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Dynamic Contact Center for Dummies by GenesysDynamic Contact Center for Dummies by Genesys

Sheila McGee-Smith

February 3, 2008

2 Min Read
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Last week Genesys held its sixth annual industry analyst conference in their home town of San Francisco. For those analysts (about 25 in number globally) that concentrate primarily on the contact center space, it's a great way to kick-start the year. For Genesys, the meeting gave them an opportunity to review their 2007 performance (outpacing the market in growth), introduce new members of the executive team (including a new CEO, CFO and VP of Product Marketing), and showcase four users from a variety of verticals (utilities, telecom, and broadcasting).

Last week Genesys held its sixth annual industry analyst conference in their home town of San Francisco. For those analysts (about 25 in number globally) that concentrate primarily on the contact center space, it's a great way to kick-start the year. For Genesys, the meeting gave them an opportunity to review their 2007 performance (outpacing the market in growth), introduce new members of the executive team (including a new CEO, CFO and VP of Product Marketing), and showcase four users from a variety of verticals (utilities, telecom, and broadcasting). From a growth perspective, Genesys is owned by Alcatel-Lucent and as such is unable to offer a granular breakdown of their numbers. But what they can say, about new strategic customers and increasing penetration of new technologies like their SIP Server and Business Process Routing, is more than sufficient to convey the impression of enviable performance.

The best news about the new executives is that Genesys continues to promote from within. Replacing CEO Wes Hadyn, who left in October to be president of a new Enterprise Division of Genesys partner Nuance, is Paul Segre. Paul has spent several years at Genesys, most recently as COO. The new CFO and VP of Product Marketing are also executives being promoted from within the business.

This stability in management is mirrored in their messaging. Last year, Genesys introduced a marketing strategy around the concept of the Dynamic Contact Center. The basic notion is that there are three variables in play in a contact center: interactions, resources and processes. Balancing the three of these is the role of contact center management. Genesys sees their role as creating the tools that enable contact centers to manage the three variables.

Case in point. The number of calls (interactions) into a center suddenly rises dramatically. The answer is to increase the number of agents (resources) and/or change routing strategies, e.g., send low value calls to self service (processes).

It's always heartening to see a vendor "marketecture" survive more than one year. It means the story is resonating with customers, and helping them to understand a company's portfolio in some context. Perhaps the custom Dynamic Contact Center for Dummies (right) is helping. Genesys reports that thousands have been distributed to sales people, channel partners and customers.

About the Author

Sheila McGee-Smith

Sheila McGee-Smith, who founded McGee-Smith Analytics in 2001, is a leading communications industry analyst and strategic consultant focused on the contact center and enterprise communications markets. She has a proven track record of accomplishment in new product development, competitive assessment, market research, and sales strategies for communications solutions and services.

McGee-Smith Analytics works with companies ranging in size from the Fortune 100 to start-ups, examining the competitive environment for communications products and services. Sheila's expertise includes product assessment, sales force training, and content creation for white papers, eBooks, and webinars. Her professional accomplishments include authoring multi-client market research studies in the areas of contact centers, enterprise telephony, data networking, and the wireless market. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, user group and sales meetings, as well as an oft-quoted authority on news and trends in the communications market.

Sheila has spent 30 years in the communications industry, including 12 years as an industry analyst with The Pelorus Group. Early in her career, she held sales management, market research and product management positions at AT&T, Timeplex, and Dun & Bradstreet. Sheila serves as the Contact Center Track Chair for Enterprise Connect.