Despite the volcanic eruption that shut down much of Europe last week, the US version of the biannual ECOMM event was certainly a success.
Although I have been following ECOMM since 2008 and VoiceSage has sponsored the 2009 EU event this was the first time I had the chance to attend.
ECOMM is three full days of presentations done in 12 to 15 minute bites. A couple of keynote speakers may be allowed 20 minutes but even they are subject to the time clock "gong". The goal of the event is to be a force in reshaping the world's telecommunications industry. The first two days of this event were primarily focused on Telco subjects that are current but may still be considered cutting edge by the main stream media.
The third day was dedicated to Augmented Reality which by everyone's definition is on the bleeding edge of technical innovations. My takeaway from Day 3 was a simple one. There are seriously talented people spending a lot of time and money in AR. Over the next few years we will see amazing results.
On Day 2, I had the opportunity to present the VoiceSage Communications Enabled Business Process (CEBP) story in a way that everyone in the room could appreciate. Our amazingly fast response in helping American Airlines deal with their passenger communications needs during the volcanic disruptions across Ireland and the UK showed the power of CEBP applications and Cloud Communications in general. The previous keynote speakers, including Martin Geddes, had all used the language of CEBP or touched on the topic briefly. I had the opportunity to drill into CEBP and differentiate VoiceSage as a leader in the space with our focus on moving clients' business metrics.
Telcos are looking for new ways to replace traditional revenue streams that are going away. CEBP applications clearly open up billion dollar business process optimization market opportunities. One variation on this theme is for Telcos to rely upon or buy API platforms that will open up their infrastructure to the innovation of the world's developers. In my opinion, the few winners and losers have already been decided in the Telco API space.
However, regardless of their size or scale, firms that view themselves as developer platforms miss the game changing opportunity to directly understand and impact clients' business processes in the valuable way that is available to VoiceSage or other CEBP applications. Replacing billions in old telco landline revenue with millions in developer api revenues is the tradeoff that many Telcos are grudgingly reviewing now. Replacing billions in landline revenue with billions in enterprise class CEBP revenue is a tradeoff that is also available to Telcos but will appeal to a wider variety of enterprise focused vendors too.
Thanks to ECOMM, this CEBP message is being heard widely and clearly.
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage USA
April 26th, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
VoiceSage and CEBP make good progress in the USA
We have made good progress over the past few weeks with VoiceSage’s launch into America. Mark Oppermann, VoiceSage’s Sales Director, spent a week with me traveling in and around Boston talking with partners and potential clients. We also had a chance to attend a Boston Celtics game!
One of the highlights of this visit was our chance to provide a keynote presentation called Social Media meets the Contact Center for the NECCF Spring event. This is a slightly edited version of the presentation that we gave to the folks in attendance. I am confident we will be seeing lots more of the NECCF community. Our practical message that VoiceSage helps enterprises move their business metrics using a variety of phone and web tool sets was very well received. The questions about great business cases were fantastic. The business challenges seem to be the same regardless of where we are in the world.
A second highlight was our meeting with members of the Dialogic team. VoiceSage has been a long time Dialogic customer and is now a member of their partner program. Dialogic has been an early advocate and enthusiastic supporter of the CEBP space. We look forward to working with them.
We always enjoy providing a bit of a promotion to the April ECOMM conference being held in San Francisco. I will be attending with colleague Paul Sweeney later this month. VoiceSage sponsored the ECOMM European event last Fall. This is always a fantastic gathering of thought leaders in the Telco industry. For those not able to attend in person, I would encourage following the event via several virtual back channels that are available.
One of the highlights of this visit was our chance to provide a keynote presentation called Social Media meets the Contact Center for the NECCF Spring event. This is a slightly edited version of the presentation that we gave to the folks in attendance. I am confident we will be seeing lots more of the NECCF community. Our practical message that VoiceSage helps enterprises move their business metrics using a variety of phone and web tool sets was very well received. The questions about great business cases were fantastic. The business challenges seem to be the same regardless of where we are in the world.
