Home Blog Page 5526

AtScale Appoints Jit Saxena as Member of the Board

Data and Analytics icon joins cloud transformation leader

AtScale, the industry leader in data federation and cloud transformation, today announced the appointment of Jit Saxena as Member of the Board.

Saxena is a legend in the data and analytics industry. As the founder, chairman, and CEO of Netezza, Jit led the company’s initial public offering and acquisition by IBM for $1.7 billion. Saxena also founded and led Applix, a leader in analytical CRM software, which he took public in 1994. Today, Jit advises a finite number of technology startups, including DataRobot, a leader in automated machine learning, where he shares board membership with Chris Lynch, AtScale’s CEO.

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

“Jit’s an incredible leader who knows what it takes for companies like AtScale to create and ultimately dominate enterprise markets. He’s taken two companies public and is a highly sought after advisor. The timing is perfect for us to leverage his experience as AtScale is on a meteoric trajectory,” said Chris Lynch, CEO at AtScale.

Lynch, who recently joined AtScale as its new CEO, has focused the company on cloud, hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud enablement, disrupting a traditionally on-premise monolithic data analytics industry.

“My entire career has been focused on enabling businesses to monetize information. When Chris joined AtScale, the opportunity to collaborate on one of the largest data management and analytics opportunities of the last 20 years was irresistible. AtScale’s ability to federate disparate data silos and seamlessly enable cloud transformation provides organizations with unparalleled freedom and flexibility to choose technology offerings and cloud providers as they continue to evolve,” said Saxena.

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Connect Anything. Everywhere.

With 75% of CIOs making a move to the cloud, Forrester estimates the 2018 global cloud market at $178B with an anticipated compounding annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22%. However, transition and growth are gated by the fact that CIOs have 100s, sometimes 1000s of applications that would need to be rewritten in order for them to continue to be supported and deliver value in the Cloud.

AtScale is the answer for the CIO’s cloud strategy. AtScale’s data federation capabilities alleviate the complexity of disparate data silos, enabling organizations to dynamically shift between on-premise, cloud and multi-cloud deployments without disrupting users or applications.

As enterprises globally execute a multi-cloud strategy, AtScale is uniquely positioned to accelerate, secure and simplify the modern enterprise’s multi-platform, multi-cloud and multi-application journey.

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

KOOKOO Becomes the First Contact Center Solution to Integrate With WhatsApp for Business

KOOKOO CloudAgent, the contact center software from Ozonetel, announced its WhatsApp Integration on 2nd August. Ozonetel, a fast emerging player in the US Contact center market, managed the integration within 24 hours of the WhatsApp Business expansion announcement. In the blog announcement, Chaitanya, CIO, Ozonetel Communications says, “We heard the announcement late (at) night and our engineering team pulled an all-nighter to make the integration with KOOKOO CloudAgent a reality.”

KOOKOO CloudAgent integration offers advanced features like chat bot support with prompt escalation to a human agent using automatic chat routing. Chats can also transition to voice calls with a single click. The CloudAgent records and tabulates all chats, calls and agent performance details. Supervisors can access these reports from anywhere in real time.

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

KOOKOO CloudAgent’s deep CRM integrations with Zoho, Zendesk, Salesforce and all other leading CRMS and ticketing solutions ensures that screen pop integration is in-built. Disposition and other details gets logged into the CRM automatically and directly.

“Our team worked similarly to ensure a Facebook Messenger Chat API. And only last week, we announced a similar chat + voice functionality in a one-of-its kind widget for business websites. Our aim is to ensure an omnichannel experience, with seamless integrations and superior AI support whenever needed,” announced Murthy Chintalapati, CEO Ozonetel.

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

WhatsApp is a personal and instant way for businesses to keep in touch with 1.5 billion global users. According to Facebook IQ, 53% users are more likely to purchase from businesses that they can message directly. The messaging platform allows a personal, direct and instant way of businesses to keep in touch with their customers. With Cloud Contact Center integration, this messaging can be managed in a reliable & streamlined manner. The end user can also opt-in for regular announcements of discounts, shipment tracking, ticket status and other updates.

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

Is This the New Agency Model?

Playground NY, the world’s first startup label, gains huge traction due to futuristic business model

People have been speculating what the agency of the future looks like, and this just might be it. Playground NY has gained six new clients in just 3 months and this rapid expansion proves that their unique “startup label” model is just what the world of entrepreneurs has been looking for.

