April 2001

The process of workforce management rests on an interdependency of resources (human and machine), work and time. As it pertains to customer interaction and the dynamics of the contact center and help desk environments, workforce management products must address and reconcile a variety of issues: sales objectives, anticipated workloads, optimal staffing levels, resource availability, campaign duration, changing priorities, available systems and technology, etc. Additionally, an effective solution requires built-in flexibility that can accommodate agent preferences and skill sets versus shift patterns, daily duties, (un)expected employee absences and fluctuating workload demands while still meeting a consistent and effective quality-of-service level. The solution itself must be manageable, achieve measurable savings and efficiencies, and integrate with your business' work process, not become the process. Quite a balancing act, and one fraught with pitfalls for the unsuspecting.

A keen interest in workforce management solutions is not limited to the contact center and help desk domains, as anyone familiar with the issues and responsibilities of field sales and field service forces can tell you. The immediacy of field sales and services drives proactive, anticipatory response just as crucial to your business as the skills-based routing of a Web chat or phone call through the contact center. The elements are the same: customer acquisition, retention, satisfaction and a positive effect on the bottom line.

In the following roster we present you with companies that offer a broad spectrum of workforce management solutions to address your critical needs. When determining what product is best for your business, be thoroughly familiar with your processes and procedures. Keep in mind what support you need now and want to accomplish quickly for the future; e.g., automating time-consuming or repetitive tasks; increasing throughput (and reducing network costs); achieving a consistent, yet flexible scheduling capability; securing tools that empower real-time analysis and management of your resources, etc. Last, understand what you ultimately select; often, collateral benefits from a product's features remain undiscovered or under-utilized, at best.

2B Technologies
Ph: +92 (21) 5861662, 5861227
Web: www.2bt.com.pk
Product: Insight
Insight is a historical reporting solution that primarily aids call center managers in better workforce management. Insight allows call center managers to create customizable, in-house historical reports that require less time for developing and are easy to generate.

Aspect Communications
Ph: 408-325-2200
Web: www.aspect.com
Product: Aspect eWorkforce Management
Aspect eWorkforce Management software provides forecasting, scheduling and intraday tracking capabilities designed for the multichannel contact center. These capabilities enable managers to project future contact volumes and handle times accurately, create staffing plans taking into account agent skill levels and adjust plans as needed to achieve service and revenue goals.

Baydon Solutions
Ph: 617-573-5009
Web: www.baydon-solutions.com
Product: Assistware
Assistware is a tool for supporting and enhancing employee performance for companies in need of greater employee training, on-the-job support, and enhanced customer service. Assistware allows companies to provide "moment of need" predicament-based knowledge management support via a software tool set providing knowledge to employees just when they need it.

Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc.
Ph: 408-830-5400
Web: www.blue-pumpkin.com
Product: PrimeTime
Blue Pumpkin provides workforce management software that allows businesses to plan, execute and evaluate resource strategies to meet their business goals. Blue Pumpkin's multichannel workforce management solution combines outstanding functionality with ease-of-use.

eLabor.com, Inc.
Ph: 805-383-8500 ext. 1133
Web: www.elabor.com
Product: eLabor Time and eLabor Attendance
eLabor is an Internet solution that automates all labor management processes from time and attendance through payroll preparation. An integrated and scalable product for the management, analysis and reporting of all time and attendance events, reporting of unplanned employee absences, notification of unavailable resources and expedited reporting to payroll and HR systems.

Fused Solutions
Ph: 315-265-3400
Web: www.fusedsolutions.com
Product: Support Management System (SMS)
SMS enables real-time, Web-based agent management. Designed for the customer service/technical support environment, customer inquiries are managed through trouble tickets. SMS utilizes the Web, allowing agents to create, view and share trouble ticket information throughout the enterprise. SMS provides scripting, scheduling and messaging, and allows managers to monitor critical productivity indices from remote locations.

