Genesys CTI User Forum
Genesys CTI User Forum => Announcements Scratch Board => Topic started by: victor on January 31, 2013, 08:30:03 AM
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Hi,
I am seeing a new growing trend in Japan and it is starting to worry me. Interactive Intelligence products are being promoted more and more by every tier of Japanese call center SIers. It seems that combination of price with monopoly on Genesys by a few of SIers is increasingly turning both clients and SIers alike toward alternative solutions.
While Genesys continues to have a significant market in Japan, I feel there is a growing disconnect between Genesys, its market and companies that service that market.
Genesys has great technology offering that would fit perfectly Japanese call center market. Combined with its existent user base, I am at a loss as to why we are not seeing more aggressive adaption of Genesys technology. I suspect that part of the cause lies in failure to grow organically with the other emerging and existent technologies in Japan. While emphasizing interoperatibility, most of Genesys technology seems to me designed to compete and replace rather than interact with. This is justified in regions where VARs generate most of their revenue through Genesys; however, in Japan, Genesys mainly was used to upsell other solutions and services ranging from voice logger and network to custom CRM development and 24/7 support.
For example, MKI, one of the biggest Genesys VARs in Japan, uses Genesys to sell PBX, NICE and mainly MMEs (man-month-equivalents). I have difficulty seeing MKI choosing to keep Genesys and ditch PBX or MMEs to lower the price of an offering. Many a time I saw when Genesys was ditched in favor of keeping Avaya.
With current news of Avaya's fiscal difficulties, you would expect with Genesys SIP solution trackrecord in Japan, more VARs would consider Genesys SIP over Avaya. Unfortunately, Cisco is seen as a major contender. This makes sense in a way, but what does not make sense is that the part traditionally always covered by Genesys is now being migrated to other packages. Packages that do not offer Genesys-like interoperatibilty.
I find our company more and more involved with non-Genesys solutions and I can't but wonder what we are doing wrong. I hear a lot of Genesys cloud, but I fear that it may repeat OS/2 mistake. Technologically advanced, yet overlooked by the masses.
While I am happy that we have expanded into adjacent markets, I feel saddened that the very product we have grown up with is currently no longer the primary source of our income.
Just my two cents...
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Afternoon Vic,
Good to see you around. ;D
I started to write an essay on the reasons for this last summer, but it got me really really mad. The more I analysed things, the more I realised how much I hate the Company (lots of very good people there though).
The final analysis is that
[list type=decimal]
[li]the decsion makers seem to live in 'ivory towers'[/li]
[li]the company likes to rape everyone - customer, VARs, SIs and the little guys (such as myself)[/li]
[/list]
I'll see if I can dig up my scribbles later this evening.
W
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Pavel,
to be honest, I think you are taking it a bit personally. Despite everything we want to believe, Genesys does not owe us anything. In fact, the same can be said about Avaya, Cisco and Even Alcatel. We just decided ourselves to become fervent promoters of the product and now we are upset that Genesys does not pat us on a head for this.
It may be hard to accept, but Genesys is just another CTI platform. It is a big larger than some, smaller than others, but it is neither Cisco nor Google: it is a niche market product with specific goals. The fact that we decide to focus on this product and not choose something a bit more mainstream is our own fault.
Genesys strengths and weaknesses are the very reason why we have a job, and I think the latest trend is something we can take advantage of. If not advantage then a note of and make a decision to either continue to start thinking bigger.
Just two of my cents!
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I can vouch that Genesys NDAs are absolutely pointless - a major product line is a blatant copy of some sw I demoed to them 13 months before they launched. I call that reason to take it personally.
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Yes Pavel, they are famous for that...however we failed in being a little bit naive showing them our ideas and products knowing they can do it too as no copyright... I know your feeling but since then (because I was assaulted by a presales too) I kept all my ideas for me and avoid Genesys "help" on any point of my implementation or production.
But lessons learned and move on ;)
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So, apart from Pavel taking it personally and hence not being objective :) , let's move back to the original topic, which is Genesys trends.