A second highlight was our meeting with members of the Dialogic team. VoiceSage has been a long time Dialogic customer and is now a member of their partner program. Dialogic has been an early advocate and enthusiastic supporter of the CEBP space. We look forward to working with them.
We always enjoy providing a bit of a promotion to the April ECOMM conference being held in San Francisco. I will be attending with colleague Paul Sweeney later this month. VoiceSage sponsored the ECOMM European event last Fall. This is always a fantastic gathering of thought leaders in the Telco industry. For those not able to attend in person, I would encourage following the event via several virtual back channels that are available.
Friday, March 12, 2010
VoiceSage is coming to America
One of the VoiceSage company goals entering 2010 was to launch across the USA. So, I was excited to join VoiceSage a few months ago after seeing its fantastic success with the largest enterprise clients across the UK and Ireland.
In this CEBP, Cloud Communications or Telco 2.0 industry (pick your definition), that I've worked to grow and written about here in the US since it's inception, we have seen years of talk, research, and pointing towards a future filled with opportunities.
However, VoiceSage stands out as unique within the industry simply because it has been able to create real value for the largest and most demanding clients across Retail, Utilities, Government, Healthcare, Banking,Insurance, and the Telco markets. For a company of any size, anywhere, the VoiceSage client base in the UK and Ireland is impressive.
Over these first few months, our "soft" launch into America has been recognized by thought leaders across the industry. Here are a few mentions.
During the Telco 2.0, Orlando Executive Brainstorm conference in December, Thomas Howe's CEBP presentation to the crowd of Telco executives identified VoiceSage and Ifbyphone as the two leading examples of CEBP solutions in the world.
In January, VoiceSage was invited to join two CEBP panels as part of the ITEXPO's Cloud Communications Summit in Miami Beach. Here is a video link to one of our panel discussions.
In February, VoiceSage was mentioned as an industry leader in an interesting article about the difference between CEBP and Unified Communications by UC-Edge.
VoiceSage was invited to add our thoughts on improving customer experiences using CEBP with an essay in the Cloud Communications 2010 ebook being published later in March. This book has a stellar cast of industry participants and will certainly be required reading throughout the telecommunications industry.
The NorthEast Contact Center Forum asked VoiceSage to offer a keynote presentation during its March 23rd Summit near Boston. The theme is Social Media meets the Contact Center. We are excited to share client uses cases from a wide variety of our customers' experiences.
Finally, we will be attending and supporting the Spring ECOMM event in San Francisco in April. This event is certainly where the future of Telco gets talked about and launched. VoiceSage sponsored the Fall ECOMM conference in Europe.
With this progress, VoiceSage's launch across the US is just getting started. Be sure to look for regular VoiceSage announcements and updates coming soon.
Thanks
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage
March, 2010
In this CEBP, Cloud Communications or Telco 2.0 industry (pick your definition), that I've worked to grow and written about here in the US since it's inception, we have seen years of talk, research, and pointing towards a future filled with opportunities.
However, VoiceSage stands out as unique within the industry simply because it has been able to create real value for the largest and most demanding clients across Retail, Utilities, Government, Healthcare, Banking,Insurance, and the Telco markets. For a company of any size, anywhere, the VoiceSage client base in the UK and Ireland is impressive.
Over these first few months, our "soft" launch into America has been recognized by thought leaders across the industry. Here are a few mentions.
During the Telco 2.0, Orlando Executive Brainstorm conference in December, Thomas Howe's CEBP presentation to the crowd of Telco executives identified VoiceSage and Ifbyphone as the two leading examples of CEBP solutions in the world.
In January, VoiceSage was invited to join two CEBP panels as part of the ITEXPO's Cloud Communications Summit in Miami Beach. Here is a video link to one of our panel discussions.
In February, VoiceSage was mentioned as an industry leader in an interesting article about the difference between CEBP and Unified Communications by UC-Edge.
VoiceSage was invited to add our thoughts on improving customer experiences using CEBP with an essay in the Cloud Communications 2010 ebook being published later in March. This book has a stellar cast of industry participants and will certainly be required reading throughout the telecommunications industry.
