Research

IBM Watson Breaks New Ground for Service

IBM Watson Engagement Advisor Brings Supercomputing Power to Customer Support

IBM Watson Engagement Advisor redefines the delivery of customer service. This new supercomputer processes huge amounts of data and “understands” it with astounding speed. Watson provides an opportunity for companies to transform how they deliver support to customers. It may finally be the breakthrough application that supercharges the adoption of self-service. While not every customer service organization may need such powerful computing, the potential breakthroughs are unlimited and deserve a closer look.

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Compelling Investments for Extraordinary Service

Smart Customer Service Investments in Emerging Applications Need Cost Justification

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Although many brands struggle to keep pace with changes in customer service, leading customer service organizations realize strategic investments will keep them ahead of their competitors and at the top of their game. Most customer service decision makers understand the many benefits of emerging technologies supporting their customer needs, but tight budgets often limit their ability to move forward with new investments. This report highlights five key technologies that can create new revenues, lower service costs and provide compelling customer experiences that all customer service organizations should consider. Read More

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Taking Talent Search to the Next Level

Why the Haley Stuart Group Recruited ShoreTel Sky as Its Cloud Communications Service Provider

In 2004 HSG installed a new PBX in its New Jersey offices. It soon became clear that the annual maintenance contract for this PBX was not only very expensive, but HSG discovered that it did not include any hardware upgrades nor did it include upgrades for software releases containing new functionality.

Find out why Haley Stuart Group chose ShoreTel Sky as its cloud communications provider.

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Ten Things CIOs Should Know about WebRTC

Anticipating and Preparing for Massive Disruption to Your Communications Environment and Engagement Strategies

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WebRTC is an emerging standard that enables real-time voice, video and data sharing in a Web browser without the need for browser plugins. Potentially billions of devices supporting a browser – PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets and a host of new devices – from a variety of manufacturers will be real-time communications-enabled.

This report is designed to provide CIOs and decision makers with the right balance of depth and breadth to help them understand what WebRTC can do for them as well as what it can do to them. We begin with an overview of WebRTC, what it is and how it is architected. We discuss federation among WebRTC-enabled sites and integration with legacy communications platforms including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). We describe the security mechanisms inherent in WebRTC.

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CosmosTM Cloud Buyer’s Bill of Rights: SaaS Apps – Netsuite, Inc.

Netsuite Achieves Epic Status in Inaugural Bill of Rights Certification for Cloud Apps Suites

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The Enterprise Cloud Buyer’s Bill of Rights provides a tool for clients and vendors to change the tenor of contract negotiations from user subservience to an equal and collaborative long-term partnership.

Netsuite provides an end-to-end cloud business application suite. Netsuite achieved a 4.48 weighted score and achieved the highest certification – Epic for its achievement in meeting the 61 requirements of the Cloud Buyer’s Bill of Rights category.

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CosmosTM Cloud Buyer’s Bill of Rights: SaaS Apps – Actian Corporation

Actian DataCloud Achieves Epic Status in the Inaugural Bill of Rights Certification for Cloud Integration

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The Enterprise Cloud Buyer’s Bill of Rights provides a tool for clients and vendors to change the tenor of contract negotiations from user subservience to an equal and collaborative long-term partnership.

Actian’s acquired Pervasive Software on April 11, 2013. Constellation evaluated Pervasive Software prior to the merger. Actian DataCloud achieved a 4.77 weighted score and achieved the highest certification – Epic for its achievement in meeting the 61 requirements of the Cloud Buyer’s Bill of Rights category.

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Customer Service Strategy for a Disruptive World

Apply the Customer Service Support Framework as Your Strategic Weapon in Customer Experience

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As disruptive new technologies have emerged in recent years, the world has witnessed a dramatic change in how customers interact with brands and companies for service. The rapid rise of social media and mobile applications has triggered an unprecedented shift in customer behavior. With pervasive use of smartphones and tablets, more than half of U.S. customers use their mobile devices for reaching a company and initiating service requests. Companies need to build a new customer service strategy for delivering a seamless cross-channel customer experience based on a collaborative approach from sales, marketing, IT and customer experience managers. The change in how customers communicate is already here. This report provides a framework for building a world-class customer service strategy.

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Using the Cloud to Protect What’s Important

Sealed Air’s Global Migration to Verizon/Siemens Cloud-Based Unified Communications Services

As a global company with geographically dispersed manufacturing and laboratory facilities, Sealed Air had a vast communications asset base

The company had a distributed contact center strategy, with agents located in North America, Europe, South America, and the Asia Pacific region. With a variety of platforms and licensing arrangements, integrating the platforms and providing a consistent customer service experience was proving difficult. 

Find out why Sealed Air chose Verizon/Siemens to resolve their communications issues. 

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The Positive Pricing Impact of Third-Party Maintenance for Oracle and SAP Customers

Survey Data Shows How Third-Party Maintenance Options Provide Customer Leverage

In the first quarter of 2013, Constellation surveyed 184 organizations with maintenance contracts from Oracle or SAP; the purpose was to see what impact third-party maintenance has on contracts from the original software vendors. In the 184 organizations, 149 respondents actively negotiated software license contracts and recognized the availability of 3PM options. Based on the survey results and hands-on experience in assisting clients with contract negotiations, Constellation believes third- party maintenance plays a key role in providing pricing leverage and options in overall apps and contract negotiations strategy. Respondents who chose to switch to a third-party support provider saved up to 50 percent off Oracle’s and SAP’s list prices for maintenance fees.

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Big Data: It’s Not the Size, It’s How You Use It

Despite Silly Misconceptions, Big Data Brings New Hope for Better Decision-Making

Big Data is a silly term, overhyped and misunderstood. Big Data is often thought to equal Hadoop, especially among those who think that Hadoop is a product for solving Big Data problems. That is incorrect as Hadoop is actually a family of Apache open source projects for managing and analyzing data of all types. In fact, Big Data is a concept that has become a movement to once again treat data with probability theory and computational statistics. But for all the misconceptions surrounding Big Data, 11 innovative trends are occurring due to this movement:

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