Company
Overview
Interactive
Intelligence, Inc. (“Interactive Intelligence”, “we”, “us” or “our”) was formed
in 1994 as an Indiana corporation and maintains its world headquarters and
executive offices at 7601 Interactive Way, Indianapolis, IN 46278. Our telephone
number is (317) 872-3000. We are located on the web at
http://www.inin.com
.
We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other
documents with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”)
under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These periodic and
current reports and all amendments to those reports are available free of charge
on the
About Us – Investor
Relations
page located on our website.
Unified
Business Communication Solutions
We are a
leading provider of software applications for contact centers and we are
leveraging that leadership position to provide mission-critical Voice over
Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) applications to enterprises. Our solutions are
installed by customers in a wide range of industries including, but not limited
to, financial institutions, higher education, healthcare, retail, technology,
government, business services and increasingly for the remote and mobile
workforce. We also offer a pre-integrated all-software Internet
Protocol Private Branch Exchange (“IP PBX”) system, a phone and communications
solution for mid- to large-sized enterprises that rely on the Microsoft
Corporation (“Microsoft”) platform. We offer innovative software products and
services for multi-channel contact management, business communications,
messaging, and VoIP solutions supported on the Session Initiation Protocol
(“SIP”) global communications standard. Many of our solutions can be deployed at
the customer’s site or can be provided in a Software as a Service model.
See
“Software as a
Service as a Viable Hosted Business
Communications Option”
below.
Our
application-based solutions are integrated on a platform developed to increase
security, broaden integration to business systems and end-user devices, enhance
mobility for today’s workforce, scale to thousands of users, and more wholly
satisfy today’s diverse interaction needs in markets for:
·
|
Enterprise
IP Telephony
|
By
implementing our all-in-one solutions, businesses are able to unify
multi-channel communications media, enhance workforce effectiveness and
productivity, and more readily adapt to constantly-changing market and customer
requirements. Moreover, organizations in every industry are able to reduce the
cost and complexity of traditional “multi-point” legacy communications hardware
systems that are seldom fully integrated.
Innovation
and Value
Interactive
Intelligence has long been recognized for its innovative, bundled contact center
application solution, which allows contact centers to queue and manage
multi-channel interactions including phone calls, faxes, e-mails and web
interactions such as chats using a single integrated platform solution. Contact
centers can leverage this same software platform for predictive outbound
dialing, workforce management, quality monitoring, call and screen recording and
agent scoring, interaction tracking, speech recognition, and other enhanced
contact management and compliance capabilities.
Our
principal competitors are vendors who follow traditional proprietary approaches
(“legacy”) and offer a combination of hardware-centric PBX phone systems,
automated call distributors (“ACD”), voice mail systems, interactive voice
response (“IVR”) systems and associated equipment. Contrasting such multi-point
systems, our unified platform is architected on open standards software
developed to run on the Microsoft
®
Windows
®
operating system and servers certified by us, allowing businesses to reduce both
the amount and cost of the historically more expensive communications hardware
from proprietary vendors.
The added
value of our open software approach is in the straightforward migration path it
provides to VoIP via the SIP standard for networked voice and data. This open
approach also supports broader integration to business systems and devices
including end-user phone sets, while reducing overall costs for network
management, system administration and functionality upgrades. Our application
solutions also pre-integrate to popular business applications for customer
relationship management (“CRM”), enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) and other
processes, enabling businesses to fully integrate and automate their specific
business rules with minimal interruption.
Continued
Global Success and Recognition
We market
our software solutions around the globe, directly to customers and through a
channel of more than 250 value-added partners. Our software applications are
available in 21 languages and are installed in more than 70 countries. We began
licensing our software in 1997 and have experienced ten consecutive years of
continued revenue growth. Partners and customers who license our products are
certified through our professional education curriculum and are supported by a
global support network of our technology and implementation partners. We employ
approximately 600 personnel.
We have
been an ISO 9001:2000 Certified company since January 2005 and obtained our
re-certification in January 2008, marking our third consecutive year of
compliance. Being certified to ISO 9001:2000 gives further assurance to our
customers and partners that we are able to satisfy their most stringent quality,
reliability, efficiency and cost-effectiveness requirements.
