sessions Schedule: (Open to all attendees)

Tuesday, January 31:

2:00 pm: Special Panel Session:

Post POTS Net Neutrality & the Cloud: From POTS to PANS

============================================================

Rumors of the death of POTS are not exaggerated. To build a new model for the future we have to determine the bottlenecks. Come discuss the impact of the cloud and the migration from end to end to any to any services; about supporting access and quality of service; about Net Neutrality and Privacy.

5:00: Avaya Tech on Tap Workshop and Networking Reception

=========================================================

Kick off ITEXPO East with a special pre-conference seminar and evening networking event, hosted by the Avaya DevConnect Program. Join Avaya and our special keynote speaker Judith Hurwitz, co-author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", as we tackle some of the most challenging technology transitions facing IT organizations today, namely cloud computing and collaboration enablement.

KEYNOTES Wednesday, February 1:

12:45pm: Michael Rouleau, tw telecom
3:30pm: Paget Alves, Sprint
4:30pm: Timothy Wagner, Samsung Telecommunications America

KEYNOTES Thursday, February 2:

9:00am: Rick Whitt, Google
9:30am: Chris Swearingen, Senseaware, Powered by FedEx
10:00am: Dirk Gates, Xirrus
10:30pm: Julius Knapp, FCC
4:45pm: Sir Terry Matthews, Wesley Clover

WORKSHOPS at ITEXPO – Open to All Attendees

Cloud Business Development Workshop

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Larry Dillon and Michael Curry will co-host the first ever pre-show workshops focused towards new business development techniques for resellers, developers and cloud-based service providers.

Asterisk 123 Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Come get a well-rounded and informative introduction to the Asterisk Project. All are Welcome! Whether you are managing a team deploying an Asterisk implementation, evaluating potential replacements for a legacy telephony solution that's on its last leg, or just a general Asterisk "newbie" excited to learn what Asterisk is capable of, then this talk has something to offer you.

Sangoma Vega Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Sangoma Technologies will host a free full day hands-on training session teaching you how to configure and troubleshoot the Vega series gateways for use with IP-PBX and SIP trunking.

Blackberry HTML5 Hackathon

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Join us at the upcoming HTML5 Hackathon to discover how BlackBerry WebWorks takes HTML5 beyond the browser. We'll show you the power and simplicity of the new BlackBerry browser

Ingate’s SIP Trunking Workshop

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Attendees can earn a SIP Trunking Professional Certificate by participating in the Professional Development Program on February 1. Attendees can also earn a Unified Communications Professional Certificate on February 2.

Telecom Reseller Week Presentation Theatre

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Telecom Reseller Week provides you with a forum for you to learn about cutting edge new solutions you can represent, to meet with many new potential partners, and to study proven sales techniques to help improve your team's performance.

MPLS University

Tuesday, February 2 - 1:30pm

MPLS University is a forum for IT and business professionals to bring their questions about network reliability, always-on connectivity, voice, regulatory requirements, security, and cost control. Join us for two FREE live MPLS University sessions at ITEXPO to learn more about utilizing cloud-based solutions

StartupCamp5: Comms Edition

Tuesday, February 2 - 4:00pm

Featuring keynote address by Sir Terry Matthews

The incredibly popular StartupCamp networking event returns. This unique forum is for early-stage entrepreneurs to pitch their communications products or services to a discriminating audience of potential investors, media, bloggers and industry influencers. The event's fast-paced, "ready, set, pitch" format brings early-stage communications companies, developers, industry leaders and investors together to network and validate entrepreneurial pitches in real time.

4:00: StartupCamp5 Free Networking Reception

4:45: Introduction/Event Kickoff by Larry Lisser

5:00: Keynote Presentation by World-Renowned Entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews

5:45: Startup Presentations and Judging

7:00: Networking and Voting

QUESTIONS?

Contact Frank Coppola (203.852.6800 x 131)

Thank you sponsors

Diamond Sponsor:

Digium

Platinum Sponsors:

AudioCodes
Sonus Networks
Sansay
Dialogic
Interactive Intelligence
Netxusa

Gold Sponsors:

abp
Adtran
Broadvox
MegaPath
USAN
888VoIP
Panasonic
snom
tw telecom
Sangoma

I really look forward to seeing you all at the show – it will be fantastic.

Update: My marketing team has a fancier version of this document which they send in emails after you register. It has web links and may be easier on the eyes.