The NorthEast Contact Center Forum asked VoiceSage to offer a keynote presentation during its March 23rd Summit near Boston. The theme is Social Media meets the Contact Center. We are excited to share client uses cases from a wide variety of our customers' experiences.
Finally, we will be attending and supporting the Spring ECOMM event in San Francisco in April. This event is certainly where the future of Telco gets talked about and launched. VoiceSage sponsored the Fall ECOMM conference in Europe.
With this progress, VoiceSage's launch across the US is just getting started. Be sure to look for regular VoiceSage announcements and updates coming soon.
Thanks
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage
March, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
CEBP, Cloud Communications, and VoiceSage at the ITEXPO
It was great fun to introduce VoiceSage at the Cloud Communications Summit during last week's ITEXPO. Despite the small room and limited advertising/publicity around the Cloud Communications Summit it was clearly a success judging by attendance at all the panels. The word is that Cloud Communications will have a much higher profile track at the next ITEXPO.
My purpose as a participant on two of the CEBP panels was twofold.
1. Introducing VoiceSage as a new player in the US market so that we are positioned to build off our great UK customer successes was met by positioning VoiceSage as a business metric/ROI moving, Enterprise class solution relative to other US firms.
2. Introducing CEBP as a concept and as a results driven, profitable practice area gained a boost too. My sense is that CEBP hasn't been covered at previous ITEXPOs in much detail.
There was an unscripted point in our discussion about vertical and industry specific CEBP solutions when I looked at our panel and then confidently asked the audience to name any vertical or industry. I said that our panel would be able to present a solid CEBP application across any industry vertical. There was no hesitation from the panel members.
This one moment convinced me that CEBP has certainly moved from a theoretical analyst coined concept to pragmatic client focused solutions over the last two plus years.
There is plenty of work left to do but I am excited about the progress made so far.
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage
My purpose as a participant on two of the CEBP panels was twofold.
1. Introducing VoiceSage as a new player in the US market so that we are positioned to build off our great UK customer successes was met by positioning VoiceSage as a business metric/ROI moving, Enterprise class solution relative to other US firms.
2. Introducing CEBP as a concept and as a results driven, profitable practice area gained a boost too. My sense is that CEBP hasn't been covered at previous ITEXPOs in much detail.
There was an unscripted point in our discussion about vertical and industry specific CEBP solutions when I looked at our panel and then confidently asked the audience to name any vertical or industry. I said that our panel would be able to present a solid CEBP application across any industry vertical. There was no hesitation from the panel members.
This one moment convinced me that CEBP has certainly moved from a theoretical analyst coined concept to pragmatic client focused solutions over the last two plus years.
There is plenty of work left to do but I am excited about the progress made so far.
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
VoiceSage and CEBP gets noticed in Europe and the US
My VoiceSage colleagues forwarded me this link from an event that we attended in France. At this investor conference Voice Sage was voted one of the most fundable international companies.
I am looking forward to meeting up with industry colleagues at the ITEXPO event in Miami January 20-22,2010.
I get to tell the VoiceSage and CEBP story during two different panel discussions facilitated by Thomas Howe during the Cloud Communications Summit on Wednesday January 20th.
Sincerely
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage
Patrick.Murphy at VoiceSage.com
I am looking forward to meeting up with industry colleagues at the ITEXPO event in Miami January 20-22,2010.
I get to tell the VoiceSage and CEBP story during two different panel discussions facilitated by Thomas Howe during the Cloud Communications Summit on Wednesday January 20th.
Sincerely
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage
Patrick.Murphy at VoiceSage.com
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
TELCO 2.0 and VoiceSage
I attended the Telco 2.0 conference in Orlando last week. Congratulations to STL Partners and the sponsors for a successful event. The quality of the content and participants was very high. I would encourage a search for other blogging about the event.
Here is my too quick recap with my prioritization,questions, and my agenda notes.
1. Leveraging Telco Customer Data as a potential gold mine is a widely agreed upon strategy. Tactically, no Telco has the ability to do it without tons of effort. It is too hard technically, physically, and organizationally. Can others aggregate similar client data, cdr, learnings in a fashion that generate real, ongoing business intelligence? Can an overlay of Telco business intelligence or other sources of data be on top?
