by Richard Snow |
8/1/2008 | Article ID: M08-25 | Article Type: VentanaMonitor
Summary
Nice Systems has been aggressive in acquisitions over the last few years and today owns several products for reporting and analytics. They range from high-end products that bundle reporting with its workforce management product, TotalView, to less functional, less expensive products such as Performix. Through its subsidiary IEX, Nice now has gathered these together into a new product called Performance Manager. Companies can purchase this as a fully integrated suite or as individual modules, allowing them to build a solution that meets their business requirements and budget. Ventana Research believes these developments remove some of the cost and functional barriers preventing companies from investing in call center performance management. In their evaluation of this category of tool, we urge companies to examine whether Performance Manger can improve how they operate their centers.
Assessment
Over the last two years, Nice Systems added IEX’s workforce management products and the reporting and the analytics products developed by Mercom and Performix to its original portfolio of call recording and quality management products. As a result, Nice ended up with reporting and analytics products at both ends of the market: relatively inexpensive, narrowly focused products at the low end and more expensive products suitable for more advanced users. Now Nice‘s IEX subsidiary has rolled all the products into a suite called Performance Manager, with the aim of providing a platform on which users can start small and grow in line with their business requirements.
Performance Manager Central provides the base platform and core functionality. Built from the IEX Insight product, it is no longer bundled with the workforce management product TotalView and can be purchased separately. Performance Manager Central contains core modules that include a stand-alone data warehouse that is used to integrate data sources, connectors to external systems such as automatic call distribution (ACD), workforce management and quality monitoring, and modules to produce standard reports, dashboards and scorecards.
In addition, users can purchase additional modules that integrate with Performance Manager Central to support agent appraisal management, sales processes and customer satisfaction efforts. Each of these comes with built in standard functionality that includes the ability to work data items being exchanged with external systems up to a set limit. The agent appraisal module manages agent appraisals, tests and tasks, surveys and workflow. The sales module supports sales analysis and works with a maximum of 50 data items, while the customer satisfaction module supports customer analysis using a maximum of 25 data items. IEX offers consulting services to help customers develop additional connectors to increase integration and the exchange of data items with external systems, customized reports and dashboards, and advanced scorecards.
Market Impact
Recent benchmark research from Ventana Research shows that companies want customer-focused information and call center performance management. This move by Nice and IEX will strengthen their position in this highly competitive market, which includes AIM Technology, Enkata, HardMetrics, Informiam, Inova, Latigent (now part of Cisco), Merced Systems and Verint. As well as price, the key differentiators are the number and type of data sources supported and the number of available analyses and standard reports. Ventana Research believes that Nice needed to unbundle its BI and Analysis products from TotalView to become more competitive in this market. Performance Manager is a good first step, but we expect to see further developments in the next few years if Nice is to remain competitive with a standalone product.
Related Research Notes:
Customer Performance Management Research Agenda for 2008
Customer Experience Management Can Refocus Contact Centers
Customer Experience Management Technology
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