Other
recent company recognition includes:
·
|
Leaders
quadrant, Gartner, Inc.'s Magic Quadrant for Contact Center
Infrastructure, North America, 2007
report;
|
·
|
Top
500 Global Software & Services Companies list,
Software Magazine
(seven consecutive years);
|
·
|
2007
Product of the Year,
Customer Interaction
Solutions
®
magazine; and
|
·
|
2007
Product of the Year,
Call Center
Magazine
.
|
Industry
Overview and Current Developments
VoIP,
high-speed Internet access, Internet-based commerce, process automation and the
growing acceptance of data networks configured to transmit voice traffic
continue to cause a major shift in business communications technologies and
corporate decision-making. Organizations in many industries, and in increasing
numbers, are moving from one-dimensional, hardware-based PBX phone systems to
multi-channel software platforms on which phone calls and faxes as well as
e-mails and web interactions, such as chats, are integrated. VoIP, IP telephony
and unified communications bring networks and voice and data applications
together. By doing so, businesses reduce communications equipment and
administration costs, automate business processes to increase organizational
efficiency and enhance workforce effectiveness, and provide better service to
their customer base. The communications industry continues to experience
increased demand for new application-based solutions for unified communications
and multi-channel interaction management. We have followed the same open
standards all-in-one software approach since 1994 to develop our
industry-leading solutions for business communications
requirements.
Business
Process Automation
To be
more efficient operationally and more proficient in meeting a customer's needs,
contact centers and enterprises are looking at automation to improve the
execution of their business processes, communications and customer service
processes. We believe automation will improve a new or existing customer’s
position in the global marketplace and strengthen their foundation for growth.
Our applications have long taken an intelligence-based approach to automation,
beginning with the ability to unify and handle multi-channel interactions in the
same manner, and followed thereafter with features such as multimedia queuing,
skills-based (agent) routing and speech-enabled interactive voice response and
auto attendant processes structured according to an organization’s business
rules. We are continuing this approach to automating business and interaction
processes with features scheduled to be released during 2008 such as emotion
detection, post-call surveys and automation of business processes using the
functionality deployed in our solutions.
The
Convergence of Voice and Data
In a
technology trend that continues to gain acceptance worldwide, the Internet
Protocol has prompted many businesses to begin moving voice traffic from
circuit-switched networks and bulky hardware equipment to more agile “converged”
voice and data networks, applications servers, and lower cost end-user devices
based on the popular TCP/IP — a transition often referred to as the “VoIP
movement.” One result of this transition is that traditional PBX phone systems
hardware is being replaced by software-based solutions. This transition to
software-based communications solutions is leading many businesses to look more
closely at application-driven platforms that can integrate to, and work
effectively with, IP-based systems for converged voice and data. We provide
these software-based solutions along with other vendors including Cisco Systems,
Inc. (“Cisco”), Nortel Networks Corporation (“Nortel”), Avaya Inc. (“Avaya”),
3Com Corporation (“3Com”) and others.
Unified
Communications
According
to industry analysts at Gartner, Inc., unified communications are defined as the
“direct result of convergence in communication networks and applications.”
Microsoft also has recently defined unified communications as a solution that
“bridges the gap between telephony and computing to deliver real-time messaging,
voice and conferencing to the desktop environment.” Preceding this unified
approach, differing forms of communication have historically been developed,
marketed and sold as individual applications. The convergence of voice and data
communications on IP networks leveraging open standards software platforms is
generating a new paradigm for unified communications and its impact on how
people, groups and organizations communicate. Unified communications products
based on software solutions, services and equipment such as servers, gateways
and IP-based phones and end-user devices are proving to reduce costs over their
proprietary counterparts, while at the same time enhancing organizational
productivity by facilitating the integration and use of multiple enterprise
communication methods. Unified communications products reflect most of their
cost-effectiveness through the convergence of voice and data on a single network
and at the desktop; by integrating multiple communication channels (media such
as calls, faxes, e-mail and web chat), networks, systems, and business
applications; and by consolidating controls and administration over these
collective components. Most unified communications products are currently
offered either as a stand-alone product solution or from a portfolio of
integrated applications and platforms.