Atigeo and Sense Networks are working to add contextual insight to these efforts.
2. Changing industry language and message focus caught my attention.
a. Telcos are starting to talk about a new metric of measurement. Instead of ARPUs ( Average Revenue Per User) they describe ATPU ( Average Transaction Per User) or AMPU ( Average Margin Per User). STL Partners soon to be launched white paper with Tom Howe will highlight these new metrics relative to CEBP... we will be looking for that soon.
b. Within the conference there was an ongoing challenge to balance forward thinking strategic presentations with what is real. Of the 11 themes, CEBP clearly came across as the most real especially when using new ATPU or AMPU metrics. My bias is showing.
c. Moving the needle for Telcos requires new business initiatives that generate in excess of 100 million annual revenue within 5 years or less. During my conversations with Sprint strategist Brad Grau, he laughed and said that every business plan that came across his desk had a 5 year target of $105 million. Margin rather than revenue is the real discussion point.
Can STL PARTNERS send every executive in the Telco 2.0 ecosystem a copy of the Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen? This is a classic case study waiting to be written.
d. Vendors and Telcos alike love the big picture idea of 50 billion connected devices around the world by 2020. Independently, I heard calculations that there are 5 billion connected devices now. (2020 estimates ranged from 20 billion to 60 billion.) Verizon speaks of moving from 80-90% market adoption to 500% market adoption in their regions. The thought experiment is fun..what 5-10 devices will be networked in my life?
DAY ONE AGENDA
1. Strategy and Finance 2.0
STL explained the Two- sided business model. STL defined TELCOS' potential new upstream customers along these 7 verticals.
Developers, Retailers, Government, Media, Advertisers, Utilities, Financial Services
Did they steal the VoiceSage customer list!! I almost jumped up and shouted Bingo, matched them all! ( I would argue about developers being a unique vertical). Very cool for VoiceSage.
2. Media 2.0
The Bit Torrent founder showed up and talked about ways to prioritize traffic. Brave Man, Smart Man. It costs Telcos money to support online media. No one actually believes Telcos will make much money in this sector unless they buy content companies.....see CableCos.
3. Consumer Services 2.0= App stores for consumers
Few thought the Telcos will make money in this sector other than at the infrastructure level. It could provide customer stickiness. It sells devices that enable the broader ecosystem. Again, this conversation was focused on consumer apps. However, the discussion began to move the conversation beyond consumer apps to enterprise apps. Scott Adler of Amdocs did a nice presentation. That seems like a winning space for Telcos.
4. Customer Data 2.0: Telco goldmine?
Most everyone agrees this is a goldmine. However, Telco's can't mine it on their own. Lots of start ups being funded around this topic. Privacy is an issue.
STL will be hosting a Privacy 2.0 conference at MIT in Boston in February. This is an important topic for lots of very big companies in the Web world too.
5. Digital Advertising 2.0:
An advertising panel that talked about viewers and impressions etc..
STL did a case study on an sms search service that tried to show there was real money in this space.
6. Mobile Money 2.0:
Lots of good analyst work on this topic. I was impressed with Lopez research. Plenty of startups working in this space. Vendors making money in Kenya (Safariicom) and Japan (DocoMo NTT) after lots of investment from major brands were the focus of the STL presentation.
DAY TWO
7. Internet Access 2.0: Mobile Broadband
We all are using a lot of mobile broadband. New devices and pricing models needed. Telcos can't keep up with the demand and getting commoditized. Dean Bubley presentation
8. Voice and Messaging 2.0= Ask Thomas Howe for his CEBP presentation. Irv Shapiro's Ifbyphone presentation.VoiceSage was highlighted well by Tom and Irv. CEBP is a clear path to ATPU and AMPU. According to Tom, VoiceSage and Ifbyphone are the leading CEBP companies in the world.
9. M2M opportunities in Health= Machine to Machine communications
Lots of money and time being spent on device to device communications ( some people to people too) by Orange, Intel, and other Vendors. Big opportunity, Big Challenges. Money is down the road. I really liked the work done by Niels Helkov from Orange in this sector.
