The latest news and information from Aspect Software. http://www.aspect.com/News/PressReleases.html 2010-07-30T21:01:24+01:00 http://www.aspect.com http://www.aspect.com/favicon.ico text/html 2010-07-15T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Selected_as_Finalist_for_2010_Microsoft_Partner_Awards Aspect Selected as Finalist for 2010 Microsoft Partner Awards Selected for Information Worker Solutions, Communications and Collaboration Solution Partner of the Year 15 Jul 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 15 July 2010 — Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced it has been selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Partner Awards in the Information Worker Solutions, Communications and Collaboration Solution Partner of the Year award category. This nomination is in recognition of Aspect’s system architecture and network planning services for a unified communications deployment at the State of Arkansas’ Department of Human Services (DHS) that empowered the agency’s 7,500 employees in more than 125 office locations and in the field. The new capabilities include integrated voice and email, instant messaging, presence, voice over IP (VoIP) telephony and integrated audio conferencing to better connect the widely dispersed team and enable them to productively serve more than 700,000 constituents across the state.“This recognition from Microsoft further validates that we are providing significant benefits to help our customers see the significance and value in not only unified communications, but all Microsoft-related solutions,” said Kevin Schwartz, executive vice president of global professional services, Aspect. “The State of Arkansas’ enthusiasm and willingness to welcome new technologies and ideas has presented tremendous opportunities for them as they have experienced cost savings and improved employee productivity. We look forward to their exploration of new capabilities, always with our continued support.” Awards have been presented in a number of categories, with winners and finalists chosen from a pool of almost 3,000 entrants worldwide. The Information Worker Solutions, Communications and Collaboration Solution Partner of the Year Award honors partners with proven expertise in the planning, implementation, and management of solutions to provide a unified platform for business productivity and make it easy for users to communicate and share critical information. This award recognizes Aspect for providing its customers with an extensible, unified platform that transforms the way people and organizations work together to speed market responsiveness, foster innovation, and/or streamline communications and collaboration.“Congratulations to the 2010 Partner Award finalists for delivering such creative and superior Microsoft solutions and services,” said Allison Watson, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “It’s incredible to see the level of expertise our partners continue to exhibit as they create and deliver innovative solutions and services to grow their businesses, meet customer needs, and drive down costs.”With the help of Aspect’s end-to-end consulting and implementation services, the State of Arkansas DHS developed a comprehensive unified communications strategy, and conducted an expedient and cost-effective roll-out. Today, all employees are using a communications solution that provides presence and IM capabilities. Approximately 100 people in the field office and central office take advantage of other features like voicemail, unified messaging, voice portal and response groups, and 725 field workers use video conferencing.  Following implementation, the Arkansas DHS began to realize initial return on its investment with dramatic cost reductions in phone charges and equipment, maintenance, and video and audio conferencing. Marked increases in productivity were quickly achieved both as a result of dispersed and hearing-impaired workers enlisting video conferencing, IM, and screen and application sharing to assist each other, and because of the availability of desktop support to troubleshoot problems for remote workers.The Microsoft Partner Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-07-07T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Helps_St._Louis_Boy_Scouts_of_America_Engage_through_New_Capability-Packed_Website Aspect Helps Renew Face of Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, with "Web 2.0" Website Design and Development Supported by Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 7 Jul 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 7 July 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced that it has completed a project with the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, to develop and launch a more engaging website for the organization that includes many new “Web 2.0” features, including blog capabilities, enhanced usability, links to social networking sites,  improved searches and a robust content management system that enables the council to provide the most up to date site content possible. The website is supported by the Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2010, and was developed under the worldwide Rapid Deployment Program, as an early adopter for the recently released version of the business productivity platform.  The Council selected Aspect to help them update their organization’s website to attract their target younger audience, as well as to improve online communications with parents, volunteers, donors, and staff members. With old server hardware and software, site maintenance and support was difficult and expensive, which made the deployment of new features challenging. In addition, the previous site was not capable of accommodating newer “Web 2.0” features such as blogs, wikis, and other social media facets. Aspect provided The Boy Scouts of America with the business strategy and planning for the website, visual design, web and SharePoint development.“Aspect has such a strong grasp and understanding of what we needed in a website in order to accomplish our objectives in making a more appealing website for our troops and volunteers,” said Joe Mueller, director of public relations for the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America. “This project continues to remain as strong as it was from day one, and we’re looking forward to everyone experiencing the benefits that the new capabilities and site provide.”“As an early adopter of SharePoint 2010, the Greater St. Louis Council has created a solution that allows their full time employees to work easily with more than 15,000 volunteers in the community.  Together with Aspect they are setting the bar for how SharePoint can be used to streamline the way people work together,” said Jared Spataro, director of SharePoint, Microsoft Corp.The new site allows the Council to easily disseminate up-to-date information to staff members, parents, volunteers and Scouts. The intuitive, interactive design enables site visitors to find what they need quickly and it harnesses the passion of volunteers by making them more empowered and engaged. Further, the site has greatly reduced costs by eliminating ongoing site maintenance and support.New functionality powered by the latest release of SharePoint includes the ability to:• Post content and blogs about Scouting experiences• Create communities where any group of people with common interests can exchange ideas and best practices• Develop an interactive “how to” section of the site where people can share information and tips about skills• Leverage wikis to collaborate on songs, stories, games and honing other skills• Allow for external content editing from more than 50 Boy Scouts of America authors“The new release of Microsoft SharePoint offers organizations endless opportunity and possibilities for enhanced collaboration and information sharing,” said Manish Chandak, vice president of Microsoft Services, Aspect. “The Boy Scouts of America are taking advantage of all of the flexibility and functionality that Microsoft SharePoint 2010 offers and showcasing how an organization can use the key capabilities to deliver an engaging site.”Aspect has considerable experience and domain knowledge delivering Microsoft SharePoint services to customers and in developing customized solutions on the SharePoint platform. Aspect supports all phases of enterprise portal development, including strategic consulting, planning, governance, design, implementation, integration and training.About Boy Scouts of AmericaThe Greater St. Louis Area Council of the Boys Scouts of America provides educational programs that build character, teach participatory citizenship, and develop personal fitness. The Council’s geographic area includes 27 counties in Eastern Missouri, and 10 counties in Southern Illinois. Approximately 56,000 young people participate in St. Louis Area Council Scouting programs each year as members of 1,100 Cub packs, Boy Scout troops, and Venturing crews. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, the Council employs 80 people and coordinates more than 15,000 adult volunteers. For more information, visit www.stlbsa.org.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-06-29T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Awarded_Contact_Center_Applications_Vendor_of_the_Year_in_APAC_by_Frost_&_Sullivan Aspect Awarded Contact Center Applications Vendor of the Year in Asia Pacific by Frost & Sullivan Rapidly-Growing Market Share and New Business Development in Challenging Economy Contribute to Win 29 Jun 2010 SINGAPORE, 29 June 2010 — Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced that it has been awarded the Frost & Sullivan award for 2010 Contact Center Applications Vendor of the Year in the Asia Pacific region. Aspect received this award in recognition of its exemplary business growth and performance in the Asia Pacific region in 2009, including significant new customer wins in new and existing vertical market segments, as well as its success in gaining momentum in unified communications applications deployment in contact centers.According to Frost & Sullivan, the Contact Center Applications Vendor of the Year award is the most prestigious annual award conferred by the consulting firm within the contact center industry in Asia Pacific and was one of 29 awards presented on June 10 at the 2010 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards banquet in Singapore.The Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards are held annually to recognize companies and individuals that have pushed the boundaries of excellence – rising above the competition and demonstrating outstanding performance across the region.Manoj Menon, Partner & Asia Pacific Managing Director at Frost & Sullivan said, "Aspect Software is a leading player in the contact center applications industry with good market presence in the Asia Pacific region. Its unified communications applications for contact centers have enabled enterprises to enhance their service offerings, addressing key challenges of proprietary architectures.“The company’s strong track record in workforce optimization and professional services has earned it the largest gain in market share in 2009 within the contact center applications market. With its consistent leadership in the outbound systems market segment and its strategic partnership with Microsoft, Aspect Software has risen above the economic climate that adversely affected many of its competitors last year,” he added.An independent panel of judges including analysts and CIOs assessed Aspect’s growth in 2009 on the following key criteria, which formed the basis for the award:• Revenue and revenue growth• Market share and growth in market share• Growth in customer base/key customer wins• Portfolio diversity• Product/solution differentiation• Business/market strategy• Thought leadership"Receiving the 'Contact Center Applications Vendor of the Year' award from Frost & Sullivan is a great honor. The award underscores our continued leadership in the Asia Pacific region, and demonstrates that contact centers here are looking for a business partner that understands their need to adapt to a changing communications climate with customers," said Lui Sim Hua, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Middle East, Aspect.“Aspect’s focus today is about enabling our customers to take advantage of next generation contact center solutions to participate in exciting advances in communications and collaboration. We do this through our ongoing technology innovation in creating unified communications applications on a unified platform to optimize key business processes in the contact center,” said Lui.For more information on the Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific ICT Awards, visit www.ict-awards.com.About Frost & SullivanFrost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.comAbout AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-06-21T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Named_an_Agent_Performance_Management_Hot_Vendor_by_Ventana_Research Aspect Named an Agent Performance Management 'Hot Vendor' in 2010 Value Index by Ventana Research Benchmark Research Bestows High Honors on Aspect for Value-Packed Applications and Platforms that Optimize Agent Performance Management and Ultimately Improve Contact Center Customer Interactions 21 Jun 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 21 June 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced that Ventana Research, a leading benchmark and research advisory firm, has recognized Aspect as a ‘Hot Vendor’ in its newly established Value Index for Agent Performance Management. Aspect secured a top-level position in a weighted evaluation for its PerformanceEdge® platform and applications which were researched in the year-long market and product study.  The Ventana Research report acknowledges Aspect for having noteworthy call routing, call recording, quality monitoring, workforce management, training and coaching, and analytics, and also certifies, through its evaluation and audit, that Hot Vendors provide the best buyer value available.“Aspect understands that managing agent performance is a critical success factor for any organization that interacts with customers,” said Richard Snow, global research director and vice president, Ventana Research. “With elegant and robust solutions in workforce optimization, Aspect showcases it prowess in delivering powerful analytics and metrics capabilities that can have a profound effect on improving agent and overall organization performance.” Aspect’s performance management capabilities are delivered on its PerformanceEdge® platform and are also available through the company’s unified communications applications for the contact center, Optimized Collections™ and Productive Workforce™. PerformanceEdge is a Microsoft .Net Web services platform that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities including workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to help organizations optimize contact center operations.“Our unified communication applications for the contact center are being used by some of the world’s leading companies across numerous industries,” said Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of product management, Aspect. “These organizations choose Aspect because our solutions integrate the most advanced technologies with unmatched expertise in addressing the business challenges of the contact center. By assisting our customers in optimizing business process and facilitating enhanced agent productivity, we help to ensure exceptional service and value are consistently delivered to their customers. This recognition by Ventana Research is a great validation of our strategy and ability to deliver market-leading, relevant applications and solutions.”The Ventana Research Value Index is an analytic representation of the assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements for software that enables and supports Agent Performance Management.  The Index evaluates the software in the context of seven key categories. Five are product-related: adoptability, manageability, reliability, usability and functionality. In addition, there are two customer assurance categories considered: total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI), and validation. To assess functionality, the Ventana Research Agent Performance Management methodology and blueprint were applied, which links the business process of managing agent performance to an organization’s information technology. If you want to download the Value Index for Agent Performance Management executive report, visit www.ventanaresearch.com/apm.About Ventana ResearchVentana Research is the leading benchmark research and business technology advisory services firm. They provide insight and expert guidance on trends and mainstream and disruptive technologies. Their unparalleled insights and best practices guidance are based on rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions worldwide. The combination offered of benchmark research, market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means that they can deliver business and technology education and expertise to clients where and when needed to reduce the time requirements, cost and risk of technology investments. The Ventana Research Indexes - the Value Index and the Benchmark Index family - have redefined the research industry by providing accessible, easy-to-use research-based business and technology guidance to businesses. Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; the many business and IT professionals worldwide who are members of the community benefit from Ventana Research's insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe. The views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Business Week's Business Exchange. Ventana Research was ranked the #1 analyst firm you can trust in enterprise software for 2009 for its relevance to the industry. To learn how Ventana Research advances the maturity of organizations use of information and technology through benchmark research, education and advisory services, or for more information about our monthly subscription-based service called Ventana On-Demand, visit www.ventanaresearch.com.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge, Productive Workforce, Optimized Collections, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-06-17T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Named_Finalist_in_2010_American_Business_Awards Aspect Named Finalist in 2010 American Business Awards for Information Technology Department of the Year Global Unified Communications Deployment Recognized for Achieving $1.6 Million Savings in One Year through Seamless Integration of Voice and Multimedia, and Replacing Traditional Telephony 17 Jun 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 17 June 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced the company has been named a finalist in the 2010 American Business Awards, also known as The Stevie Awards, for Information Technology Department of the Year based on its global unified communications rollout of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2. With this deployment, every Aspect facility across the globe has become completely phone free – and every employee’s laptop now leverages software-powered voice solutions that integrate with other powerful multimedia capabilities to drive substantial benefits in cost reductions, time savings, streamlined communications and improved efficiency.Following a pilot of the unified communications technology in February of 2009, Aspect’s IT department deployed all voice and voicemail services, audio and Web conferencing, instant messaging (IM), desktop sharing and presence capabilities of Office Communications Server (OCS) globally to over 1,800 employees at more than 20 locations. Aspect removed 16 PBXs in the process of this deployment and saw total savings of $1.6 million dollars throughout the first year as a result of deploying Unified Communications. Employees quickly embraced the new communications experience, noting ease of use and significantly improved communications capabilities both within and outside of the enterprise.  In addition to dramatic cost savings, Aspect’s unified communications deployment reached many significant milestones during the first year of the implementation, including: • Reducing conferencing expenditures by 97 percent, or by $100,000 per month• Lowering telephony circuit costs by more than $350,000 by implementing session initiation protocol (SIP) Trunking to enable converged voice and multimedia• Completing more than 1.7 million calls, with nearly 12 million minutes of talk time• Participating in more than 2 million IM sessions• Conducting more than 138,000 conference calls, with 33 million minutes of participant time• Increasing productivity with partners and key customers through the use of OCS Federations which enables intercompany communications such as viewing presence, sending instant messages and placing computer-to-computer voice calls with OCS users from other institutions that are federated• Increasing First Day Resolution of customer communications addressed through Aspect’s contact center by more than 8.5%“Aspect’s global rollout of unified communications capabilities to the company has been truly transformative,” said Jamie Ryan, chief information officer, Aspect. “Our metrics are an excellent example of how the changing landscape of communication across the enterprise can drive both a positive cultural shift and enormous reductions in operational costs. We see these benefits consistently – in our own unified communications deployment and in the deployments we roll out for our customers. We fully appreciate the American Business Awards’ recognition of our technology and business achievement.The American Business Awards – or Stevie Awards – were created to honor and generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and business people worldwide. The mission of the award is to raise the profile of exemplary organizations and individuals among the press, the business community, and the general public. Members of the Awards' Board of Distinguished Judges & Advisors and specialized final judging committees will select Stevie Award winners from among Finalists in final judging.This year's Stevie Award winners will be announced during the annual gala on Monday, June 21 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. More than six-hundred executives from across the United States are expected to attend. The event will benefit Oceana (oceana.org), the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation. The ceremonies will be broadcasted on radio nationwide by the Business TalkRadio Network.Details about the American Business Awards and the list of finalists in all categories are available at www.stevieawards.com/aba.About The Stevie AwardsStevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about The Stevie Awards at http://www.stevieawards.com, and follow the Stevie Awards on Twitter @TheStevieAwards.Sponsors and partners of The 2010 American Business Awards include Infogroup, Netezza, CIGNA, Citrix Online, Epic Media Group, High Performance Technologies Inc., imagistic, John Hancock, LifeLock, Lionbridge, PetRays, RCN, and SoftPro.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-06-02T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Realigns_Leadership_for_Next_Phase_of_Growth Aspect Realigns Leadership for Next Phase of Growth Technology Innovation and Commitment to Customer Experience Fuel Organizational Changes 2 Jun 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 02 June 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced enhancements to its leadership team that will  optimize the delivery of its technology vision, promote continued growth and provide an exceptional customer experience. Gary Barnett, Aspect chief technology officer (CTO) and executive vice president, Research and Development (EVP R&D), will focus on expanding the company’s technology innovation and customer-centric portfolio of products and services, including leveraging Microsoft technology to enhance Aspect’s core contact center offerings. Gwen Braygreen has been appointed vice president of Aspect® Technical Services and Continuing Engineering. David Herzog joins the management team as vice president of Customer Experience.“These organizational changes at Aspect help position us to execute on tremendous market opportunities with a strengthened focus on supporting current and emerging customer needs,” said Jim Foy, president and CEO, Aspect. “We are innovating at every level – from our market leading technology and vision in the unified communications and collaboration arenas, to our approach to driving the best possible customer experience. This new structure enables Aspect to take advantage of the exceptional leadership and insight of some of our key contributors.”A recognized visionary in the contact center industry and a driving force in communications technology, Barnett will focus on delivering technology vision and leadership, drawing on both Aspect’s world-class infrastructure and strategic partner initiatives to gain further competitive advantage and improve the customer value chain. Under his direction, Aspect will continue to advance solutions that are optimized to meet communications and collaboration needs within the contact center and throughout the enterprise.Braygreen, most recently vice president of Customer Experience, will now lead the Aspect Technical Services and Continuing Engineering groups to ensure that customers receive the highest quality and level of product support required to achieve their customer contact strategies. With her impressive customer-facing and leadership background, she is well prepared to deliver on the Aspect customer promise, a philosophy of values and commitment to customer success.Herzog, who had been serving as regional vice president of sales for Aspect, will now head up the Customer Experience function, engaging with all Aspect constituents to continuously improve Aspect’s customer-facing processes. Having previously led sales for the Western Region National Accounts group and new business development in the Mountain States Region, Herzog understands exactly what customers expect from Aspect. His objective is to make Aspect easier to do business with at every level, and as part of this, he will be focused on providing a comprehensive program to assist and support customers as they migrate from legacy systems to Aspect® Unified IP®.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-05-19T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Joins_Newly_Launched_UC_Interoperability_Forum Aspect Joins Newly Launched Unified Communications Interoperability Forum Forum enables interoperability of unified communications hardware and software through inter-vendor openness and collaboration 19 May 2010 CHELMSFORD, MASS., May 19, 2010 – Aspect today announced its membership in the newly formed Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF), a non-profit alliance of worldwide technology leaders working together to fully realize the potential of unified communications. The UCIF is focused on enabling standards-based, cross-vendor interoperability of unified communications hardware and software across enterprises, service providers and is designed to help global organizations be more productive.Seamless interoperability based on open standards is one of the key requirements to drive unified communications further into today’s enterprises. UCIF members will collaborate to overcome existing interoperability barriers to widespread unified communications adoption and deliver a reliable and rich unified communications experience, with the goal of making it easier for worldwide enterprise unified communications adoption.“Aspect has a long-standing, fundamental philosophy of developing solutions that are built using standard-based technology,” said Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of product management at Aspect.  “Joining the UCIF helps further solidify and underscore our ongoing emphasis on helping our customers leverage unified communications solutions that enable them to easily integrate with other solutions.  We understand the value of helping organizations maximize existing technology investments, allowing them to focus their efforts on deploying new technology that will deliver the greatest benefits and not spending precious budget and resources to make technology interoperate.”Aspect joins founding members HP, Juniper Networks, Logitech/LifeSize Communications, Microsoft and Polycom, as well as AudioCodes, ClearOne, Jabra, Plantronics, RADVISION and Teliris.“Interoperability is not only critical to customer success for deploying unified communications, but intrinsic to the delivery of legacy, current and next-generation UC tools, services and infrastructure from multiple vendors.  Until now, efforts to achieve interoperability have appeared ad-hoc, which has given customers little assurance that their existing and planned investments are protected and will deliver the value promised,” said Jonathan Edwards, research analyst, Unified Communications, IDC. “I’m delighted to see Aspect take a leading role by joining the UCIF. Together, these companies will help drive industry-wide adoption of open standards and develop programs that put accountability on the vendors and provide peace of mind and investment protection for end customers – something that will surely accelerate adoption of UC technologies.”The UCIF will work with existing industry standards, identifying and filling the gaps between current protocols and interoperability issues that have stalled broad adoption and deployment of valuable communications methods. UCIF membership is open to hardware and software solution providers, service providers and network operators. For more information or to join the UCIF, visit www.ucif.org. About the UCI ForumThe Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) is a non-profit open alliance of worldwide communications technology leaders working together to realize the potential of unified communications (UC) by increasing efficiency, decreasing implementation costs and improving the interoperability experience for UC customers. The UCIF’s vision is to enable interoperability of open, standards-based UC hardware and software across enterprises, service providers, and consumer clouds, as a means of generating incremental business opportunity for all stakeholders in the ecosystem and of increasing the business use of UC technologies and services. The UCIF creates and tests interoperability profiles, implementation guidelines and best practices for interoperability between UC products and existing communications and business applications. Visit www.ucif.org to learn more.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-05-17T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Garners_NASSCOM_Honour Aspect Garners NASSCOM 'Innovation' Honour Emerges as one of the leaders in NASSCOM top IT Innovators in India for 2009 17 May 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 17 May 2010 –Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, has been selected as a 2009 NASSCOM IT Innovator of the year for its six UC applications for the contact centre based on the Aspect® Unified IP® and PerformanceEdge® product platforms. This initiative is a part of NASSCOM’s thrust on ‘Innovation’; each year the industry body recognizes and showcases the top 50 Innovations in the IT-business process outsourcer (BPO) sector in India. This recognition is bestowed upon companies that have stood out and differentiated themselves in highly competitive, often adverse market conditions and carved a niche for themselves using breakthrough technological products and novel market initiatives. “India promises more opportunities for innovative technology firms than perhaps any other country,” said Mr. Ameet Nivsarkar, vice president of NASSCOM. “There is a huge unfulfilled market in India's billion plus population for several unique products and services in fields that include healthcare, education, financial services, retail, e-governance etc. Firms that have the ambition to grab these opportunities by developing innovative business ideas can reap huge benefits. We are proud to announce Aspect as one of the NASSCOM IT Innovators for the year.”“It is indeed a proud moment for us to receive this honour from NASSCOM,” said Mr. Rajeev Soni, general manager India and Mid East, Aspect. “It’s a strong testament of our commitment to deliver innovative offerings for our customers in India. Our innovations take advantage of new and leading technologies that can enable companies to deliver their finest business output.  As more companies around the world recognize the value in our unified communications applications for the contact centre, we hope to continue delivering our best over the years to come”These software-powered UC applications - Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Streamlined Collections™, Productive Workforce™ and Optimized Collections™ - are the next generation technology required to meet the operational goals of contact centres. These applications directly address the challenges and expense associated with the previous generation of proprietary, siloed and hardware-intensive computer telephony integration (CTI) architectures and helps organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.About NASSCOM IT Innovators NASSCOM’s Innovation Awards seek to recognize the companies that have given birth to innovation and at the same time, showcase the Innovations that are being churned out by the Indian IT-BPO Industry. Over the years, winning companies have continued to use the “NASSCOM IT Award Winner” tag on their collateral to acquire customers, further their business, and seek venture capital fundingThe awards have been categorized in a manner that will seek to recognize both the following:Innovations that realize value to a firms’ customersInnovations that create value within the firmAbout AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center. Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC.### Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, Seamless Customer Service, Blended Interaction, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections, Productive Workforce and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-05-13T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Hosts_Live_Event_in_UCWorld Aspect Hosts Collaboration in the 2.0 Enterprise, a Live Event in UCWorld.com Online Event on 19 May Offers Insight into how Microsoft unified communications and collaboration technology will change the way businesses communicate 13 May 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 13 May 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced it is hosting a live event with Microsoft at UCWorld.com on 19 May 2010 titled, Collaboration in the 2.0 Enterprise. This interactive, half-day virtual event will include interactive sessions with Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes and representatives from both Aspect and Microsoft. Topics range from implementation and ROI scenarios to a peek into how applications that leverage unified communications and collaboration technologies can help companies break free from "company-centric" ways of looking at technologies, markets, and operations."Aspect is focused on providing insights and thought-provoking information for all stakeholders who are focused on integrating unified communications and collaborative Web 2.0 technologies into their operational and customer-facing business processes," said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. "This symposium offers a combination of a strong lineup of presenters including business leaders, Microsoft and Aspect customers and technical experts, and an engaged group of participants who are part of the UC World network.”The event agenda includes:9:00 am EDT Keynote Session: Collaboration in the 2.0 EnterpriseFacebook cofounder Chris Hughes will provide an overview of how communications and collaborative Web 2.0 technologies can help companies break free from company-centric ways of looking at technologies, markets, and operations. 9:45 am EDT The Future of Communications in an Enterprise 2.0 WorldJim Foy, Aspect CEO and Gary Barnett, Aspect EVP and CTO, discuss how organizations can lay the foundation for the collaborative enterprise. Real-world scenarios will help illustrate how you can begin using applications that leverage unified communications and collaboration technologies to enhance and communications-enable business processes. 10:30 am EDT Leveraging the Collaborative Enterprise – Roundtable Discussion with Business and IT LeadersThis interactive session will provide a unique perspective from business leaders from Aspect, Ashima Singhal, Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Communications Server, and a variety of organizations that are using unified communications and collaboration capabilities today to enhance business processes, improve customer service, participate in social networking and increaseintra-company communications. 11:30 am EDT IT Track: Leading Successful Unified Communications and Collaboration DeploymentsThis session will highlight elements that IT leaders need to focus on to successfully plan and deploy Microsoft unified communications and collaboration technologies like Microsoft Office Communications Server and SharePoint 2010, as well as how to make the business case for key initiatives. Business Track: Business Process Transformation with Unified Communications and CollaborationThis session provides an overview on how businesses can apply unified communications and collaboration to communications-enable business processes and streamline workflows for key enterprise initiatives. 12:00 pm EDT IM Sessions:- Best Practices for Deploying Unified Communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS)- Best Practices for Deploying Collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint 2010- Applying Unified Communications and Collaboration in the Contact Center- Aspect’s Global Microsoft OCS Deployment – Ask us how we became phone-freeRegistration PageRegister to join Aspect and Microsoft’s event in UC World and participate in Collaboration in the 2.0 Enterprise at http://ucworld.com/onlinesymposium/About UC WorldUC World (www.ucworld.com) provides a behind-the-scenes look into some of the leading enterprise deployments of Microsoft unified communications and collaboration technology. It is a network where business and IT users share real return on investment (ROI) data, lessons learned and use cases. It provides direct access to experts who have turned unified communications and collaboration visions into reality, and offers a rich library of valuable technical and business information. Additionally, UC World features interactive access to experts on unified communications through networking tools such as user profiles, email and instant messaging as well as webcasts, white papers, podcasts, videos and additional material.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-04-29T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Announces_GA_of_Version_7.3_of_its_Workforce_Management_Offering Aspect Announces General Availability of Version 7.3 of its Workforce Management Offering eWFM Brand Name Retired with Release of Unified Communications-Powered Aspect Workforce Management 7.3; Provides New Scheduling and Productivity Improvement Capabilities 29 Apr 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 29 April 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications and collaboration services and software, today announced general availability of Aspect® Workforce Management 7.3, based on their PerformanceEdge platform.  This latest workforce management release includes improved scheduling and enhanced productivity through its unified communications-enabled collaboration capabilities.  This new functionality enables organizations to optimize the use of enterprise knowledge workers, including back office employees, to provide better customer service. Aspect has retired the name ‘eWFM’ as the new unified communications features broaden the capabilities of its industry-leading offering.Aspect Workforce Management is tightly integrated with complementary workforce optimization capabilities on the PerformanceEdge platform, and can be delivered as a stand-alone solution or as part of a synchronized offering."Aspect's new enterprise workforce optimization solution demonstrates the company's focus on aligning communications to the fundamental needs of the business. By developing new unified communications capabilities within the workforce management solution, this release will help companies to accelerate extended business processes and give hundreds of administration hours back to overburdened contact center and back office personnel," said Hyoun Park, research analyst, Aberdeen Group. "These enhancements in core workforce management capabilities will help to minimize and automate manual and time-consuming tasks that threaten agent productivity and high customer service levels."This latest release of Aspect Workforce Management provides unified communications capabilities that communications-enable business processes to enhance the customer experience. Utilizing embedded user presence to determine the identity and availability of resources through Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2, analysts or supervisors can quickly find the appropriate person to solve specific problems. They can then make contact via instant message (IM), email or via a voice call with a few simple clicks. This enables supervisors, managers and staff to collaborate on topics like service level attainment and other staffing topics, obtain schedule adherence for experts and back office employees, and seamlessly coordinate schedule bids. In addition, contact center agents, back office employees, and knowledge workers can now view their schedule in Microsoft Exchange Server to receive Microsoft Outlook appointment reminders to improve schedule adherence.Customer Response“High customer satisfaction is a key focus in ICE’s business strategy. Because of this, we are constantly striving to identify strategies to improve our communication flow between our workforce management team and front line supervisors and agents,” said Adelina Petrov, executive director, operations & sales analysis, International Cruise & Excursions, Inc. (ICE). “Aspect Workforce Management 7.3 and Microsoft Office Communications Server did just that. Once we started using the click to communicate functionality, our efficiencies improved tremendously. The time saved in generating the communications, and the instant delivery to recipients resulted in higher service levels that have positively impacted the organization and our overall customer experience.Added Petrov, “Another functionality we find immensely useful is the Microsoft Exchange 2007 Integration, as it allows agents to receive Outlook reminders for team meetings, training and coaching sessions. We observed an immediate increase in our schedule adherence resulting from this improved communication tool. In addition to the valuable cost savings to ICE, Aspect Workforce Management 7.3 helped ICE increase the speed of communication across all levels of the call center, perfectly aligning the workforce management practices with our business objectives.”“With the available functionality in Aspect Workforce Management 7.3, we knew we could address the ongoing issues that were tying up our workforce,” said Louise Andrew, manager of workforce planning, Fairmont, Raffles, Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts. “The cross-reference data tool has allowed us to save several hours of time and labor. Cleaning data space, which had taken up a few hours every six months, now takes less than one hour and most importantly the overall performance has improved.”New FeaturesThe latest version of Aspect Workforce Management contains the following new features:• Back office scheduling – new algorithms to forecast and schedule for back office tasks and helping to optimize around longer service level times and backlogs• Improved schedule adherence view – a new and improved schedule adherence view allows users to graphically view time out of adherence.• Multidimensional intraday performance – utilizing this pivot table-like view, analysts can now slice and dice intraday performance data across time (days, weeks, months, etc), staff, and types of work.• UC Enablement – allows users to collaborate more effectively on common contact center business problems and allows agents and other employees improved accessibility to schedules.“This release is focused on using unified communications capabilities to enhance the scheduling of knowledge workers to gain efficiencies and reduce costs,” said Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of product management at Aspect. “Aspect Workforce Management 7.3 streamlines the whole scheduling process, helps increase adherence, and gives supervisors and managers a unified view of staff availability and service level attainment, ultimately elevating the customer experience an organization is able to deliver.”About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge is a Microsoft .Net Web services platform product that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities including workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategiesAbout AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-04-26T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Announces_GA_of_Aspect_Unified_IP_Enhanced Aspect Announces General Availability of Aspect Unified IP 6.6 Enhanced Service Pack Release Includes New Features that Enhance Functionality, Installation, Security and Performance 26 Apr 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 26 April 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced the general availability of Aspect® Unified IP® 6.6 Enhanced with significant new features and innovative capabilities in this service pack release. The platform product, which powers the Seamless Customer Service™, Blended Interaction™ and Streamlined Collections™ unified communications applications for the contact center, includes new functionality like proactive contact and compliance enhancements for collections, simplified installation, enhanced security and high availability. Coupled with this release is an enhanced version of our Advanced List Management solution, version 3.0 SP2, which powers outbound campaign strategies for contact centers around the world. With intensive focus on quality, performance, and customer feedback, this enhanced release is a testament of Aspect’s commitment to deliver true value to customers.“The new additions to Aspect’s Unified IP platform address some of the key issues for contact centers,” said Aphrodite Brinsmead, analyst, Customer Interaction Technologies, Ovum.New CapabilitiesAspect Unified IP 6.6 service pack 2 now offers many new and enhanced capabilities.Increased ‘Ask an Expert’ CapabilitiesLeveraging Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Aspect Unified IP allows contact center agents to search for and identify the appropriate expert on a particular subject matter. Agents can interact with the expert via IM or over the phone to address the customer inquiry on the first contact.  This release enables agents to access the ‘Ask an Expert’ functionality at any time, enabling them to be more empowered and informed for subsequent customer contacts. Being able to contact experts outside of the contact center furthers the agents’ capabilities to continually improve first call resolution and maximize the customer experience.Responses to Customer’s FeedbackAspect continually incorporates feedback from customers to address specific requirements. Numerous customer-driven enhancements were incorporated into the release, including increased flexibility for quality management, reduced system footprint with virtualization, disaster recovery (DR) and high availability models across a wide area network (WAN) and campaign management improvements for proactive contact and outbound compliance. Collections capabilities were also added for support for outbound recording in multiple locations, and improved outbound pacing, false positive accounting and reporting for Ofcom regulatory compliance in the Unified Kingdom (UK).Streamlined Installation ProcessTo accelerate the deployment process, Aspect Unified IP 6.6 Enhanced delivers a number of automation and push install capabilities. A starter kit enables the installation of systems using default configuration data so organizations can accelerate their system provisioning for go live. Push install automates deployments in distributed environments, minimizing the effort on IT staff to deploy solutions across multiple systems and locations. A deployment wizard tracks the install throughout the entire process, making the process much simpler and significantly cutting deployment time.Enhanced Campaign Management with Advanced List ManagementThis release tightly integrates Aspect Unified IP and our enterprise campaign management solution, Advanced List Management, enabling customers to centrally drive outbound proactive contact, collections, sales and telemarketing strategies across multiple Aspect Unified IP systems over a wide area network. Improved network resiliency and a new auto-synch function, ensures business continuity for outbound campaigns across Aspect Unified IP systems.Recording EnhancementsThis release provides customers the flexibility to leverage the built in quality management capabilities of Aspect Unified IP while protecting their existing investment in 3rd party call loggers and quality management platforms. Improved recording archiving, security and encryption allows companies to record interactions while complying with regulations. “Aspect is very focused on delivering enhancements to customers that bring increasing value to agents, supervisors and ultimately their end-user customers. Much of this is done in conjunction with direct customer feedback to ensure that we’re not delivering technology for technology’s sake, but actually providing capabilities that will deliver significant benefits to organizations,” said Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of product management, Aspect. “Being able to deploy the solution quicker is very important, as well as delivering innovations that enable our customers to operate in a highly regulated and competitive environment. Our focus is on ensuring that our customers have the solution they need when they need it, and we believe we’ve accomplished that with Aspect Unified IP 6.6 Enhanced.”About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center. Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, Seamless Customer Service, Blended Interaction, Streamlined Collections and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-03-31T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Customer_Looks_to_Improve_Customer_Experience_with_Quality_Management Aspect Customer Looks to Improve Customer Experience with Quality Management in the Contact Center Company Intends to Use Additional Capabilities to Help Ensure Quality and Compliance 31 Mar 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 31 March 2010 — Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced NV Energy, an electric company, is deploying Aspect’s quality management capabilities in two contact centers in Northern and Southern Nevada. PerformanceEdge® Quality Management replaces the company’s existing quality management systems, enabling them to reduce regulation compliance overhead costs.Following deployment, NV Energy will complete a multisite deployment that allows them to maintain the individual requirements at each contact center site with a centralized administrative capability enabling them to maintain the recordings in one location. Prior to implementation of the Aspect quality management capabilities, the company was mainly providing inbound customer service, had limited call recording and they weren’t able to leverage outbound call recording. The company has recently begun implementing outbound dialing and with the new call recording capabilities from Aspect, they will be able to leverage full-time call recording, including outbound.“It will provide significant value for a company like NV Energy to move to a platform that allows them to improve productivity and to take advantage of a number of new capabilities within their organization to provide greater service to their customers,” said Mike Sheridan, executive vice president of Global Sales at Aspect. “We know that many of our customers have benefitted from Aspect’s quality management capabilities and that it can positively impact quality and compliance, and we know we can help NV Energy’s experience similar benefits.”Following implementation, the company will be focused on using the recordings to identify areas where they can enhance the overall customer experience, as well as identify opportunities for improved efficiency. They expect to see decreased costs from maintaining the previous systems, as well as see improvements in quality and compliance.PerformanceEdge Quality Management, available through the Productive Workforce unified communications application for the contact center, offers full-time call recording, speech analytics, quality monitoring and coaching capabilities to help contact centers improve their customer facing business processes meet regulatory requirements and mitigate risks. About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-03-23T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Marks_Two-Year_Anniversary_of_Alliance_with_Microsoft Aspect Marks Two-Year Anniversary of Global Strategic Alliance and Equity Investment with Microsoft Enterprise Deployments and IM Routing with UC Applications among Accomplishments; Company Looks Ahead to Year Three Milestones 23 Mar 2010 ORLANDO, 23 March 2010 – VoiceCon – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced that it has marked the two-year anniversary of its global strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. During the past year of the strategic alliance, Aspect has achieved many significant milestones, including completing its own global deployment of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2; growing its unified communications (UC) services practice with more than 40 new enterprise customers; releasing instant message (IM) routing capabilities with Aspect® Unified IP®; establishing a Microsoft SharePoint Server practice with the acquisition of Quilogy, a Microsoft national systems integrator; and training more than 250 individuals on deploying Microsoft UC technologies.Working closely with Microsoft, Aspect met a number of key milestones throughout the year, including:• Completed its own global deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 R2.  Aspect deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to 100 percent of its employee base for all voice and voicemail services, audio and web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and presence. Since the beginning of the company-wide rollout in the first quarter of 2009, Aspect has seen a number of significant benefits, including $1 million in savings on annual conferencing costs, $300,000 in savings on annual support of multiple PBXs that were eliminated, and $250,000 in annual savings on telecommunication charges as a result of deploying SIP trunking.• Deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for more than 40 customers and has built a strong pipeline for the remainder of 2010. One current deployment includes the State of Arkansas’ largest agency, the Department of Human Services (DHS), which offers hundreds of services to more than 700,000 people each year. The agency is leveraging Aspect UC Services to help ensure a quick, seamless rollout of Office Communications Server 2007 video conferencing and unified messaging to a select number of employees, and IM, presence, and audio conferencing to 7,500 of its workers. Three months after an initial deployment for more than 100 seats, the Arkansas DHS is already realizing a significant decrease in the cost of managing its communications infrastructure, and lower travel and conferencing expenses. • Introduced new instant messaging (IM) features and expanded presence functionality for its UC applications for the contact center. Working in alignment with the Microsoft UC roadmap, Aspect released these enhancements through the Aspect® Unified IP® 6.6.1 platform product to augment the capabilities available through Aspect’s UC applications’ core queuing, routing, and reporting functionality. New features include improved IM routing for enhanced customer interactions via Microsoft Office Communicator and through the Web with click-to-IM; and extended presence and IM communications within the contact center.• Acquired Microsoft National Systems Integrator, Quilogy, to expand the UC Services practice with collaboration expertise. The acquisition of Quilogy added collaboration capabilities to Aspect’s UC services portfolio to help organizations improve business processes with the combined capabilities of these technologies. Aspect now provides strategic and technical knowledge around collaboration tools for key Microsoft platforms, including Microsoft SharePoint Server.  Bringing together UC and collaboration software applications with systems integration (SI) capabilities helps customers achieve business objectives more effectively than through services or applications individually.• Completed significant training in Microsoft UC and collaboration capabilities. More than 250 Aspect employees completed training and certification on deploying Microsoft UC technologies, including a Microsoft Certified Master in Office Communications Server. Aspect invested significant resources in continuing to expand its knowledge and expertise around Microsoft UC technologies and deployment practices“Aspect has been an important partner for Microsoft. It is instrumental in helping organizations strategically apply Microsoft unified communications and collaboration capabilities to achieve business objectives,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Office Communications Group at Microsoft. “The third year of the alliance will be marked by a number of key joint efforts which will deliver even greater value including helping enterprises and contact centers take advantage of the significant release of Microsoft Communications Server “14” and Microsoft SharePoint 2010. These upcoming releases will allow companies to deploy unified communications very cost effectively, as well as enhance collaboration across the organization and in customer interactions.”As the alliance moves into its third year, Aspect will continue to perform as a lead systems integrator for Microsoft in unified communications, while expanding expertise and offerings around collaboration. Aspect will focus on:• Enhancing Aspect’s UC applications for the contact center with new UC and collaboration functionality.o Seamless Customer Service™ will feature a unified agent desktop with UC, collaboration, multiline and scripting; expert routing and expert search with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010; and integration with Microsoft Communications Server “14.”o Streamlined Collections™ and Optimized Collections™ will feature unified agent desktop with UC, collaboration, multiline and scripting; outbound dialing over session initiation protocol (SIP); and short message service (SMS) support for outbound notification.o Productive Workforce™ will feature “Click to Communicate” functionality between supervisors, agents and knowledge workers for faster resolution of scheduling issues; and the ability to publish schedules to Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server.o Blended Interaction™ will also feature “Click to Communicate” for enhanced schedule resolution issues; unified agent desktop with UC, collaboration, multiline and scripting; outbound dialing over SIP and SMS support for outbound notifications.• Expanding Aspect’s collaboration expertise and practice. Aspect will continue to grow the collaboration portion of its UC Services practice with additional training and through expansion led by the former Quilogy team. By coupling Aspect’s UC capabilities with the newly acquired SharePoint Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, business intelligence, interactive/portal development, and .NET development capabilities, Aspect will be offering an even more comprehensive set of Microsoft-based IT services and corresponding value proposition to enterprise customers.“Microsoft and Aspect have marked several impressive milestones in the second year of the alliance, and we look forward to this year’s milestones – which are significant - as we work to achieve our shared vision of enabling organizations to transform enterprise business processes and offering contact centers unified solutions without compromise,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “Amidst this past year’s economic climate, we continued to see strong interest in our UC applications and their ability to streamline companies’ interactions both internally and with customers and prospects. And, with the addition of collaboration expertise to our domain expertise, our UC Services practice has even more to offer companies that need to reduce costs and streamline business processes, both critical keys to success now more than ever.”About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, Seamless Customer Service, Blended Interaction, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections, PerformanceEdge, Unified IP, Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-03-18T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Celebrates_One_Year_Phone-Free_with_Microsoft_OCS Aspect Celebrates One Year Phone-Free with Microsoft Office Communications Server Unified Communications Helps Company Log 1.7 Million Calls, 2 Million IM Sessions and Eliminate 16 PBXs to Save $1.85 Million in First Year 18 Mar 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 18 March 2010 – Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced its one-year anniversary of operating completely phone-free following its global implementation of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2.Following a pilot of the unified communications (UC) technology in February of 2009, the company took its Massachusetts headquarters live on Office Communications Server the next month, and subsequently deployed it to every Aspect employee across the globe - approximately 1,800 individuals at more than 20 sites. In its first full year of utilizing UC, Aspect:• Completed more than 1.7 million calls, with nearly 12 million minutes of talk time• Participated in more than 2 million IM sessions• Held more than 138,000 conference calls, with 33 million minutes of participant time• Reduced conference calling expenditures by 97 percent, or by $100,000 per month • Lowered telephony circuit costs by more than $350,000 with session initiation protocol (SIP) Trunking• Eliminated 16 PBXs and the associated $300,000 of annual maintenance costs“The numbers are staggering. Microsoft unified communications has literally changed the way we work at Aspect - every call, every IM session, every time we share a screen - we are a different organization because of UC,” said Jim Foy, president and chief executive officer, Aspect. “And, the ROI is tremendous. With nearly two million dollars saved in just the first year, we intend to remain at the forefront of using and deploying UC and collaboration technologies, as well as helping our customers deploy and benefit from applying Microsoft capabilities to address their own business requirements.”As the company moves into 2010, Aspect is actively engaged in the Microsoft Technology Adopter Program and will be involved in beta testing of the next release of Office Communications Server, which is due to become generally available in the fourth quarter. In addition, Aspect’s own global customer support centers will be expanding their use of “Ask an Expert” capabilities utilizing the Seamless Customer Service™ unified communications application for the contact center powered by the Aspect® Unified IP® platform product and Office Communications Server.  This serves as a showcase for Aspect customers to see UC and collaboration at work and the associated value it provides.“Our UC accomplishments have been significant, including that every person in every Aspect site worldwide has fully embraced UC, to the point that it’s difficult to imagine working without it,” said Jamie Ryan, chief information officer, Aspect. “UC has helped Aspect become a more efficient and more collaborative company, and we are proud to serve as an example for companies considering how UC can positively impact their organizations and their bottom lines.”About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, Seamless Customer Service, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-03-10T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Positioned_in_Leaders_Quadrant_for_2010_Gartner_MQ Aspect Positioned in the Leaders Quadrant for 2010 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure Worldwide Evaluation Based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute 10 Mar 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 10 March 2010 — Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leaders quadrant of the 2010 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide report. Gartner has evaluated Aspect based on completeness of vision and ability to execute. Additionally, Aspect states that its forward-looking strategy and proven product value are enhanced through its equity relationship with unified communications leader, Microsoft.As stated by Gartner, they evaluate “contact center infrastructure providers on the quality and efficacy of the processes, systems, methods and procedures that enable contact center performance to be competitive, efficient and effective and to positively affect revenue, retention and reputation. Ultimately, they are judged on their ability to capitalize on their vision.”“Aspect believes the positioning underscores our visionary leadership in creating unified communications applications on a unified platform to help contact centers achieve their business objectives and further emphasizes the company’s confidence in our strategic direction,” said Jim Foy, president and chief executive officer, Aspect. “Our focus today is on the next generation contact center that positions our valued customers to take advantage of and participate in exciting new advances in communications and collaboration, and to help them address dynamic customer requirements in the age of consumer-generated content.”  The Gartner Magic Quadrant analyzes the vendors in an industry and categorizes them in the “leaders,” “challengers,” “visionaries,” or “niche players” quadrants.Source:1Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide” by D. Kraus, S. Blood, G. Johnson, February 22, 2010.      About the Magic QuadrantThe Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-03-02T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Selected_by_Banco_Walmart_to_Achieve_Increased_Collections Aspect Selected by Banco Walmart to Achieve Increased Collections Efficiency and Agent Productivity Corsidian Helps Banco Walmart Implement Streamlined Collections, Voice Portal and Intelligent Routing Capabilities in the Contact Center 2 Mar 2010 MEXICO CITY, 2 March 2010— Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, announced today that Banco Walmart has selected Streamlined Collections™, a unified communications (UC) application for the contact center, as well as voice portal and intelligent routing capabilities from Aspect to increase its collections efficiency. Utilizing Aspect software and services from Aspect channel partner, Corsidian, the company expects to improve promises to pay, reduce roll rates and bad debt provisions, and deliver a better customer experience. Banco Walmart provides checking and savings accounts, loans, credit cards, and more across its network of 863 Walmart outlets in 130 Mexican cities.When Banco Walmart decided to launch its retail banking operations, the company knew that growth could happen rapidly and expected to increase its customer base from 50,000 to 500,000 in 2010 alone. Project leaders determined the need for a complete contact center solution that included an outbound dialer, voice portal, and campaign management capabilities that could easily integrate with the company’s virtual customer relationship management (CRM) application.  They wanted to be able to address both collections and customer service business processes, while supporting the expected significant business growth and improving agent productivity.Following the implementation of Streamlined Collections at Banco Walmart, the company could:• Intelligently transfer callers to agents based on skill sets and customer data gathered by the voice portal application• Tightly integrate the bank’s collections processes with its collections CRM for desktop management and list building• Enhance the hardware security module with integrated security for personal identification number (PIN) and customer data protection• Offer quality and business-driven recording management for agent mentoring and feedback• Enhance its Citrix-protected back-office applicationsIn addition to the 150 percent collections productivity increase it has already realized, Banco Walmart has improved its voice self service utilization rate by 50 percent and has saved $100k in PIN replacement processing costs.“Aspect and our partners are committed to providing customers with innovative, cost-effective software and services that offer unparalleled choice and flexibility while delivering real business benefits,” said Alejandro Bourg, vice president of sales for the Caribbean and Latin America, Aspect. “When companies like Banco Walmart choose to implement Aspect UC applications for the contact center, it demonstrates that businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that they must find ways to deliver a better customer experience and create longer-lasting, more profitable customer relationships.”Streamlined Collections is a UC application for the contact center, powered by the Aspect® Unified IP® platform product, which automates early-stage collections and enables expert agent engagement for a more effective delinquent account targeting strategy so organizations can secure more promises to pay faster, reduce servicing costs and write-offs, and improve collections results.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.  Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC.#  #  #Note:  Aspect, Unified IP, Streamlined Collections and Aspect Software are registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-01-26T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Sponsors_Benchmark_Study_of_Voice_Self-Service Aspect Sponsors Benchmark Study of Voice Self-Service in Achieving 2010 Goals DMG Consulting LLC Uncovers Drivers Behind Voice Self-Service Usage and Plans for Technology Investments 26 Jan 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 26 January 2010 — Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced its sponsorship of the 2009 Hosted/Managed Service IVR Market Report, a report conducted by DMG Consulting LLC, an independent research, advisory and consulting firm. The report surveys more than one hundred global contact centers that included IT vice presidents, managers, directors, leaders and decision makers. This report enables companies to benchmark their 2010 enterprise, contact center and IT goals against their peers, compare their interactive voice response (IVR) solutions against the best of breed offerings and understand best practices.“This study has found that enterprises are waking up to the power and benefits of voice self-service applications,” said Donna Fluss, president, DMG Consulting LLC. “The top three goals for both the contact center and enterprise for 2010 are: improving the customer experience, expense control/improving productivity, and preserving existing revenue/increasing customer retention. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions are growing in importance due to their ability to cost-effectively help companies achieve these goals.”“Reports like this are very important for us to enable our customers to benchmark their business and support strategic decisions in their enterprise and contact centers,” said Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of product management, Aspect. “At Aspect, we want our customers to know that we continuously work to help them identify how to improve the performance of their solutions compared to those of their peers, and to provide them with best practices to deliver a superior customer experience while reducing expenses.”Based on the report, 76.6 percent of responding enterprises are using IVRs today and 37.8 percent of those companies that are not using an IVR plan to invest in one within the next 12 months, and another 23.2 percent in the next 24 months. The report also found that the profile of IVR users continues to change, as traditionally in the past, IVR was only a topic of interest for large contact centers. Through the findings of this report, however, the survey participants show that it has captured the attention of contact centers of all sizes.  “Enterprises continue to demand technology solutions that help them both improve customer service and reduce costs,” said Brooks Crichlow, director of marketing at Tellme Business Solutions at Microsoft Corp.  “This study reflects the accelerating trend toward hosted IVR solutions, where a well-designed speech application running on a highly reliable on-demand platform, makes it easier for callers to complete self-service tasks. That makes for a better caller experience and translates directly to higher task completion rates that drive significant savings for the enterprise.”In addition to sponsoring the report, Aspect will host a webinar on Thursday, 28 January 2010 to present findings on the DMG report and discuss Aspect voice self-service offerings, including Aspect On-demand Voice Portal powered by Tellme. To register for the webinar, please visit http://regs.aspect.12hna.com/2010/q1/voice-webcast-tellmeAbout DMG Consulting LLCDMG Consulting LLC is an independent research, advisory and consulting firm that provides strategic and tactical advice to contact center managers, vendors and the financial community about the contact center and analytics markets. Our mission is to help clients build world-class contact centers by leveraging technology, processes and people. We provide insight and guidance to assist management in optimizing the performance of their contact centers by increasing operational efficiency, providing an outstanding customer experience, enhancing loyalty and increasing sales and profits.DMG Consulting analyzes all aspects of the contact center market and publishes research on Quality Management/Liability Recording (WFO), Speech Analytics, Performance Management, Surveying/Feedback, Workforce Management, Contact Center Outsourcing, Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure and Interactive Voice Response Systems. DMG’s consulting experience spans more than 2,000 end-user organizations and vendors. Our hands-on operational, technology and financial expertise gives us deep insight into what customers need and want from enterprises and vendors. For more information, visit www.dmgconsult.com.About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft® unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2010-01-21T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Customer_American_Century_Investments_Wins_Award_from_Ventana Aspect Customer, American Century Investments, Wins Contact Center Leadership Award from Ventana Research Investment Management Firm Recognized for Leveraging Workforce Management Capability in Productive Workforce to Substantially Enhance Customer Care through Long-term Planning 21 Jan 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 21 January 2010 — Aspect, a global provider of unified communications(UC) and collaboration services and software, today announced its customer, American Century Investments, a leading privately-held investment management firm, has won the 2009 Contact Center Leadership Award from Ventana Research, a business and IT research and advisory services firm. American Century Investments won the award for its use of the workforce management capability of the Productive Workforce™ UC application for the contact center and an innovative staffing strategy that improved its call center operations. The Ventana Research Leadership Awards recognize exemplary individuals and organizations that have demonstrated business leadership.“We’re honored to be recognized for our commitment to improving customer care through our efforts to optimize our contact center processes,” said Nina Westvold, director of contact center operations, American Century Investments.   “Thanks to our careful planning and Aspect’s workforce management capabilities, our contact center has been better positioned to handle the variability of customer demands in the financial services industry, particularly throughout the past few years. Any organization that understands the importance of long-term contact center strategies should consider Aspect’s workforce management solution to gain greater control in forecasting, planning and scheduling for optimized performance.”    American Century Investments used the workforce management capabilities of Productive Workforce to develop a strategy for using current and historical contact center data to better predict longer term forecasting requirements.  This strategy involved a Capacity Planning Model, which was designed to analyze how the data for every metric could potentially impact the contact center— including call volume, staff levels, attrition and hiring projections—to understand how all the parameters would impact service levels in the long-term. To ensure the Capacity Planning Model was successful, the company needed a solution that could run the complex “What If” scenarios required for the strategy. Using the substantial real-time and historical reporting capabilities in the workforce management capabilities of Productive Workforce, the company could identify patterns that impacted service levels and organize the data for the Capacity Planning Model.Today, the Capacity Planning Model and the workforce management capabilities from Aspect are used across American Century Investment’s contact center and play an integral role in how scheduling, off-phone planning and hiring decisions are made. As a result, American Century Investments has seen a number of dramatic service improvements:Customer care has improved significantly and the average speed of answer (ASA) decreased from more than four minutes to approximately five seconds. The abandonment rate plummeted from more than 14 percent to one percent. Service levels improved from under 40 percent to 90 percent, surpassing the company's goal and board of directors’ mandate of 80 percent.And with a more efficient utilization of contact center resources, American Century Investments was able to reduce the need for new hiring, saving approximately 8-12 phone representatives at a cost of $400,000-$600,000 annually.“In many financial organizations, the customer service and contact center operations have become even more critical to business goals in the last year as the global economic crises have introduced more volatility than usual and customers require more personalized service,” said Brett Williams, director of product management, Aspect. “Successful companies, like American Century Investments, are recognizing that the workforce optimization capabilities within Productive Workforce are necessary to accurately plan and forecast, save costs, optimize resources, and gain a competitive advantage in the contact center.” About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge platform products. The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™. About American Century InvestmentsAmerican Century Investments is a leading privately-held investment management firm, committed to delivering superior investment performance and building long-term client relationships since 1958. Serving investment professionals, institutions, corporations and individual investors, American Century Investments offers a variety of actively managed investment disciplines through an array of products including mutual funds, institutional separate accounts, commingled trusts and sub-advisory accounts. The company's 1,300 employees serve clients from offices in New York; London; Hong Kong; Mountain View, Calif. and Kansas City, Mo. James E. Stowers Jr. founded the company and serves as co-chairman of the board. Jonathan S. Thomas is president and chief executive officer and Enrique Chang is chief investment officer. Through its ownership structure, more than 40 percent of American Century Investments' profits support research to help find cures for genetically-based diseases including cancer, diabetes and dementia. About AspectAspect is a global softwareand IT servicesfirm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC.  #  #  # Aspect, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2010-01-20T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Statement_on_Avaya_Roadmap Aspect Statement on the Avaya/Nortel Roadmap Announcement Authors: Gary Barnett, Andy Bezaitis, Serge Hyppolite, and Brett Williams 20 Jan 2010 This statement is intended to help organizations inform future decisions as they evaluate short-term and long-term implications of the recently announced Avaya/Nortel roadmap for their offerings and potential operational challenges.Avaya has stated that it will be selectively choosing its best of breed capabilities based on the Avaya and Nortel product portfolio.  While we applaud this approach, we also question the impact it will have on its customers. With two product portfolios that are largely based on proprietary technology and competing product strategies, this means that in many cases there will not be an optimal migration path for customers that are not on the platform of choice for future development. This will require significant investments and forklift upgrades for the combined Avaya/Nortel customer base.Based upon our company’s experience with large mergers and acquisitions, Aspect believes that Avaya has a monumental task in trying to maintain customer satisfaction while trying to build credibility in the unified communications (UC) market, integrating platforms, maintaining continuity in its contact center offerings, and making adjustments to its workforce under a newly-appointed management team; a challenge while having fewer people supporting a significantly expanded product portfolio.  Based upon our past experience and Avaya’s just-released roadmap, we have insight into some of the challenges they’ll face in the coming years:Nortel and Avaya had very different, competing directions for their contact center solutions and this will make it challenging for both sets of customers because they will have very different migration paths to contend with going forward.  Avaya has offered to support most of the legacy products for at least 6 years. Since Avaya inherited an incredibly large legacy base, the market has to wonder how customers can expect them to maintain all of the outdated hardware for a long period of time, while creating new platforms with greater capabilities to address the future business requirements of their customers.In two critical contact center categories, Avaya did not provide much information related to its outbound capabilities or workforce optimization. Given that Nortel’s contact center solution will eventually become their flagship platform, how will Avaya’s existing outbound products be handled. This could be an area that needs development, therefore current and future capabilities should be carefully considered by customers managing proactive customer care, collections or sales processes.  