Genesys
Ph: 415-355-5390
Web: www.genesyslab.com
Product: Genesys Workforce Management
The Genesys Workforce Management solution supports the most complex contact center environments and provides the planning, forecasting, scheduling and analysis tools businesses need to align workforce strategy with critical business objectives. Workforce Management is integrated with the Genesys Framework, supports a multiskill, multimedia environment and enables remote access for supervisors and agents.

Global Management Technologies Corp.
Ph: 770-416-6000
Web: www.gmtcorp.com
Product: GMT Planet - Jupiter and Mercury Editions
GMT Planet is workforce management software for multimedia contact centers and traditional call centers. Easy to use, GMT Planet forecasts and schedules to meet service goals while containing labor costs. Features real-time adherence, costing/budgeting, vacation/meeting planners and electronic timesheet capability. Mercury version is free to qualified registrants.

HTL Telemanagement, Ltd.
Ph: 800-225-5485
Web: www.htlt.com
Product: HILLS-B Optimizer
HILLS-B Optimizer software solution assists call center analysts, designers, consultants and operational managers with planning, designing, costing and optimizing their operations. It facilitates the decision-making processes involved in operating an effective and cost-efficient call center and allows "what if" scenarios to be performed, viewed and evaluated in a single spreadsheet.

IEX, a Tekelec Company
Ph: 972-301-1300
Web: www.iex.com
Product: TotalView Workforce Management Solution
IEX provides tools for complete contact center management and focuses its experience and technology on providing solutions to improve productivity and reduce operating costs. TotalView Workforce Management allows contact center managers to optimize scheduling across contacts, improve service levels and reduce agent turnover.

Interactive Software Systems
Ph: 954-717-0180
Web: www.intersoftsys.com
Product: e-FORCE
e-FORCE is a multichannel solution that forecasts and schedules employees to support voice, live chat, fax, e-mail and enterprise staff demands. Designed to reduce labor costs, enhance service and empower employees, e-FORCE is a browser-based solution that works across locations and integrates e-mail servers and CRM software. Its Internet architecture makes the system accessible through an Intranet or as a hosted ASP.

InVision Software AG
Ph: +49-0-2102/728-0
Web: www.invision.de
Product: InVision SPS Enterprise
Prerequisite for efficient workforce management in customer interaction centers is the analysis of key parameters (e.g., call volumes, call times, turnover, customer frequency, staffing, etc.) for planning. InVision SPS module ForecastPro evaluates a wide range of historical data and supplies forecasts for future work yields. Cyclical or temporary actions and projects can be planned on an integrated basis and managed accordingly.

ISC
Ph: 212-477-8800
Web: www.isc.com
Product: Irene
Irene is a call center forecasting and scheduling software from ISC. Irene Online, ISC's ASP offering, is designed to offer high performance with zero risk. Irene Enterprise, our on-premise offering, offers complete control for the most demanding call centers.

Journyx
Ph: 800-755-9878
Web: www.journyx.com
Product: Journyx Timesheet, Journyx Work Optimizer
Journyx provides Web and wireless applications for managing a distributed workforce. Located in Austin, Texas, Journyx designs solutions to meet the complex workforce management needs of staffing firms. Journyx solutions automate time and expense data collection, workflow approvals, and enable staffing firms to offer customized client access to productivity data.

MS2
Web: www.ms2.com
Product: MS2 Accelerate
MS2 Accelerate gives high-tech organizations the power to define, develop, market and deploy winning products faster. Team members are aligned through processes implemented across the organization that allow new people to quickly come up-to-speed. With MS2 Accelerate, companies can establish more consistent, automated processes for working together to achieve success.

NeuralAct, Inc.
Ph: 703-793-9700
Web: www.neuralact.com
Product: AgentCARE Workforce Management Suite
The AgentCARE Workforce Management suite of applications utilizes neural net technology, a powerful, yet simple-to-use form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Combined, the applications in this program form a comprehensive productivity and management empowerment tool. They work together to ensure that managers can configure their staff to gain optimal performance from each individual and provide superior customer care.