10. Cloud Computing= Joe Weinman from ATT came across as the smartest guy in the room. Really good presentation. I talked with him afterwards. Nice guy too. Read his many blog posts highlighted by GigaOm
11. APIs and Open 2.0:
Tom Howe did a great skit with Sanjay Jhawar describing a conversation between a Telco and an API Developer. Half the room was semi- insulted. Half the room was laughing. Sanjay's firm Ideas and Plans looks sharp. I know this API topic all too well.
Bottomline, the Telco 2.0 event in Orlando was the best conference I've attended in years.
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage, North America
Here is my too quick recap with my prioritization,questions, and my agenda notes.
1. Leveraging Telco Customer Data as a potential gold mine is a widely agreed upon strategy. Tactically, no Telco has the ability to do it without tons of effort. It is too hard technically, physically, and organizationally. Can others aggregate similar client data, cdr, learnings in a fashion that generate real, ongoing business intelligence? Can an overlay of Telco business intelligence or other sources of data be on top?
Atigeo and Sense Networks are working to add contextual insight to these efforts.
2. Changing industry language and message focus caught my attention.
a. Telcos are starting to talk about a new metric of measurement. Instead of ARPUs ( Average Revenue Per User) they describe ATPU ( Average Transaction Per User) or AMPU ( Average Margin Per User). STL Partners soon to be launched white paper with Tom Howe will highlight these new metrics relative to CEBP... we will be looking for that soon.
b. Within the conference there was an ongoing challenge to balance forward thinking strategic presentations with what is real. Of the 11 themes, CEBP clearly came across as the most real especially when using new ATPU or AMPU metrics. My bias is showing.
c. Moving the needle for Telcos requires new business initiatives that generate in excess of 100 million annual revenue within 5 years or less. During my conversations with Sprint strategist Brad Grau, he laughed and said that every business plan that came across his desk had a 5 year target of $105 million. Margin rather than revenue is the real discussion point.
Can STL PARTNERS send every executive in the Telco 2.0 ecosystem a copy of the Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen? This is a classic case study waiting to be written.
d. Vendors and Telcos alike love the big picture idea of 50 billion connected devices around the world by 2020. Independently, I heard calculations that there are 5 billion connected devices now. (2020 estimates ranged from 20 billion to 60 billion.) Verizon speaks of moving from 80-90% market adoption to 500% market adoption in their regions. The thought experiment is fun..what 5-10 devices will be networked in my life?
DAY ONE AGENDA
1. Strategy and Finance 2.0
STL explained the Two- sided business model. STL defined TELCOS' potential new upstream customers along these 7 verticals.
Developers, Retailers, Government, Media, Advertisers, Utilities, Financial Services
Did they steal the VoiceSage customer list!! I almost jumped up and shouted Bingo, matched them all! ( I would argue about developers being a unique vertical). Very cool for VoiceSage.
2. Media 2.0
The Bit Torrent founder showed up and talked about ways to prioritize traffic. Brave Man, Smart Man. It costs Telcos money to support online media. No one actually believes Telcos will make much money in this sector unless they buy content companies.....see CableCos.
3. Consumer Services 2.0= App stores for consumers
Few thought the Telcos will make money in this sector other than at the infrastructure level. It could provide customer stickiness. It sells devices that enable the broader ecosystem. Again, this conversation was focused on consumer apps. However, the discussion began to move the conversation beyond consumer apps to enterprise apps. Scott Adler of Amdocs did a nice presentation. That seems like a winning space for Telcos.
4. Customer Data 2.0: Telco goldmine?
Most everyone agrees this is a goldmine. However, Telco's can't mine it on their own. Lots of start ups being funded around this topic. Privacy is an issue.
STL will be hosting a Privacy 2.0 conference at MIT in Boston in February. This is an important topic for lots of very big companies in the Web world too.
5. Digital Advertising 2.0:
An advertising panel that talked about viewers and impressions etc..
STL did a case study on an sms search service that tried to show there was real money in this space.