In addition, during the roadmap announcement, there was very little said about adding tightly integrated workforce optimization capabilities to the product portfolio. Avaya maintained they would continue to support both user interfaces while working on developing a single interface for both customers in the future.  This will require significant investment and focus from Avaya, plus based on our experience, raises existing and future investment questions for both companies’ customers.Even coupled with Nortel’s UC capabilities, Avaya’s Aura Communication Server, Modular Messaging UM product, and Interaction Center do not provide complete unified communications features and functionality, and are missing some specific detail on the collaboration capabilities that Avaya will be bringing to market around things like email, messaging and tools like SharePoint. We’ve seen some recent major collaboration announcements from Microsoft and Cisco, but limited information from Avaya at this point.Nortel had a partnership with Microsoft to deliver unified communications to the contact center and the enterprise, but the strength of the relationship was somewhat questionable, as it was not on the surface showing progress and that Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA) agreement has ended. Further, our view is that Avaya hasn’t committed to the Microsoft stack.Former Nortel customers may have to alter their approach to unified communications, as Avaya and Nortel clearly had divergent strategies, and clarity and detail on the combined unified communications and collaboration strategy is still required. Plus, as Avaya focuses on extending Aura to enable connectivity to the Nortel platforms, it will reduce its focus on non-Avaya platforms like those from Cisco or Microsoft causing go-to-market challenges in mixed environments.     Both Nortel and Avaya had a very significant channel partner network that has a lot of overlap, as well as differing operating strategies and perspectives.    The channel partners are going to need to evaluate the solutions they’re supporting and may have less motivation to support the new solutions.  In addition, there is external concern about the ability of Avaya to get its channel partner network into shape, and ready to support the new roadmap.  Plus, Avaya’s announced plans to move from a 60% indirect model to an 85% indirect model within two years is aggressive and will require strong support from the channel partners.Avaya also inherited a very large field services and support staff from Nortel.  Many customers have lost or will lose their customer-facing contact. Finally, this could potentially mean losing access to experts who knew their business processes, implementations, and solutions.  This impacts future collaboration – Avaya will be lacking the close customer touch-points needed for them to receive feedback to optimize their solutions.Gary Barnett is the chief technology officer at Aspect and the executive vice president of research and development and Aspect® Technical Services.   Andy Bezaitis is the senior vice president of product management. Serge Hyppolite and Brett Williams are directors of product management of Aspect. Aspect is a global softwareand IT servicesfirm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com. Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. Other opinions on the Avaya/Nortel roadmap can be found:NoJitter.comChannel Web text/html 2010-01-12T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Announces_Acquisition_of_Quilogy Aspect Announces Acquisition of Quilogy, Inc. Acquisition Creates First and Only Global Company Dedicated to Helping Organizations Derive the Full Combined Benefits of Microsoft Unified Communications and Collaboration Technologies 12 Jan 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 12 January 2010 — Aspect, the global leader in applying unified communications (UC) and collaboration, today announced it has acquired Quilogy Inc., a nationally recognized IT services firm, headquartered in Saint Charles, Mo.  Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.The acquisition adds collaboration capabilities to Aspect’s unified communications services portfolio to help organizations improve business processes with the combined capabilities of these technologies. Bringing together unified communications and collaboration software applications with systems integration (SI) capabilities allows customers to achieve business objectives more effectively than through services or applications individually.Aspect and Quilogy share mutual expertise in Microsoft technologies.  In a strategic equity partnership with Microsoft Corp., Aspect has expertise in unified communications, while Quilogy, a leading Microsoft National Systems Integrator, provides strategic and technical knowledge in collaboration tools for key Microsoft platforms, including its fastest-growing product, Microsoft SharePoint. Quilogy also offers a broad range of Microsoft capabilities and additional vertical industry experience to Aspect in the areas of healthcare and public sector.  Both Aspect and Quilogy are Microsoft Gold Certified Partners.“Quilogy’s expertise in Microsoft SharePoint and the broader collaboration space, coupled with Aspect’s global unified communications leadership and strategic equity alliance with Microsoft, are a formidable combination in the enterprise technology market,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “Plus, the opportunities for innovation with our unified communications applications for the contact center will mean new product capabilities, customized solution development, and tighter ties to enterprise resources for our contact center customers. This supports a logical evolution of Aspect’s vision of transforming enterprise business processes by leveraging Microsoft software platforms.”The combined company will offer unified communications and collaboration services, including IT and SI services, such as strategic planning, design and architecture, user experience and interface design, implementation and hosting, user adoption and training, custom development, and business process consulting for Microsoft and Aspect software and platforms. Key supported products include Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft .NET,  and business intelligent based on the Microsoft SQL Server analytics platform, as well as Aspect’s unified communications applications for the contact center and the Aspect® Unified IP® and PerformanceEdge® platform products.“Unified communications and collaboration are game-changing technologies for the enterprise and the contact center,” said Irwin Lazar, Vice President for Communication and Collaboration Research at Nemertes Research. “More organizations are recognizing that the value of UC and collaboration comes from applying it to business processes through existing and custom applications. However, while 69 percent of companies say unified communications return on investment is important or vital, only 18 percent have been able to quantify any benefit.  Aspect’s acquisition of Quilogy will help customers identify and implement the business benefits of UC.”As part of the acquisition, Quilogy’s experienced team of application development and IT services experts will join Aspect Professional Services and its growing IT services practice. This team is led by Manish Chandak, former president of Quilogy, who will join Aspect as a vice president of professional services. Chandak brings nearly15 years of experience in professional services and Microsoft collaboration technologies to Aspect.“Quilogy has a long-standing relationship with Microsoft and is among its leading national systems integrator partners.  With this acquisition, we now have the scale to deploy resources across the globe to meet our customer’s needs,” said Manish Chandak, former president, Quilogy.  “We are known, not only for our expertise in the collaboration space and market leadership with Microsoft SharePoint implementations, but for a strong delivery culture and cohesive, end-to-end processes.  Unified communications and collaboration has the potential to revolutionize business processes and workflows across the enterprise and the contact center, and Aspect is leading the way by expanding its ability to help customers apply these new technologies across key functional areas such as customer interaction and acquisition, payment processing, data analytics and integration, and more.”About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC. For additional information on the acquisition, please refer to the FAQ document.#  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2010-01-05T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Wins_Two_Prestigious_Frost_Awards_in_India Aspect Wins Two Prestigious Frost & Sullivan Awards in India Price Performance Value Leadership Award for Unified Contact Centre and the Market Leadership Award for Outbound Category 5 Jan 2010 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 5 January 2010 — Aspect, a leading unified communications(UC) solutions provider, has been awarded two prestigious awards by global growth consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. Aspect has received the award for Price Performance Value for Unified Contact Centre Solutions, and has also emerged as the leader in Outbound Systems in India for the sixth consecutive year. The former is presented to companies that have offered customers with the solution and services that provide the highest ratio of value to cost, while the latter is conferred upon organisations demonstrating excellence in capturing highest market share within their industries.Extending his congratulations, Mr. Mohammad Saif, Deputy Director, Consulting - ICT Practice, South Asia, Frost & Sullivan, said, “Despite the declining offshore activities in the industry, Aspect has been able to maintain its business in the domestic segment, because of the blend in product features and price. Increasing focus on customer care and high reliability have been the key concerns for enterprises, which have been well-addressed by Aspect. The market is driven by basic applications as of now, but a vendor like Aspect that provides a mix of applications will find significant traction in the market.”According to Frost & Sullivan, Aspect’s service capabilities have attracted many customers towards its unified solutions.“These awards are a strong testament to Aspect’s commitment to deliver leading, comprehensive unified contact centre capabilities that customers need to excel in an increasingly dynamic IT environment,” said Mr. Rajeev Soni, General Manager India, Mid-East, Aspect, India. “We are proud to have received this recognition from Frost & Sullivan, and we are especially delighted to be recognized as the leader in outbound systems for the sixth consecutive year. We expect 2010 to be an equally successful year for us and our customers as more companies around the world recognize the value in our unified communications applications for the contact centre around the world.”About Frost & Sullivan Award for Price Performance Value Leadership of the Year Award for Unified Contact Centre SolutionsThe Frost & Sullivan Price Performance Value Leadership of the Year Award is given to the company that has provided customers with the solution and/or service that provides the highest ratio of value to cost.  The recipient has provided customers with solutions that provide quality, while staying extremely competitively priced. This award is presented to organisations that have demonstrated the most insight into the needs and demands of the customers.  For the award, Frost & Sullivan also takes into consideration price, ease of use, features, service support and product customization to determine the award recipient.According to Frost & Sullivan, Aspect has deployed solutions which provide high reliability. Its expertise in unified communications applications for the contact centre has enabled Aspect to emerge as one of the most consistent and unswerving market participants in the contact centre segment and unified communications industry.About Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award for Outbound Systems in IndiaThe Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership of the Year is given to the company that has excelled in all areas of market share leadership and has demonstrated strong strategy development. The Market Leadership Award for Outbound Systems acknowledges a company’s robust outbound product portfolio, a committed customer focus, and a leadership position in the outbound market in India. To determine the award recipient Frost & Sullivan takes into consideration the market share based on the organisation’s outbound segment revenuesAccording to Frost & Sullivan, Aspect has been recognized for its industry-leading outbound dialing solutions that are designed to help companies provide proactive customer service, improve their collections, and enhance their sales. Aspect has made significant inroads into the telecom and outsourcing industries capturing nearly 55 percent of the outbound market in India. It even dominates the SMB segment with its Aspect® Unified IP® solution and UC applications for the contact centre.About Frost and Sullivan:Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.comAbout Aspect:Aspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  # Aspect, Unified IP and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-12-16T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Support_Leverages_UC_to_Improve_Customer_Satisfaction Aspect Support Leverages Unified Communications to Improve Customer Satisfaction and Lower Hold Time by 76 Percent Seamless Customer Service™ and Ask an Expert Capability Helps Aspect® Technical Services See Measurable Improvements in Contact Center Interactions and Productivity 16 Dec 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass. 16 December 2009— Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced it has seen measurable results in its support call center through the use of unified communications capabilities and the Seamless Customer Service UC application for the contact center. Aspect® Technical Services is using Seamless Customer Service to utilize comprehensive inbound routing, coordinated voice self-service to live service and Ask an Expert functionality to provide integrated assistance to continue to increase first call resolution and enhance the overall customer experience.“Unified communications is bringing concrete benefits to the call center, to the business and the customer, based on our own personal experience in Aspect’s customer support center,” said Gary Barnett, chief technology officer and executive vice president, research and development and Aspect® Technical Services, Aspect. “After deploying Seamless Customer Service, our support engineers quickly saw clear, measurable results demonstrating how UC could streamline communications and improve customer service. Companies that deploy this technology can expect to leverage presence, IM routing and reporting capabilities to reap the benefits of unified communications and improve customer- company interactions.”As a result of the robust functionality within Seamless Customer Service, call hold times for Aspect Technical Services have been reduced by 76 percent to just 44 seconds per call. Additionally, since the initial introduction of the Ask an Expert capability, the overall first day resolution rate has increased by 7 percent and the time to reach a support technician with the correct skill set has improved by 8 percent. Teams using Ask an Expert to reach out to Aspect’s experts across the organization have shown overall increases in overall customer satisfaction scores by 6 percent, measuring 4.79 on a scale of 5.Seamless Customer Service is helping Aspect Technical Services utilize a number of advanced features in the contact center, including:Presence and IM routing- Ask an Expert, which uses the presence detection, instant messaging (IM) and conference calling capabilities of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2, enables support engineers to use presence identification and skill criteria to find available experts in other departments to rapidly address customer questions. Support staff can call or IM anyone in the enterprise, and even route an IM from a customer directly to that expert. The Ask an Expert feature logs and records this entire process, making it available for resource allocation analysis, quality monitoring, and regulatory compliance.Conferencing Functionality- The entire Aspect Technical Services staff now has conferencing functionality at their fingertips and can also escalate from IM to live calls when needed. Seamless Customer Service together with Office Communications Server simplifies remote support with desktop sharing, which increases collaboration to resolve issues more quickly.Unified Messaging- The unified messaging capability has been valuable to the team leaders and their managers, as all voice mails are received through Microsoft Outlook email and can be easily forwarded and/or retrieved through mobile devices.Real-time and historical reporting- Senior Aspect Technical Services staff has found the consolidated reporting in Seamless Customer Service invaluable, allowing for rapid evaluation of team performance, call volume demands, and other factors critical to delivering an efficient and high-quality support service.About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect® Unified IP® and PerformanceEdge® platform products.  The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  # Aspect, Seamless Customer Service, Blended Interaction, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-12-03T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_UC_Deployment_Wins_2009_InfoWorld_100_Honors Aspect Unified Communications Deployment Wins 2009 InfoWorld 100 Honors for Industry's Top IT Projects Company Garners Second Prestigious Accolade for Leveraging Microsoft Office Communications Server Resulting in Significant Benefits and Reduced Costs 3 Dec 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 3 December 2009— Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the company was honored in the 2009 InfoWorld 100 Awards from IDG’s InfoWorld magazine for its global unified communications deployment. Each year, the InfoWorld 100 Awards recognize the 100 most innovative uses of IT initiatives to further business goals.“Our recognition in the InfoWorld 100 further validates that the industry understands how unified communications can meaningfully help companies reach their business objectives for improved processes and reduced costs,” said Jamie Ryan, chief information officer and senior vice president of IT, Aspect. “With careful planning and strategy, our IT team has been able to execute on a UC strategy and deliver a number of benefits to the organization. Once again, Aspect has demonstrated its expertise in unified communications and we’re honored to have our IT efforts recognized with such a prestigious industry award.”Aspect won the InfoWorld accolade for its implementation of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 throughout offices in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific (APAC) regions. More than 1,700 employees have completely migrated to Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for all voice and voicemail services, audio and Web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and presence.The company completed the company-wide implementation of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in September and has already seen an aggressive return on investment (ROI), including $1 million in savings on annual conferencing costs and savings of more than $250,000 annually in telecommunication charges as a result of session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking.“This year's recipients of InfoWorld's highest honor are shining examples of IT projects undertaken by tech leaders committed to pushing their organizations forward,” said Jason Snyder, features editor, InfoWorld. The selection of companies listed in the InfoWorld 100 rankings are based on the excellence and quality of the IT environment.Aspect continues to garner industry recognition for its unified communications deployment. In October, the company was honored on the 2009 InformationWeek 500 list, which analyzes and ranks the most innovative corporate users of information technology. Aspect was ranked number 74 on the list.To learn more about Aspect's global unified communications deployment, read the IDC case study on www.ucworld.com in the resources section.About InfoWorld Media GroupInfoWorld Media Group helps IT Decision Makers choose the right technology, within the context of a cohesive strategy for business impact at their organizations. InfoWorld identifies and promotes emerging technology segments that add unique value for the organizations that implement them, as well as the vendors that provide those solutions. Using an integrated communications approach including online, events, research, and a continued investment in an independent Test Center, InfoWorld analysts and editors provide hands-on analysis and evaluation, as well as expert commentary on issues surrounding emerging technologies and products. Visit InfoWorld at http://www.infoworld.com.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com.Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC.   #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-11-12T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Delivers_New_QM_Capabilities_in_Productive_Workforce Aspect Delivers New IT–Ready Quality Management Capabilities in Productive Workforce UC Application General Availability of PerformanceEdge® Quality Management 3.0 Provides Cradle-to-Grave Interaction Tracking, Enhanced Alerting, Redundancy, System Management, Security, and Outsourcing Features 12 Nov 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 12 November 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the general availability of new quality management features in its Productive Workforce™ unified communications application for the contact center. PerformanceEdge® Quality Management 3.0 offers a number of features for improved business processes across multiple agents, sites and platforms.   New capabilities provide cradle-to-grave interaction tracking, enhanced security and compliance, improved alerting, redundancy, system management, and increased features for outsourcers, allowing for full-time call logging and quality recording in mid- to large-sized call centers. The new features add significant value to Productive Workforce, enabling companies to leverage robust, scalable quality management functionality with leading workforce management and performance management capabilities.“Quality management is a mission-critical function that provides insights into agent, departmental and enterprise performance,” said Donna Fluss, president, DMG Consulting. “Supporting the quality management function with feature-rich applications helps contact center managers deliver on their two top goals: providing an outstanding customer experience and increasing agent productivity. With the new quality management capabilities within Productive Workforce, Aspect has taken significant steps towards delivering a more functionally-rich and PCI-compliant quality management solution.”“The newest quality management features of Productive Workforce are helping us improve the quality and consistency of our customer interactions,” said Demetric Anamateros, vice president of sales and customer service, RCN. “Having the ability to monitor agent audio and screens in real-time as well as record the interaction on-demand helps us gain greater insight and control over the level of service we’re providing, which is critical to our customer care strategies.  New system management features such as enhanced encryption and advanced archiving will allow us to ensure recording security while providing ease of administration.  Aspect has continued to deliver the capabilities we’ve needed to pinpoint areas for improvement in our contact center operations and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.”   The new capabilities of PerformanceEdge Quality Management 3.0 include:·         Security and PCI compliance capabilities- Companies that require increased security and payment card industry (PCI) compliance, such as financial services organizations, can leverage PerformanceEdge Quality Management features like enhanced encryption for secure transmission of recordings over the network and in storage.  This includes functionality such as auto-generation of encryption keys and customer-provided key input in addition to audit trail reporting and automatic pause/resume functionality to prevent recording sensitive data (e.g. payment information).·         Scalable architecture for enterprise contact centers- Mid- to large-sized call centers can record and monitor multichannel interactions across several locations for thousands of agents and also leverage an enterprise multisite option for centralized searching and administration.·         True “cradle-to-grave” recording of customer interactions- Speech self service interactions can now be recorded in addition to agent-customer conversations and “tied” together for ease of playback providing additional insight into total contact quality and agent performance.·         Improved agent management capabilities- Supervisors can leverage live monitoring of agent audio and screens for quality and training purposes as well as for real-time assistance during a customer interaction. Supervisors also have the ability to go from live monitoring to ad-hoc recording with a click of the mouse. The solution also offers expanded coaching capabilities and advanced scorecard features for improved performance management and training opportunities. ·         Outsourcer recording features- Outsourcer clients can access recordings of interactions by team, port or skill via secure partitioning features. Audio and screens for all outsourced agents, including outside the firewall, can be recorded and monitored. ·         Enhanced redundancy and alerting- Additional redundancy capabilities now ensure business continuity, as well as advanced error trapping capabilities for enabling proactive system monitoring and alerting.·         New integrations to third party platforms and back-office recording- Companies can leverage recording of calls, screens, emails and chats outside the call center on a number of third-party platforms.  “Our customers continue to discuss the importance of quality management capabilities that can easily be implemented in today’s enterprise architectures to improve customer interactions and ensure high levels of security.  These requirements address the needs of our biggest customers including both outsourcers and large-scale contact centers,” said Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of product management, Aspect. “The quality management capabilities of Productive Workforce will help our customers gain even broader insight into interactions in the call center and a deeper understanding of enterprise communication processes. The knowledge gleaned from these recordings will be critical for organizations to improve multichannel communications in the enterprise and leverage UC to gain a competitive advantage.”About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect® Unified IP® and PerformanceEdge® platform products. The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, and Optimized Collections. and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-11-04T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Names_New_Executive_Leadership Aspect Names New Executive Leadership to Drive Company's Unified Communications Strategy As Aspect continues to gain momentum in the contact center and enterprise markets, two new leaders will contribute to further growth 4 Nov 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 4 November 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced it has appointed new executive leadership to oversee the company’s unified communications strategy and marketing initiatives. Andy Bezaitis is now the senior vice president of product management and Laurie Cairns has joined the company as the senior vice president of marketing.