Siemens Enterprise Communications Adds Unified Communications to Contact Center

| Apr 22, 2008 | Contact Center Solutions | Competitive Intelligence Report

| Analyst: Michael Barbagallo

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

Event Summary

April 21, 2008 — Siemens Communications introduced the OpenScape Contact Center (OCC), packaging voice and customer interaction software with its unified communications software foundation. OCC is based on HiPath ProCenter Enterprise, coupled with the OpenScape UC Server, Voice Portal, and telephony applications. The solution has increased scalability (supporting up to 7,500 active agents), provides enhanced interaction tools, and is telephony independent. OCC will be generally available in June 2008.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Siemens Enterprise Communications’ OpenScape Contact Center, because it provides functions and features that should make the solution more competitive against other large contact center solutions. OpenScape Contact Center combines contact center call distribution and universal desktop with Siemens’ Voice Portal and OpenScape Unified Communications, creating a holistic contact center environment. However, Siemens has not yet proven that OpenScape Contact Center’s unified communications capabilities create a clean and streamlined collaboration environment between the contact center agents and experts.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to Siemens, because freed from the confines of the HiPath PBXs, OpenScape Contact Center provides expanded market opportunities. In addition, OpenScape Contact Center’s flexible scalability will enable Siemens to market it to mid-sized contact centers as well as large contact centers. Finally, OpenScape Contact Center provides a new direction for Siemens Enterprise Communications’ contact center, creating an open, flexible solution, capable of being used on a wide variety of telephony systems and introducing state-of-the-art unified communications features to contact center environments.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the contact center market, because OpenScape Contact Center provides more unified communications functionality than many competing contact center solutions. Although it provides new communication channels between contact center agents and experts, it does not provide an environment that guarantees collaboration and at the same time protects the experts’ time.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Interactive Intelligence and Aspect Software should use the all in one nature as well as the wide concurrent agent scale of their products to compete against OpenScape Contact Center. They should include cost/benefit analysis as well as ROI statements and worksheets in discussions with OpenScape Contact Center sales opportunities. In addition, Interactive Intelligence and Aspect Software should compete against Siemens Enterprise Communication aggressively in the mid-market where their complete system has greatest appeal.

• Aspect Software and Genesys should use the transport agnostic nature of their solutions to counter the open system design of OpenScape Contact Center. They should show that Unified IP (Aspect Software) and Dynamic Contact Center (Genesys) can be used in more environments than can OpenScape Contact Center. They should also show that Unified IP and Dynamic Contact Center is more feature rich and flexible than OpenScape Contact Center.

• Interactive Intelligence and Mitel should stress their solutions’ ability to provide user presence information. Interactive Intelligence and Mitel should note the length of time they have supported presence with their solutions.

• Genesys, Avaya and Cisco should stress their full-featured voice portals, which provide a full range of caller contact options and multi-media interactions, including support for video. They should also stress that these are mature and market-tested solutions.

• All competitors should use news of Siemens Enterprise Communications’ pending sale to paint uncertainty to the future of the company as well as its products. Each should note their stable corporate environment and long contact center history as a wedge against Siemens Enterprise Communications.

Recommended End User / Customer Actions

• Businesses planning to leverage UC to increase contact center productivity should seriously consider Siemens Enterprise Communications’ OpenScape platform. It not only supports an extremely rich set of unified communications capabilities, but also integrates into a wide range of IP-PBX environments.

• Current Siemens Enterprise Communications customers with investments in the HiPath technology should investigate the OpenScape Contact Center for its closer integration between contact center and voice portal applications.

• Companies looking for a complete solution, including contact center, voice portal and workforce optimization, should investigate Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center, Aspect’s Unified IP, and for SMB environments, Cisco’s Unified Contact Center Express.

• Current Siemens Enterprise Communications customers should request regular communication with their Siemens’ representative, seeking information on the company’s future direction.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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