Avaya's Top Communication Trends in 2012

2011-12-16T20:22:04Z

Recently I had a chance to have an in-depth conversation with Avaya about the trends they see for 2012 in the communications space. In particular I spoke with George Humphrey a Director and Line of Business Owner at Avaya and Diane Royer, Senior Marketing Services Manager.

The trends below are at times augmented or enhanced with my thoughts.

1) Mobility raises the expectation of availability

Voice is morphing in the enterprise and becoming more consumer-driven and as a result everyone is connected at all times and moreover everyone wants immediate action. Consumers want to know right away if that widget on the website is compatible with European power or if the red color of the lamp online is closer to burgundy, beet or pomegranate.

Consumers are walking around with smartphones today that are the computing equivalent of supercomputers of a few decades back. This means we not only can do anything anywhere from a voice and data perspective, we will need to in order to maintain our customers and jobs. This is certainly not a new trend – a huge jump in being able to work around the clock took place in the nineties when voicemail allowed executives, salespeople and others to check messages without being in the office. BlackBerrys continued this trend and the web and e-mail turbocharged it and today’s powerful devices, WiFi and 3G/4G networks have supercharged the trend.

2) Contact centers test the value of voice

More companies will calculate where voice communications fit into their value stream, from pure cost to revenue generation. This is straight from Avaya - I didn’t get into this one as I thought some of the other bullets were more interesting.

3) Contextual data spans the last mile of personal productivity

For those of you were around during the 1980s in the call center space, you may recall the call centers who could invest millions of dollars were able to connect their Rockwell ACDs to their IBM mainframes to allow a database dip when the phone call information appeared via ANI and this in turn allowed a screen pop on the agents desk when they answered a phone call. What could be “popped” depended upon what was in the database but the idea here is we can do “screen pops squared” today because a call can come in and we can leverage CRM repositories, enterprise search tools, social networks, blogs, wikis and you name it. It is really just a matter of organizing it all. The idea is the more information agents have, the better they can serve their customers and in turn the more loyal the customers will be, resulting in higher ARPU and stickiness to borrow some terms from the wireless space.

4) Businesses advance from social media to social business

The idea here is we are about to cross the chasm of social adoption in companies – the social company or social enterprise is around the corner which in tech adoption turns will likely take 5-10 years. Interestingly at a recent conference I attended one vendor told me about a financial company which installed a state-of-the-art social platform for their company to use. Problem was the majority of the company was made up stock brokers who were – let me put this delicately, closer to retirement than college. Basically the old folks couldn’t figure out the newfangled pokes, circles and the like. Who says I have to be diplomatic all the time? :-)

Point being once again, this will be a journey, not a destination we reach in the next few years. Are we there yet? No. Quit your whining and be patient. :-)

5) Social media and customer care enter into an arranged marriage

My family came to this country from one in which arranged marriages were the norm. Let’s just say you didn’t necessarily fall in love you were I suppose “told” to love. Keep that in mind when you integrate your contact center and social strategies as customers have to feel like the two are seamless and agents need to be able to navigate the Venus of the Contact center and the Mars of social with aplomb. Just keep in mind, you really need to get it right the first time as there is no prenup I am aware of.

The rest of these are straight from Avaya – stay tuned for more comments from me after number 12:

6) The SIP is raised again

early adopters have completed implementation of, and captured initial ROI from, SIP-enabled infrastructure; now they’ll begin deploying SIP-enabled applications to gain the next level of value.

7) Social interactions expose customer care’s flaws

Businesses can’t fake who they are in a “social” setting, because social interactions ultimately expose “the real you.” Some businesses will discover they aren’t portraying an image they prefer, so they’ll be compelled to reinvent what customer centricity is all about.

8) IT support staffs converge, part two

In many companies, voice and data support teams converged with the advent of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony; with the deployment of unified communications applications, more companies will blend their applications teams as well.

9) Continuous connectivity drives communications support services

Communications support services increasingly will involve proactive problem resolution via secure access links and live interaction when necessary via innovative Web environments.

10) “True” UC apps proliferate

IT departments will be compelled by business units and enterprise users to adopt more user-centric applications and devices.

11) UC managed services/outsourcing facilitates alignment between IT and business units

As business unit demands increase at an even faster clip, more IT departments will adopt managed services/outsourcing business models to keep pace. IT groups that resist will continue to struggle.

