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Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Market to Grow to $2.7 billion by 2011

DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics research, has published its inaugural Hosted/Managed Service IVR Market Report.

According to the report, the recession has sped up the pace of adoption and infused momentum into the hosted/managed service IVR market. After years of relative quiet, the IVR market is now attracting a lot of attention and investment dollars. Sales of IVRs are growing rapidly based on the strength of new applications, rapid deployments and product innovation from a range of highly competitive hosted/managed service providers. DMG projects a 4-year CAGR of 13.4% for the hosted/managed-inbound IVR sector and 18.7% for the outbound IVR segment. Sales of premise-based IVR solutions are expected to decline over the same period. Organizations of all types - companies large and small, governments, higher education, non-profits, etc. - that previously bypassed hosted/managed service IVR offerings are not only considering these offerings, but making commitments.

[Full Article] Jun-07-2009

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index Increases Sharply

Consumers' overall assessment of current-day conditions improved again. Those claiming business conditions are "good" increased to 8.7 percent from 7.9 percent. However, those claiming conditions are "bad" increased to 45.3 percent from 44.9 percent. Consumers' appraisal of the job market was also more favorable. Those claiming jobs are "hard to get" decreased to 44.7 percent from 46.6 percent in April. Those saying jobs are "plentiful" edged up to 5.7 percent from 4.9 percent.

Consumers' short-term outlook improved significantly in May. Those expecting business conditions will improve over the next six months increased to 23.1 percent from 15.7 percent, while those anticipating conditions will worsen declined to 17.8 percent from 24.4 percent in April.

The employment outlook was also less pessimistic. The percentage of consumers expecting more jobs in the months ahead increased to 20.0 percent from 14.2 percent, while those anticipating fewer jobs decreased to 25.2 percent from 32.5 percent. The proportion of consumers anticipating an increase in their incomes edged up to 10.2 percent from 8.3 percent.

[Full Article] May-31-2009

2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey Examines the Reputational Risk Implications of Social Networks

According to the third annual Deloitte LLP Ethics & Workplace survey, 60 percent of business executives believe they have a right to know how employees portray themselves and their organizations in online social networks. However, employees disagree, as more than half (53 percent) say their social networking pages are not an employer's concern. This fact is especially true among younger workers, with 63 percent of 18 - 34 year old respondents stating employers have no business monitoring their online activity.

That said, employees appear to have a clear understanding of the risks involved in using online social networks, as 74 percent of respondents believe they make it easier to damage a company's reputation.

A mere 17 percent of executives surveyed say they have programs in place to monitor and mitigate the possible reputational risks related to the use of social networks. Additionally, while less than a quarter have formal policies on the medium's use among their people, nearly half (49 percent) of employees indicate defined guidelines will not change their behavior online.

[Full Article] May-31-2009

Five Questions the CIO Should Ask to Ensure That Enterprise Architecture Is Delivering Business Value

In the current economic climate, an effective enterprise architecture (EA) program is a necessity, not a luxury, so Gartner, Inc. has identified five questions that will help CIOs ensure that their EA initiative is on track to deliver business value. Gartner defines EA as the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change. A business-driven EA plan will help identify cost optimization opportunities and ensure a rational approach to investment by balancing the needs of today with tomorrow's growth opportunities.

Gartner has devised five key questions that the CIO can ask to ensure that the EA program is on track.

Is the value proposition of the EA initiative specific to the enterprise and articulated in business terms? Business leaders are interested in achieving the business goals that are defined for the company, and it is the architect's ability to express how the architecture will contribute to these efforts that will make the difference between support for the architecture and tolerance (or indeed, indifference). A corollary to this question is, "Is it written down?" Too often, chief architects rely on the idea that the value proposition is well understood to the enterprise, forgetting that anything that is not made explicit is open to interpretation by different stakeholders.

Has the value proposition been refocused as enterprise priorities have changed? Clearly, the current climate of economic uncertainty has changed business priorities. It is important not to forget that EA is an iterative process. The EA team should re-evaluate its priorities periodically as part of that process. Not every enterprise is drastically cutting expenses because it's the only way to survive. Some are using the current environment to expand into new markets. EA teams should take the opportunity to refine their value propositions to reflect the current business priorities and to publicly reaffirm their commitment to achieving business goals to demonstrate that it is in tune with this business overall.