[quote author=victor link=topic=7642.msg32914#msg32914 date=1359621003]
Genesys has great technology offering that would fit perfectly Japanese call center market. Combined with its existent user base, I am at a loss as to why we are not seeing more aggressive adaption of Genesys technology. I suspect that part of the cause lies in failure to grow organically with the other emerging and existent technologies in Japan. While emphasizing interoperatibility, most of Genesys technology seems to me designed to compete and replace rather than interact with.
[/quote]
I know nothing about the Japanese market, Vic, could you give us some examples of which technologies Genesys is failing to integrate with, and is rather trying to replace?
[quote author=victor link=topic=7642.msg32914#msg32914 date=1359621003]
With current news of Avaya's fiscal difficulties, you would expect with Genesys SIP solution trackrecord in Japan, more VARs would consider Genesys SIP over Avaya. Unfortunately, Cisco is seen as a major contender. This makes sense in a way, but what does not make sense is that the part traditionally always covered by Genesys is now being migrated to other packages. Packages that do not offer Genesys-like interoperatibilty.
[/quote]
I'm afraid that this is not really happening just in Japan, but across the world: Cisco IS a major contender of Genesys for several reasons, firstly not being that expensive. Frankly, Genesys has got great capabilities and brilliant flexibility, however, how many customer services do you think use Genesys most advanced features? How many really need fancy call flows? I reckon that simplicity and rapid deployment time are a winner here.
[quote author=victor link=topic=7642.msg32914#msg32914 date=1359621003]
I hear a lot of Genesys cloud, but I fear that it may repeat OS/2 mistake. Technologically advanced, yet overlooked by the masses.
[/quote]
Are you referring to HPE or Connect? If you mean the latter, I disagree, the alliance with Salesforce will be opening a massive customer customer base to them and help them migrate towards SaaS solutions.
Fra
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Oh yeah! The SalesForce idea is brilliant! Just what many many customers always asked a CRM from Genesys by default...nice one there
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The question is, should I name the G product that they have blatantly copied from my demo?
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Mobile?
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Yes, [b]Genesys Mobile Engagement [/b] is a blatant copy!
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What if I told you I build something very similar here also sometime ago and never showed to Genesys but only customer...maybe the idea was there...don't know...
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One of the guys I demoed it to claims on LinkedIn that it was his idea!
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Ah!...well that is another stuff...what a piece of shit, scumbag...what is his name???
I'd sue him, not Genesys :D
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[quote author=Pavel link=topic=7642.msg32965#msg32965 date=1359972702]
Yes, [b]Genesys Mobile Engagement [/b] is a blatant copy!
[/quote]
Look, Pavel, I am going to be blunt: if you feel that this is something that Genesys really did, I would not think twice about getting legal help with it. Keeping grudge and just talking how someone stole your idea is not going to get you anywhere.
I am sure if you have enough evidence any law firm would be more than happy to look into it, since we are nto talking about a paltry some here. They would take 40 percent of your total sum, but if there is a wrong there, I suggest you right it.
Vic
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[quote]I know nothing about the Japanese market, Vic, could you give us some examples of which technologies Genesys is failing to integrate with, and is rather trying to replace?
[/quote]
What I am seeing here is Genesys is going head to head with some of the fastest growing services in Japan. While I still strongly believe that Genesys is a great company and has an excellent product, I think that it is not agile enough to adapt to Japanese market needs.
Let's take Carriers for example. Fusion is a carrier here that is snapping up clients left and right. It is mainly an Asterisk-based offering; however, Genesys pits its Genesys Cloud solution (I have yet to see it in real life) against it. Why not offer non-voice services on top of what Fusion offers? This applies to not just Fusion but most other carriers. Genesys is so intent on pushing its cloud capability, promoting it to multii-nationals in Japan, that somewhere along the way it forgot that it became what it is today due to its capability to enhance other products, not replace it.