“This is an energizing time at Aspect because of the depth and breadth of our unified communications software and services offerings and the value they can bring to organizations, and I am confident that these new appointments will further our momentum in the marketplace,” said Jim Foy, president and chief executive officer, Aspect. “In her role, Laurie will focus on supporting our revenue objectives with innovative strategies and impeccable program execution. Andy is spearheading product planning to ensure optimal alignment with the business goals of our customers’ needs and with the emerging role of unified communications in the contact center and across the enterprise.”Bezaitis brings more than 20 years of leadership experience to his new role. In this position, Bezaitis will oversee a product management team responsible for driving UC product enhancements through research, analysis, customer engagement, competitive intelligence and field communication. He continues acting as the company’s primary liaison to Microsoft. Before joining Aspect, he was the senior vice president of business development at Cantata Technology.Cairns brings more than 25 years of marketing and brand expertise to Aspect. Her new responsibilities as senior vice president include driving marketing initiatives and brand strategy to further Aspect’s leadership in providing unified communications solutions for enterprises and their contact centers. Laurie’s career includes the formation and executive management of LEC, an integrated branding agency founded in 1986. She holds a business process patent in internet promotions, and is the marketing committee chair of Lumity, a nonprofit organization that leverages information technology. She brings extensive experience in both software and communications, and has worked closely with Aspect on strategy, messaging and demand creation for nearly ten years.  About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center. Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2009-11-03T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Wins_Nemertes_PilotHouse_Award_as_Leading_IP_Contact_Center_Vendor Aspect Wins Nemertes PilotHouse Award as the Leading IP Contact Center Vendor in Customer Survey End-Users Praise Aspect's Reliability, Comprehensive Services, Superior Customer Service and Unified Communications Focus 3 Nov 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 3 November 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced it has won the 2009 PilotHouse IP Contact Center Award based on a customer survey report from Nemertes Research, a research-advisory firm. More than 1,300 individuals participated in the survey and rated Aspect an impressive 4.48 overall score on a five-point scale, significantly ahead of any competitors in the IP contact center market by more than a full half-point. Additionally, Aspect scored the highest overall rating of any technology vendor across all 2009 Nemertes PilotHouse reports.“Our benchmark participants have spoken loud and clear— their high marks for Aspect’s products and services, as well as the overall value that Aspect provides, validate the company’s unified communications strategy and direction,” said Katherine Trost, research analyst, Nemertes Research. “More than half of the IT practitioners we work with plan to bring unified communications capabilities into their call center operations to streamline communications and improve business processes. Our results show Aspect has clearly differentiated itself as a leader in the IP contact center space, where they shine the light on unified communications in the contact center.” Customer comments in the report cited Aspect’s unified communications vision as one area of praise, including the company’s product integrations with Microsoft® Office Communications Server and Aspect’s comprehensive UC services practice.  Companies also praised Aspect’s customer service as the highest in the call center industry based on a variety of proactive technical and educational services. The report also highlighted Aspect’s reliability and virtualization capabilities as a key area of positive customer comments.“The PilotHouse Award and the results from the Nemertes survey speak to the commitment and success of every part of the company, from the research and development group, to the IT department, to the services team, to our support staff,” said Jim Foy, president and chief executive officer, Aspect. “At Aspect, we pride ourselves on listening to our customers to deliver the capabilities and services they require to meet their business goals. From virtualization capabilities, to unified communications tools, to system integration services, our customers’ feedback is evaluated and thoughtfully incorporated into our product roadmap and corporate strategy. We will continue to innovate solutions with the capabilities the market demands to deliver the value and quick return on investment that our customers have come to expect from Aspect.”  About Nemertes ResearchNemertes Research is a research-advisory firm that specializes in analyzing and quantifying the business value of emerging technologies. You can learn more about Nemertes Research at our Website www.nemertes.com.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-10-06T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Honored_on_InformationWeek_500 Aspect Honored on InformationWeek 500 for Its Global Unified Communications Rollout Company Recognized as One of the Top 100 Most Innovative Users of Business Technology 6 Oct 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 6 October 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced it has been ranked in the top 100 of the 2009 InformationWeek 500 list, which analyzes and ranks the most innovative corporate users of information technology. Aspect was ranked number 74 on the list as a result of its global unified communications implementation and successful deployment of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 throughout 20 office locations and more than 1,800 employees.The global UC implementation at Aspect, which was completed at the end of September, has already demonstrated tremendous savings and benefits throughout the organization, including a cost reduction of more than $1 million on conferencing alone in the first year of deployment.   “We are honored to be recognized within the top 100 on the InformationWeek 500 with so many innovative and forward-thinking companies,” said Jim Foy, president and CEO, Aspect. “This is a great proof point for organizations to see the benefits and savings that they, too, could experience as a result of a well-planned unified communications deployment. It also highlights that Aspect is a leader in this space and fully understands the challenges of converging infrastructures and what it takes from a planning and deployment perspective to bring value.”The InformationWeek 500 is the most prestigious business technology ranking, showcasing the country’s most innovative users of business technology in the nation. The InformationWeek 500 managed by InformationWeek magazine tracks the technology, strategies, investments and administrative practices of the best-known companies in the country.For more information about the Aspect global deployment, login to www.ucworld.com or follow Aspect on twitter at www.twitter.com/AspectUC.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-09-30T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Announces_New_Release_of_PE_eLearning_with_Integration_to_Aspect_Unified_IP Aspect Announces New Release of PerformanceEdge eLearning Capability with Integration to Aspect Unified IP Platform Product Allows Users of Unified Communications Applications for the Contact Center to Leverage eLearning Capabilities 30 Sept 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 30 September 2009– Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the general availability of PerformanceEdge® eLearning 8.2.5 with integration to the Aspect® Unified IP® platform product. This latest release provides an interface to Aspect Unified IP enabling users to monitor service levels in real time and dynamically push eLearning sessions to agents based on queue service level goals.PerformanceEdge eLearning 8.2.5 allows the system to automatically cancel an eLearning session if service levels are below pre-defined thresholds. This latest release is ideal for any inbound or blended Aspect Unified IP customer looking to reduce attrition and improve productivity.“This integration of PerformanceEdge eLearning and Aspect Unified IP allows organizations to schedule eLearning sessions for agents to provide training and coaching opportunities without sacrificing overall quality of service,” said Allyson Boudousquie, director of business process marketing, Aspect. “By bringing together software capabilities that allow organizations to easily schedule learning sessions, we’re enabling our customers to improve their agent skill sets and provide even better service to their end-users. This is critically important when organizations don’t have the bandwidth or resources to hire individuals with the right skill sets, but need to focus on enhancing what they already have available.”PerformanceEdge eLearning integrates with Aspect Unified IP’s Unified Interaction Management as well as other workforce management systems to deliver learning sessions without impacting inbound service levels. It monitors the levels of required service level metrics, and can prevent or interrupt learning sessions in real-time, as well as update the PerformanceEdge Workforce Management application, Aspect® eWorkforce Management™, indicating whether training was delivered. In addition, PerformanceEdge eLearning offers customized pre-packaged courses to meet specific training needs, aid deployment and speed return on investment (ROI). Specialized content learning bundles include Agent Productivity Improvements, Sales Optimization, and an Improved Collections Skills course.In addition to Aspect Unified IP, PerformanceEdge eLearning offers product integrations to Aspect eWorkforce Management, Aspect® CallCenter® ACD and Aspect® Spectrum® ACD.PerformanceEdge eLearning can be used as an add-on for all of Aspect’s unified communications applications for the contact center, which use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge platform products.About Aspect Unified IPAspect Unified IP is an IT-ready Microsoft .Net Web services platform product that unites customer contact capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge is an IT-ready Microsoft .Net Web services platform product that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge platform products. The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, eLearning, eWorkforce Management, CallCenter ACD, Spectrum ACD, Productive Workforce, Optimized Collections, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Streamlined Collections, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-09-29T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_UC_Applications_for_Contact_Center_Leverage_VMware Aspect Unified Communications Applications for the Contact Center Leverage VMware Aspect Enables Virtualization Across Contact Centers and Sites 29 Sept 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 29 September 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced that its UC applications for the contact center offer virtualization capabilities through VMware. This allows multiple UC applications to run in parallel as virtual machines, enabling more applications to run on a smaller footprint. As a result, users can lower server utilization, reduce capital and maintenance expenses, and take advantage of smaller physical footprints.“We know that improving efficiency and reducing IT complexity is a very high priority for our customers. Aspect has a number of customers using VMware today with great results.  Any organization that requires scalability, multi-tenancy and UC capabilities for the call center will benefit from our UC applications leveraging VMware,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction product management at Aspect. “In particular, companies like outsourcers and enterprise-size contact centers can run a UC application like Blended Interaction™ while simultaneously using the full capabilities of Productive Workforce™ to manage hundreds of agents and improve productivity all while reducing their server footprint and maintenance costs.”UC applications with VMware offer a number of benefits, including:Improved Scalability – Aspect customers can run multiple UC applications on the same physical server. As a result, the UC applications offer increased capacity by moving virtual machines to larger resourced physical machines.Fewer Servers – Aspect customers can minimize their physical server footprint by configuring UC applications in VMware environments. UC applications do not take up as much physical space in a VMware environment as they do in a non-VMware environment.Enhanced Multi-tenant Management – VMware helps with tenant managementfor the UC applications in a hosted environment. There is no disruption of active users when other tenants are added or removed from the system. VMware also enables control of system resources each tenant should receive and allows for flexibility of deployment as numbers of active tenants changes.Increased Business Continuity – A call center can utilize VMware High Availability features, which can restart a single instance of the software on a second VMware server if one server fails.Reduced Costs – Aspect call center customers can minimize capital outlays and maintenance costs due to operating and maintaining fewer servers.About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities.  The UC applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-09-24T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Hosts_UC_World_Live_Day Aspect Hosts UC World Live Day to Bring Unified Communications Professionals Together UCWorld.com Event on 1 October 2009 Includes Live Webinars, Community Activities, Demos and IM Sessions with CIO, IT Directors, and UC Experts to Educate Industry on UC 24 Sept 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 24 September 2009– Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced it is hosting UC World Live on 1 October 2009, a virtual conference featuring a day of live events and activities to bring unified communications professionals together in UC World to demystify unified communications by providing “how-to” information and return on investment (ROI) data – including a webinar based upon findings from a brand new IDC case study.  UC World(www.ucworld.com) is an interactive online community providing a unique glimpse into some of the leading enterprise deployments of Microsoft unified communications, with actual users sharing real return on investment (ROI) data, lessons learned and use cases.UC World Live Dayoffers a number of activities for participants to gain practical knowledge on planning and rolling out unified communications deployments across the enterprise and in the contact center from experts with real-world experience. All attendees will be eligible to win an Amazon Kindle 2 wireless reading device. The UC World Live schedule includes:9:00 a.m. ET– 5 p.m. ET – Live chat roomsUC World Live attendees will be able to chat live with unified communications experts. Chat topics will range from “Building the UC Business Case” to “Designing for a Microsoft® Office Communications ServerImplementation.”11:00 a.m. ET - Live group IM Session on global UC deploymentsBill Lynch, Aspect’s IT team lead on its global UC implementation, will provide an overview on best practices for deploying unified communications solutions from an internal IT perspective. Lynch will take questions on this topic, including how to prep an organization’s infrastructure and its people.11:00 a.m. ET - Office Communicator DemoAndrew Browne, director of sales technical services at Aspect, will demonstrate Microsoft Office Communicator capabilities and how it can change the way organizations interact with click-to-call, click-to-IM, one-click audio and video conferencing, and Web collaboration/screen sharing.12 noon ET - Live group IM Session on optimizing a workforce through UCBrett Williams, Aspect’s workforce optimization expert, will provide a brief overview on the risks and rewards of using UC to bring knowledge workers into direct contact with customers. Williams will take live questions on this topic, including how these interactions can be scheduled, managed and made compliant.12 noon ET -  Ask the Expert DemoIn this product demonstration, Andrew Browne will show participants first-hand how companies can tap into the knowledge that resides across your enterprise with capabilities like presence and IM to improve the customer experience.1:00 p.m. ET - IM Routing DemoAndrew Browne will demonstrate the next evolution of the customer contact experience where IM is a main channel into the contact center and IMs can be routed, like voice calls or emails, to the most appropriate resource at the right time.2:00 p.m. ET – IDC, Aspect and Microsoft on Deploying UC Across the Enterprise  In this webcast, industry analyst firm, IDC, Microsoft and Aspect discuss how Aspect is poised to save $1 million a year while improving collaboration and streamlining its business processes, why savings can only be realized with more than VoIP alone, and why now is the time to plan a UC deployment. View the webcast to learn how companies can realize immediate benefits with UC by bringing together email, calendaring, voice mail, instant messaging (IM) and presence, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), audio, video and Web conferencing. Jamie Ryan, chief information officer, Aspect, will present his insights on planning Aspect’s global unified communications rollout with Abner Germanow, director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure Services at IDC, who will share his analysis on evolving enterprise network infrastructure markets.3:00 p.m. ET - Connecting the Contact Center and the EnterpriseCustomers want their inquiries addressed in a quick, informed manner by people who have the authority to get them what they need and want. Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction product management at Aspect, will discuss the current state of customer interaction challenges and contact center operations. This webcast will highlight the role of unified communications in the contact center and the necessary capabilities to improve first call resolution and the overall customer experience. Gary Barnett, chief technology officer at Aspect, will also discuss how the company leverages Ask an Expert functionality within its own call centers to increase customer satisfaction. 4:00 pm ET - Closing Panel SessionMike Sheridan, executive vice president of sales at Aspect, will moderate a discussion on participant thoughts from UC World Live Day. Presenters and chat leaders will discuss what key points came up around UC.4:00 p.m. ET- Closing remarks and prize drawingCommunity members and participants in the live events will hear additional reflections on unified communications to conclude UC World Live. A prize winner also will be drawn from all UC World Live Day participants for an Amazon Kindle 2.Quote“By hosting UC World Live Day, Aspect is enabling organizations to gain valuable insight on unified communications deployments and post technical questions to IT experts that have completed an implementation, as well as the ability to network with peers,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “Members of the interactive community will see how UC can positively impact business processes across a global organization throughout every department, straight from the end users. We’re looking forward to hosting UC World Live Day and educating more businesses on the impact of UC.”  VideoVisitors to UC World Live Day will be able to participate in interactive IM sessions and webinars on UC in addition to viewing content-rich videos that highlight a global UC deployment. http://www.youtube.com/user/AspectUC BlogRead Kevin Schwartz’s thoughts on UC World Live Day and the IM topics at http://blogs.aspect.com/ Registration PageRegister to join the UC World community and participate in UC World Live at http://www.ucworld.com/#register About UC WorldUC World (www.ucworld.com) provides a unique glimpse into some of the leading enterprise deployments of Microsoft unified communications (UC), with actual users sharing real return on investment (ROI) data,lessons learned and use cases. It provides direct access to, and collaboration with, the experts who have turned their UC visions into reality, and offers a rich library of valuable technical and business information about UC. Additionally, the UC World Community features interactive access to experts on unified communications, webcasts, white papers, podcasts, videos and additional material to provide information on UC, as well as networking functionality that provides user profiles, buddy lists, community chats and more. About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.  #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-09-22T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Completes_Internal_Global_Deployment_of_OCS Aspect Completes Internal Global Deployment of Microsoft Unified Communications Technology Employees Across All Regions at Aspect Now Leveraging Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 22 Sept 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 22 September 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the company’s global unified communications implementation is now complete with the successful deployment of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 supporting Aspect’s Asia Pacific regional headquarters in Singapore. Aspect offices in Beijing and Dalian, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Bangalore and New Delhi, India are now using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 for all voice and voicemail services, audio and web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and presence. With rollout complete in the region, Aspect has now deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to 100 percent of its employee base. “This demonstrates how a large company can plan and execute a global deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and see productivity and cost savings success almost immediately,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president for the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft Corp. “Aspect was able to use its knowledge of mission-critical voice applications and professional services to become a model example for businesses looking to bring the benefits of UC to their organizations.”Since the beginning of the company-wide Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployment in the first quarter of 2009, Aspect has already begun seeing a number of significant benefits, such as:$1 million in savings on annual conferencing costsElimination of multiple PBXs, resulting in annual support savings of $300,000Savings of over $250,000 annually in telecommunication charges as a result of deploying SIP trunkingSince the initial deployment in February 2009:1,100,000+ instant messaging (IM) sessions have taken place38,000 conference calls and 70,000 if you add in web, IM, application sharing, etc conference calls have been executed, with participant minutes exceeding eight million (for just pure voice conference calls)6,140 web conferences have been held, with 882,000 participant minutes logged886,000 voice conversations have taken place, totaling more than 5,800,000 minutes of talk time“Through the entire deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Aspect has demonstrated our expertise in developing and implementing a cohesive and comprehensive unified communications strategy that allowed us to be very successful, including exceeding expectations on our initial timeline, ROI and finishing the entire deployment ahead of schedule,” said Jamie Ryan, senior vice president, information technology and chief information officer, Aspect. “The Aspect global implementation is a shining example of the company’s knowledge and expertise in deploying unified communications across a wide variety of infrastructures in many regions around the world.”About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2009-09-15T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_PELORUS_Group_Names_Aspect_as_Leader_in_Global_WFM_Market PELORUS Group Names Aspect as the Leader in the Global Workforce Management Market Company Retains Leadership Position with 31.5 Percent Market Share 15 Sept 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 15 September 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced the company has been named the leading global workforce management vendor in the 2009 World Contact Center Workforce Management Systems Marketreport by The PELORUS Group, an independent market research and consulting company. Globally, Aspect owns 31.5 percent of the workforce management market, while leading the North American market with 36.8 percent share.“Companies are looking for ways to increase productivity and efficiency in a challenging economic climate. Aspect has remained the market leader in workforce management because of its proven success in helping organizations improve contact center performance with its leading scheduling and forecasting tools,” said Dick Bucci, senior consultant, The PELORUS Group.   “In the coming years, we expect the workforce management market to grow, and Aspect can continue to pace the market with its full breadth of performance optimization capabilities including robust workforce management technology.”Aspect’s workforce management capabilities offer flexible forecasting, scheduling and tracking tools to enable companies to hire agents and optimize the allocation of inbound, outbound, and blended front and back-office staffing resources. Aspect offers workforce management functionality as one of the capabilities within its Productive Workforce™, Optimized Collections™ and Blended Interaction™ UC applications for the contact center. Aspect’s UC applications help companies target operational objectives with specific software capabilities.“Aspect is maintaining a leadership position in the global workforce management market due to our deep understanding of workforce optimization in the contact center and back-office processes,” said Brett Williams, director of product management, Aspect. “Companies can see even greater value by synchronizing workforce management capabilities with quality management and performance management, and Aspect can help them get there. We’re seeing more interest in these combined tools through our UC applications, and we expect to see more organizations taking advantage of these solutions to streamline their customer service, sales and collections business processes.”About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUC applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect® Unified IP® and PerformanceEdge® platform products. The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, quality management and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.  #  #  # Aspect, Productive Workforce, Optimized Collections, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Streamlined Collections, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-09-01T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Leads_NA_WFM_Market_According_to_Frost Aspect Leads North American Workforce Management Market According to Frost & Sullivan Workforce Management Capabilities in Productive Workforce™ Continue to Lead Industry 1 Sept 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 1 September 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced that the company has been named the leading workforce management vendor, based on revenues including product and services in the 2009 North American Agent Performance Optimization Market report from Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, for providing market-leading workforce management solutions.