WITS Witness Systems (MM)

Witness Systems (NASDAQ: WITS) -- Unique, next-generation solution helps organizations make decisions faster and gain unprecedented visibility into customer service processes, workforce performance and customer intelligence -- Delivers holistic, streamlined, workforce optimization framework, including scalable software-based recorder, adaptable enterprise reporting and exclusive integrations Witness Systems (NASDAQ: WITS), a leading global provider of workforce optimization software and services, is today introducing its new workforce optimization solution - Impact 360. The solution fundamentally redefines the market landscape for contact center and workforce optimization (WFO) technology by enabling global organizations to deploy a holistic, streamlined framework and accompanying feature-rich solution set with more speed and confidence than any combination of point systems in the market today. For the first time in the industry, Impact 360 brings together a synergistic solution for workforce management, quality monitoring/full-time recording, e-learning and performance management. The WFO framework empowers organizations to access information - including actual recorded interactions - more quickly, easily and confidently than ever before. Additionally, Witness Systems' technology and distribution partners such as Avaya and Nortel will leverage the Impact 360 platform to further extend benefits to an even broader base of customers around the world. Companies continue to experience enterprise-wide challenges to balance maximizing customer satisfaction and increasing revenue, while minimizing the cost of customer service. Managing this balance is complicated further by the fact that it takes many different and often siloed functions within the enterprise to service the customer. Through the contact center, remote and back offices, organizations are driving to optimize the performance of their people, processes and technologies to increase effectiveness and efficiency. With Impact 360, organizations now have a next-generation, end-to-end WFO solution that removes the barriers between siloed customer service functions so organizations can capture, analyze and act on cross-functional information concerning workforce performance, customer interactions and customer service processes. This unique platform provides valuable customer insight enabling organizations to establish more intimate relationships with their customers. Studies show that the WFO market is reaching a point where customers are demanding more integrated and robust software and services. A study conducted by the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals in the spring of 2005 indicated that 83 percent of survey respondents noted a benefit in acquiring technology from the same workforce optimization vendor. Nearly 30 percent felt that a simpler implementation would be the biggest benefit in acquiring WFO technology from the same vendor, while 19 percent noted that minimal data entry would be a big benefit. Another 12 percent cited having less infrastructure as a selling point. "Impact 360 transforms the speed at which companies can make informed decisions with unmatched visibility into customer service processes, workforce performance and customer intelligence across the enterprise," said Dave Gould, chief executive officer, Witness Systems. "Companies need to unify workforce optimization functions under a single architecture to maximize information flow and minimize total cost of ownership. They also need experienced professional services to drive a complete view of customer service performance and to ensure ongoing success. By improving the balance between effectiveness and efficiency, businesses can drive customer loyalty, top line revenue, customer service operating margins and compliance through continuous performance improvement." Industry analysts estimate that the WFO market will exceed one billion dollars in 2006. This growth market exhibits the tangible benefits customers receive from the software and services that encompass a WFO solution. As a result, Witness Systems' strategic partners are beginning offer these capabilities to their customers as well. "The new Witness Systems workforce optimization framework enables us to more easily integrate our industry-leading communications solutions with the expanded Impact 360 suite of Witness Systems' business applications," said Lawrence Byrd, director of Communications Applications, Avaya. "As a leader in IP telephony and contact center applications, Avaya's goal is to provide our customers with tightly integrated solutions that can be rapidly deployed - delivering faster ROI and higher value to a business' bottom line." Uncovering valuable, previously undiscovered information Organizations are implementing WFO technologies, including software for workforce management, quality monitoring/full-time recording, e-learning and performance management, to improve organizational effectiveness and compliance. Historically, these technologies have supported specific functions, creating a siloed environment that forces each part of the customer service value chain to act independently. Separate point systems, disparate databases, and stove-piped reporting render valuable information useless because it's hidden and inaccessible, resulting in isolated decision-making. Because these applications have been traditionally implemented and administered independently, they require duplicate effort and expense to integrate and maintain. As a result, organizations are denied a holistic view of performance and therefore come up short on effective, efficient customer service across the enterprise. Impact 360's architectural framework overcomes these obstacles and provides a single, cross-functional graphical user interface that helps companies navigate confidently across WFO software that provides elements of forecasting and scheduling, quality monitoring, compliance recording, performance scorecards and e-learning. Impact 360's flexible, scalable architecture is built with the evolving requirements of the contact center in mind. The framework enables: -- Quick decision-making through simple, centralized access to standard reports and custom report writing. -- Central administration of agents and recorders across the enterprise to save time and errors. -- Fast deployments through an open system TDM and IP platform with less costly hardware and support. Impact 360's unique, holistic approach not only provides the framework needed to extend WFO from the contact center throughout the organization, but also includes Witness Systems' extensive consulting experience and expertise. As a result, customers benefit from a coordinated, single-source of support and other services, resulting in a lower cost of ownership than if operating individual point solutions. Moreover, because Impact 360 taps into and consolidates information from a variety of systems, it provides a new level of visibility into contact center performance for faster, enhanced decision-making. The solution helps companies: -- Capture a broader view of performance by drilling to recordings during adherence review. -- Gain a new level of visibility into agent activities by monitoring/recording real-time from adherence