With all the attention focused on who, if anyone, will acquire Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (I'll give you my predictions at the end of this article), I started thinking about the ALU Enterprise customers I spoke with recently at the company's Dynamic Enterprise Tour (DET) in Barcelona. I had the opportunity to hear from and speak with several ALU Enterprise customers, both during their presentations and over cocktails and meals. Whoever ends up with ALU Enterprise will be responsible for keeping these customers happy--and they are very happy!
One customer is Marc Zuili of Deloitte, a leading professional services firm in France. Deloitte helps coordinate the activities of its independent member firms but does not itself provide services to clients. Zuili noted that Deloitte has 6,400 partners and staff in France, and the various partner organizations decide on what technology they want to use, as long as they're standards based and approved by the overall organization. Deloitte implemented an integrated IP telephone solution in two data centers, with two ALU Omni PCX Enterprise Servers (OXE)--one slave and one master--using an MPLS network to connect to their remote sites. As a financial firm, security is key, and Deloitte designed and implemented a fully integrated and secure infrastructure, using ALU's Server Security Module and Media Security Module (Thales encryption boxes).
What was most intriguing to me is that Deloitte integrated its Microsoft OCS system with its ALU switch two years ago in order "to open communications to workers who are always remote and to let people have calls from the desktop transferred to them." I was very happy to hear about this, since so many OCS customers haven't integrated their OSC systems with their switches and just use OCS for IM and presence, rather than true UC. Zuili noted that in addition to the security benefits ("the users can call from anywhere and the call will be secure"), the integration of the OXE with OCS lowers roaming costs, and "passing a call from OCS is as easy as sending an IM." Another bonus is that users can have conference calls on the fly with LiveMeeting while utilizing the OXE back office infrastructure.
Zuili is currently working with ALU Enterprise to help make the Deloitte workforce more mobile, while securing customers' assets.
Another ALU Enterprise customer I spoke with was Gerry Cools, Sales Strategy & Development Manager for Belgacom Group. Cools is an ALU Enterprise/Genesys customer, and made a big hit with the audience when he stated that "the customer is king" and that customer centricity is Belgacom’s main priority (too bad the company is in Belgium--US carriers could take a lesson from them!). Cools discussed how the Belgacom Management Committee decided that the number of incoming operator-handled calls in the contact center needed to be reduced by 1 million while maintaining SLAs and customer satisfaction. In addition, the company needed to figure out how to increase its sales capacity through the contact center channel without increasing its budget.
Cools noted that in order to meet these goals, the company would need to do several things, including:
* Simplify the products and processes
* Develop alternative channels for customers (e.g.; the web)
* Improve agent training
* Automate more calls with self service--this was the solution that made the most difference.
Belgacom uses A LOT of Genesys products. The company implemented Genesys' Dynamic IVR, allowing menus to be presented depending on the customer, using data that the company has about its customers to try and find out why the customer is calling. They also implemented Genesys' intelligent customer front door (iCFD) to retrieve context and use rules to manage the customer experience. Using iCFD, agents can understand the customer's intent (such as if there's a technical problem in their region, a billing problem, etc.), and use this information to change the IVR menu for the customer's needs. Belgacom provides as much information as possible through the IVR and lets customers do self service where possible. The results were impressive. Belgacom reduced calls by over 1 million, while staying within budget.
Since customers hate waiting in queue, another application, Callback Manager, was used to let customers fill out a web form and get contacted from an agent within two hours. The result was a service level increase of 25-30%.
Belgacom also implemented web integration with the contact center, enabling click to call, click to chat, and even interaction via SMS. The company can monitor and identify online visitors, and found that using advanced analytics provides an online experience that can satisfy user wants and needs--the key is determining customer intent. Using Genesys eServices plus Liveperson, Genesys’ CIM platform, Belgacom can deliver customer interactions to the right resource at the right time, while controlling agent workload and manpower. They can publish web insights to offline channels and proactively engage with web customers who call for assistance based on the current or recent web activity, letting the company manage their business operations better and use their people as much as possible.
I was somewhat disappointed that Belgacom isn't doing anything in terms of social media at this time. Cools noted that they are following and reacting to what's happening in Facebook and other social software sites, but they are not using these sites to interact with customers yet and are not using Genesys' Social Engagement. Currently, social media is being used mainly in the marketing department and not the contact center. This is very typical, but since Belgacom is so advanced in their contact center capabilities and applications, I was hoping that they would be doing more in social software. Hopefully next year Gerry will have a social software story to tell us about.
At a dinner with some of ALU's North American customers, I had a chance to speak with several other happy customers, all at various stages in their communications implementations (one was even using Centrex for some employees!). It struck me while reading all the predictions about ALU Enterprise's potential suitor, that when a company is acquired, it's not just the technology and resources that move to another company or entity, but it's also the customers. I hope that if indeed ALU Enterprise gets acquired, the acquirer will value the customers that ALU has been working with for many years, and will maintain the relationships that have been forged. The customers I spoke with view ALU Enterprise as more than simply a technology vendor, but as a partner.
So who do I think will acquire ALU Enterprise, if anyone? Let me start by saying that as of this writing, talk of selling the company is still a rumor and hasn't been verified. That being said, HP had a very large presence at DET in Barcelona, and this is often a good indication of a potential acquisition or merger (I've been to many vendor events where the prevalence of a particular "partner" was obvious, and a merger was announced shortly thereafter). There was a session devoted to the HP-ALU relationship, as well as many one-on-one meetings between analysts and the HP folks plus ALU's VP for the HP Strategic Alliance, Christel Heydemann. So my first guess would be HP, based on this and many of the reasons Sheila pointed out in her article--an existing strong business relationship, shared customers and sales, and a gap in HP's offerings that ALU Enterprise could fill.
My guess is also based on the process of eliminating all of the other usual suspects--Microsoft, IBM, Avaya, Cisco, etc. As many observers have noted, the crown jewel is Genesys, and many companies would be (or should be) interested in getting their hands on one of the long-time contact center industry leaders. But, taking on a foreign-owned company with union employees and lots of legacy PBX customers isn't something that many companies will be too keen on pursuing. Microsoft and IBM passed on the opportunity to acquire Nortel and Siemens, and it’s unlikely they would be interested in ALU Enterprise. Siemens was interested in Nortel as a way to increase its North American market share and presence, but the French-owned ALU Enterprise wouldn't help in that regard. There are a few other companies that have been mentioned as potential suitors, but there are downsides for all of them. Similar to Siemens for many of the same reasons, private equity may be the most logical way to go.