Traditionally, startups had to contract out services to a number of siloed agencies and would spend upwards of $100,000 a month to those providers – burning through their investment money far too quickly. Guy Poreh, founder of Playground, recognized these issues and knew that the industry called for a change.

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

His inspiration? The record label business. Fresh, talented musicians have a record label to take care of everything from helping produce the music, contracts, scheduling interviews and performances to developing their brand. They do this with the promise of making that artist rich and famous – all the musician needs to worry about is their talent.

By translating this model directly to the startup world and its founders, Playground is solving the issue of growing a young company when it has limited time and resources. From business development to go-to-market-strategy, to creating demand, Poreh and the rest of the Playground team take all of the early marketing and biz dev necessities off the startup’s plate, allowing them to focus on product development.

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

Playground assures that their interests are aligned with the startup through their price structure. Instead of a traditional model where the agency is paid regardless of outcome, Playground receives a percent of revenue generated from performance. While other agencies may not give a client any consideration until they have proven success, Playground wants to grow with their clients right from the start. A true partnership. And it really works. Current clients confirm it!

Aquant, who partnered with Playground from day one, is an enterprise AI platform that uses machine learning to master the enterprise’s unique language and utilize it to maximize equipment uptime, saving customers over 1.8 million hours of unplanned downtime. Aquant was built by industry experts and successfully raised $2.6M in seed funding.

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

Playground’s newest clients seeking business development are Datos and Curve. Datos makes patient-generated health data (PGHD) from wearable technology usable for their healthcare providers. Curve provides actionable predictions for businesses using data analytics.

All of Playground’s clients are in the high growth stage and together have raised a combined $35M in funding, pushing them well on their way to being rich and famous: the two goals that Playground is always striving to achieve for clients.

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Brainshark’s AI-Powered Engine for Sales Coaching Wins Gold Stevie® Award in 2018 International Business Awards®

Brainshark Machine Analysis Recognized as a ‘Spectacular Tool for Enhancing the Development Process for Sales Reps’

Brainshark, Inc., delivering SaaS-based sales enablement and readiness solutions, today announced that Brainshark Machine Analysis is a Stevie® Award winner in The 15th Annual International Business Awards® (IBAs). Brainshark’s new, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered engine for improving sales coaching received gold – the highest category honor – for “Best New Product of the Year: Corporate Learning/Workforce Development Solution.”

This marks the sixth consecutive year that Brainshark has been honored in the IBAs, with the company having won more than 20 Stevie Awards for helping customers dramatically improve sales effectiveness and results.

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

The IBAs are the world’s premier business awards program. All individuals and organizations worldwide – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small – are eligible to submit nominations. The program received more than 3,900 nominations this year, with entries from a record-breaking 74 nations and territories.

Launched in June, Machine Analysis builds off Brainshark’s award-winning sales coaching solution, which lets managers send their reps video-based assignments (e.g., “Please provide a two-minute video of how you’d pitch this new product”) and provide feedback. Machine Analysis now processes the video submissions – generating an overall score and rapid, automated insights about reps’ ability to stay on-message, emotions and personality traits exuded, use of filler words and more. The AI-based engine gives objective feedback on intangible qualities that often influence buyers’ perceptions, while augmenting managers’ comments and helping them home in on reps who may need the most guidance.

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

Feedback from IBAs judges included:

  • “Spectacular tool for enhancing the development process for sales reps. Incredibly detailed-oriented and innovative. Would be useful for all companies who have sales teams.”
  • “An exciting addition to coaching feedback and a great way to help sales representatives succeed in the field.”
  • “The innovation is incredible.”
  • “Great use of video learning with automated scoring analysis. A nice feature to have a safe environment to get feedback.”
  • “A truly impressive product; it is so cool.”
  • “Great to see AI being leveraged in an innovative and creative way.”
  • “AI in use for coaching and training is breaking new grounds.”
  • “Innovative product which reflects the latest technological developments and enables implementation at scale.”
  • “This software is clearly next-gen in terms of using AI to realize benefits. It is user-friendly in terms of how it’s set up.”
  • “Good product and a great initiative to connect need with current technology. High on innovation.”
  • “Extremely useful and impressive solution. Companies should give importance to AI for their future success.”
  • “Extremely impressive, with a great deal of future opportunities.”