12) Clients take control of managed services

As IT departments better understand industry best practices around infrastructure management, they will become more discriminating about the services they purchase, their expectations for transparency into those services, and how they hold service providers accountable.

-----

A few important points - on number eight, the company believes there also needs to be an evolution in IT meaning the director of infotech for the call center needs to understand data, UC, UC apps and be more savvy about MSP-based solutions. And on number ten, the concept here isn’t CEBP or Communications Enabled Business Processes it is more about BYOD – so think mobility.

I also asked the company how these trends are or aren’t manifesting themselves into sales and the response was more clients are seeing true value in UC and app-centric communications. Moreover, they are looking to more creative ways to procure solutions meaning the manufacturer becomes the systems integrator and moreover they are looking for more MSP-based delivery models.

I also asked about Avaya’s Flare collaboration environment which the company rolled out a short while back and they said it is available on the iPad – I downloaded it and it is pretty slick. In the future we can expect it to become video-enabled on this platform and Flare for Android and PC are coming in the spring of 2012.

I also asked about the company’s A175 tablet and didn’t get the sense this device is lighting the world on fire. Let’s put it this way – I knew it was tough to compete with the iPad at $500 when the A175 costs about $2,000. Now there is an Amazon Kindle Fire priced at $200. Believe me there is no comparison between the capabilities of the A175 and these other devices as it is multimedia-enabled and is really a super-powerful device for road warriors. It’s just that Avaya doesn’t have the appeal or consumer electronics name of an Apple or Amazon and this presents a challenge.

Another interesting point is that customers have seen cloud advertised so often they are interested in these types of solutions but they don’t necessarily need their system to be in the cloud. In other words it can be a solution which is MSP-based and OPEX oriented. In other words Avaya is trying to listen to customer needs and cut through the catchy cloud computing and cloud communications buzzwords to determine how they can solve their customer’s needs.

You can also see Avaya’s original thoughts on these trends if you are interested in seeing them without my added perspective.

You can see Avaya live as part of TMC’s ITEXPO where they have consistently been running their Technology on Tap events. It will take place Tuesday, January 31, 2012 from 5-10 pm EST in Miami Florida at the Miami Beach Convention Center (not the typical hotel setting you may be used to). Moreover the keynote will be given by the Author of Cloud Computing for Dummies, Judith Hurwitz. The company kindly requests you register in advance, thank you.

With Rypple Acquisition Salesforce on Track to be Cloud-Based Oracle

2011-12-16T15:11:29Z

In the early nineties I was and SQL programmer in a market dominated by companies like Oracle and Informix. At the time these database companies stuck to their core competency. Fast forward a few decades and Oracle sells software in virtually every space. Moreover they are a revenue generating machine as they have gobbled up so many companies; there are few other choices in the market. This in-turn has allowed the company to raise maintenance costs nicely over the years.

Marc Benioff having worked at Oracle realizes how successful the model of owning a software ecosystem is. Sure there is AppExchange but Salesforce realizes owning much of the ecosystem is even better as you have more control. Moreover, not all the successful apps live on AppExchange.

Today the company has extended its ecosystem of cloud-based solutions with its purchase of cloud-based HR company Rypple for what they say is the first step toward human capital management for the social enterprise.

And how’s this for a marque customer – Facebook reviews its employees using Rypple.

The new HCM business unit, including Successforce, will be led by John Wookey, salesforce.com's executive vice president of advanced applications. Wookey came to Salesforce.com with more than 20 years of experience in senior leadership at Oracle and SAP.

This follows recent news that the acquisition of social listening company Radian6 has resulted in creating the company’s social marketing cloud offering.

At this rate it is worth noting the company will butt heads with Google who also wants to be a major player in the cloud-based application space. I would be surprised if Google isn’t considering purchasing Salesforce… Then again they have collaborated closely for years, it is unclear to me other than recent Salesforce momentum from what the M&A catalyst would be.

Then again there has been tremendous Java-related legal pressure on Google’s Android after Oracle acquired SUN. So how's this for killing two birds with one stone? You get cloud-based software and customers as well and what can be described as a "cloud-based Oracle." What better way to compete against Oracle?

Of course Google may need to digest Motorola Mobility first.

Will Rockit Redefine Social CRM?

2011-11-18T22:30:43Z

What happens when you merge social CRM, location based marketing, mobile marketing, loyalty rewards and targeted social marketing? The answer is Rockit – a new company whose goal is to prove to the world that managing customers in the new multichannel, multimedia world is far from “rocket science” (get it?).

