Genesys and IBM Produce Strong Offering for Mid-market Contact Centers in China

| Jan 4, 2008 | Contact Center Solutions | Competitive Update
| Analyst: Michael Barbagallo

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: Moderate

Event Summary

On December 21th Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories and IBM announced a significant strategic alliance to co-develop, implement, and sell Contact Center in a Box to contact centers in China. It enables businesses to deploy a simplified contact center solution in 90 days or less, providing customer service functions such as customer enquiry and complaints, sales and activity management.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Genesys’ announcement of a partnership with IBM to develop Contact Center in a Box for the Chinese market, because the deal provides a low cost, reliable, scalable, turnkey system consisting of best of breed technologies from leading venders, including Genesys, IBM and Siebel. In addition, the fast growing Chinese contact center market should provide a rich and fertile environment for the joint venture. Furthermore, IBM, with its significant experience doing business in China, is taking the lead in the marketing and sale of the product, increasing prospects for success.

• Vendor Importance: High to Genesys, because the expanded strategic alliance with IBM should provide Genesys with valuable experience in doing business in China through a partner with much more experience in the region. It builds on and strengthens Genesys' relationship with IBM and also provides another avenue of penetration into the fast growing Chinese contact center market. In addition, the jointly developed Contact Center in a Box could potentially be a product that Genesys can deliver to SMEs in other regions.

• Market Impact: Moderate, because Genesys is a market leader that partnered with an integration powerhouse, IBM, to develop a viable solution in an extremely fast growing market. Contact Center in a Box will be the first contact center solution developed specifically for the Chinese marketplace. Although other contact center systems developers have presence in China, their systems are modified versions of systems sold in other markets.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Avaya should work to streamline its VoIP and contact center portfolio for the mid-market contact centers. This should help target opportunities in this market by simplifying the sales, installation and support process.

• Interactive Intelligence should expand and strengthen its marketing and licensing efforts in China. Its CIC solution has proven and significant success in small and mid-sized contact centers and has much of the same features of the IBM Contact Center in a Box solution, including switch independence and quick installation. Plus CIC has additional features such as workforce management and a default switch component.

• Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel and Siemens Enterprise Communications should aggressively market their own respective “contact center in a box” solutions for SMB markets. These vendors should place significance efforts on penetrating the market for contact centers with 50 or fewer seats to build relationships early, gaining the advantage in future opportunities.

• Hosted contact center providers, such as Echopass, Intervoice and CosmoCom should expand their presence in China by building relationships early with small and mid-sized contact centers, demonstrate the cost effectiveness of their services, and highlight the ease and quickness of their implementation. They should also emphasize their solutions’ ability to scale with customer growth without creating disruptions.

CLIENTS ONLY

Competitive Positives

Competitive Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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