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

This award comes on the heels of other recent honors for Brainshark – including wins in The 2018 American Business Awards® and 2018 Customer Sales and Service World Awards®. Last month, Brainshark was named among the “Best Sales Enablement Solutions for Building Better Sales Brains” by technology research firm Amalgam Insights.

“We’re always asking ourselves: ‘How can sales managers and sales reps do their jobs better?’ ‘How can we enable them and foster success?’” said Brendan Cournoyer, Brainshark’s vice president of marketing. “Machine Analysis was born from that mentality – with companies now benefitting from strengthened and streamlined video coaching. This exciting honor from the Stevie Awards underscores Brainshark’s commitment to solving sales challenges and applying innovative technologies to drive better sales performance.”

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Five Ways Sales Coaches Can Differentiate Using Video Coaching

“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance”

Timothy Gallwey

Refract.aiFor the benefit of all, the world of Sales has at last stirred into life and acknowledged, with enthusiasm, that developing their frontline reps is an essential piece of the puzzle that is success.

Understanding how reps sell in practice, and whether or not they can demonstrate the desired sales skills, has shot up the priority list for many a Sales Leader with plenty now seeking ways to harness the potential of their team.

Naturally, this only bodes well for the plethora of Sales Coaching, Training and Performance organizations across the world; more awareness equals more prospects and future clients.

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

However, this comes with the caveat of increased competition. More people want to cash in on sharing their accumulated expertise to help others drive performance and ultimately increase bottom line revenue.

The question is, with this ever-increasing prospect pool and coaches appearing everywhere, how do I stand out?

One such way is through Video Sales Coaching.

Here at Refract, we have created a Video Coaching Platform that helps Sales Consultants not only stand out from the crowd but also add an extra string to their bow to truly provide tangible value to their clients.

Below are 5 ways, in which Video Sales Coaching can help Sales Performance organizations stand out as the optimal vendor:

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

Pitching for Business

Before engagements have even commenced, you have to win the business. Now whilst each opportunity will have its own specific needs and desires, many organizations will go in with a blanket approach…

“We’ll do 2 days with your team over 4 weeks focussing on XYZ”.

Imagine instead of going to a meeting and saying…

“We’ll do two days with your team over 4 weeks focussing on XYZ, with online Sales Roleplay included showing our commitment to your success beyond the classroom”.

By demonstrating a desire for their benefit, and understanding that Leaders want reps to improve without over-committing to time spent engaging in non-selling activities, Consultants can stand out as a people who are not only aware of business circumstance but switched on as to how to achieve maximum output.

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

Pre-Assessment for Focussed Engagements

So you’ve won the client, now to prepare for the topics to cover. Sure, the Sales Leader will have an indication as to where it’s going wrong across their team, but if they already knew specifically, they’d have addressed it, right?

Creating challenges, of common, client specific scenarios, prior to spending time with their reps can help provide a much greater insight into how they are actually selling in practice.

If you’re going to work on call openings, imagine being able to see exactly how reps would open their conversations prior to beginning an engagement!

Pre-Assessment for Focussed EngagementsBy getting a flavour of what’s truly going on in the day to day, not only can Coaches ensure they are providing performance focussed feedback, but also that the time spent with the reps is reaping the maximum reward.

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Prove Success/ROI Post-Training

On the flip side, for Sales Coaches and Trainers alike, the recurring challenge is demonstrating the impact their services have had on a business.

This is where Scenario Challenges enable Consultants to truly differentiate. Video roleplays are able to evidence not only the impact Coaches have had, but also, for the reps themselves, to showcase the adoption of the methodology imparted upon them and demonstrate the implementation of their new found sales skills.

By providing quick follow up activities, beyond the face to face client engagement, Coaches and Trainers can reinforce the learning and prove to their clients how powerful the impact has been upon their team which can only lead to longer term relationships.

Prove Success/ROI Post-Training

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Coach the Coach

There are only so many hours in the day so for clients with a larger salesforce, a time will come in which the baton must be passed to the their Sales Managers to continue the coaching and ensure reps have adhered to the expertise the Sales Coach has delivered.

By utilising a Video Coaching Platform such as Refract, a Coach can enable those who are internally responsible for the development of reps to be prepared to handle those scenarios.