Internet-based
Interactions
In
addition to more traditional communications media such as the telephone, voice
mail, and the fax machine, the Internet has expanded communications media to
include e-mail, Internet chat sessions, web callback requests and VoIP calls. As
consumers have continued to leverage these web-based contact options, companies
have had to utilize the Internet as a key channel for sales, distribution and
customer service. With customer service as an objective, many of these companies
are deploying web applications for e-mail management, auto response, web
collaboration and other online services to satisfy consumer habits and raise
service levels. Though many online services are unified in an applications
approach, most companies still support online media channels using separate
e-mail platforms, web servers, chat servers and other disjointed equipment that
can lead to inconsistencies and inefficiencies across customer touch points. If
organizations have not already made the move to an applications-driven solution
for online needs, many are at least re-evaluating their existing systems to
determine the requirements for a more integrated environment.
Moving
from Call Centers to Contact Centers
Until a
few years ago, a call center consisting of phone banks and agents handling
inbound and outbound calls was sufficient for businesses and their customers.
While relegated to a single communications channel, these “call-only” centers
nevertheless required multi-point systems consisting of a PBX, ACD, automated
attendant, an IVR system, and optional systems such as a predictive outbound
dialer and a call logger to handle voice-based interactions. Most call centers
also were forced to spend time and money to integrate their disparate phone
system devices. Increasingly, however, multi-channel communications technologies
have paired e-mail and web interaction options alongside phone calls, creating
the “contact center” and allowing businesses to differentiate themselves both
with more contact options for customers and superior service and support as a
consumer interacts. With multi-channel communications platforms now playing a
broader role in customer service, as well as sales and other customer functions
such as CRM, organizations are beginning to understand the value of formal
contact centers. In turn, information technology leaders have begun to adopt a
bundled application approach to multi-channel contact management, primarily to
replace multiple hardware-centric systems and reduce costs, but also as a way to
more easily migrate to network-based IP telephony.
The
Need to Integrate Telecommunications and Information Systems
For most
businesses, telecommunications systems and information systems remain distinct
components in a communications infrastructure. To more effectively interact both
internally and externally, businesses must be able to access and utilize these
systems in a seamless manner. To integrate various types of telecommunications
devices with information technology, many vendors offer computer telephony
integration (“CTI”) middleware products and services to bring the two sides
together. For example in a contact center, a CTI-based “screen pop” application
enables a data window to pop up on an agent’s monitor, presenting information
about a call at the same time the agent’s telephone or headset rings. For
customer service in particular, screen pops allow the agent to view a customer’s
account information, which is usually maintained in a CRM or ERP
application.
While
effective for customer service, however, we believe that using CTI middleware
products to integrate communications and information systems raises a number of
fundamental problems. In addition to being expensive and time-consuming to
implement up front, the total cost of ownership for any CTI integration over
time is high due to multiple points of configuration, administration and
maintenance. Modifying and managing a traditionally integrated CTI
infrastructure is also difficult in that each device may be independently
configured by different vendors. For instance, adding only one new agent in a
contact center may require configuring a new extension in the center’s PBX phone
system, defining a new mail box in its voice mail system, and creating a new
agent entry in an ACD to route calls to the new agent. This process can result
in the new user’s information being entered into each device inconsistently, or
getting lost all together. With an emphasis on web-based objectives in
particular, we believe CTI used in this traditional multi-device approach makes
it more difficult for businesses to interact over the Internet.
Broader
Integration to Business/Data Systems and End-user Devices
With the
business world’s increasing emphasis on business process, automation is key in
broadening integration between a communications platform and business
applications, information systems, databases, knowledge bases and end-user
devices such as phone sets, hand-held devices, cell phones and laptop computers.
IP-based applications and open standards, as compared to traditional
communications hardware systems and CTI, increase integration capability to a
wider range of business systems, industry-standard servers and low-cost IP
devices for users across an organization. More so, integration within a
dispersed multi-site organization is easier to accomplish, since different
locations can easily leverage IP networks to integrate business system servers,
SIP connections from the same network to integrate IP phones and devices at the
desktop, and wireless connections to equip their mobile workers. Again,
organizations that rely on separate PBX, ACD and associated equipment for
communications are not afforded the same integration flexibility. Even though
many proprietary vendors are now beginning to take an applications approach to
their solution, they have yet to reach the same levels of openness that more
established applications vendors reached years ago. Consequently, the customers
of many proprietary vendors must still utilize expensive CTI methods,
third-party integration services, and higher-priced proprietary devices to
update their business and communications systems.