“Aspect’s workforce management capabilities continue to lead the market because they synchronize the features needed to streamline customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes,” said Keith Dawson, Frost & Sullivan principal analyst. “We’re seeing more companies interested in finding ways to lower operating costs and optimize agent productivity, and many organizations are turning to Aspect to deliver these solutions through robust workforce management tools.”The workforce management technology from Aspect enables companies to hire agents and optimize the allocation of inbound, outbound, blended front and back office staffing resources to reduce costs, while improving overall business results. It includes flexible forecasting, scheduling and tracking tools that ensure organizations meet customer service, collections, sales and telemarketing and back-office goals with the most effective staffing plan possible. Aspect offers workforce management capabilities as part of the UC applications for the contact center, Productive Workforce, Optimized Collections™ and Blended Interaction™. Aspect’s UC applications help companies target operational objectives with specific software capabilities.“In today’s economy, our customers are trying to get the most out of their contact center investments – specifically their people -- and workforce management provides critical forecasting and scheduling capabilities to help companies gain a competitive advantage,” said Brett Williams, director of product management, Aspect. “Our leadership in the market is another proof point that many companies are seeing the value in tightly integrating contact center capabilities through UC applications such as Productive Workforce. With UC applications, organizations can streamline their business processes, increase their productivity and ultimately, improve their customers’ satisfaction.”About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.  #  #  # Aspect, Productive Workforce, Optimized Collections, Blended Interaction, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-08-19T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Receives_Highest_Reporting_Score_in_Datamonitor_Decision_Matrix Aspect Receives Highest Reporting Score in Datamonitor Decision Matrix of Analytics Vendors Aspect Also Scores Above Average for Dashboards, Scorecards Workflow and Alerts 19 Aug 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 19 August 2009—Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced it has achieved the highest score among all vendors for reporting within the Datamonitor Decision Matrix of Analytics Vendors. According to the report, Aspect’s strengths are in providing all-in-one contact center solutions and unified communications, but also offering strong technical workforce optimizationcapabilities for dashboards, scorecards and reporting.“Organizations should utilize contact center analytics to make improvements in business processes and ensure that agents are able to meet customers’ service needs. Aspect delivers in this area by providing mature reporting and analytics solutions.” said Aphrodite Brinsmead, associate analyst, Datamonitor. “The company has established itself as a leader for workforce optimization technologies, by offering comprehensive tools for reporting and workflow and alerts, in addition to its workforce management, logging and quality management solutions.”  Aspect scored well in the technical assessment section of the survey of end users, achieving the highest score among all vendors for reporting. It also scored above average in workforce optimization for dashboards, scorecards, as well as for workflows and alerts. According to the Datamonitor report, Aspect has a strong position in this market having gained a high recognition score from the customers surveyed, particularly for financial stability, customer support and product quality.Among the Aspect unified communications applications for the contact center that provide reporting capabilities are Productive Workforce™, Productive Workforce™ for Aspect® eWorkforce Management™, and Optimized Collections™. These UC applications deliver the tools and processes to help organizations optimize resource utilization and adopt a continuous improvement culture. They unite workforce management, quality management, campaign management, and performance management to reduce the cost per customer interaction and improve the overall customer experience.“We are extremely pleased to see that Aspect has been acknowledged by Datamonitor for having solid market positioning, which serves as a proof point that Aspect continues to bring real workforce optimization value to our customers,” said Brett Williams, director of product management, Aspect.   “Aspect is cognizant of the fact that our reporting capabilities can create a significant competitive differentiator for our customers by allowing them to pinpoint areas for improvement and make real-time changes to improve the customer experience. And, in these tough economic times, our reporting and analytics capabilities allow organizations to easily determine if they’re maximizing productivity across resources.”The Datamonitor Decision Matrix is a summary of IT systems management vendors' capabilities based on a quantitative assessment of their market impact and end user sentiment, as well as the technology features that they offer. It also explores the competitive dynamics within the contact center workforce optimization field and helps businesses select a vendor based on technology strength, reputation among customers, and impact in the market. Through the Decision Matrix, Datamonitor provides a complete view of vendor capabilities and advises on those they feel should be explored, considered and shortlisted. About DatamonitorDatamonitor is a leading provider of online database and analysis services for key industry sectors. We help our clients, 5000 of the world's leading companies, to address complex strategic issues. Through our proprietary databases and wealth of expertise, we provide clients with unbiased expert analysis and in-depth forecasts for seven industry sectors: Automotive, Consumer Markets, Energy, Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare, Technology, Transport and Logistics.About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  # Note:  Aspect, Productive Workforce, Productive Workforce, Optimized Collections, eWorkforce Management, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-07-23T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Prime_Teleconnect_Selects_UC_Application_from_Aspect Prime Teleconnect Selects Aspect's Unified Communications Application to Offer Customers World Class Contact Center Services New BPO in the Philippines to Implement Seamless Customer Service™ and Leverage Ask an Expert Capabilities to Support Customers' Contact Center Operations 23 Jul 2009 MANILA, 23 July 2009— Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced Prime Teleconnect, a provider of best-of-breed hosted contact center services, is taking advantage of the multi-tenant capabilities of Seamless Customer Service, a unified communications application for the contact center, to offer comprehensive call response, which includes coordinated self-service, live service and integrated assistance to improve first call resolution and overall customer experience for their domestic and offshore contact center customers. Prime Teleconnect will also be leveraging Ask an Expert capabilities using instant messaging (IM) and presence powered by Microsoft® Unified Communications.The company is utilizing the solution’s inbound, outbound and blended call handling capabilities to support its customers’ sales, telemarketing and customer service business process outsourcing (BPO) operations. Prime Teleconnect has deployed 100 seats of Seamless Customer Service in its 1,000-square-meter location in Mandaluyong City. The application enables Prime Teleconnect’s 100 agents to leverage Microsoft Unified Communications to contact an appropriate expert in the enterprise to increase first call resolution and enhance customer interactions.“As a growing BPO, we needed a solution that is not only easy to use and reliable, but is also able to help us scale our business as we expand rapidly in this space. The features in Seamless Customer Service from Aspect enable us to provide a full range of solutions to support our customers’ diverse needs, and gives us a distinct strategic advantage over our competitors,” said Leo Mission, president, Prime Teleconnect Worldwide.Prime Teleconnect worked with Aspect partner Call Design, a contact center technology and solution provider, to define and implement a solution which best met Prime Teleconnect’s needs.“Prime Teleconnect was looking for a robust solution that could support its customers’ needs in multi-tenantedenvironment, as well as its expansion and growth plans, since the outsourced contact center industry continues to grow in the Philippines,” said Miles Stanton, managing director, Call Design.“Companies are clearly seeing Aspect’s UC applications for the contact center as industry-leading solutions and Prime Teleconnect is leveraging this solution to offer contact center capabilities in a multi-tenanted environment to help customers break down communications silos,” said James Wong, general manager, Southeast Asia and Australia regions, Aspect. “The functionality of Seamless Customer Service and its ability to orchestrate the desired customer experience and data transfer from self service to live agent assistance gives supervisors and agents greater control over campaigns and customer interactions. And, with the option to easily access experts, they will be able to provide an exceptional level of service – which is extremely important for a new company in a tough, competitive market. As a result, Prime Teleconnect’s customers could benefit from increased revenues, lower costs, and ultimately, an overall improvement in customer satisfaction.”About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect® Unified IP® and PerformanceEdge® platform products.  The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com.About Prime TeleconnectPrime Teleconnect Worldwide, Inc. provides a complete and broad spectrum of CRM/BPO solutions which are catered specifically to meet the demanding needs of today’s competitive business environment.  Our experienced management team and highly educated agents are detail-oriented and results-driven and they are committed to the success and satisfaction of the client, above all else. For more information please visit www.primeteleconnect.com.About Call DesignCall Design is a Specialist Contact Centre provider with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Manila. Harnessing their relationships with Global Partners has allowed Call Design to expand their operations beyond Asia Pacific into 25 countries globally. Call Design is now supporting hundreds of enterprise customers with both multiple and single site locations, providing them direct access to world class Aspect Software solutions and support.  #  #  # Aspect, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-07-09T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Appoints_Mike_Sheridan_EVP_of_Worldwide_Sales Aspect Appoints Mike Sheridan Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales Sheridan to Lead Unified Communications Sales Initiatives 9 Jul 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 9 July 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced that Mike Sheridan has been named executive vice president of worldwide sales reporting directly to chief executive officer, Jim Foy. In this new role, Sheridan will be responsible for providing executive leadership for all sales teams across North America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia Pacific, and the Latin America regions. Previously, he served as the company’s senior vice president of strategy and marketing, driving unified communications initiatives across product management and marketing.“Unified communications has the potential to bring significant value to organizations,” said Sheridan.  “In this new role, my efforts will be focused on bringing that value proposition to our customers and prospects around the world, as well as ensuring the entire global sales organization has the tools and capabilities they need to help companies maximize their technology investments, manage costs effectively and bring the highest level of service to their own customers.”In his previous position, Sheridan was also the executive liaison with the unified communications teams at Microsoft. This responsibility transitions to Andy Bezaitis, senior vice president of corporate development at Aspect.“Mike has played an instrumental role in cementing the company’s UC vision and product strategy, and as a result, it was a natural progression for him to lead our global sales organization to continue to raise awareness of Aspect’s offerings in both software and services,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “He brings a deep understanding of our customers’ needs from his expertise in enterprise and contact center business processes and I am confident that his direction and guidance will continue to demonstrate Aspect’s leadership in the unified communications space.”Sheridan brings more than 20 years of experience in communications and technology to his new role. He has been with Aspect for more than eight years in various marketing and product strategy roles. Prior to Aspect, he held a number of positions in sales and information technology at leading companies like Hewlett-Packard.Sheridan earned a master’s degree in computer science and telecommunications from DePaul University and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and technology from Bradley University. He currently resides in Chicago.About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-07-08T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Leads_Global_Outbound_Contact_Center_Market Aspect Leads Global Outbound Contact Center Market Company Dominates Almost One-Third of the Market According to Datamonitor Report 8 Jul 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 8 July 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the company is the leading global contact center vendor for outboundcapabilities, according to a report from Datamonitor, an international business intelligence firm. The Market Share Insight: The Contact Center Universe report found that Aspect has 29 percent of the market, with the next leading vendor maintaining a 16 percent market share.“Outbound contact center capabilities continue to be heavily in demand in 2009 as companies search for advanced capabilities to reach their audiences at the right time for business processes that are critical to revenue goals, such as collections and sales,” said Ian Jacobs, senior analyst, Datamonitor. “We’ve found that many companies are turning to Aspect for these outbound features due to the depth and breadth of the vendor’s offerings, in addition to their reputation in the market.”Aspect offers outbound capabilities as part of a number of UC applications for the contact center, including Blended Interaction™ and Streamlined Collections™.  Aspect’s UC applications help companies target operational objectives with specific software capabilities.“More companies are looking to increase the effectiveness and productivity of their outbound contact center processes, and our UC applications provide all the capabilities these organizations need to improve their outbound campaigns,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction product management, Aspect. “Our leadership in the outbound market offers a strong proof point that organizations are turning to Aspect for our innovative UC solutions, our reliability, scalability, reputation, and ultimately our ability to help improve their business results.”About Blended InteractionBlended Interaction   is a unified communications application for the contact center that provides inbound, outbound, self service and workforce optimization capabilities. By eliminating complex integration and providing common management, reporting and administration, Blended Interaction gives you greater visibility, control and staffing efficiency in your multichannel contact center that helps enhance customer satisfaction and improve business results.About Streamlined CollectionsStreamlined Collections   is a unified communications application for the contact center that automates early stage collections and enables expert agent engagement for a more effective delinquent account targeting strategy to help you get more promises to pay faster, reduce servicing costs and write-offs, and improve collections results.   About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect, Blended Interaction, Streamlined Collections, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-06-30T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Strengthens_Customer_Company_Interactions_with_New_UC_Capabilities Aspect Strengthens Customer-Company Interactions with New Unified Communications Capabilities Unified Communications Applications for the Contact Center Offer New Instant Messaging Features and Voice Portal Capabilities for Improved Business Processes 30 Jun 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 30 June 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced that new enhancements to its UC applications for the contact center are generally available today, 30 June 2009, and include new instant messaging capabilities, expanded presence functionality within the contact center, and increased integration with the Tellme® on-demand voice portal. The new features, available through the Aspect® Unified IP® 6.6.1 platform product, augment the unified communications capabilities available through the UC applications’ core queuing, routing, and reporting functionality.“The newly added capabilities within the UC applications are a testament to the company’s continuing commitment to delivering robust UC functionality to the contact center and the enterprise,” said Sheila McGee-Smith, McGee-Smith Analytics. “The increased instant messaging functionality will be a key differentiator for contact centers that want to leverage flexible and reliable channels to interact with customers and knowledge workers across the enterprise.”The new functionality in this latest release adds significant value to the company’s UC applications for the contact center, specifically Seamless Customer Service™, Streamlined Collections™, and Blended Interaction™.  UC applications use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge® platform products. The new features include:Improved instant messaging (IM) routing for enhanced customer interactions. Customers will be able to interact with contact center agents through various methods like Microsoft Office Communicator and over the web with click-to-IM. Customers can incorporate the IM address for the companies that they do business with as part of their “buddy lists” and can interact with the contact center via IM.  With the power of Microsoft® Office Communications Server and Aspect UC capabilities, customers can view the presence of the customer service queues and their estimated wait time within the IM client. IM routing also offers an auto attendant capability, or interactive messaging response (IMR), enabling the contact center to fully automate and script a response to an incoming instant message and/or intelligently route the customer to an IM-based agent. These features are available for Seamless Customer Service and Blended Interaction.Extended presence and IM communications within the contact center. Agents can instant message with other agents and supervisors for escalations, coaching tips, and to receive assistance with customer inquiries. These features are available for Seamless Customer Service, Streamlined Collections, and Blended Interaction.Unique hybrid integration with Tellme’s on-demand voice portal platform. The Aspect On-Demand Voice Portal, powered by Tellme, helps companies leverage a number of network-based services, such as proactive customer contact, post-call surveys, automated appointment reminders, notifications, and business continuity with on-demand self service. These features are available for Seamless Customer Service, Streamlined Collections, and Blended Interaction.Improvements in email handling. This includes agent productivity improvements and auto responses. These improvements are available in Blended Interaction.“More companies are asking for robust IM and voice portal features to streamline communications and deliver a quality customer experience,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction product management, Aspect.   “Thanks to our global strategic alliance with Microsoft and our partnership with Tellme, Aspect is best equipped to bring these capabilities to the market and demonstrate the value of unified communications in the contact center and the enterprise.”About Aspect Unified IPAspect Unified IP is an IT-ready Microsoft .Net Web services platform product that unites customer contact capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.About Unified Communications Applications for the Contact CenterUnified communications (UC) applications for the contact center use software to target operational objectives with specific capabilities from the Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge platform products.  The applications deliver inbound routing, outbound dialing, voice portal and Internet contact, workforce management, performance management, campaign optimization, recording and eLearning capabilities to help organizations enhance customer service, collections and sales and telemarketing business processes.  Unified communications applications include Blended Interaction™, Seamless Customer Service™, Productive Workforce™, Streamlined Collections™, and Optimized Collections™.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, Blended Interaction, Seamless Customer Service, Productive Workforce, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Tellme is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation.  text/html 2009-06-25T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_CFO_Wins_2009_CFO_of_the_Year_Award Aspect Chief Financial Officer Wins 2009 CFO of the Year Award Michael Provenzano Recognized by Boston Business Journal for Financial Leadership of Company's Unified Communications Initiatives and Community Involvement 25 Jun 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 25 June 2009— Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced that Michael Provenzano, executive vice president of finance and chief financial officer at Aspect, has won the inaugural 2009 CFO of the Year Award for large privately-held companies from the Boston Business Journal. Provenzano was recognized for his instrumental role in crafting Aspect’s corporate strategy, particularly in managing Microsoft’s equity investment in Aspect to accelerate the development of UC solutions, and spearheading the company’s international expansion and merger and acquisition activities. “Mike has been invaluable in advancing Aspect’s strategic initiatives in the UC space while driving profitability in challenging economic times,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “Also, his activities outside the company set an example for what we need to see from business leaders in the community— a focus on charitable involvement and corporate responsibility. We’re pleased to have Mike recognized for his contributions to the company and to local nonprofit organizations.  And, we are fortunate to have his financial leadership in helping see us through today’s tough market conditions.”The Boston Business Journal 2009 CFO of the Year Awards will be presented during a July 16 luncheon event at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Honorees will be recognized for their financial leadership and accomplishments, in addition to their community involvement in the Boston area.With more than 17 years of software and high-tech experience, Provenzano has principal responsibility for Aspect’s Finance, Human Resources, Corporate Programs Office, Operations and Facilities organizations. During his 10-year tenure at Aspect, Provenzano successfully executed and managed 10 mergers and acquisitions and multiple debt financings totaling more than $2 billion dollars.  Also, in March 2008, he helped manage and negotiate a global strategic alliance with Microsoft to help bring unified communications capabilities to enterprises and contact centers around the world, which resulted in Microsoft’s equity investment in Aspect.  