Do the architects emphasize the value of the process rather than the value of the deliverables? In many organizations, there is an inappropriate focus by the architecture team on the production of "artifacts" rather than the facilitative process of EA. Instead, the focus needs to be on enabling enterprise change -- EA is the process that articulates strategic drivers for change, defines vision of the future state to support those strategic drivers, and provides the road map for achieving the future state and creative constraints that should be followed when executing on the road map. This should be a collaborative process, facilitated by the architects, with the real benefit to the enterprise coming from going through the process and not in any particular work that is produced.

Are performance metrics being used, and are they business-focused? In an attempt to measure the value of EA, organizations often mistakenly resort to metrics that are focused on the EA team and outputs or technical results. Often a company will measure conformance to the architecture, such as the number of waivers granted or the percentage of projects that undergo architectural review. However, Gartner maintains that measures of architectural effectiveness are no substitute for measuring business value. If the EA initiative is not delivering the business results that the enterprise needs, something will have to change. Appropriate measures might instead include improved time to market for new products or reduced costs as a percentage of revenue.

Is effective governance in place to ensure that the architecture vision is being realized? Governance and architecture go hand in hand. EA identifies high-priority business changes, and governance ensures these changes are funded and occur. If architecture guidance is not implemented, then EA deliverables count for little more than books gathering dust on the shelf. To achieve true value, the processes for using the architecture to make investment and implementation decisions must be developed at the same time that the process for creating and maintaining the architecture is defined.

[Full Article] May-31-2009

5 Tips for Cost Cutting in E-Commerce without Losing Customer Loyalty

IT organizations responsible for e-commerce are challenged in 2009 to improve online customer experiences to make up for closed locations and lost sales personnel, while cutting IT expenditures by 5-25 percent, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner has identified five tips in which IT leaders in charge of e-commerce operations can meet this challenge in this year’s tough economic climate.

Tip 1 -- Use off-the-shelf products, not custom development, for commodity functions

By eliminating custom-development efforts for commodity functions (such as shopping cart management, search, product merchandising and management) and replacing these with commercial, off-the shelf, or open-source e-commerce applications, Gartner estimates that large enterprises can save 35 percent of ongoing maintenance and license costs, and small enterprises can save 25 percent of these costs in 2009, and 20 percent in the future. The one-time cost to implement this strategy is $250,000 to $350,000 in software, on average, with a one-time cost for implementation services.

Tip 2 -- Extract more return on investment (ROI) from technology that you own

Enterprises that seek to extract more ROI with technologies that are owned by the IT organization could decrease costs of service, sales, and marketing by 15 percent for large enterprises and 10 percent for small enterprises in 2009 and 10 percent in subsequent years. Gartner estimates that one-time costs to implement this recommendation are less than 5 percent, because they require only established resources to tune the use. Organizations should consider eliminating any established technology that does not achieve a use rate of more than 95 percent.

Tip 3 --Focus rich Internet application tool development on sales efforts with higher conversion rates, and leverage established community Web sites, rather than building communities in your organization's site

IT organizations experimenting with rich Internet application (RIA) Web 2.0 sales tools, usually developed in Ajax, can scale back their development efforts to only those tools that will lead to higher conversion rates. Gartner estimates that this strategy will save around 10 percent for large enterprises and about 5 percent for small enterprises in 2009, and 5 percent in future years. One-time development costs will be paid in full by reductions in other projects.

Tip 4 -- Negotiate hard with e-commerce software vendors

If an IT organization is seeking to purchase or already owns e-commerce software, then tough negotiation with vendors is an absolute imperative. Skilled negotiators can save 20 percent to 50 percent on license fees in 2009, and an additional 3 percent to 4 percent long term. No additional expenses are required to make this happen. Gartner predicts that vendors will cling to prices during 2009, as they seek to preserve margins, but will offer big discounts to make up for longer sales cycles and increased competition.

Tip 5 -- Make organizational changes to eliminate redundancy in job functions

In some enterprises, personnel perform the same job tasks on different sides of the business. For example, an enterprise may have one marketing person for online operations and another for the bricks-and-mortar side of the business. It may be possible to combine these roles and produce savings in HR. This one-time saving may represent 10 percent to 15 percent of e-commerce HR expenses in 2009 and 5 percent in subsequent years, with little upfront costs required for training.

[Full Article] May-17-2009

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