management. -- Drill directly to contacts when investigating variances from a complete, preloaded performance scorecard. -- Detect unknown trends through proactive, phrase-based speech analytics. With Impact 360, organizations can streamline processes and ensure consistency in new ways for maximum customer service effectiveness. Global businesses can deploy Impact 360 to: -- Leverage quality scores to ensure consistent customer service across shifts. -- Save time and errors by automatically sending training requests to the scheduler and assigning learning automatically based on evaluation scores. -- Drive best practices by easily turning recordings into online learning modules. Scalable, open systems software-based recorder Impact 360's flexible architecture framework supports local and enterprise TDM and IP solutions. Unlike other recording systems in the market, Impact 360 uses open, standard platforms, freeing organizations from the constraints and complexity posed by proprietary systems. Based on industry-standard PC platforms and voice cards, the Impact 360 recording function takes advantage of technological advances for maximum scalability. The software is Web-based, enabling enterprises to support tens of thousands of channels and multiple sites around the world, efficiently and cost effectively. Users can record up to 100 percent of interactions, and can easily search and replay recorded contacts, no matter where they were recorded within the enterprise. The result is a highly scalable voice-recording platform that delivers simple, efficient access to calls recorded in the traditional, IP or mixed telephony environments. Impact 360's open systems recording platform is also being leveraged through partner solutions from leading companies like Nortel. Nortel's Converged Applications solution adds recording and quality monitoring to the company's existing call routing, IP Telephony, multimedia, and speech recognition capabilities, enabling enterprises to connect with customers and manage relationships more effectively. "Adding a leading open systems recording platform to our solutions extends the value of how we can help enterprises increase customer loyalty, drive revenue, and reduce operational costs," said Roxann Swanson, vice president and general manager of Multimedia Applications, Nortel. "Our solution now provides businesses with reliable, real-time control over recording and call indexing - conveniently delivered with the other communications needed to get started quickly." Impact 360 enables companies to: -- Move away from costly proprietary systems in favor of an open platform that leverages existing investments in enterprise applications and systems. -- Support multi-site contact centers and be prepared for future IP telephony investments. -- Reduce hardware costs via a single-server capability. The recording platform provides complete control over the interactions captured. Recording parameters enable users to trigger recording through rich computer telephony integration while also providing sophisticated real-time control over recording and call indexing. Simple, centralized access to standard reports and custom report writing Impact 360's revolutionary reporting capabilities enable quick decision-making. Powered by Cognos Business Intelligence (BI), Impact 360's reporting engine enables users to request reports directly from the WFO interface. With Impact 360, one reporting system can produce WFO reports, as well as the broad range of business reports that help contact center directors and other strategic business users understand their operations better and make effective business decisions. Impact 360 addresses the problem of overly simplistic and inflexible business reporting. The software provides great flexibility, enabling novice to advanced users to create complex reports with drag-and-drop simplicity. Many organizations currently use multiple solutions to meet their contact center reporting requirements. These solutions, which are most often deployed departmentally, must all be supported concurrently. As they strive to decrease their costs and the complexity of their reporting environment, managers have been looking to standardize on a single, Web-based reporting solution that can address all of their reporting needs. Availability The Impact 360 solution from Witness Systems is generally available in the fourth quarter of 2005. Packages are available for workforce management, compliance recording and quality monitoring. A complete workforce optimization package and optional add-on functions are also available. About Witness Systems Witness Systems (NASDAQ: WITS) is a leading global provider of workforce optimization software and services. The company's solutions - which play a strategic role in the customer interaction centers of Global 2000 and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide - also are deployed in IP Telephony and back office environments, and throughout the extended enterprise, including branch offices. Witness Systems' software is comprised of quality monitoring, compliance, high-volume and IP Telephony recording solutions, as well as workforce management, actionable learning and performance management applications. The company's solutions enable organizations to optimize their people, processes and technology throughout the enterprise. Witness Systems' customers benefit from an integrated business consulting, implementation and training methodology that supports a rapid deployment, enabling them to drive revenue, reduce operational costs, and achieve greater customer retention and loyalty. For additional information about Witness Systems, visit www.witness.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this release that involves Witness Systems' expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. They are identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions. These statements are based upon information available to Witness Systems as of the date of this release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. Forward-looking statements believed true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control and may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Some of the factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include fluctuations in customer demand and the timing of orders; the company's ability to manage its growth; the risk of new product introductions and customer acceptance of new products; the rapid technological change which characterizes the company's markets; the risks associated with international sales as the company expands its markets, including the risks associated with foreign currency fluctuations; the ability of the company to complete and integrate successfully any acquisitions or investments it may make; and the ability of the company to compete successfully in the future, as well as other risks identified under the caption "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004 and its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2005, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Witness, eQuality and the Witness logo are United States registered trademarks of Witness Systems, Inc., protected by laws of the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.