In 2005, Provenzano was also named by the Boston Business Journal editors to its annual “40 Under 40” list of business leaders to watch in the Greater Boston region.Outside of Aspect, Provenzano is also highly involved in a number of activities that support his community. He is an active supporter of the Benjamin Foundation – a nonprofit association to raise funds and awareness of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the American Diabetes Association and he has also been a member of the Salem, New Hampshire Rotary Club and has supported   the organization’s fundraising efforts, including participating in the Boston Bruins Alumni Charity Ice Hockey Game. About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com. #  #  # Note:  Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-06-16T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Training_Program_Helps_SIRIUS_XM_Radio Aspect Training Program Pilot Helps SIRIUS XM Radio Improve Sales, Performance and Customer Satisfaction Company Will See Increased Cost Savings from Management Impact Program Focused on Maximizing Workforce Optimization Capabilities 16 Jun 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 16 June 2009—Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the company is helping SIRIUS XM Radio improve agent job satisfaction, performance, workforce optimization and customer interactions through the Management Impact Program, an innovative training program for contact center managers from Aspect and Touchpoint Associates. SIRIUS XM Radio participated in a pilot program and is using the results to help standardize management training for multiple contact center locations around the world. Now, the company has the capability to lower agent tardiness, to increase sales and to lower costs for participants in the pilot program.The Management Impact Program combines consulting, classroom training, and one-on-one coaching geared toward the specific workforce optimization capabilities provided by the Productive WorkforceTM unified communications application for the contact center. The program is designed to help frontline managers become more effective leaders and positively impact agent performance."Contact center managers have a huge impact on customer satisfaction- from motivating the agents, to ensuring consistency, to directly addressing customer concerns. The Management Impact Program goes way beyond the surface of what most human resource certifications or traditional training programs cover," said George Kirby, senior vendor manager, SIRIUS XM Radio. "I haven't seen any other vendor offering a specialized, packaged workforce optimization training program like this before. I've been in the business for more than 14 years, and even I have benefited from this pilot program, such as learning how to develop better workforce optimization strategies, influence employees through metrics, and inspire others to be better managers."The Management Impact Program is a joint offering from Aspect and Touchpoint Associates for Aspect customers using Productive Workforce capabilities. Consultants from Touchpoint and Aspect® Professional Services worked with SIRIUS XM Radio contact center managers over the course of a week for the pilot program and engaged participants in interactive classroom sessions and one-on-one mentoring, discussing leadership skills, coaching, feedback, metrics, and the importance of interpersonal relationships. SIRIUS XM Radio contact center managers participated in post-program analysis for Touchpoint and Aspect to track improvement within the contact center groups."Everyone can really benefit from what we have learned with this program at SIRIUS XM Radio. I think it should be given to the whole customer care program as it is such an engaging and interactive way to learn," said Darryl Peete, Management Impact Program participant. "I was so excited for the program to end just so I could get back on the floor and give back what I had learned."Touchpoint Associates and Aspect Professional Services worked directly with SIRIUS XM Radio executives to customize the pilot program for the contact center managers, based on specific metrics drawn from workforce optimization tools, contact center structure and corporate consistency with other sites. Pre-program consulting and analysis included agent and manager surveys, conference calls and onsite forums."The Management Impact Program is a unique offering that companies looking to optimize contact center performance can benefit from," said Bob Kelly, vice president of the PerformanceEdge Group, Aspect. "The program gives contact center managers a clear understanding of how to improve individual agent performance, as well as how to use organizational key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive bottom-line results. Through this program, SIRIUS XM Radio can ensure consistency across its global, multisite contact center operations, and enable supervisors to better utilize the workforce optimization capabilities at their disposal."About SIRIUS XM RadioSIRIUS XM Radio is America's satellite radio company delivering to subscribers commercial-free music channels, premier sports, news, talk, entertainment, and traffic and weather.SIRIUS XM Radio has content relationships with an array of personalities and artists, including Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Buffett, Jamie Foxx, Barbara Walters, Opie & Anthony, Bubba the Love Sponge®, The Grateful Dead, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Bob Edwards. SIRIUS XM Radio is the leader in sports programming as the Official Satellite Radio Partner of the NFL, Major League Baseball®, NASCAR®, NBA, NHL®, and PGA TOUR®, and broadcasts major college sports.SIRIUS XM Radio has arrangements with every major automaker. SIRIUS XM Radio products are available at shop.sirius.com and shop.xmradio.com, and at retail locations nationwide, including Best Buy, RadioShack, Target, Sam's Club, and Wal-Mart.SIRIUS XM Radio also offers SIRIUS Backseat TV, the first ever live in-vehicle rear seat entertainment featuring Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network; XM NavTraffic® service for GPS navigation systems delivers real-time traffic information, including accidents and road construction, for more than 80 North American markets.About Touchpoint AssociatesTouchpoint Associates, Inc. offers a wide array of consulting services to help companies improve the Customer Experience. The company was founded in 2003 by industry thought-leader Bob Furniss with a specific focus on improving the greatest resource in the company - the people. Touchpoint consultants have worked with some of the top companies in the word and offer real-life experience in the areas of leadership and people management. For more information, visit www.touchpointassociates.com.About Productive WorkforceProductive Workforce is a unified communications application for the contact center that delivers the tools and processes to help you optimize resource utilization and adopt a continuous improvement culture. By motivating agents throughout their workforce lifecycle, you can service more customers with fewer agents, reduce customer interaction costs, and improve customer service, sales and collections results.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center. Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.###Note: Aspect, PerformanceEdge, Productive Workforce, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.    text/html 2009-06-11T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Customer_Wins_1to1_Customer_Champion_Honors Aspect Customer Wins 1to1 Customer Champion Honors Fran Horner of Northshore University HealthSystem Successfully Leverages Capabilities of Blended Interaction™ to Improve Patient Services 11 Jun 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 11 June 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced its customer, Fran Horner from NorthShore University HealthSystem, won the 1to1 Customer Champion Award from 1to1 Magazine. As the senior director of patient access, Horner is being recognized for successfully driving patient services initiatives and leveraging industry-leading UC application for the contact center capabilities from Aspect to ensure that NorthShore is delivering quality customer care and building loyalty among its patients.“The patient experience begins the moment you call a healthcare provider, so the contact center plays a key role in making the process as pleasant as possible,” said Horner. “Aspect has been a significant piece of our patient care initiatives, and has helped us gain a strategic advantage in a competitive healthcare market. It’s gratifying to have our hard work at NorthShore University HealthSystem validated by 1to1 Magazine and to recognize our tremendous efforts and commitment to providing exceptional patient communications.”To create the best patient care experience, Horner and NorthShore University HealthSystem embarked on a people-focused, cross-departmental initiative supported by technology. NorthShore, a healthcare provider based in the northern Chicago suburbs, implemented the inbound, outbound, voice portal, recording and workforce management capabilities of Aspect’s UC application for the contact center, Blended Interaction. In addition to deploying extensive customer interaction capabilities, Horner established new recruiting and training initiatives to better equip the contact center to address patient inquiries.The new technology and training initiatives helped NorthShore improve its contact center satisfaction level from 60 percent to up to 98 percent. Horner has also helped the organization lower agent turnover by 58 percent, and calls answered within 30 seconds have increased by 82 percent.“NorthShore is a great example of how the right technology coupled with customer-focused initiatives can translate into a major competitive advantage,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction product management, Aspect. “We’re so pleased to see a business leader like Fran succeed with her customer care initiatives using Aspect technology and innovative strategies. As more companies see the benefits of using unified contact center functionality, they’ll turn to Aspect and the capabilities of our UC applications to reduce complexity, streamline communications, and build customer satisfaction.”The 1to1 Customer Champions are business executives focused on customers and are chosen by 1to1 Magazine based on their ability to transform customer loyalty into profit. To read more on Fran Horner and NorthShore University HealthSystem, read the magazine (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/1to1/2009summer/#/18) or the case study (http://www.aspect.com/09/Library/casestudies/Aspect-NorthShore-Univ-HealthSys_CS.pdf) About Blended InteractionBlended Interaction is a unified communications application for the contact center that provides inbound, outbound, self service and workforce optimization capabilities. By eliminating complex integration and providing common management, reporting and administration, Blended Interaction gives you greater visibility, control and staffing efficiency in your multichannel contact center to enhance customer satisfaction and improve business results. About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect, Blended Interaction, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-06-10T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Appoints_New_VP_of_Corporate_Customer_Relationships Aspect Appoints New Vice President of Corporate Customer Relationships Industry Veteran to Build Upon Successful Customer Programs to Maximize Investment Returns 10 Jun 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 10 June 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced Robert (Bob) Walker has been named vice president of corporate customer relationships reporting directly to chief executive officer, Jim Foy.   Walker will oversee the expansion of Aspect’s successful customer care programs and ensure that customers are gaining the greatest business benefits and return on investment (ROI) from their Aspect solutions.“Today, more than ever, companies need to be able to get the most value out of their   software and services investments, and it’s our responsibility to ensure that they are able to lower costs, increase productivity, and gain a competitive advantage through Aspect solutions,” said Walker. “Aspect is absolutely committed to helping our customers succeed despite today’s market challenges.”In his new role, Walker will oversee a team of relationship executives and managers that will expand on the company’s intense focus on customer satisfaction through strategic customer care initiatives. Initiatives will include more activities to incorporate customer feedback into the services and product roadmap and the evolution of technical support and education programs to best meet their needs and requirements.Walker brings more than 30 years of expertise in operations, engineering, and customer support on a global scale. He has been with Aspect since 1999 in various management and executive positions, including global support services, technical services, channel support, and engineering. Prior to Aspect, he worked at a number of leading organizations including AT&T, Electronic Data Systems (EDS), and System One/Eastern Airlines.“High customer satisfaction continues to be our top priority at Aspect,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “Bob has, over many years, demonstrated his deep understanding of our customers and their business process requirements both in the contact center and across the enterprise. Most importantly, he truly has a passion for ensuring customer satisfaction and will be an enthusiastic customer advocate across all Aspect functions and departments. Under his direction, we’re confident that more companies will be able to leverage our UC solutions to see significant tangible benefits now and into the future.”About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  # Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-05-28T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Leads_NA_Outbound_Market_in_Frost_&_Sullivan_Report Aspect Leads North American Outbound Market in Frost & Sullivan Report Company's Breadth of Products and Focus on Operational Objectives Wins Leading Market Share 28 May 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 28 May 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced that the company is the leading outbound contact center vendor in market share, according to the Frost & Sullivan 2009 North American Outbound Dialing Systems report. Specifically, Frost highlighted Aspect’s wide range of predictive outbound modes and the company’s enterprise market across a wide range of industries in the report.“The outbound market grew about 3 percent in 2008 and Aspect’s leadership in the space speaks to the company’s wide range of solutions and services to address the needs of the contact center,” said Joe Outlaw, principal analyst, Frost & Sullivan. “The features work seamlessly with other Aspect product platforms and third-party solutions, making them a leading option for companies that require flexibility and scalability in the contact center. Companies that require advanced outbound solutions such as financial services, outsourcers, and telecommunications industries will continue to look to Aspect.”Aspect’s outbound capabilities are components of several UC applications for the contact center, including Blended Interaction™ and Streamlined Collections™.  Aspect’s UC applications help companies target operational objectives with specific capabilities.“Despite a volatile economic climate, Aspect has continued to thrive in the outbound contact center market because we understand our customers’ needs and deliver capabilities that improve agent productivity and enhance collections, sales, telemarketing, proactive contact, and notification processes,” said Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction product management, Aspect. “By taking a unified approach to implementing outbound functionality, combined with other key capabilities such as inbound routing, voice portal, and campaign management, companies can lower costs by up to 20 percent and improve sales by up to 10 percent. We’ve built these requirements into our UC applications to help companies see bold business benefits and a return on investment almost immediately.” About Blended Interaction™Blended Interaction   is a unified communications application for the contact center that provides inbound, outbound, self service and workforce optimization capabilities. By eliminating complex integration and providing common management, reporting and administration, Blended Interaction gives you greater visibility, control and staffing efficiency in your multichannel contact center to enhance customer satisfaction and improve business results.About Streamlined Collections™Streamlined Collections   is a unified communications application for the contact center that automates early stage collections and enables expert agent engagement for a more effective delinquent account targeting strategy so you can get more promises to pay faster, reduce servicing costs and write-offs, and improve collections results.   About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect, Blended Interaction, Streamlined Collections, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-05-19T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Continues_UC_Deployment_at_HQ_in_Europe Aspect Continues Global Unified Communications Deployment with Successful Implementation in European Headquarters Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 Deployed at Stockley Park, UK; First Aspect International Office to be "Phone-Free" 19 May 2009 STOCKLEY PARK, UK—   19 May 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced the company’s European headquarters in Stockley Park, United Kingdom, has now completely migrated to Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2. The UK is Aspect’s first international location to roll out Office Communications Server for all voice and voicemail services, audio and Web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and presence.The office has eliminated its desk phones and retired its PBX for all employee peer-to-peer and corporate calling services. More than 105 employees work in the Stockley Park office and are using OCS. Stockley Park is the hub for Office Communications Server network activity for Aspect’s other European locations, including Germany and Italy.“Aspect is making a statement with our deployment in Stockley Park—that UC can successfully be deployed across the enterprise and across multinational organizations, leading to more productive employees and decreased operating costs,” said Mark King, senior vice president of sales in Europe and Africa, Aspect. “Since we’ve implemented Office Communications Server, conferencing and telephony costs have come down dramatically, especially since our employees interact daily with so many different regions.  More companies in Europe and around the world are seeing the value in implementing Microsoft UC technology on a global scale, and can look to Aspect as a leader and a deployment expert in this space.”When Aspect’s global OCS rollout is complete, a total of 20 offices will be running Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Since first implementing the software in the company’s global headquarters in Chelmsford, Mass. in February, Aspect has seen a number of positive actions and results, including:More than 222,862 calls have been placed using Office Communications Server.These calls have totaled more than 1,638,725 minutes.More than 2,774 federated IM sessions have taken place with contacts outside of Aspect.More than 15,051 conference calls have taken place with 814 minutes of application sharing across the enterprise.Aspect will continue its global rollout of Office Communications Server   to more than 1,800 employees.  The company’s deployment across North America and Europe will be completed by June, with the Asia Pacific region following in the second half of 2009. About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-05-06T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Customer_Wins_2009_SWPP_Award Aspect Customer Wins 2009 Workforce Management Professional of the Year Award Drexel Fitzwater of Vangent, Inc. Honored by SWPP as Workforce Management Professional of the Year 6 May 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 6 May 2009 –The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced its customer, Drexel Fitzwater of Vangent, Inc., a leading global provider of information management and strategic business process outsourcing services, has been named the 2009 Workforce Management Professional of the Year from the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP).Fitzwater was chosen by the SWPP Board of Advisors from a group of five finalists that were selected from nominations received on the SWPP website. The award, announced at the 2009 SWPP Annual Conference in Nashville was presented to Fitzwater for his outstanding leadership in the workforce management industry.Fitzwater helped Vangent use the workforce management capabilities of PerformanceEdge® to enable Vangent agents to manage their own schedules for improved job satisfaction and productivity. Fitzwater’s understanding of workforce optimization and technology helped Vangent greatly reduce agent absenteeism. He also managed the installation of Aspect’s real time adherence (RTA) module, and supervised a training program to help customer service representatives follow their schedules more effectively. As a result, schedule adherence across the Vangent contact centers improved from 45 percent to 85 percent in less than one quarter.“Aspect is extremely proud to be affiliated with Drexel and the rest of the Vangent organization and to have played a role in their success,” said Bob Kelly, vice president, PerformanceEdge Group at Aspect. “The combination of Drexel’s many years of experience with workforce optimization, and the extensive capabilities that Aspect provides, shows the positive impact these types of applications can have on an organization. We are excited to have our customers acknowledged for their performance, particularly when they are recognized by such a respected institution like the SWPP.”Four of the five finalists for the 2009 SWPP Workforce Management Professional of the Year are Aspect customers. The other finalists for the award included Richard Brooks of Bright House Networks, Ferenc Castatlos of Nationwide Insurance, Donna Edwards of Sears Holding Corporation, and Matt Langford of Experian Consumer Direct.PerformanceEdge is an IT-ready Microsoft .NET Web services platform product that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies. About SWPPThe Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) is an organization devoted to facilitating education and networking opportunities among workforce planners across all industries. Membership in SWPP is available to all workforce planning professionals and other interested parties from consulting and vendor organizations. Both individual memberships and corporate membership options are available, with full benefits and costs outlined on the organization’s website at www.swpp.org. About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-05-05T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Honored_by_CRM_Magazine Aspect Honored by CRM Magazine as Industry Leader Aspect Recognized for Reputation for Customer Satisfaction, Functionality and Company Direction 5 May 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 5 May 2009 –Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced the company was ranked as a leader on the 2009 CRM Service Award lists for workforce optimization and contact center infrastructure. These awards, published annually by CRM Magazine, recognize vendors, consultants, and end-user companies focused on providing high-quality customer experiences through the sophisticated integration of people, processes, and technologies.Aspect is the only vendor that was mentioned on the leaders list for both workforce optimization and contact center infrastructure. In the contact center infrastructure category, Aspect was recognized for its loyal and supportive Aspect® Unified IP™ customer base. Aspect Unified IP is a platform product that unites customer contact capabilities to help organizations execute on their UC strategies. Aspect made a second straight appearance in the workforce optimization suite category, where Aspect was ranked for its strong continued investment in PerformanceEdge®, an IT-ready Microsoft .NET Web services platform product that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities to help organizations execute on their UC strategies.“To make the leader’s lists in both the workforce optimization and contact center infrastructure categories speaks volumes about Aspect’s leadership in the market. They have demonstrated a commitment to providing customers with truly powerful capabilities, especially during a time when many companies are looking for solutions that can maximize their resources,” said Ian Jacobs, senior analyst, Datamonitor. “This recognition helps underscore that Aspect understands the contact center industry through both its product innovation and its dedication to quality customer care.”“With today’s hyper-focused emphasis on cost savings coupled with ensuring customer retention, contact center buyers are more and more looking for unified communications influenced suites of contact center products delivered with exemplary vendor support,” said Mike Sheridan, senior vice president of strategy and marketing, Aspect. “Aspect appreciates the recognition of what we have delivered to date and will absolutely continue to deliver innovative products and services to our customers that can help streamline their business processes and improve their customers’ results.”The CRM Service awards are determined through an extensive three-month process and proprietary rating formula that involves industry analysts, financial and corporate information, product and functionality assessments, and scores reflecting customer satisfaction.The 2009 CRM Service Awards will be presented at the CRM Evolution 2009 Conference at the Marriott Marquis in New York later this year. About CRM MagazineCRM magazine is the leading publication of the customer relationship management industry, covering sales, marketing, customer service, and strategy. The magazine also administers and hosts the annual CRM Evolution conference. Each of these properties is designed to serve customer-centric business initiatives, and leaders who recognize CRM as a key strategy for creating enhanced customer value in any industry. For more information about the magazine, its editorial calendar, or CRM in general, please visit us on the Web at http://www.destinationCRM.com, or on Twitter at @CRM (http://twitter.com/CRM) and @destinationCRM (http://twitter.com/destinationCRM). The destinationCRM Web site (which is updated daily) and the monthly magazine are properties of CRM Media, a division of Information Today, Inc.  About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communicationsinto real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect, Aspect Unified IP, PerformanceEdge and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-03-30T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Marks_One_Year_Anniversary_with_Microsoft Aspect Marks One-Year Anniversary of Global Strategic Alliance and Equity Investment With Microsoft New Product Offering, UC Services Development, Microsoft Certifications, and Customer Wins Among Accomplishments; Company Builds Momentum for Year Two 30 Mar 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 30 March 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications(UC) solutions provider, today announced that it has marked the one-year anniversary of its global strategic alliance with Microsoft Corp. Since launching the strategic alliance in March 2008, Aspect has achieved many significant milestones, including delivering new product offerings, launching a UC Services practice, garnering extensive Microsoft certifications, managing a leading-edge rollout of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 across Aspect, and winning new UC customers.  Together, the two companies have been focused on their shared vision of software-powered UC to help organizations address their communications needs across the enterprise and in the contact center.“The Microsoft-Aspect alliance, and Microsoft’s equity investment in Aspect, is a strong, joint commitment to UC, and to connecting the enterprise and the contact center,” said Melanie Turek, industry principal, Frost & Sullivan. “Such alliances are critical for customers and companies that want to quickly leverage a UC strategy to streamline their business processes with communications. With Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 and the Aspect® Unified IP™ Microsoft .NET-based platform product, companies can seamlessly bring UC to the enterprise and to the contact center.”Working closely with Microsoft, Aspect met a number of key milestones throughout the year, including:Aspect launched a UC Services practice and secured an early customer win with Quicken Loans Inc. Aspect’s UC Services practice helps organizations identify the right opportunities for UC across the enterprise to improve business and communications processes and navigate implementation obstacles. The UC Services practice completed its first deployment of a UC RapidStart voice pilot at Quicken Loans Inc. The Aspect UC Services team worked closely with the Quicken Loans IT teams to install and configure Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and integrate its voice capabilities into the PBX system in less than one week.Aspect introduced Aspect Unified IP 6.6 with the new Ask an Expert feature that utilizes the instant messaging and presence technology available in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. With this feature, agents can identify available experts in the enterprise based on specific skill sets to address customer inquiries, therefore streamlining business processes and improving first-call resolution.  This is the first of several Aspect product releases on the roadmap as part of the Aspect-Microsoft strategic alliance that will provide tight platform-level integration with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.Aspect initiates global company deploymentof Office Communications Server 2007 R2. To date, Aspect has completed deployment of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at the company’s headquarters in Chelmsford, Mass. and an office site in San Jose, Calif. The sites have completely migrated to Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for all voice and voicemail services, audio and Web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and presence. Aspect also retired its PBX in these locations for all employee peer-to-peer and corporate calling services. The company will see aggressive ROI numbers, including reduced conference calling costs of $75,000 per month and additional cost savings resulting from the company’s use of session initiation protocol (SIP) Trunking.Aspect is recognized as one of the first voice specialized partners for Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Microsoft has certified Aspect as a Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 Voice specialization partner for the Microsoft Unified Communications Solutions competency.  