The company provides a loyalty-enabled platform allowing customers to sign up for offers in categories of interest or by company and these companies can use the platform to track customer loyalty, communicate and push out special offers and incentives.

Lest you get this concept confused with daily deal type solutions which give deep discounts, the idea here is the exact opposite… It is to create a VIP program which appeals to your best customers and to get more people to become VIPs.

Once a customer is connected to a company they are able to instantly communicate with the organization regarding anything. Let’s say they had a burnt pizza come to their table – they can immediately launch the mobile app and send a verbal complaint to the company. The company can see immediately that a very loyal customer just had a poor experience and can respond with an offer, apology or whatever they need to do to keep this customer happy.

Founder and CEO of Rockit, Roger Toennis explained the platform is like a closed-loop Yelp with multimedia. He also told me it's like a modern social PBX. I met Roger a decade or so ago at a TMC conference – possibly ITEXPO or Planet PDA and soon thereafter he showed me a mobile VoIP app which worked with the Avaya PBX. He was working for the company at the time. It was really ahead of its time and Rockit seems to be as well.

Part of the goal of Rockit is to reduce the "too much information" problem customers are faced with today

Another interesting thing the app allows is the ability for customers to see how they rank in terms of their loyalty. It even lets them compete for the next tier. This is exactly what American Airlines did over the last few decades to engender massive amounts of loyalty with its customers and I can tell you from experience that customers will compete with each other and are proud to be Platinum or Gold members of their respective airline, hotel or rent-a-car company.

You can further use the system to send promotions to a subset of customers. Let’s say your top 20 most loyal or the 50 people who haven’t come into a retail location or visited the website this month.

Business consultants will tell you it costs eight times more to get a new customer than it does to keep one – and this is the sort of solution which is designed to keep customers loyal. Moreover, you can use it to encourage your most loyal customers to encourage their friends to become customers as well. To get their assistance, you can offer them something in return and as Roger says, there is a high likelihood the new customer will have similar age and demographics and could also end up becoming a loyal customer.

As Toennis explains, this solution is different than daily deal offers which erode prices by giving current customers the ability to pay less than they currently do. He goes on to say this gets customers used to paying less and they could soon start shopping for lower prices when they are ready to purchase again. He also doesn’t see location-based punch card services like Foursquare as serious solutions as he explains the intersection of people checking in and loyal customers is not that great.

He told me about all sorts of loyalty offers for top customers such as potentially allowing free voice and video calls as well as giving access to free music from local bands.

He also sees this solution as real social CRM – he equates companies who try to market via Twitter and Facebook as the equivalent of walking around with a sandwich board promoting their products while two potential customers are sitting and having lunch.

This doesn’t mean the platform doesn’t integrate with email, Twitter and Facebook – it does. The company doesn’t however provide a listening and analytics platform like Hootsuite.

We all know most small businesses don’t make it – he thinks this is the exact sort of differentiator they need to increase their chance at being successful. Moreover, it meets the expectations of today’s customer who wants to have online conversations, be social and get rewarded for their loyalty.

I downloaded the company’s app at rockit.me and after registering was able to get access to a variety of companies in Colorado (where the company is based.) The only challenge is if you register with Facebook on the web, you can’t login on your mobile device. I registered once through Facebook and again with a Rockit specific password so I could get my phone to login to my account. Once I selected the cities and companies I was interested in the iPhone app gave me different options and associated rewards/offers. But in this case the offers were points – not deep discounts.

The service is free for up to 50 loyal customers per year per location and premium services for more loyalty lists start at $199/month and max at $2,499 per month. Other paid features include a multi-location dashboard, advanced data analytics and custom social media integrations.

Will companies want to be associated on the same loyalty platform as their competition? The answer here is probably most companies won’t mind but a few paranoid entrepreneurs will avoid it. I believe they will do this at their own peril, especially if Rockit goes mainstream.

The company does have some big companies in Colorado backing them it is a huge world and going from regional to national is always a challenge.

The biggest problem the company has is the breadth of a solution it is providing. It is indeed an immense challenge merging social CRM, location based marketing, mobile marketing, loyalty rewards and targeted social marketing. But it does make sense as it brings the tried and true model of the American Airlines frequent flyer program to every business and moreover allows many small companies to leverage an extremely sophisticated, state-of-the art, social media integrated-marketing platform.

