An important acquisition in the contact center arena was announced this morning: the acquisition of knowledge management company Knowledgebase.net by CRM player Talisma. The acquisition seems to be in line with what appears to be a recent trend of companies pulling more than one contact center functionality under a single umbrella (the recent purchase of Blue Pumpkin, a workforce management company, by Witness Systems, a call recording and monitoring company, comes to mind).
Think that a few short years ago, the components of the multichannel CRM that Talisma alone provides were, in many cases, separate components from separate companies: e-mail management, Web collaboration, IM, database functionalities, analytics. This recent trend seems to suggest that the contact center industry may be headed for a field of fewer players with larger offerings. Hosted delivery will, we hope, allow these larger companies to tailor their offerings to the small to medium-sized business market: the fastest growing consumers of CRM.
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Talisma Acquires KnowledgeBase.net
Talisma’s acquisition of KnowledgeBase.net advances its strategic growth path by leveraging Knowledge Management tools market opportunities, estimated to reach over $5 billion by 2008*, as well as the expected growth in multi-channel call centers in North America, which are projected to climb from 6,600 in 2003 to approximately 13,800 by 2008**. Both growth figures highlight the opportunity for the combined offerings of Talisma and KnowledgeBase.net.
“Talisma is committed to providing our customers with the best Multi-channel CRM solutions available,” said Dan Vetras, President & CEO of Talisma. “KnowledgeBase.net, a market leader in Knowledge Management products and services, delivers the most comprehensive, out-of-the-box knowledgebase solution available. Our tremendous success in selling KnowledgeBase.net on an OEM basis has led us to our decision to acquire the company. Moving forward, this complete and seamless integration will continue to deliver the most comprehensive suite of Knowledge and Customer Interaction Management solutions available – now under one umbrella.”
Talisma is a leading provider of Multi-channel CRM solutions. Talisma Multi-channel CRM integrates the power of chat, email, phone, and real-time collaboration with a mature, robust multi-channel interaction management platform, comprehensive analytics, and a fully integrated knowledgebase and customer database. Talisma's global customers include Aviva, Citibank, Coast Capital Savings, Dell, HGTV, Microsoft, MWB, and Sony. Talisma is based in
