Convergys has completed the acquisition of the Finance and Accounting (F&A) Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) business of Deloitte Consulting Outsourcing LLC, a subsidiary of Deloitte Consulting LLP. The closing finalizes a definitive agreement between Deloitte Consulting Outsourcing and Convergys first announced on June 16, 2005.

According to the June 2005 "World Contact Center Recording Systems Market" report published by The PELORUS Group, Witness Systems holds a leading 35 percent share in the broadly defined recording (both combined and selective) software and services global market. Additionally, the report shows Witness Systems having a 46 percent share in the selective recording (i.e., quality monitoring) global market, which is more than twice the share of its closest competitor.

Xantrex Technology is using Salesforce to manage global sales leads and Customforce to tailor its deployment to Xantrex's unique business requirements. Xantrex is also using the Sforce on-demand integration platform to link Salesforce to Xantrex's intranet in order to auto-populate the intranet with customer profile information and serial number tracking data. In addition, the company is using Salesforce to provide mobile sales managers in the field with wireless access to key customer information.

Forrester Research has cited Oracle as a leader in Enterprise CRM Suites in its latest Forrester Wave ranking. Forrester evaluated Enterprise CRM vendors in three overarching categories: current offering, strategy and market presence. Forrester reports that Siebel still leads the pack.

John Cleese will deliver his keynote presentation "Creativity and Corporate Learning" at the ICCM conference held in Las Vegas (September 25-28). Cleese is the founder of Video Arts, which pioneered the use of humor in training and is the world's largest provider of business training programs. Established in 1972 with three fellow British actors, Video Arts has gained an international reputation as a source for business know-how.

KANA announced its applications will leverage the open Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) introduced by IBM and support implementations with IBM WebSphere Information Integrator OmniFind Edition. This will allow KANA customers to search based on concepts and facts, and access information that was previously hidden in unstructured content.

E.piphay reported 2nd quarter revenues of $16.7 million, compared to $20.4 million in the second quarter of 2004. Second quarter license revenues were $3.9 million, service revenues were $5.1 million and maintenance revenues were $7.8 million. Net loss under generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP") for the quarter was $8.3 million, or $(0.11) per share.

Siebel Systems announced it has endorsed Deloitte Consulting LLP's CRM offerings, encompassing people, process, technology, and governance for customer-facing transformations. Deloitte Consulting's offerings are the first to meet the standards established in Siebel Systems' Customer Experience Blueprint (CEB) initiative.

Siebel and Novell announced that they have extended their partnership to provide support for Siebel business applications on Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. The broadened scope of offerings will enable their customers to deploy Siebel applications on an open source platform.

TeleTech reported second quarter 2005 revenue of $253.9 million compared to $265.5 million during the year ago quarter resulting from lower revenue in North America. During the past sixty days, the Company signed agreements with several new and existing clients, including one of the largest global airlines, a major U.S. healthcare company, a U.S. cable company, a digital entertainment company, and a leading U.S. wireless company.

  "OUR TAKE" (more)

8/9/2005 - Outsourcing Source is Irrelevant One reader wrote, "In my region, we have multiple demographics. Sure cultures are a large contributor to the dynamic nature of CRM, but there are some things that are standard - contacts, follow-ups etc. It boils down to knowing your customers expectations and then providing them - the source is almost irrelevant (with limitations).   Our readers have voted and I concur that culture is not the factor. Instead it is all about problem resolution and the inherent impatient nature of a caller. Things that gets in the way of a quick and thorough answer are seen as incompetence.   Let's not confuse culture with competence.   Gary Lemke, Publisher (Share your thoughts)