Enhanced
Security
As IP
telephony becomes more prevalent in business communications, the potential of
attacks to an IP communications system makes security a critical priority for
contact centers as well as for healthcare providers, financial institutions,
government agencies, public companies and other organizations that manage
confidential voice and data communications over an IP network. However, open
standards such as SIP provide a rigorous approach to user authentication and
message encryption in a VoIP environment. SIP is also the most regulated tool
for security as a result of the actions of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(“IETF”), which continually introduces, amends and strictly monitors SIP
security specifications worldwide. Lending to stricter security measures as well
are the new breed of all-in-one IP communications application suites. These
suites pre-integrate applications on a single platform for all voice and data
functions, and allow organizations to easily replace “multi-point” hardware
systems, reduce the number of access points for potential attacks, and
inherently streamline security down to a central underlying platform. Such
software-based systems additionally extend security mechanisms to all critical
points between an IP network and the desktop, allowing organizations to deploy
virtual private networks, virtual local area networks, access lists,
authentication, Transport Layer Security and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol
mechanisms from the network to their IP communications system’s application
server, gateway, data servers and phone devices.
Migration
from Voice Mail to Unified Messaging and Enhanced Messaging
Unified
messaging efficiently combines voice mail, fax and e-mail messages in an
end-user’s “unified” inbox, which is often accessible through the desktop, a web
browser, a handheld device, or even the telephone using Text-to-Speech
technology. Though available for more than 10 years, many businesses
organizations have failed to embrace unified messaging. With voice mail and fax
systems reaching end-of-life status in businesses worldwide, and as e-mail
continues to serve as a viable communication medium, enterprises are
increasingly upgrading to unified messaging solutions that integrate with
existing PBXs that are equipped for IP telephony and VoIP, and that natively
support e-mail and directory servers certified by us that are already components
in most technology and telecommunication infrastructures. As workers become more
mobile, organizations are studying the value of enhanced messaging, which
supplements unified communications with robust features such as customizable
call rules and greetings for users, Follow-Me call routing, real-time presence
management, speech- and browser-based voice mail access, workgroup capabilities,
and more.
Software
as a Service as a Viable Hosted Business Communications Option
Software
as a Service (“SaaS”) is becoming a viable and increasingly recognized solution
in the business communications and telecom industries. The term SaaS has
generally replaced terms including “Application Service Provider”, “on-demand”
and other similar notations. As an Internet-based service developed to leverage
web browsers and other online technologies, SaaS business communications
solutions are delivered by a software provider who may develop, customize, host
and operate the applications that constitute a SaaS offering. Service offerings
typically include IP PBX-based call processing, call routing, auto attendant,
IVR, voice mail, e-mail, conferencing, messaging, automated notifications and
other business communications services. For organizations that have
substantial computing needs but that maintain little or no capability in
software deployment, SaaS allows them to enjoy the same benefits of
premise-based software, without on-site implementation and operation. Businesses
pay only for using SaaS features and not for owning the software itself and may
increase communications reliability since SaaS application servers often reside
on a provider’s off-site location where disaster recovery mechanisms are
provided as a part of the SaaS offering.
Target
Markets
We have
developed our solutions to meet the requirements of three distinct target
markets in which our all-in-one approach delivers value. These markets also
include a strong and growing demand for the inherent standards-based IP
telephony, VoIP and unified communications functionality, which our application
solutions offer.
Contact
Centers
We remain
an industry leader in the transition from TDM (time division multiplex) and
CTI-based multi-point call center technology to pre-integrated IP-based open
standards application solutions for today’s multi-channel contact centers. Our
scalable all-in-one contact center solution enables centers to intelligently
route, monitor, record, track, and report on phone calls, as well as fax, e-mail
and web interactions, whether in a single center or across multi-site contact
center operations. Contact centers can also easily license our pre-integrated
applications for predictive dialing, workforce management, screen and multimedia
recording and agent scoring, and other enhanced functionality.
For
self-service automation in the contact center environment, including
speech-enabled IVR and e-mail auto response technologies, we offer a full range
of solutions that help organizations support their sales and service objectives
while standardizing customer service options and reducing operations costs.
Among the more popular self-service applications our customers have implemented
are FAQ auto response via e-mail and IVR-based processes for order status
inquiries.
