Looking to the future.....

[Adam G.]

On the Gforce topic some very valid non-technical comments have been made and I think some of them should be discussed and maybe, just maybe, Genesys will one day listen.

[quote]
Vic wrote:
Genesys' strength is in its flexibility and customization. And it is of great concern that I see how Genesys does not consider all the development companies that probably outnumber vendors 20 to 1 as a major force to be used in both promotion and upsell of its product, instead focusing on the vendors, who, interestingly enough, generate most of their money through sale of PBXs such as Avaya.

Genesys must take the development companies under its wing and nurture them, because I believe that it is a matter of time before PBX makers like Avaya will start offering a popup on its own.[/quote]

There are two comments here that I believe are linked. Genesys should (1) be supporting smaller (more dynamic) vendors more and (2) they should be encouraging developers to extend the functionality on offer.

To me the Genesys market looks to have it a development plateau and the reaction from Genesys is to get defensive and hold on. There is probably a very good marketing reason for this but I'm a techie not a marketeer. I'm sure we users, developers and integrators, want to see that the product offerings that are expanding with new products coming out. To me this would increase the market size and also encourage customers to increase their investment. Genesys used to be like this – I can remember the products from before email\multimedia came out, before WFM, before GVP. These 3 products have a shared common factor in their origins – they all were originally developed outside of Genesys and then integrated into the Genesys portfolio. This is a strategy which maybe Genesys should return to?

Today if you want to expand the functionality available you have to look up what the licensing costs are and do the maths. Having done this myself I can vouch that the sums don’t add up as any new product would be at a cost that very very few customers would even contemplate. What does this mean? Dynamic developers aren’t creating new products which is causing market growth to slow, which hurts all of us. It looks like short termism is getting the better of the long term view.

I realise that there will be lots and lots of holes in my arguments, which is the reason to start this thread, so we can discuss them . I’m also not anti-Genesys as I live and breathe Genesys -  ‘doing’ Genesys is how I make my living.

As the exam papers at school used to say: Discuss

[tony]

Ummm...

That's a lot to get through in one sitting.  How about breaking up the subject?   

OK - Developers/Development.  Genesys have been supplying and enhancing their base products for some time now.  I too remember the days when Outbound looked like a mess of OS-Warp windows splattered all over the screen.  I also remember when the had Agent Pulse the [i]first [/i] time around and weren't touting it as a "new product".  I know that the Routing Designer used to have a testing element built in to the Strategy Builder and you had to switch applications to apply them to Route Points (Strategy Loader).  So - what have they done for us lately?  Well, recently they've added multimedia (fledgling product) SDK's (not too shabby) and Interfaces (GIS - tres bon), to make the job of development "easier".  If I'm getting your vibes right, then the suggestion is that they should nurture and build the interfaces and interfacing technologies, to enhance their market.  A couple of points here; Genesys have catered for the larger CRM applications (Well, a couple anyway - SAP and Siebel being mainstays) and the interfaces do, in the main, work very well.  The [i]problem [/i] is - they are already number 1 and have been for a while.  As Fat Boy Slim so eloquently put it "I'm Number 1 - Why Try Harder?".  The interface products they've supplied us with do actually do the job - just.  If you want whistles and bells - isn't that our bread and butter(?)

Next -The small market product suite.  Genesys do provide and support an out of the box series of solutions for the small to medium market and that runs pretty smoothly.  Not much in the way of development required and it really is a wysiwyg series of applications.  Catered for?  Not sure about that but it is an offering that pays little return for Genesys so probably not worth the investment for them.

And - My side of all this is to be taken aback at the exhorbitant rates for licenses and support costs.  Genesys know that their larger Solutions and the supporting Framework will only every be considered by medium to large (1000 - 10000 staff) companies and [i]they [/i] won't baulk when it comes to footing the bill because it means [b]getting the best at any cost[/b].   However, what about VFM - Value For Money?  Consider the current Genesys licensing models are based on per seat - that's any and every seat that [i]could [/i] be used - not just the ones you [i]do [/i] use.  Who pays for 5 lightbulbs when they have only ever switched 2 lights on?  Genesys customers do...

Bottom Line? Genesys is a world leader, expanding (imho) too rapidly, swallowing technologies quicker than they should - for integration into their own product suite to give them an even stronger hold on the expanding market of interactions, workforce management and customer insight.  Taking time out to [b]listen to the customer [/b] and [b]thoroughly market testing their products before release[/b] would serve them well.  Unfortunately, they don't appear to have taken a breath yet and keep on running...

Tony

[Dave]

[quote author=Tony Tillyer link=topic=2145.msg7481#msg7481 date=1174938885]Who pays for 5 lightbulbs when they have only ever switched 2 lights on?  Genesys customers do...[/quote]Umm... I'm pretty sure that if a company has 5 light fixtures in the building, they would buy 5 lightbulbs, even if they only use two of them at any one time.  I would say it's a bad analogy, but frankly it's a great analogy -- one that demonstrates why concurrent licensing isn't always the most logical.

The funny thing is that I'm hearing two very opposing messages here -- one person says Genesys moves too slow and doesn't do enough, the other says Genesys moves too fast and doesn't slow down and pay attention.  Is there a middle ground?

[tony]

I didn't mention light fittings  and I wasn't suggesting the licenses are lightbulds - it's only an analogy!  You're right though - it only really works if you're looking at it from [i]certain [/i] perspectives...

I'm now more curious to see how others look at this...

Tony

[mark]

The licensing is my biggest gripe.

For an agent to take Inbound calls, emails & inbound chat, they need 3 licenses. 1 agent - 3 licenses!! thats a lot of money.
The now do expert contact licenses aswell, which when worked out properly, does not make sense in terms of VFM.

[tony]

My point entirely.  OK, so if you get it right and have blended agents for all media types that may be a way around it but otherwise there is now a plethora of different licenses for the media types, which are (essentially) used one at a time.

I'm sure I should know Dave, since he mentioned concurrency (and not I!) - although that was what I was alluding to, without actually stating it.  But now it has been mentioned I would say that it is a feasible way forwards, as far as I am concerned.

Tony