OdySoft Inc.
Ph: 450-646-4774 ext. 230
Web: www.calabrio.com
Product: Calabrio
Calabrio provides functions required to achieve optimal agent staffing, resulting in significant time reductions in preparing and adjusting workforce schedules. A multilingual solution, Calabrio includes forecasting, simulations, scheduling and tracking functions. Additional modules bring added values, such as vacation management, mass mailing management, outbound campaign, integrated quality monitoring and evaluation, workspace management and Web-enabled functions.

Performix Technologies, Inc.
Ph: 877-637-3063
Web: www.performixtechnologies.com
Product: Emvolve Performance Manager
Emvolve Performance Manager (Emvolve) is an enterprisewide business performance management solution for the international contact center market. Emvolve delivers improved bottom-line business performance by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of employees working in customer contact, including agents, team leaders and management. It focuses the success of a CRM/eCRM initiative on the employee rather than the customer.

Pipkins, Inc.
Ph: 800-469-6106
Web: www.pipkins.com
Products: Pipkins Maxima Advantage 7.0, Vantage Point
Maxima Advantage, featuring Pipkins' proprietary optimization algorithm Merlang, enables managers to solve complicated operational and staffing issues for both large and small multifaceted call centers. Vantage Point, the easy-to-use customization tool for Maxima Advantage, will automate specific functions and eliminate repetitive tasks geared to a specific job description.

Rex Partners
Ph: +358-9-2517-5455
Web: www.rexpartners.com
Product: Smartrex-Workforce Management Software
Smartrex software is developed to meet today's human resource planning and management challenges. Smartrex optimizes shifts automatically according to forecasts, such as future customer number, constraints and employees' work time preferences. The graphical user interface makes it an ideal tool for use in most business fields, including call centers and contact centers, supermarkets, insurance companies, banks, restaurants and travel agencies.

Sytel Ltd.
Ph: +44-1494-793200
Web: www.sytelco.com
Product: Oceanic, Virtual Event Machine
Oceanic is a high-performance workforce and resource management tool for outbound call centers that provides management the means to manage outbound calling resources, analysis and feedback for checking the financial viability of any campaign and taking appropriate action to safeguard bottom-line profit.

Telcordia Technologies, Inc.
Ph: 800-521-2673
Web: www.telcordia.com
Product: Work and Force Management Suite
The Work and Force Management Suite is composed of Telcordia Force, a work and force management system, Telcordia Tech Access System, a field access system, and Fleet Optimizer, an SAIC Product, which is a global positioning-based system for managing vehicle fleets. The suite's services include Change Realization and Solution Integration Analysis Modeling.

Timera Inc.
Ph: 469-524-1000
Web: www.timerasolutions.com
Product/Description: Timera Workforce Management Suite
For companies whose success demands an efficient labor force, the Timera Workforce Management Suite equips your management team with labor scheduling, management and reporting tools designed to reduce costs and improve profitability.

ViryaNet
Ph: 508-490-8600
Web: www.viryanet.com
Product: Service Hub
ViryaNet provides wireless workforce management solutions for field service communities. Service Hub for wireless workforce management provides a complete Internet-based solution for measuring all field service activity and resources. It allows an organization to respond to customer needs by supporting mobile field engineers using wireless devices such as PDAs, two-way pagers and WAP-enabled cell phones.

Vortex Tecnologia
Ph: +55-11-5521-1210
Web: www.vortextec.com.br
Product: ORCA 1.5 Call Center Resource Optimizer
ORCA 1.5 is easy-to-use stand-alone software for sizing agent needs in a call center environment. Features include four- and six-hour shift scheduling, pauses, daily/weekly/weekend workforce patterns, an ODBC connection, allows importing/exporting of Excel files, report functions, and runs on the Windows/Office standard.

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