Enterprise
IP Telephony
Leveraging
our strength in the contact center sector has enabled us to offer IP telephony
to the “larger enterprise” market. In positioning our contact center solution
for enterprise requirements, organizations can implement a single solution for
IP PBX, ACD, IVR, multimedia queuing, messaging, mobile access and other
capabilities that meet the needs of enterprise business users and workgroups as
well as contact center agents. We also continue to strengthen our position in
the mid-sized enterprise market with our “all-software” IP PBX phone and
communications solution for companies consisting of 100 to 1,500 users, and
especially that rely on the Microsoft platform. In addition to mid-sized
enterprises, this market sector includes distributed organizations such as banks
and credit unions, and organizations that maintain mobile and remote workforces,
such as sales and service-oriented companies.
Enterprise
Messaging
We have
defined enterprise messaging as being a comprehensive yet adaptable solution for
voice mail, unified messaging (voice mail, e-mail and fax in one inbox), and
enhanced messaging—which builds upon unified messaging with advanced features
such as Find-Me/Follow-Me, customizable call rules, real-time presence
management, and other features. With many existing voice mail systems continuing
to near end-of-life status, companies evaluating their messaging solutions and
requirements, and the increased popularity of e-mail and mobile communications
technology, we believe we are well-positioned in the enterprise messaging
space.
We offer
a single, highly-scalable, multi-channel messaging platform that allows
organizations to route live communications to mobile phones, telephony-enabled
handheld devices and desk phones, and to help users manage their inbox for
e-mail, voice mail and fax messages. Our platform’s inherent IP architecture
also paves a straightforward migration path to VoIP for organizations looking to
make the move to IP telephony. By providing flexible choose-by-function
deployment and licensing options for voice mail, unified messaging, enhanced
messaging, or a combination of all three, organizations can configure and
centrally administer the precise messaging environment needed, by department or
enterprise-wide. Our single IP platform/adaptable applications approach has been
successfully deployed by universities and large companies.
Our
All-in-One Platform, Single-System Approach, Products, Customer Support and
Services
All-in-One
Platform, Single-System Approach
We
provide a comprehensive solution of contact management and business
communications applications developed to run on our pre-integrated
Interaction Center
Platform
®
multi-channel event processing platform and the Microsoft Windows operating
system. Our platform-based software solutions do not require multi-point
hardware or integrations to third party products or CTI middleware, and are
capable of processing thousands of interactions per hour.
As a true
all-in-one solution for voice and data, the Interaction Center Platform also
does not require separate servers or integration, meaning contact centers and
enterprises can seamlessly process telephone calls, e-mails, faxes, voice mail
messages, Internet chat sessions, web collaborations and call-back requests, and
IP telephony calls. Organizations can apply business rules across media types
for consistent customer service and end-to-end tracking and reporting that
improves workforce performance and service quality.
Our
platform provides a single point of system management to simplify administration
and maintenance, eliminates hardware “boxes” to reduce complexity as well as
costs, and is flexibly deployed as a PBX/IP PBX or with an organization’s
existing PBX/IP PBX.
These
differentiating characteristics of our integrated software solutions allow
businesses to more effectively communicate both internally and externally, and
do so at a much lower total cost of ownership compared to legacy hardware
systems and computer telephony integration products. Strategic advantages of our
all-in-one, single-system approach to unified communications for business are
described in the following sections.
Standards-Based
All-Software Architecture and IP Capabilities
Our
software applications incorporate native IP capabilities based on the
international SIP communications standard developed by the IETF and adopted by a
number of industry leaders including Microsoft. Unlike proprietary PBX phone
systems and associated legacy hardware advertised as “IP-enabled,” our core
platform and application solutions inherently incorporate SIP and open standards
throughout, which eliminates the costly SIP extension “lock-ins” required when
using proprietary communications hardware systems. To further reduce costs, our
software runs on commodity servers with no need for expensive voice boards,
allowing organizations to incrementally scale to more users and distributed
office locations, and includes a built-in application generator and graphical
user interface designer tools to integrate an organization’s specific business
rules and required interaction processes. Combined, these open standards
capabilities allow businesses to make use of a wide variety of low-cost IP soft
phones and telephone devices, gateways, and other components from a number of
different vendors.
Broader
Range of Functions
Traditional
legacy communications systems require contact center and business enterprise
operations to purchase separate multi-point products to attain the voice and
data functionality they need, such as a PBX for phone calls, a web server for
chat, and others. Our pre-integrated application suites instead offer the
following communications features in one software solution: PBX/IP PBX,
telephony, e-mail processing, ACD, IVR, web interaction event processing,
inbound and outbound fax, conferencing, multimedia recording and screen
recording, quality monitoring and more. Our solutions also include supervisory
features to view communications statistics in real time, supplemented by
workforce management, coaching features, interaction tracking and end-to-end
reporting to improve performance. Collectively, these capabilities allow our
customers to improve customer satisfaction and increase internal
efficiency.
