Intervoice Solutions from ConvergysIntervoice Solutions from Convergys

Yesterday Convergys announced the closing of its acquisition of Intervoice. The company is still refining its value proposition and product integration story but Mike Betzer, Convergys' SVP for Relationship Technology Management and Intervoice's former CEO Jim Milton spent some time with me yesterday discussing how the two organizations are coming together.

Yesterday Convergys announced the closing of its acquisition of Intervoice. The company is still refining its value proposition and product integration story but Mike Betzer, Convergys' SVP for Relationship Technology Management and Intervoice's former CEO Jim Milton spent some time with me yesterday discussing how the two organizations are coming together.The first bit of new news is that the Intervoice brand will continue for the foreseeable future. The logo has been modified somewhat but the brand will live on as a portfolio or product brand. The brand and new tagline, Solutions from Convergys, underscore the company's intention to extend their solid reputation as an outsourcer to a provider of the technologies that are used in that endeavor.

Intervoice will be part of a business unit that Convergys created in November 2007 called Relationship Technology Management (RTM), headed by SVP Mike Betzer. The focus of the group is to improve the quality and value of customer and employee interactions with relationship technologies, consulting and analytics. Convergys had technology assets before the Intervoice acquisition, with product names like SpeechPort (VoiceXML-based infrastructure to host speech applications) and Dynamic Decisioning Solution. The graphic at left gives a broad sketch of what each organization brings to the table.

Productizing and marketing the newly-combined assets is what the RTM business unit is all about. Assisting Betzer will be Jim Milton, who moves to Convergys to head up sales, marketing and professional services within RTM.

Milton highlighted that in addition to technology assets, Intervoice brings its hosting customers and operations to Convergys, essentially doubling the size of that business. Intervoice's carrier-class multi-tenant products, as well as the expertise to run them, will be important resources to help Convergys "dial-up" RTM revenues.

A final insight from the briefing had to do with target markets. Betzer explained that the typical Convergys customer is Fortune 100-size. Intervoice brings 5,000 customers that while by no means small are certainly smaller. Since most of these customers are running multiple contact centers, they are an excellent potential market for all of Convergys's offerings. But Intervoice also offers a sales, marketing and channel organization that has experience going after that customer base. Stay tuned.