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There was little time for President and CEO James D. Foy to rest following last month's announcement that his firm, Concerto Software Inc., had joined forces with San Jose-based Aspect Communications Corp. Soon he was off to Europe during the week of July 11 to meet with enterprise-class customers - the types who utilize multiple teams for support services - to discuss their thoughts on the deal.
"I've spoken to half a dozen enterprise-class customers ... in the UK, and those are the companies that traditionally spend tons of money on professional services, either internally or externally, to make their contact centers work," Foy said in an exclusive interview with Customer Interaction Solutions, during which he discussed the Concerto-Aspect deal. "What they're saying is this is great news for them. They're all delighted. They're saying this is just a perfect match because, in a lot of cases, the customers that we're talking to were already Aspect customers and already Concerto customers, but just getting different parts of the solution from the two companies. Now they can get that much more complete solution from a single company."
"The merger with Concerto is an exciting opportunity to create a new standard of excellence in customer interaction," said Gary Barnett, Aspect's president and CEO, in the July 5 announcement of the deal. "The contact center market is evolving with the advent of new technologies, like voice over IP, and growing customer demand for reduced complexity and increased capabilities."
The space in which Westford, Mass.-based Concerto will find itself means dealing with many competitors. Foy's answer to this included information about the advantages of the merged companies' expanded presence in the market.
Foy described the combined entity as the world's largest company completely dedicated to the contact center. "We have no distractions," he said. "None of the wannabes in the industry can even begin to measure up now to the range of solution portfolio we have."
Foy covered the synergies that will result from the combination of the firms. "[What our customers] get is a much more complete solution to the contact center problem they face, which is evolving and becoming more difficult every day," he said. "They get more of the solution now from Concerto."
He described his...