No
Need to Integrate Disparate Technologies
Traditional
communications systems generally require multiple components for voice and data.
To work together, these multi-point systems in turn require significant, and
often complex, integration efforts that can require expensive hardware,
middleware and services. Our software application suites pre-integrate all
necessary components for converged voice and data and unified communications,
allowing businesses to concentrate their efforts on improving business
operations instead of maintaining disparate communications technologies.
Additionally to protect system investments, businesses can use our software
applications to supplement an existing PBX with web-based interaction
management, unified messaging, IVR, departmental contact center services, and
other phone system functions.
Greater
Ability to Utilize the Internet
With
online initiatives playing a significant sales and marketing role in many
businesses, our solutions provide customers a number of web-based interaction
options. These options include e-mail, FAQ auto response, web chat and callback
requests, online forms, and VoIP calls. Such options are increasingly important
for effective e-commerce, e-Services and online customer service as consumers
continue to use the Internet to conduct business transactions.
Open
Architecture and Greater Compatibility with Leading Technologies
To
accommodate our standards-based approach to business communications, we
developed our Interaction Center
Platform on an open
architecture that is completely different from traditional telecommunications
systems that are based on a proprietary, closed architecture. Traditional
systems limit an organization’s ability to readily adapt to change or customize
communications processes. With proprietary systems, even simple changes such as
adding a new employee or changing an employee’s location can require costly
vendor services. Our solutions are built using industry-standard server,
networking and software components such as Intel Corporation’s (“Intel”)
microprocessors, the Microsoft Windows operating system, Dialogic Corporation’s
(“Dialogic”) Host Media Processing (“HMP”) software, and gateways from a select
list of certified vendors (including our own Interaction Gateway
™
).
Our open platform architecture allows organizations to easily configure our
applications to meet precise communications requirements and to flexibly make
hardware or software modifications as necessary. Our products also easily
interact with popular technology products that include:
|
·
|
E-mail servers
such as
Microsoft Exchange Server, International Business Machines Corporation
(“IBM”) Lotus Notes and Novell
GroupWise;
|
|
·
|
Database systems
from
Microsoft, Oracle Corporation (“Oracle”) and
IBM;
|
|
·
|
Mainframe systems
,
including those that support 3270 and 5250 terminal
emulation;
|
|
·
|
Web servers
from Apache
Digital Corporation, IBM WebSphere and
Microsoft;
|
|
·
|
Network management
systems
, including Hewlett-Packard Company’s HP OpenView, IBM
Tivoli NetView and Computer Associates International, Inc.’s Unicenter
TNG;
|
|
·
|
CRM and ERP systems
such as those from Microsoft, Oracle, SAP Corporation and others;
and
|
|
·
|
Enterprise directories
,
including Microsoft Active Directory, Novell NDS e-Directory and
Sun/iPlanet Directory Server.
|
Lower
Total Cost of Ownership
We
believe that our pre-integrated applications-based solutions result in a lower
total cost of ownership compared to traditional multi-point communications
systems with similar functionality. Our all-in-one platform and application
solutions are developed specifically to reduce configuration and administration
while delivering enhanced multi-channel communications features, by deploying
applications on a single interaction server and licensing users rather than
procuring products and incurring high integration costs from several different
vendors. Adding to a lower total cost of ownership is the fact that our
intuitive Windows-driven solutions reduce end-user training, along with the time
and expense typically required to manage changes in a multi-component business
communications system.
Greater
Ability to Customize Communications to Meet Specific Needs
Our core
Interaction Center Platform includes the built-in
Interaction Designer
®
application generator and graphical user interface that enables an organization
to integrate specific business rules and required interaction processes. In
addition to deploying applications quickly with minimal configuration,
organizations can use the pre-built tool sets in Interaction Designer to
customize nearly any aspect of their communications processing. This
customization capability allows organizations to tailor communications processes
for their customers, employees and other users using only a single tool to
structure dial plans, call distribution rules, IVR menus, web services, voice
mail system menus, fax applications and other communications
applications.
