Make Way for Optimization
Move over CRM, the future belongs to optimization

I know I've said this before, but it still seems as though you can't pick up an industry magazine without seeing something about customer relationship management (CRM) on the cover. Trade shows still scream "CRM!" in their official programs and research firms can't seem to get enough of it.

All this activity must be comforting to the CRM product vendors, most of whom watch the price of their stock fall on a daily basis. It seems everyone loves CRM except financial analysts, investors and, with the exception of a few very well funded contact centers, most buyers. Companies that used to be considered the industry elite, such as Nortel, have gone from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the heap due to failed CRM strategies. Today many of these companies limp along hoping their past glories will be enough to sustain them through their mediocre present.

While CRM technology continues to primp and preen in the hope of regaining the glamour of the past, there is an interesting move afoot by a few forward-thinking companies who have realized the foundation of customer relationships are not built upon expensive technologies but rather upon the efficient utilization of agent and technology resources. This emerging industry segment, called "Optimization" for lack of a better term, focuses on helping the contact center manager get the most out of technology that's already in place. Optimization doesn't ask contact centers to throw away perfectly good equipment, tear down established processes, rethink business strategies or rewrite the rules of customer care. Optimization seeks to enhance the operation, not recreate it.

Although the companies focusing on Optimization aren't among the largest in the industry, they are definitely among the smartest. These are companies who listen to their customers and prospects, not companies that try to sail along with the winds of an ever-changing industry. Publicly held companies that are emerging as leaders in this new Optimization field include Witness Systems, whose eQuality Analysis product lets users combine data from several sources to gain a comprehensive understanding of contact center performance.

Blue Pumpkin Software, a leader in workforce management solutions, is expanding its product line to include several optimization products. The company has also repositioned its traditional line of workforce management software as workforce optimization software. As Blue Pumpkin builds on its portfolio of resource optimization products it is clear that this company has a sharp focus on the emerging Optimization market segment.

Carrefour Technologies is an Optimization pure play with a focus on optimizing routing as well as other resources in the contact center. Founded by several former managers from TCS, before it was acquired by Aspect, Carrefour is top heavy with Ph.D.s and others who understand how to run the numbers to get the most out of a system. Carrefour has the potential to become an important contributor to the Optimization market.

Perhaps the best-known, and least understood company in the Optimization space is Performix Technologies. The founders of this Irish company, now headquartered in Burlington, MA, came up with a concept so simple that I still wonder why it took so long for someone to productize it. Rather than approaching the problem of improving customer care with a solution that involved costly software and even more expensive integration services, as CRM vendors did, Performix recommended call centers start taking real advantage of systems that were already in place. Rather than replacing the engine, Performix suggested an oil change and a tune-up. The idea works.

CRM fit well with the excesses of the late 1990s when anyone who wasn't retired by age 30 was considered a dinosaur. With the new decade came a degree of common sense that has brought back some old business values like product reliability, cost control and return on investment. Business in the new decade calls for rational decisions and measured spending. Optimization meets these criteria. CRM is the past. For the future of the contact center industry, look toward Optimization.