Although many separate disciplines have been integrated into Rockit the result is a clever and relatively simple interface. This solution has the potential to change the way many companies think about customer interactions.

I have invited Roger to speak at TMC’s Social CRM Expo Feb 1-3, 2012 in Miami, FL so be sure to visit him there.

Will Call Center Gamification Increase Productivity?

2011-11-11T22:12:24Z

Recently I had a chance to speak with Oscar Giraldo and Ariel Cordiviola Palaia the CPO of Arcaris regarding his company’s new contact center performance management software named PLAYCALL which “gamifies” performance allowing agents to see how their performance ranks among others at the company. By utilizing KPIs set by the company, a worker can see their progress or lack thereof and can react accordingly. The company says its system will reduce turnover and it even has a widget which agents can look at to see progress.

Agents can also communicate with their supervisor and receive awards based on achievement. There is also e-learning integration which means there is now an additional motivation to learn and do well on the associated quizzes. The goal here is to get competition going among the team and as a byproduct boost productivity of the whole operation.

PLAYCALL is new and the company has high expectations. they are further looking for funding, a VP of Marketing, VP of Sales and VP of engineering. There is potential here – some of these features are contained in other workforce management solutions of course but the pure-play focus will likely attract the attention of call center decision-makers looking to boost productivity by trying something new and innovative.

Plantronics Headset Line Exudes UC Dominance

2011-11-03T16:38:54Z

Recently I received a care package from Plantronics with a number of their headsets and other products and when I opened the box it served as a not so subtle reminder of just how dominant the company is. Back in 1982 when my company TMC (I am CEO) launched the first magazine in the call center space, Plantronics was one of the few companies in the market and almost 30 years later they have evolved into an organization delivering unified communications endpoints for virtually every segment of the market.

Blackwire C435

Case in point is the Blackwire C435, a small, lightweight corded stereo headset with microphone which comes with a travel pouch. The sound drivers are relatively large yet fit in the ear comfortably due to a clever design. Moreover they deliver crisp sound and the microphone extends to your mouth allowing you to be heard clearly. In my testing, I used Skype to call an iPhone 4S on the AT&T network which sounded great and I played a variety of music from pop to the Theme from Jurassic Park from John Williams and the 1812 Overture from Tchaikovsky. On these last two pieces the midrange really shined and the cannons in the overture played without any distortion. The DSPs and audio programming Plantronics uses on its USB headsets have always been superior in my past testing and this device was no exception.

Included is a clip for your shirt which takes the weight off since a pack-of-gum size plastic in-wire device is included to house the DSP, control volume, allow muting and answer phone calls.

Room for improvement is pretty basic – the headset is made in-part of translucent plastic and it doesn’t really bend to fit. It was comfortable on my ears but I could see them getting uncomfortable after many hours of use.

Price is about $100 and for a lightweight travel headset which reproduces music well and also allows you to make high-quality voice calls the Blackwire C435 is priced about right.

Calisto 825

The Calisto 825 is a hybrid device which connects to UC systems such as Cisco and Microsoft Lync while providing a speakerphone for a small group. The desktop gadget is incredibly flexible as it allows you to also connect via Bluetooth to a cell phone and offers a Bluetooth microphone attachment the PA50 for crystal clear voice clarity. In addition you can opt to pair a Bluetooth headset.

The 825 allows a user to make UC, Skype and mobile calls speakerphone calls from its keypad or you can use a corded (via two jacks) or bluetooth headset. I tested the wireless microphone 20 feet away, through a few walls and it still was able to transmit my voice clearly to the caller on the other end of my test Skype call.

Moroever, you can also make UC and Skype calls via a Bluetooth headset. At $259 list it’s a good value – it costs more than a low-end IP phone but offers good quality sound and lots of connectivity options.

In the improvement category I would like to see it become a SIP device you could hang off a PBX using Ethernet – instead of needing a USB connection. Moreover, when I tried to connect the Sound ID SIX headset to the 825 it just wouldn’t connect. Although the 825 acknowledged it was paired with the headset they wouldn’t communicate. I did get it to work with a Plantronics Discovery 650E headset – a great device with a vibrating base to alert you to calls when your phone isn’t nearby.

I would also request better Skype integration – when an incoming call appeared on my screen I wasn’t able to answer it with the Calisto 825 – I needed to click answer on the computer screen.