Business
Strategy
We intend
to leverage our leadership position in the contact center marketplace to
continue expanding our multi-channel IP telephony solutions into the enterprise
market. Our strategy for achieving this mission has multiple elements as
described below.
Innovation
and Enhancing Our Core Product Offerings
Forward-thinking
has been the cornerstone of our company. Since incorporating in 1994, we have
gained significant experience and expertise in contact center,
telecommunications, software, and Internet technologies. We will continue to
leverage this knowledge to improve our solutions with enhanced functionality,
maintainability, security, mobility, scalability and broader integration
capability to differentiate our offerings in the markets we serve. We also will
continue to improve and add to our global offerings for VoIP and unified
communications by leveraging the international SIP communications standard.
Currently, this combination of industry experience and our technological
approach allows us to offer a single, open software solution for a variety of
IP-based business communications needs in contact centers, enterprises and for
the mobile workforce. We continue to invest in research and development of new
and existing products for contact centers and enterprises, as well as for VoIP
infrastructures. We are continually improving our technology to address the
requirements of large-scale organizations with thousands of users for voice mail
(including voice mail system replacement), unified messaging, and enhanced
messaging. Our company was built on innovation, and we expect to continue
breaking new ground with our solutions. New applications or functionality
scheduled to be released by us in 2008 include integration with Microsoft's
Office Communication Server, our Interaction Mobile Office application for
remote enterprise messaging, post-call cusotmer surveys, real-time "emotion
detection" and the ability to automate business processes leveraging our
communications platform.
For all
markets we serve, our strategy is to appeal to a broader audience of customers
and partners by providing “whole solutions” for business
communications.
We have
leveraged the already strong position of our
Customer Interaction Center®
(“CIC”) IP application suite to appeal to larger single- and multi-site contact
center operations with 50 to 5,000 ACD agents. The single-platform CIC
solution utilizes VoIP via the international SIP communications standard,
and offers a pre-integrated “all-in-one” application suite for multi-channel
interaction management, CRM integration, screen pop, self-service automation,
multi-lingual support, and communications features for enterprise business users
as well as contact center agents, remote agents and supervisors.
We have
positioned our pre-integrated
Vonexus
Enterprise Interaction
Center
™
IP PBX offering
(“Vonexus EIC”) for enterprises from 100 to 1,500 users. As a whole product
model for businesses using the Microsoft platform, Vonexus EIC is delivered
complete with the Vonexus EIC server and application solution, SIP proxy,
gateways and IP phones. We are positioning the Vonexus EIC solution to a global
audience of mid-sized enterprises, and especially to those that employ growing
mobile workforces, that require increased contact center and workgroup
capabilities, and that see the need for a more unified communications
infrastructure using VoIP.
We have
also enhanced our
Messaging
Interaction Center
™
("MIC")
enterprise messaging solution by positioning it as a combined application
server/telephony user interface solution to deliver advanced voice and IP
capabilities alongside its robust messaging features. With a number of notable
enhancements in the past year, we believe MIC offers a clear path to VoIP
messaging through a cost-effective, easy to use system that is easy to install
and administer.
Promote
Our Services Offerings
Led by
our Customer Support and Services teams, we continue to add to the list of
implementation and customization services we provide for our new and existing
customers and partners. As hosted communications services become more popular
among businesses, we plan to expand our SaaS offerings for contact centers and
enterprises, which we launched in the first quarter of 2007, along with our
business development and marketing efforts for our
icNotify
hosted notification
services, which we introduced in the first quarter of 2006. We believe these
combined services offerings will more firmly and effectively position us against
our competitors.
Leverage
Industry-Specific Solutions
We
have
experienced an increasing number of customers in higher
education, healthcare, financial services (i.e. banks, credit unions and
insurance companies) and other industry-specific markets. Our strategy is to
leverage our existing business relationships with our customers and partners to
further penetrate these markets. To supplement our vertical market offerings, we
will continue to work with our partners with expertise in specific industries to
create custom applications and solutions, most notably in the financial services
sector, and will present such offerings throughout our entire partner
channel.
Go
“Up-Market” Through Increased Scalability and Reliability
We are
able to meet the demand of larger business organizations by increasing security,
reliability, functionality and mobility, as well as by offering broader
integration. In our most recent
Customer
Interaction Center
®
(“CIC”) product release, version 3.0 (“CIC 3.0”), we have made significant
enhancements in the following areas: