Expanding its cloud portfolio beyond a partner-only model has unquestionably been a key driver for Genesys in the 16 months since its sale by Alcatel-Lucent to private equity firm Permira. It started with the announcement of Genesys Connect (an SMB solution integrated with Salesforce's Service Cloud) in September 2012 and was followed by two targeted acquisitions in 2013:
* Angel, a provider of cloud-based solutions for self service and contact centers.
* The announced plan to acquire SoundBite, with expertise in delivering cloud-based mobile marketing, proactive customer care, and collections/payments solutions.
With the additional Genesys Cloud announcements today, the company expands the portfolio in two directions.
Genesys Cloud Platform On-Demand: The company intends to offer its full portfolio of solutions from Genesys-managed data centers. Platform On-Demand is available immediately in the US and UK; Genesys says it will roll out support for additional geographies in future releases. Genesys says the solution "supports an unlimited number of users with flexible deployment scenarios, including a cloud-only model and a hybrid cloud model, which can blend on-premise and cloud-based solutions."
Genesys Cloud Platform On-Demand puts Genesys into direct competition with its service provider partners for the first time. However partners such as EchoPass, Verizon and AT&T typically combine Genesys contact center software with other elements (e.g., carrier services), which will continue to allow them to differentiate their solutions and add value.
Genesys Cloud Solutions On-Demand: Based on the Angel contact center and IVR self-service solutions, these solutions typically support up to 150 contact center agents and/or unlimited IVR ports. The Genesys Connect solution, delivered to the market in December 2012, is now included as a Solution On-Demand. Genesys says to expect a richer set of marketing and sales applications to be available here when the SoundBite acquisition closes.
When Genesys pre-briefed analysts, one of the ways they differentiated the Platform On-Demand offer from Solutions On-Demand was based on target market. Platform On-Demand will typically be sold to meet the contact center needs of an entire company, or at least a business unit, often on a global basis. Solutions On-Demand will be a more targeted sell, often to a department needing a solution to a very specific business problem. Capabilities range from simple interactions such as surveys and call answering services to fully automated, sophisticated self-service personalized transactions.
Another difference between the two solutions is the design tools used by each. Genesys Cloud Platform On-Demand uses Eclipse-based Orchestration Designer while Solutions On-Demand uses a simpler "point and click" web-based user interface. The latter is in keeping with the target market of line-of-business, rather than IT, users.
At the company's analyst meeting held in late May 2013, I asked Genesys CTO Slava Zhakov the following: "Genesys has been in the cloud business for many years through partners. The company has now made multiple cloud acquisitions. Architecturally, how do these businesses come together?" Watch the video below for Zhakov's answer.
There can be no doubt that an increase in the number and breadth of cloud-based contact center solutions has been one of the key trends in the 2013 contact center market. Genesys' announcement today signals its intention to directly deliver a broad portfolio of self, assisted and mobile solutions from the cloud in short order, not just in the US but globally.
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