One other point is I would like to see an oil-phobic screen like on a smartphone – either that or I have to stop eating lunch at my desk.

Other than that, this is the device to solve most every communications connectivity issue you can think of and it’s easy on the eyes.

MDA200 Switcher

The MDA200 switcher is a simple device which switches between PC and PBX/PSTN based communications. Two large buttons allow you to effortlessly switch between the two modes. Moreover, it can accept input for a USB headset or even a wireless one like the Plantronics H-series headset with a DA series USB adapter which plugs into the front of the unit.

I tested it with the Blackwire C435 headset and was surprised to find that the computer didn’t recognize the MDA200 but it did recognize the C435. Not that this is a problem, I was just expecting to see the MDA pop up in the Plantronics Spokes Control Panel software.

The list price at $129 is high but I have seen it around $70 online which is a good price for a device which will integrate wireless headset capability to computer-driven and traditional telephony.

Savi 440

The Savi 440 is sleek, uses DECT wireless and works with UC solutions from the major players such as Cisco, Avaya and IBM. You plug the included D100 adapter into your computer, make sure it is the default device, make a VoIP call, press the headset’s on button and you are done. It was as pain free as possible and just worked – I love this headset.

It also comes with an array of ear buds and over the ear loops as well as a full over the head padded assembly for maximum comfort. When I noticed the simple over the ear loops were made of the same plastic as the Blackwire C435, I was a bit concerned. But thankfully there were three different sized loops which maximized comfort depending on ear size. Still, I wished for a different material and noticed there was a foam tube sock in the box which slides on the plastic and not only makes the headset more comfortable, it reduces slippage.

The company says this is the lightest DECT headset on the market – I haven’t tested the claim but it is really comfortable and I barely realize it’s there. Also the range is very good – I walked about 100 feet away through steel, concrete and much sheetrock and still was able to be heard and hear clearly. It definitely has better range than any other office cordless phone or headsets I have tried. Its range is even superior to some of the most specialized long-range WiFi access points on the market.

As a plus, you can stream audio to this headset although the music sound quality won’t impress you. Its a good solution however for news or talk radio.

I don’t have room for improvement. The street price is about $200 which some may consider high compared to what a typical DEC handset might cost but you are paying for the UC connectivity and all the comfort options and miniaturization which allow you to wear this device comfortably for hours at a time.

Savi W740

This headset is really the top of the line when it comes to UC and productivity. It is an upgrade from the W01 Savi Office headset system I have used for years and is similar to the Savi 440 in terms of fit, comfort and weight. The W01 has been a reliable companion – comfortable, supporting long-range wireless calls with a lightweight headset design and the ability to switch between VoIP and office PBX calls without a hitch. Two buttons on top of the device allow you to seamlessly switch as I needed between phone and computer depending on the mode of communications I was using.

The W740 works similarly and adds Bluetooth so now my cell phone is paired with it. What this stops is fumbling to switch headsets throughout the day. Quite often I used to find myself with a different headset in each ear so I could easily talk regardless of which phone rang. I finally figured out an easy way eliminate this annoyance.

Another improvement over the W01 is the 740 has a removable battery for people who spend many hours on the phone. The W01 headset was able to be charged with the typical round style last generation Plantronics power adapter while the 740 does not allow charging except via the base. This is actually a good money-saving move by the California-based company because I can’t think of why you would need to charge the headset without using the base.

The other changes are the earpiece is now selectable from 4 options in an enclosed kit and you have the same plastic ear loop with the foam sock combo mentioned in the review of the SAVI 440. When I slid the sock on the plastic, I accidentally ripped it – leading me to suggest a few more socks be added with such an expensive headset.

The 740 also sports a Bluetooth symbol/button which shines blue when connected to your mobile device. In my testing, it was very easy to get the headset to communicate with an iPhone - even if you use many bluetooth devices. If the blue light isn't lit all you need do is press the button and it connects in a few seconds either during or before a phone call.

You have to wonder just how many ear bud and ear loop adapters the company has to keep track of. I use a Plantronics stereo Bluetooth headset in the gym and another Bluetooth headset to answer phone calls and they both fit into the ear differently than the headsets I just reviewed. One wonders if it isn’t time to drastically reduce all the combinations to a handful of very manageable options. Moreover, Plantronics was one company which led the way in adoption of Micro USB as a standard way to charge its devices – perhaps there needs to be some standards with regards to how its headset fits comfortably in an ear.

