Interactive Intelligence CaaS Enhancements – Adding Value to the Cloud
Interactive Intelligence is doing a lot of things right, and we’re seeing evidence of this in both their overall performance and their latest CaaS enhancements. To get a better read on both, I briefed yesterday with their CaaS Product Manager, Roe Jones. Let’s start at the top and touch on some highlights that tell a strong growth story for ININ.
In 2009, the company reported $131 million in sales, and with over 3,500 customers across 90+ countries, they have both critical mass and a global footprint. Revenues are up 8% from 2008, which says a lot considering last year’s economic meltdown, and since 2004, ININ has posted double digit growth every year through 2008.
A few other metrics are worth noting in terms of how they are growing, especially in regards to CaaS. The economy has clearly been improving, and ININ has benefited in the form of a 19% sales increase in Q1 2010. Two other metrics stand out for me. One is the fact that 57% of revenue growth is coming from current customers, which says a lot about their ability to both upsell and introduce new technologies and services.
This data point ties into the second metric, which reflects the mix of revenue between products and services. In 2009, services accounted for 52% revenues, and prior to 2008, products had accounted for the majority of revenues. CaaS is included in services revenues, and is no doubt driving much of this transition. In fact, CaaS revenues were up substantially – 59% – from 2008, and we have every reason to believe this trend will continue through 2010.
CaaS is a good growth story, and today’s news is the latest iteration of ININ’s continued shift towards becoming a leading cloud communications provider. The CaaS concept can take many forms, and ININ’s positioning is quite distinct. ININ views CaaS in the broader context of what they call an “all in one platform.” Many vendors have an integrated solution, and in their case, this means three things – enterprise IP telephony, contact center and BPA – Business Process Automation. We don’t usually see this particular combination, and it must be understood that ININ is not focused on UC in the way that more traditional telephony vendors are.
Their position is that having all these capabilities from one vendor is more cost effective and manageable in terms of deployment. To the extent that businesses want to have these three pieces integrated with one vendor, ININ’s value proposition is quite strong. While there is definitely a UC component here, ININ is focused more on being a leading provider of cloud-based communications services that allow businesses to better leverage their investment in IT, and take full advantage of Web and SIP-based technologies.
In terms of the news, ININ is announcing three CaaS enhancements, one of which is particularly relevant for UC. The three items are a CaaS portal, a workforce management module, and an agentless dialing component. Each is quite distinct and strengthens the CaaS value proposition, and from our perspective, the portal holds the most interest. Their Web portal provides three new levels of functionality to make communications more productive, especially in the contact center. The first two are billing-related in the form of summary reports and detailed reports, and third provides administrative capabilities, namely MACs.
These billing features are of great value to both contact centers as well as managing overall telecom usage. The key here is having near real-time data on telecom expenses, both at a high level as well as for individual agents or employees. Previously, businesses would have to wait until the monthly telecom bills were issued, and then spend time poring through lengthy and complex statements. This capability has value on many levels, and is a great example of how cloud-based services make life easier, especially for businesses managing multiple locations or even geographies.
The third element – MACs – would be familiar to anyone using IP telephony, but having access to this via a Web portal is news to most businesses. Both this element and the billing pieces add value, especially for large businesses, which have many endpoints to manage, and a high level of staffing fluctuation. Being able to manage these tasks over the Web gives businesses more control over how and when they do things, and extends the value of ININ’s cloud offering. Remember, their long term view is to transition from premise-based to cloud-based, and going forward, ININ’s innovation efforts will focus on the cloud.
While their Web portal does not really address typical UC functionality, it certainly makes ININ’s UC story more complete. There is more to UC than managing multiple modes of communication, and in their view, UC is part of the broader CaaS umbrella. This is really a matter of context, as ININ’s focus is the contact center, which has a different frame of reference for UC than regular office workers. With that in mind, the other two news items make perfect sense, but have less to do with UC. The workforce management module is self-explanatory in that it allows an administrator to manage the workflow across their pool of agents. This is a core call center component, and adding it to CaaS really enhances ININ’s offering. Just to be clear, though, this module is offered on a hosted basis – whereas before it was premise-based – but is not accessible via a Web portal.
The third item is agentless dialing, better known as outbound IVR. This enables contact centers to use text-to-speech to customize appointments, announcements, reminders, etc. As with workforce management, this really isn’t a UC feature, but at least this one is voice-based and involves telephony.
As noted, these enhancements are more related to ININ’s CaaS platform than conventional UC. However, they should still be of interest to UC Strategies readers for two reasons. First, there is certainly a UC component to CaaS here, but it is simply more contact-center focused than other UC offerings. We all know how broad the definition of UC can be, and ININ is a prime example of a variance from the norm. Second, and perhaps more importantly, ININ continues to innovate around the cloud, and extend the capabilities of a hosted solution. There are many reasons for businesses to follow this path and move away from premise-based solutions, and the fact that ININ is prospering tells me they know where the cloud is going.
This paper is sponsored by Interactive Intelligence.