Not only does this guarantee the positive impact upon an organisation but it also gives Sales Leaders peace of mind that the hired expertise won’t evaporate with the Coach’s departure.

If 84% of learning is lost over the first 90 days, instructing a Coach in how to coach themselves safeguards from such a drop off taking place.

Coach the Coach

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Build Client Specific Libraries of Excellence

Imagine an on demand library of Sales Excellence, specific to each client, accessible only through your Training organisations front door. How powerful a differentiator would that be?

By taking model responses to Video Sales Roleplays, Sales Performance organisations can create a folder of “champagne sales” taken right from the mouth of that client’s top performers.

This can then be visited, on demand, by reps who are looking for great examples of an objection they just came up against, to see how to handle it better next time.

Or on day 1, by a brand new starter, wanting to learn exactly what a fantastic elevator pitch for their organisation looks like.

As a Coach, you can not only provide access to this treasure trove, but add your specific feedback to ensure reps are continuously on the right lines and putting into practice the work that you engaged with during your time with them.

Refract enables Sales Coaches to put into action all 5 of these points, ultimately helping them to stand out from the crowd as an expert who is committed to their clients development, there for the long haul and can demonstrate precisely the massive ROI their expertise can have on an organisation.

Read More: CRM Data Is Still Numero Uno Block in Building “the Path to Sales Mastery”

Artesian Enables BT Local Business to Accelerate Sales Orders

BT Local Business and Artesian Partnership Delivers $8.17 Million in New Revenue Within a Year

Leading AI-powered business intelligence service, Artesian Solutions has announced that its partnership with BT Local Business, has delivered a 26x return on investment in just 12 months – with $8.17 million in new revenue achieved in just 12 months, directly attributable to the insights delivered by the Artesian platform.

At the time of this announcement, Artesian CEO Andrew Yates, said, “It’s an absolute pleasure to work with BT Local Business. They are a shining example of an organization harnessing technology to empower entrepreneurship. They realized that it was not enough to just give Local Businesses access to data, but instead augmented this data with real-time insights that would help them achieve a 360-degree of customers and what’s happening in their world. They are reaping the benefits in terms of their ability to uncover and realize new opportunities, and marshal the right facts at the right time to have better conversations and boost the potential of their existing customer base.”

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

Implementing a co-funded license model whereby BT contribute 50% of every Artesian license fee, BT integrated Artesian with its existing Salesforce CRM solution giving local businesses the ability to augment opportunities with real-time news, social media and people insights. Local Businesses for the first time gain an in-depth understanding of their pipeline, allowing them to act quickly on opportunities, anticipate needs, and engage proactively in more sophisticated ways based on a real understanding of trends, sentiments, and needs. In addition, they had the opportunity to improve productivity by replacing manual research with automated insight, data gathering, and filtering.

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

Speaking about the transformative partnership, Paul Evans, Regional Director at BT Plc commented, “We are committed to supporting Local Businesses by giving them the tools they need to succeed. Artesian has not only helped us demonstrate that commitment, but has helped Local Businesses realize their potential, and most importantly, grow their customer base”.

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

Paul added, “Artesian has delivered a huge return on investment. Local Businesses have already generated 1,315 new opportunities with a sales order value of £10.2 million directly attributable to the insights delivered by Artesian. In the last financial year, they collectively closed 793 of these opportunities resulting in £6.4million of new revenue. What’s more thanks to Artesian they have access to a constantly healthy pipeline of opportunities, and greater confidence to go out there and grab them.”

BT invested in Artesian in 2017 in order to accelerate its digital strategy and commitment to helping Local Businesses realize greater potential from their customer base, and have more meaningful, value-driven conversations.

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

Yext For Events Arrives to Transform the Way Businesses Connect to Customers

Yext’s Summer ’18 Release Includes Revolutionary Yext for Events Product, Enhancements to Knowledge Assistant Conversational UI, and More

Yext, the leader in Digital Knowledge Management (DKM), has announced that Yext for Events, Yext’s new solution that allows businesses to manage and publish event information on their own digital properties and across the web, has exited beta and is now available to Yext customers and partners for general access. The Summer ’18 Release also includes several new features of the Yext platform available for early access with immediate effect. Yext had recently added Amazon Alexa to the Yext Knowledge Network.