Like I stated at the beginning of this post, Plantronics has been making bulletproof headsets which TMC has been evaluating since the eighties and moreover the company’s history goes back to the early sixties. Neil Armstrong even used a Plantronics headset on the moon.

And since that time the company has continued to innovate with the goal being to make more and more useful communications endpoints which boost productivity and efficiency. It’s a testament to the company’s sound business strategy that commoditization hasn’t forced it to go head-to-head with no-name Asian imports. By focusing on quality, durability, good design and offering a breadth of solutions which solve almost any communications endpoint need, they have proven they are a great corporate partner when choosing headsets.

TMC Covering Cloud, 4G and Open-Source This Week

2011-10-24T11:52:01Z

Quite often at industry events I hear people say they can’t believe how many events TMC goes to each year and moreover, they ask just how many conferences we cover each year. I haven’t done the math but it’s a lot. But since I was thinking about it, I figured I would share our schedule this week… To me the amount of money a company invests into the markets they serve is an important part of being successful. In other words, in order to keep our readers and viewers informed, we have to be able to cover all the important conferences in the market. This is one of the reasons we invested in a total of five mobile video studios allowing us to cover shooting video simultaneously at that many.

While I have a meeting later today at UCONN which I am very excited about, a good portion of my team is on the way to the following shows – I’ll share just the editorial talent at each one with you.

Interactive Intelligence Partner Conference: This company has been one of the constant innovators in communications and tech, most likely becoming one of the key contact center in the cloud providers. To cover this event, we are sending one of our most experienced editors, Peter Bernstein. It should be a great event – I was fortunate enough to be offered a keynote speaking opportunity a few years back at this very conference.

4G World – Formerly WiMAX World, the event is in Chicago and we are sending our editorial chief Erik Linask and Carl Ford of Crossfire Media will be there representing our partnered properties in the mobility, 4G and M2M spaces.

Astricon: Mark Spencer is the Linux Torvalds of the communications space – and he is responsible for single-handedly changing the market into something more open and flexible. At this event, you can meet Tom Keating, a TMC veteran of about two decades and the famous VoIP and Gadget Blogger as well as Chris Dimarco – another veteran TMC editor who will be on video doing interviews.

In a way, these events which represent open-source, mobility and the cloud also represent the major trends in tech and telecom and I just can’t wait to see what news breaks this week. If you are interested as well, come back to this blog at Tehrani.com and of course keep an eye on TMCnet.

Gary and Mary West: Improving Healthcare Through Disruption

2011-10-19T16:21:27Z

For years, Americans have prospered like people in no other country on earth because our class-free society allowed virtually anyone with a good idea to launch a company, hire, prosper and keep the majority of the fruits of their labor. A competitive entrepreneurial culture further fostered an environment where successful businesspeople went from being entrepreneurs to serial entrepreneurs.

Even more impressive, so many of these successful businesspeople seem to reach a point in their career where they don’t feel satisfied helping society through their inventions and hiring, they want to focus on problems with society and fix them directly.

Such is the case with Gary and Mary West – two legends in the call center space as founders of West Corp. As you may know,in 1982 TMC launched the first magazine in the world in the call center space and at the time we called it Telemarketing (now Customer Interaction Solutions). Believe it or not, The term call center wasn't coined until the late eighties. And one of our areas of focus was on the outsourcing space – which at that time was virtually all done domestically in places like Iowa and Nebraska.

For decades, West Corp constantly placed high on lists of contact center outsourcing companies TMC ranked and currently employs around 35,000 people. This past decade the company evolved by promoting home-agent outsourcing allowing US workers to be more cost-competitive with their international competition from countries like India.

Today, Gary and Mary have announced the formation of West Health Investment Fund, LLC a $100M fund to provide risk capital to lower health care costs and invigorate low cost health care innovation. Specifically, the company explains that the rising healthcare cots are an unsustainable burden on our economy and moreover that the fund will help bring disruptive solutions to market to help solve the problem.