Let's take private ASP call center providers: Bell24 - Japanese Call Center outsourcer with probably over 10K of seats. They are one of the leading call center outsourcers in Japan. They do not use Genesys in anything. Why? Because all the proposals were positioned in a way that pitted one platform (Avaya) against the other (Genesys). Result? Genesys is out. Needless to say, we are not talking about just voice or CTI. The same applies to GVP, Genesys Call Recording, WFE, and many other niches that were filled in with third-party products. Why? Because integrating Genesys with it would not be economically sound for end-user. On top of that, not only the licensing does not reflect the competitive nature of the market here, but the limited number of VARs capable of doing this, creates an opportunity for these VARs to drive their own agenda by adjusting their prices to make one platform more desirable than others. Genesys has little, if any control over that.
This brings me to my next point: VARs - Genesys offers very limited incentives to its VARs to invest into merging Genesys technology with others. Most, if not all, Genesys VARs in Japan are also Avaya / Cisco / NEC resellers, and that part of the business generates significantly larger revenue that Genesys. Bigger revenues command bigger resources. Why invest into developing new skillset and/or technology that would overlap with what is there already? If anything, you should focus on maximizing the return on what you have. Case in point: one of the largest Genesys VARs in Japan, MKI, continues to install its own "Adam Softphone" to the clients despite of family of softphone products starting from Genesys Agent Desktop all the way to Genesys Interaction Workspace over the years. We are talking about over 12 years and tens of thousands of seats that to this day use ... Genesys T-lib. Recently, they upgraded their phone to a more recent SDK. Now, you are required to use their "proxy server" to interface with CRM package. This is despite Genesys offering direct CRM connectivity! Is it better than Genesys offering? Absolutely not - not even close. Is it more profitable? Judging by its proliferation - clearly.
Global Genesys users who migrate to Avaya-only in Japan is not something I would expect to see. Imagine a global Genesys user, who asks for call center upgrade, and the finalists, all Genesys VARs, all three of them offer a non-Genesys solution! The kicker: all three of these VARs are the very SIers who support this Genesys end-user right now! Why offer Nice when you can offer Genesys Recording Solution? Why offer Avaya when you can offer Genesys SIP given that end-user is currently using Genesys Routing and Reporting? And most importantly, why offer to do away with all of Genesys that is being used right now and re-do all of it on a new platform? Both end-user and SIers saw this as a best way to achieve their goals. There is a clear disconnect between Genesys message and the actual perception on the ground. Genesys is seen as not an essential component of a platform, but rather a platform of its own.
And this is great, if it had support of the carriers, VARs, and end-users. But when you don't, when your sales are less than $30MM a year in Japan, demanding to be treated as equal to Cisco and NEC may fly in US. Here, people will just let you talk, make up their own mind on how to proceed, and will not even tell you that you are wrong. They will politely smile, meet and continue to do what they want without every correcting you. You would think Genesys would learn that by now.
[quote]I'm afraid that this is not really happening just in Japan, but across the world: Cisco IS a major contender of Genesys for several reasons, firstly not being that expensive. Frankly, Genesys has got great capabilities and brilliant flexibility, however, how many customer services do you think use Genesys most advanced features? How many really need fancy call flows? I reckon that simplicity and rapid deployment time are a winner here.[/quote]
True, and Genesys once again had a great product - G-Express. I thought it was perfect. Except ... once again, unless you lack VARs interested in investing into this product. I fear Genesys Cloud Connect is going to face a similar fate - why pay Genesys additional licenses, when we can develop it ourselves? The concept of TCO and ROI, while understood universally, these terms are not calculated similarly in Japan. Here, employee cost is not seen as an expense, thus making any internal development project more attractive over a package with recurring cost.
[quote]Are you referring to HPE or Connect? If you mean the latter, I disagree, the alliance with Salesforce will be opening a massive customer customer base to them and help them migrate towards SaaS solutions.