6. Mobile Money 2.0:
Lots of good analyst work on this topic. I was impressed with Lopez research. Plenty of startups working in this space. Vendors making money in Kenya (Safariicom) and Japan (DocoMo NTT) after lots of investment from major brands were the focus of the STL presentation.
DAY TWO
7. Internet Access 2.0: Mobile Broadband
We all are using a lot of mobile broadband. New devices and pricing models needed. Telcos can't keep up with the demand and getting commoditized. Dean Bubley presentation
8. Voice and Messaging 2.0= Ask Thomas Howe for his CEBP presentation. Irv Shapiro's Ifbyphone presentation.VoiceSage was highlighted well by Tom and Irv. CEBP is a clear path to ATPU and AMPU. According to Tom, VoiceSage and Ifbyphone are the leading CEBP companies in the world.
9. M2M opportunities in Health= Machine to Machine communications
Lots of money and time being spent on device to device communications ( some people to people too) by Orange, Intel, and other Vendors. Big opportunity, Big Challenges. Money is down the road. I really liked the work done by Niels Helkov from Orange in this sector.
10. Cloud Computing= Joe Weinman from ATT came across as the smartest guy in the room. Really good presentation. I talked with him afterwards. Nice guy too. Read his many blog posts highlighted by GigaOm
11. APIs and Open 2.0:
Tom Howe did a great skit with Sanjay Jhawar describing a conversation between a Telco and an API Developer. Half the room was semi- insulted. Half the room was laughing. Sanjay's firm Ideas and Plans looks sharp. I know this API topic all too well.
Bottomline, the Telco 2.0 event in Orlando was the best conference I've attended in years.
Patrick Murphy
VoiceSage, North America
Monday, November 16, 2009
Voicesage and the future of CEBP
Having joined Dublin, Ireland based Voicesage this month, I feel fortunate to be involved with a company that clearly is the future of CEBP.
Although under the radar in the US, Voicesage has been around since approximately 2002 working on the tough stuff. The SaaS application has gone through multiple product development releases. Thus, it is ahead of anyone else in our space already. There is no legacy application or infrastructure weighing it down. The UK client base already includes many of the strongest brands. These clients are committed to leveraging the Voicesage solution throughout their business since they have experienced business metric improvement over and over again
The business model is working quite well with revenue driving skyward over the last year despite the economic downturn. Profitability for a small angel/vc funded company is a good thing in these times. Voicesage has committed investors without the curse of having taken "too" much funding too soon relative to other businesses in the industry.
There is a nice balance of strategy and tactics blended throughout the company. The team drives customer value while behaving like a real business.
Finally, the advisory team (TBA) is made up of some of the most respected names in the business.
There is lots of work still to do. One of our first tasks is to publish use cases that show how the Voicesage application builds business processes and moves business metrics better than anything else I've seen in the CEBP industry.
Our North American launch will be done thoughtfully and in a timely manner. I do guarantee big things are coming.
Patrick Murphy
Voicesage, North America
Although under the radar in the US, Voicesage has been around since approximately 2002 working on the tough stuff. The SaaS application has gone through multiple product development releases. Thus, it is ahead of anyone else in our space already. There is no legacy application or infrastructure weighing it down. The UK client base already includes many of the strongest brands. These clients are committed to leveraging the Voicesage solution throughout their business since they have experienced business metric improvement over and over again
The business model is working quite well with revenue driving skyward over the last year despite the economic downturn. Profitability for a small angel/vc funded company is a good thing in these times. Voicesage has committed investors without the curse of having taken "too" much funding too soon relative to other businesses in the industry.
There is a nice balance of strategy and tactics blended throughout the company. The team drives customer value while behaving like a real business.
Finally, the advisory team (TBA) is made up of some of the most respected names in the business.
There is lots of work still to do. One of our first tasks is to publish use cases that show how the Voicesage application builds business processes and moves business metrics better than anything else I've seen in the CEBP industry.
Our North American launch will be done thoughtfully and in a timely manner. I do guarantee big things are coming.
Patrick Murphy
Voicesage, North America
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