The initial portfolio of the fund is as follows:

Biological Dynamics, whose next-generation diagnostics technology may enable physicians to detect cancer from a simple blood draw and rapidly intervene, increasing patient survivability while driving down the cost of care;

Change Healthcare, whose web-based decision support tool Transparency Messenger™ provides consumers with personalized views of pricing information and alerts on where to save money on routine healthcare services including medical, dental and prescriptions;

goBalto, whose new generation web-based solutions simplify pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device clinical research;

Healthsense, whose in-home monitoring sensors and solutions alert family members and providers of potential health problems before they become acute, enabling seniors to remain healthy and independent;

Humedica, a clinical informatics company whose cutting-edge analytics for health care organizations delivers a truly longitudinal and comprehensive view of patient care; and,

Sotera Wireless, whose new generation of continuous vital signs monitoring improves the safety of patients on the general floor of hospitals, while at the same time reducing costs.

And this announcement comes at an interesting time as there seems to be intense media exposure for a group of a few thousand “occupy” protesters and union members who seem to think that wealthy people and corporations are not contributing enough to society. And when I hear such comments I wonder why the press never asks them – What about the company which invented life-saving cancer treatments or medicines to combat AIDS? What about the company which invented better fertilizers or seeds to help reduce world hunger? Or the technology companies which helped third-world companies rife with poverty more quickly evolve into first world powerhouses? Brazil comes to mind.

So hats off the Gary and Mary – they have been held in the highest esteem here at TMC for many decades and although I didn’t think it possible, they just topped themselves.

New Interactive Intelligence Quick Spin Cloud Contact Center Trial Portal

2011-10-17T14:00:00Z

Coming off the first six months of 2011, Interactive Intelligence enjoyed cloud-based revenue growth numbers of 58% while orders increased a whopping 146% during the same period. Moreover, the cloud accounted for 26% of the company’s total new order dollar volume in the first half of 2011. Company CMO Joe Staples said the following to me in a meeting in New York, “We are seeing a huge shift towards the cloud.” He continued, “It is talked about in every single deal we are in.”

As a refresher – the company started selling a hosted solution in 2005 but relaunched its cloud-based communications as a service or CaaS solution in 2009.

And when you have a successful service, you always look for new ways to expand – in order to bring it to a larger audience. This is why the company has launched Quick Spin – a new trial site which is designed to allow companies to kick the tires of the hosted service before they buy. Staples explained that some of the functionality has been removed – typically items which require training to use properly. What you get is full unified communications including conferencing, desktop call control and enterprise IP PBX as well as contact center functions such as ACD, basic IVR, reporting, analytics and on-demand recording. Some things not included are predictive dialing, workforce management and post-call surveys.

The Quick Spin Start Page

Joe tells me you can set up the service in about an hour – and you can have a total of ten users, 3 workgroups and five skills. Moreover you can have 10 keywords or phrases you can use for speech-analytics.

The Quick Spin Settings Page

Here is the interesting part of my discussion – Interactive Intelligence is chosen by customers in-part because of their long-experience in the market. The reason this is interesting is the company has been in the contact center space since the mid-nineties which makes their longevity years longer than many newer cloud-based vendors. When the company stormed onto the call center scene in the nineties they differentiated themselves by unifying communications across once-disparate boxes for IVR, ACD and PBX… For the first time, you could have a single unified system handling most everything you needed your contact center to do. But for years, the company was considered a newcomer going up against more established players like Melita, Rockwell Electronic Commerce, Lucent, EIS Davox and Aspect. In the cloud-based contact center space they are now an established incumbent.

The Quick Spin Workgroups Screen

Of course there are other reasons the company is winning in the cloud such as their use of virtual machines for each customer as opposed to multi-tenant architecture. Although for most situations, multitenancy works well at isolating user sessions, virtualizing each company’s sessions adds even greater isolation to user data each customer uploads to the Interactive Intelligence cloud. As an added bonus - Interactive allows customers to migrate from the cloud to an on-premise based solution. This feature is obviously a great option for companies who aren’t sure if they are ready to move to the cloud forever.

For companies looking to trial Quick Spin, you will go through a brief qualification phase to make sure you are a real company, not a competitor, etc. Then you are off and running with 2,500 minutes of use or 14 days of service – whichever comes first. Joe tells me companies will likely not use the system in a live environment but rather as a trial system. One of the benefits of note is the supervisor screens and reporting are both of production quality meaning you get a great feel for what it would be like to become a customer.

The Quick Spin Start Configuration Page

Of course any new technology takes time to be taken seriously but hearing that all discussions with new customers mention cloud and moreover that 26% of the company’s approximately $200M in annual revenue comes from cloud-based solutions shows that as far as customers are concerned, the move to cloud-based contact centers is very real and not slowing down.