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

Yext for Events Brings That Investment the Last Mile to Consumer Discovery, Decision, and Action

Currently, leading brands use Yext Knowledge Engine™ to manage their digital knowledge in order to boost brand engagement, drive foot traffic, and increase sales. The Summer ’18 Release includes the following features, now available for early access:

11 New Knowledge Assistant Skills

The Knowledge Assistant — Yext’s conversational user interface — can now nudge Yext customers to make updates to their information, so consumers and services like Google, Alexa, Bing, Facebook, and more always have the most current data. In addition, Yext customers can now ask the Knowledge Assistant, “Show me reviews that I haven’t responded to” or “How many phone calls have I received from Google?” to engage with customers and learn about their performance as easily as texting a friend.

Publisher Suggestions on Facebook

Businesses can now view suggestions that Facebook users make to their Facebook location Pages inside the Yext dashboard and can choose to accept or reject those suggestions.

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

Google User Photos

Businesses can now monitor photos that Google Maps users post from their stores or locations, directly inside the Yext dashboard. They can also see analytics, like photo views,  and can set up notifications for any time new content is posted by a customer.

Yext for Events Give Businesses a Powerful Tool to Control Event Information

At the time of this announcement, Marc Ferrentino, Chief Strategy Officer of Yext, said, “As AI transforms the way we search for everything from nearby businesses to things to do, businesses are discovering the growing variety of types of digital knowledge their customers are looking for online. Events are one of the fastest-growing areas of investment for businesses today, and Yext for Events brings that investment the last mile to consumer discovery, decision, and action.”

Marc continued, “Businesses of all types use events to engage prospective customers and deepen their connections to their communities, but event information can be extremely time-consuming and difficult to manage across teams, on a business’s own website, and across the many services that consumers use to find things to do.”

Recommended Read: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

Marc added, “We created Yext for Events to give businesses a powerful tool to control event information, and to deliver it to consumers across platforms. Yext for Events is a first-of-its-kind central source of truth for digital knowledge about events.”

How Yext For Events Works on Facebook and Eventbrite Platforms

Yext for Events allows businesses to create, update, publish, and measure events across the digital ecosystem. Yext provides a central source of truth for businesses to manage key details like event start and end times, locations, and descriptions, and create Event Pages, add them to the business’s website, and publish events broadly to event discovery sites like Facebook and Eventful, as well as event ticketing platforms like Eventbrite.

One of the first businesses to employ Yext for Events in beta was Ben & Jerry’s, which used Yext for Events to manage and publish event information for Free Cone Day. Using Yext for Events, Ben & Jerry’s was able to create 200 events and 800 events listings for Free Cone Day across 8 services, including Facebook, EventbriteEventful, and Locanto, simply by uploading the event data into the Yext Knowledge Manager. One staff member accomplished in two hours what Yext estimates would have taken store managers collectively more than 200 hours to do manually.

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

“It was a way for us to actually scale individual shop events across our scoop shop system. So instead of having shops do it manually or individually on their end, we had one place to set up and then execute and push out,” says Jay Kasparian, Associate Brand Manager – Scoop Shops. “It’s become much easier to manage.”

In addition to allowing businesses to publish and update events to their own websites and calendars — and update those calendars with the click of a button — Yext for Events publishes across leading events sites.

Yext has been named one of the Best Place to Work by Fortune and Great Place to Work® as well as a Best Workplace for Women. Yext is headquartered in New York City with offices in Berlin, Chicago, Dallas, Geneva, London, Paris, Tyson’s Corner, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Read More:  Sales Call Analytics Is the Difference Between Winning and Losing Customers

Maropost Names Salesforce Executive Dustin Deno as SVP Sales

Today, Maropost, the innovating force in Marketing and Sales technology, announced that Dustin Deno will be joining the company as Senior Vice President of Sales.

Deno joins Maropost from Salesforce, where he most recently served as the company’s AVP of Retail and Consumer Goods. Over the course of his seven-year career at Salesforce, Deno consistently drove growth, built world-class teams, and brought in some of the their most notable B2C clients.

Read More:  Sales Call Analytics Is the Difference Between Winning and Losing Customers

As Maropost’s SVP of Sales, Deno will not only be responsible for supporting Maropost’s continued growth, but also for refining the company’s go-to-market strategy and leading the company’s global sales team. Deno will operate out of Maropost’s newly opened U.S. office, located in Chicago, IL.