Aspect received this certification following the successful completion of the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) internal pilot for Office Communication Server 2007 R2 Voice specialization. To date, approximately 100 Aspect employees have been certified.New companies choose Aspect contact center solution with Microsoft UC.  Global Crossing recently purchased Aspect Unified IP 6.6 and is deploying it across its contact center operations to help improve customer communication and satisfaction.  Global Crossing chose Aspect Unified IP largely based on Microsoft and Aspect’s shared vision of UC and how the contact center fits into Global Crossing’s enterprise-wide UC initiatives.  Global Crossing is using Aspect Unified IP for advanced call routing capabilities to intelligently transfer callers to the proper agents based on their skill sets and customer data gathered by back-end applications. The agents use the call blending capabilities to respond to incoming calls and customer questions on subscriptions while also using the outbound capabilities to increase sales.Three customer briefing centers showcase UC capabilities. Aspect opened three customer briefing centers in London, Boston and Singapore. These offices now have the capabilities to demonstrate all Aspect unified communication applications so customers and prospects can experience first-hand the benefits of Microsoft UC and the Aspect UC applications for the contact center. The customer briefing centers also offer remote demonstration capabilities for access through the Internet and around the globe.“The Aspect-Microsoft strategic alliance is an excellent way for companies to take the unified communications journey. Aspect has not just delivered on its promise of unified communications capabilities for the contact center and the enterprise, but has also proved its commitment to giving customers tangible solutions that deliver real results,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Unified Communications Group at Microsoft Corp. “Joint customer wins with industry leaders such as Quicken Loans, Inc. and Global Crossing are a testament to this. Through our alliance, Microsoft and Aspect are making a statement — that Aspect’s powerful software and services capabilities coupled with Microsoft unified communications technologies supply the tools a company needs to see real business results from deploying unified communications.”As the alliance moves into its second year, the companies will continue to build momentum in product development and customer implementations. Aspect and Microsoft will be focused on: Developing additional product offerings to power UC capabilities. Aspect will introduce two new Aspect Unified IP releases with additional UC functionality as well as two PerformanceEdge™ releases offering tighter integration to Office Communications Server 2007 R2.Expanding Microsoft UC expertise. Aspect will have 200 fully trained and Microsoft UC certified employees by June 2009, including individuals in Aspect® Professional Services, Aspect® Technical Services, Aspect® Education Services, sales and IT.Completing the global Aspect rollout of Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Aspect will complete its global rollout of Microsoft Office Communications Server to approximately 1,800 workers, including its contact center representatives, this year. This will enable Aspect agents to identify appropriate experts in the enterprise based on skill set, and hence properly and efficiently address customer inquiries. “Microsoft and Aspect have successfully achieved a remarkable number of accomplishments in the first year of the alliance, but we know this is just the beginning of achieving our shared UC vision,” said Jim Foy, chief executive officer, Aspect. “We’re seeing tremendous interest from both customers and prospects in our new UC applications powered by Aspect Unified IP and PerformanceEdge, as well as our comprehensive UC Services offerings. We’re confident that as more businesses look for ways to lower costs and streamline business processes, they’ll turn to Microsoft and Aspect to leverage UC and truly transform the way they communicate.”About Aspect Unified IPAspect Unified IP is an IT-ready Microsoft .NET Web services platform product that unites customer contact capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge is an IT-ready Microsoft .NET Web services platform product that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.Aspect® Professional Services delivers unified communications (UC) capabilities in the contact center and throughout the enterprise. Aspect consultants help organizations identify the right opportunities, navigate implementation obstacles and get the right results from UC with services that span conception through completion. From improving individual productivity and heightening collaboration to communications-enabling business processes and transforming enterprise communications, Aspect provides experienced guidance at every step of an organization’s UC journey.About AspectAspect provides softwareand consulting servicesthat turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-03-12T07:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Contact_Center_Satisfaction_Index_CALA Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America: Customer Satisfaction Directly Linked to Future Business Consumers Give Contact Centers an Overall Score of 72 Percent,Exposing Significant Opportunity for Improvement 12 Mar 2009 MEXICO CITY, 12 March   2009 – A regional study released today by Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, and Leo J. Shapiro and Associates shows that consumers across the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA) view their typical contact center experiences as barely acceptable, with an overall satisfaction rating of 72 percent. The Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index™ Caribbean and Latin America, which also reveals that consumers who feel they receive good customer service are 13 times more likely to conduct future business with a company, finds that most companies are missing important opportunities to meet customer demands and positively impact their top lines. “In this unprecedented global economic environment when budgets are extremely tight, it is clear that conducting business as usual could cost companies significantly more than improving customer interactions,” said Mike Sheridan, senior vice president of Strategy for Aspect. “The Aspect Index CALA identifies the basic consumer principles on which exceptional experiences are based, and provides the insight that companies need to put the right people, processes and technology in place and differentiate themselves from their competitors.”Some of the key findings of the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America include:Consumers view personal qualities more important than efficiency and automation and assign the highest scores in this area.20 percent of consumers who have typical experiences feel that contact center interactions fall short of their expectations.Contact center managers overestimate consumer satisfaction with their performance with 76 percent believing they exceed consumer expectations, while only 38 percent of consumers agree.Consumers who say they have exceptional contact center experiences score their overall interactions 19 percent higher than consumers who have typical experiences.Half of consumers who are satisfied will conduct more business with a company; 22 percent of those will do much more business.“More often than not, the interactions consumers have with a contact center are their only communications with the company,” said Paul Bullett, vice president of Caribbean and Latin America at Aspect.   “This means that every contact they make can help to cement a positive relationship with the brand. The companies that have a firm understanding of this can set themselves apart from the competition and build a very loyal customer base.”A comprehensive executive summary for the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America is available at www.aspectindex.com.About the Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin AmericaThe 2009 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index Caribbean and Latin America is a regional survey of approximately 1,272 consumers in five countries – Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico, and Puerto Rico; and 84 contact center managers across Brazil, Columbia and Mexico.   It measures the quality of consumers’ telephone and Internet interactions with companies and their representatives across 25 qualities, broken out into three categories:Empathy and Advocacy – the human aspect of customer interactions, such as patience, knowledge, professionalism, and friendliness.Efficiency – the overall quality and speed of the experience including being able to quickly speak with an agent, authority to resolve an issue, and clear connection.Automation – explores ease-of-use of technologies like automated menus, multiple contact choices, and access of contact information from Web site.About Leo J. Shapiro and AssociatesLeo J. Shapiro and Associates is a premier market research company with more than 50 years of experience across a wide range of industries.  Leo J. Shapiro and Associates has been behind a variety of indexes that measure consumer behaviors and attitudes including retail customer service satisfaction, significant consumer trends, grocery store shopping and others. Learn more about Leo J. Shapiro and Associates at www.ljs.com.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.### Aspect, Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-03-03T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Successfully_Deploys_OCS_at_HQ Aspect Successfully Deploys Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at Corporate Headquarters Aspect Announces First Phone-Free Site; Continues to Deploy Technology Across Company's Global Sites 3 March 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 3 March 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the successful rollout of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at the company headquarters in Chelmsford, Mass. Aspect® Professional Services worked closely with the company’s IT organization to   complete the deployment on 18 February 2009 and the company is continuing its global deployment throughout offices in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific (APAC) regions over the coming months. The implementation was accelerated through UC RapidStart, a packaged UC Services offering from Aspect that helps companies gain hands on experience with a pilot deployment of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS).The company’s headquarters, with more than 300 employees, is the first Aspect site to have completely migrated to Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for all voice and voicemail services, audio and Web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and presence, making the Chelmsford office the company’s first phone-free location. Aspect has also retired its Chelmsford PBX for all employee peer-to-peer and corporate calling services.“This journey to ‘go-live’ is really a significant milestone in Aspect’s company-wide unified communications strategy,” said Jamie Ryan, senior vice president, Information Technology and chief information officer, Aspect. “This effort was successful because of the joint efforts of Aspect Professional Services and IT throughout the deployment.  Aspect Professional Services can now bring the same skills and experience to our customers around the globe to help customers develop a UC strategy and deploy it effectively.“The best part is the cost benefits we’ll be able to see as a result of the implementation, including saving $75,000 per month on conference calling in the first year alone,” Ryan added. “Furthermore, both local and long distance costs will drop significantly as a result of our use of session initiation protocol (SIP) Trunking and will result in additional savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars as we complete our deployment. With these types of savings, our ROI will be extremely aggressive.” Aspect continues its global rollout of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to more than 1,800 employees.   The company’s deployment across North America and Europe will be completed by June, with APAC following in the second half of 2009.“Through this implementation, Aspect has applied our understanding of global mission critical voice deployments, in addition to our expertise as one of the first Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Voice specialization partners,” said Kevin Schwartz, executive vice president of Global Professional Services, Aspect. “To the company’s knowledge, the Aspect implementation will be one of the largest Microsoft Office Communications 2007 R2 rollouts globally, and this implementation further validates our expertise as an enterprise-class UC services provider.”About UC RapidStartUC RapidStart from Aspect helps organizations jumpstart their UC journey with a pilot deployment of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) and Microsoft® Office Communicator 2007 to a small number of users, combined with introductory workshops on business and IT strategy to help organizations move forward into subsequent detailed planning, architecture, and design activities.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.  text/html 2009-02-26T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Aspect_Ranked_in_Top_125_from_Training_Magazine Aspect Ranked on Training Magazine's 2009 Training Top 125 List Aspect Recognized for Comprehensive Unified Communications Education Programs 26 Feb 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 26 February 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced its placement in the 2009 Training Top 125, a ranking of organizations that excel at human capital development, as determined by Training Magazine. Aspect was recognized for delivering comprehensive training and employee development programs through Aspect® Education Services that support the company’s  UC strategy.“Our placement on the Training Top 125 list validates our efforts to educate our employees and the market on the value of unified communications, and the technology and process requirements for deploying a successful UC strategy,” said Jill Mallinder, senior director, Aspect Education Services, Aspect. “Aspect employees went through extensive training workshops and testing, making us one of the first companies to complete the Voice Certification Program for Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2. By taking advantage of the best practices we have developed in providing training for product and services implementations, we have gained a tremendous understanding of the appropriate tools and techniques needed to make our team successful with this latest set of skills training.”Aspect Education Services provides both internal and external training solutions including instructor-led curricula, online self-paced programs, and online instructor-led offerings. Courses for this UC training curriculum were developed using the ARDDIE (Analyze, Research, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) model to determine the most appropriate and relevant content per course and delivery method based on job task analysis. Hands-on activities, per job task, were designed against a simulated contact center to enable users to experience real-life applications. In addition, assessment testing and a comprehensive practical case study gave students the necessary practice to build confidence to perform on the job. As a result, there were 2,781 student days of customer training and 1,371 student days of employee training.Training Magazine sponsors an annual competition that evaluates a variety of data on elite organizational learning programs. Training Magazine's annual awards program recognizes employer-sponsored training and development. The judging is based on elements such as corporate universities, evaluation procedures, and internal best practices. Companies are then ranked accordingly. Read the full list of companies honored by Training Magazine. About Aspect Education ServicesAspect Education Services offers a variety of courses designed to provide contact center supervisors and administrators with the skills and knowledge needed to enhance productivity and improve customer satisfaction. Courses are offered online, in worldwide Aspect training facilities, and on a customer’s site.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.   #  #  #Aspect, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2009-02-17T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/Aspect-Successfully-Completes-Microsoft-UC-Program Aspect Successfully Completes Microsoft UC Program 17 Feb 2009 Aspect Successfully Completes Microsoft UC ProgramAspect Recognized as One of the First Companies to Complete Voice Certification Program for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2CHELMSFORD, Mass., 17 February 2009 – Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced Microsoft Corp. has certified Aspect as Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 Voice specialization partner for the Microsoft Unified Communications Solutions competency. Aspect received this certification following the successful completion of the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program internal pilot for Office Communication Server 2007 R2 Voice specialization.“Aspect has shown great dedication to sharing the value of unified communications and Microsoft Office Communications Server with business users,” said Roger Murff, director of unified communications partner marketing, Microsoft Corp. “This certification is testament to Aspect and its commitment to streamlining communications processes for itself and all customers and prospects using Microsoft unified communications.”In addition to the successful R2 Technology Adoption Program completion, Aspect completed a four-week intensive training program. This program includes three boot camps and a Voice Ignite workshop. Participants completing this track passed the Microsoft Active Directory exam, Microsoft Exchange Server exam, and a Microsoft Office Communications Server exam. In the last half of 2008, more than 40 Aspect employees had been certified and by the end of 2009, there will be approximately 200 Aspect employees with this certification.“Aspect’s certification as one of the industry’s first Voice specialized partners for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 demonstrates our dedication to building on our mission-critical voice experience, continuously enhancing our UC expertise and delivering the benefits of our knowledge to our customers for their UC implementations,” said Kevin Schwartz, executive vice president of Global Professional Services, Aspect. “This certification underscores the caliber of our UC Services practice, which, combined with the experience gained during one of the largest Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployments internally at Aspect, is evidence of Aspect’s expertise as a Microsoft UC services provider.”Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is an update to the award-winning Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 that delivers a variety of new capabilities within the contact center. These capabilities offer next-generation collaboration functionality including persistent group chat and full-featured audio conferencing to reduce service provider bridge costs, new voice features to enhance Office Communications Server voice for teams and mobile/remote workers, and new tools to streamline business processes by integrating communications within applications.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center. Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps more than two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.# # #Aspect and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. text/html 2009-02-12T08:00:00+01:00 Aspect http://www.aspect.com/newsitems/NewsRelease_Unified_Communications_Solutions_Delivered_by_Aspect Aspect Delivers Unified Communications Solutions with Comprehensive Applications and Services Portfolio Aspect Introduces Six Unified Communications Applications for the Contact Center to Help Companies Reduce Maintenance Costs 20 Percent and Improve Productivity 10 Percent 12 Feb 2009 CHELMSFORD, Mass., 12 February 2009 — Aspect, a unified communications (UC) solutions provider, today announced the company is introducing six new UC applications for the contact center that use software to target operational objectives with a specific set of capabilities. The UC applications utilize the capabilities from its Aspect® Unified IP™ and PerformanceEdge™ Microsoft .Net Web services–based platform products to help companies enhance their customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business process.UC applications from Aspect include:Seamless Customer Service™ delivers the tools needed for comprehensive call response, including coordinated self-service/live service and integrated assistance to improve first call resolution and enhance the overall customer experience.Blended Interaction™ provides inbound, outbound, self service and workforce optimization capabilities. By eliminating complex integration and providing common management, reporting and administration, Blended Interaction gives contact centers greater visibility, control and staffing efficiency in your multichannel contact center to enhance customer satisfaction and improve business results.Streamlined Collections™ automates early stage collections and enables expert agent engagement for a more effective delinquent account targeting strategy so contact centers can get more promises to pay faster, reduce servicing costs and write-offs, and improve collections results.Optimized Collections™ utilizes performance, workforce and campaign management to enhance contact and calling strategies by applying the right resources at the right times to increase right party contacts, lower staffing costs, improve collector effectiveness and collections results.Productive Workforce™ delivers the tools and processes to help you optimize resource utilization and adopt a continuous improvement culture. By motivating agents throughout their workforce lifecycle, contact centers can service more customers with fewer agents, reduce customer interaction costs, and improve customer service, sales and collections results.Productive Workforce™ for Aspect® eWorkforce Management™ delivers the tools and processes to help Aspect eWorkforce Management users optimize resource utilization and adopt a continuous improvement culture. By motivating agents throughout their workforce lifecycle, contact centers can service more customers with fewer agents, reduce customer interaction costs, and improve customer service, sales and collections results.UC applications leverage a software-based UC architecture to help companies reduce communications silos while leveraging presence for specific customer-facing business processes. For example, Seamless Customer Service offers contact center managers comprehensive control and visibility over the customer experience as they traverse from self-service to live agent assistance, and extends the interaction to the enterprise, as necessary, with the  Ask an Expert capability powered by Microsoft Unified Communications. Ultimately, Aspect customers can improve customer satisfaction by 8 percent, increase first call resolution by 5 percent, improve productivity by 10 percent, and reduce overall maintenance costs by 20 percent.The new UC applications, coupled with Aspect’s UC Services practice, enable Aspect to deliver a full range of UC solutions across the enterprise and in the contact center.“These new UC applications are a powerful statement from Aspect to the market— the company is clearly committed to bringing specific capabilities for different business processes that will help companies as they adopt a unified communications strategy and bring the contact center into these initiatives. By introducing the UC applications, Aspect is demonstrating its understanding of the importance of integrating UC with business processes and the ability to deliver software and services tailored to a company’s requirements," said Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion.“Customer care and the contact center are very important to our strategic objectives. We’ve been using the capabilities of Productive Workforce in our two contact centers and have seen a number of benefits, including increased productivity and reduced costs. Implementing all these capabilities from Aspect has helped us centralize our reporting for greater flexibility and control, and has opened the door for us to leverage unified communications in the future," said Mark Good, Vice President of Information Systems, LCA Vision, Inc.“After deploying the Productive Workforce capabilities from Aspect, we have seen a number of improvements in our contact center. Having these capabilities packaged together from one vendor has helped in deployment and maintenance costs, in addition to increasing agent productivity and improving customer care. Clearly, implementing a UC application from Aspect could help any company hit the ground running with a UC strategy," said Larry Kasten, Assistant Vice President, CNA Surety.“The UC applications were designed with a specific purpose in mind to help organizations improve particular business processes– such as customer service, sales and collections -- while at the same time reducing ongoing expenses. Because the UC applications use targeted software capabilities, they empower business users to manage and change the system dynamically and help free up IT for other projects. These offerings, coupled with Aspect’s UC Services practice, deliver a true unified communications solutions portfolio of software and services," said Mike Sheridan, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, Aspect.Added Sheridan, “Aspect and Microsoft share a vision of software-powered UC solutions that address companies’ requirements throughout the enterprise and in the contact center. The new UC applications and Aspect’s unified communications solutions portfolio further demonstrates the company’s commitment to streamlining communications processes for all its business customers using Microsoft UC.”PodcastQ&A on UC Applications: Empowering the Business with UCBlog PostContact Center: Unplugged blog postVideoUnified Communications Architecture for the Contact CenterTo learn more about UC applications from Aspect, please visit www.aspect.com.About Aspect Unified IPAspect Unified IP is an IT-ready Microsoft .Net Web services platform product that unites customer contact capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.About PerformanceEdgePerformanceEdge is an IT-ready Microsoft .Net Web services platform product that synchronizes workforce optimization capabilities to help organizations execute on their unified communications strategies.About AspectAspect provides software and consulting services that turn the potential of unified communications into real business results across the enterprise and in the contact center.  Applying 35 years of insight and experience, Aspect helps two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100, as well as small and medium enterprises, power their business processes with communications.  For more information, visit www.aspect.com.#  #  #Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, Seamless Customer Service, Blended Interaction, Streamlined Collections, Optimized Collections, Productive Workforce, eWorkforce Management, PerformanceEdge Performance Management, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.