It is always nice to get industry recognition, especially when it is about being innovative and responsive and comes from independent industry analysts themselves recognized for the depth and quality of their research. Indianapolis, Indiana-based customer interactions solutions providers, for those who visit this site frequently, has a tradition of picking up awards from globally respected industry research outfits, and it recently added to its impressive list with the announcement that it has been named a Leader in the Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a Multichannel Cloud Contact Center Solution 2015-16 report.
This is significant recognition is what is a growing market as can be seen in a chart from an except Interactive Intelligence provides from the Ovum report which highlights how contact center solutions by region are forecasted to move to the cloud.
Ovum’s methodology is based on looking at solutions providers under three main buckets—Technology Assessment, Market Impact and Execution. In each category a series of metrics are applied.
Technology Assessment: capabilities, interoperability, reliability and scalability, administration and monitoring, platform, solution maturity, security, multichannel, solution breadth and depth, and vendor strategy.
Market Impact: revenues, revenue growth, geographical reach, customer size, vertical reach and recognition.
Execution: product quality, hosting reliability, features and functionality, multichannel innovation, usability of products, ease of integration, pricing, customization, professional services, and deployment times.
Interactive Intelligence scored well in all of the categories. In fact, according to the report, Interactive Intelligence's "ability to adapt and offer numerous different cloud deployment options for its customers is a strength that helped it to gain a place among the market Leaders."
The report evaluated a total of seven cloud contact center vendors based on the criteria above. Aggregate scores across criteria determined vendor placement as a "Leader," "challenger," or "follower." Interactive Intelligence was among four of the seven vendors named a market Leader.
A few areas where Interactive Intelligence excelled as a Leader, as cited in the report, include:
According to the report, "[Interactive Intelligence] was one of the first premise-based vendors to also offer its own single-tenant cloud contact center offerings, having evolved those to become the Communications as a Service (CaaS) solution set, in 2009. As a result of its relatively early entry to the cloud market, Interactive Intelligence has managed to gain market share and now sees more than half of its new customers choosing to deploy its solutions in the cloud."
The report also praised the company in its vendor analysis citing: “A large internal professional services team with vertical specializations, as well as a growing reseller network. It is also focused on expanding its technical partner relationships through its Global Alliance program to ensure that its customers have full access to the growing number of multichannel contact center add-ons as well as core CRM functionality."
The report also noted that Interactive Intelligence scored well in terms of customer appreciation for its skills-based routing, platform flexibility, and global presence.
For its part, Interactive Intelligence noted in announcing the recognition that the Ovum report does not include an evaluation of the company’s latest cloud platform, PureCloud, because the PureCloud customer engagement services weren't announced until after the report evaluation period. However, Ovum did mention that Interactive Intelligence’s investments in PureCloud multitenant solutions and its pioneering CaaS platform were factors in its ranking as a Leader.
As noted, the Ovum forecast illustrates the recognized value customers are seeing in moving contact center solutions to the cloud. Interactive Intelligence which recognized that customer would see the value in such a move early on, and which now sees a majority of its growth and revenue coming from the cloud going forward, rightfully landed as a Leader in the Ovum report.