Read More: Why Delivering ABM-Focused Conversations at Scale to Your Customers Matters in the Buying Process

“Everyone is thrilled to have Dustin come on board. We’re looking forward to seeing his expertise and experience with in action,” says Ross Paquette, Maropost Chairman and CEO. “With a new sales leader, a new office, and a new sales team, this is really the start of a new era at Maropost.”

“I’m excited to be a part of the Maropost team, and to build out a sales team that can accelerate the company’s growth even further,” says Deno. “We have such an amazing opportunity with the technology and team we already have—we’re ready for the next leap forward.”

Read More: Decoding The Current State of SDR Automation Platform Powered by AI

Pegasystems Earns Highest Scores In Ovum’s Customer Engagement Platform Decision Matrix Report

Leading analyst firm names Pega Infinity™ the market leader in second consecutive report

Pegasystems Inc.PEGA, +1.90% the software company empowering customer engagement at the world’s leading enterprises, today announced leading analyst firm Ovum named Pega the Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) market leader in the Ovum Decision Matrix report, which ranked Pega with the highest possible scores of all evaluated vendors for the second consecutive time.

In the report, Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting a Customer Engagement Platform, 2018-19 (1), Ovum evaluated 10 leading CRM vendors against 150 criteria. This year, Ovum placed greater emphasis on the end-to-end orchestration of customer engagement support as a key factor to overcoming organization silos and legacy infrastructures that slow digital transformation. According to Ovum, integrated CRM solutions are well-positioned to address these complexities by enabling enterprises to engage across channels without disrupting the CRM lifecycle.

Read More: Interview with Anil Kaul, CEO at Absolutdata

In the report, Ovum recognized Pega’s strengths for uniting customer engagement and process automation on a single platform; its AI and robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities embedded throughout the platform; its multi-dimensional architecture; and its clients’ ability to select their cloud provider of choice.

The report states, “Pegasystems’ strong BPM heritage combines with its advanced CRM capabilities to create a customer engagement platform that is adaptive and can sit above legacy systems to orchestrate back office fulfilment capabilities triggered by customer interaction.”

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

The report also notes Pega’s AI capabilities, saying, “The Customer Decision Hub, at the heart of the unified platform, acts as the orchestration brain supported by a broad range of connected machine learning algorithms in marketing, sales, and service functions, which constantly monitor behavioral patterns exhibited by customers. This allows Pega Infinity™ to predict not only the next best action but also the next best moment to make an offer or to engage with the customer at the optimum time.”

Pega’s AI-powered end-to-end suite of customer engagement applications for marketing, sales, and customer service enables clients to anticipate customers’ changing needs and provide personalized, AI-driven recommendations in real time throughout the customer journey. Pega’s customer engagement solutions are part of Pega Infinity™, Pega’s digital transformation software suite that provides the industry’s only unified digital foundation that connects front-end digital customer experiences with back-end process automation.

Read More:  Sales Call Analytics Is the Difference Between Winning and Losing Customers

This report builds on recent analyst recognition of Pega’s customer engagement capabilities. Earlier this year, Pega was named a leader in Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center report (2), as well as a Visionary in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs (3). Pega also received the highest scores in two use cases in Gartner’s December 2017 Critical Capabilities for the CRM Customer Engagement Center report (4) and was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Real-Time Interaction Management, Q2 2017 (5) report.

Quotes & Commentary“In this emerging category, Pega is the clear leader,” said Mila D’Antonio, principal analyst at Ovum and co-author of the report. “The company has taken very decisive steps to develop and integrate the necessary components to enable a connected, intelligent enterprise centered on the customer’s needs.”

Read More: Interview with Sandie Overtveld, Vice President Sales, APAC at Zendesk

“Across all industries, enterprises are realizing that meeting the expectations of today’s digital customers requires transformation that cuts across silos and legacy systems,” said Kerim Akgonul, senior vice president, products, Pegasystems. “The latest Ovum Decision Matrix emphasizes that real-time artificial intelligence and powerful end-to-end automation are an essential part of any customer engagement platform. We believe this recognition underscores Pega’s unique position in uniting digital process automation and customer engagement to provide exceptional interactions at every customer touchpoint.”

Read More: CRM Data Is Still Numero Uno Block in Building “the Path to Sales Mastery”