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I agree with you about Cloud Connect - it is a win, but not in a way you think. I think, Genesys connectivity with Salesforce will not significantly contribute to their market share in Japan. If anything, it may give a reason to continue to use Genesys. At the same time, given Salesforce OpenCTI standard being supported by all major platforms, I fail to see a reason why a client would consider Genesys over say UCCE, Avaya or even CIC on Salesforce merit along. Unless the underlying issues with Genesys seen as a competing platform are addressed, I would expect Salesforce connectivity to actually expedite Genesys market share shrinkage in Japan, because now clients, who have been dragging their feet, actually have a reason to overhaul their call center. This reason being Salesforce. And I fear Genesys will not fare well.
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Hey Vic,
Very interesting POV and very well detailed. For me, I see and feel that Genesys lose that point of empower your solution with buy my solution when SIP Server was borned, they got greedy...even with us as VAR and "Partners" they can go all by themselves to our customers and try to sell their SIP Server and even try to replace the PBX we already have with the customer...creating a terrible environment for us, because now I have not only to fight to introduce more Genesys products but now I have also to fight in order for the customer not to remove my PBX platform which has hundreds of extensions and impact on my operations...that simply sucks. That is one of many reasons that now we don't speak about many projects with them unless we have all closed with the customer and emphasize that by X reasons if the project doesn't need SIP then don't sell a SIP Server...if it is needed later, great! My solution can provide SIP by default!
How Genesys became to be is a bad move in a long term, they are not PBX designers and don't have all the experience needed that Avaya/Nortel, Cisco, Alcatel do have. They might have retained some ALU engineers but much more is needed I think.
By now on some customers who have Avaya, Cisco we don't go to offer voice anymore as it is hard to remove an existing platform, we just go with MCR and show them that we don't need to replace anything and even we can integrate with their existing voice solution and they very very happy that we don't try to push off their existing solution, once we are there we do demonstrate the power it has and then they begin to ask by themselves to get their voice too on small projects. That is nice, but again Genesys fails to help
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Cav (who is in Chile),
I cannot agree with you more. What you have described is so true. This reminds me of last spring.
We are working quite a lot with a major CRM maker, and it is a matter of time (bar a major mistep on that maker's part) before they will blanket the country here. With this maker, we work on Avaya. Asterisk and other proposals. Would it not be great if Genesys also be considered? Yes, it is hard to believe, but actually, Genesys was really under-represented, to say it mildly, there.
So, I insisted that this CRM company meet them. I met with Genesys, pitched the idea, they gladly agreed, and we had a meeting. Then two. The premise was simple: we know both that CRM and Genesys, so it would be a win-win for everyone involved to work together. We then pushed CRM product-Genesys with our support to our partners.
And then, it turns out, Genesys started meeting without us. Which is fine, after all, it is their prerogative - they are a multi-national company with global ties to CRM company. They decided not to use us - fine. Still, I think this clearly showed their attitude toward everything. Genesys really forgot that their success lies in their ability to enhance, augment, and interface. While on paper, technically, they have retained this capability, in real life, this is no longer true.
I agree with you, Cav, whole-heartedly. Genesys wants to take the lead, it wants to be in control and have the final say. This is great. Who am I to tell a $1B company how to strengthen their market share? I just wish Genesys would actually be decent enough to tell the rest of the world about this.
I like when someone is marching to the beat of their own drum.
To do this, on top of the will, you need to know how to march. And you need a drum. What Genesys has done is to tell everyone that it will march to the beat of their own drum, and then placed itself behind a well-trained and dedicated marching band during a town parade. Without a drum. And without putting too much effort into training how to march.
Will they be noticed? Absolutely. Will they be noticed the way they have hoped? I doubt it...
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http://www.genesyslab.com/news-and-events/press-releases/genesys-to-acquire-leading-cloud-based-self-service-contact-center-provider,-angel,-from-parent-microstrategy.aspx
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This is sad, because what Genesys did was acquire 800 customers. If anything, I would think that Angel.com clients are now a ripe target for competitors to take a swing. Novartis come to mind as the first one that everyone will go for.
It seems like most of these clients have Salesforce as part of their solution, which makes me wonder if Genesys is trying to get a lead on others in SaaS by leveraging Salesforce to its advantage?