Market Perspectives

Historically, a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has obscured pay gaps and hindered the transparency of workplace wages. In today’s tight labor market, workers have choices in where they work, and are demanding equal pay for equal work. The goal of pay equity is to create workplaces that inspire loyalty, enthusiasm and trust by establishing an environment of transparency and equitable opportunity, ensuring fairness. The challenge for organizations is determining how to properly conduct bias-free...

Technology for managing contact centers is transforming quickly due to innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It is also splintering into multiple market segments that overlap: Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), conversational AI (which is a modern form of self-service), cross-functional analytics, and integrations with tools for sales and marketing users. For buying organizations, it can be hard to identify exactly which vendors and market segments serve...

Organizations are looking for ways to enhance their tools for both internal and external communications. Several unified communications (UC) companies are now producing platforms that combine UC with contact center functionality, with varying degrees of underlying integration. Building up those contact center components is a way for some firms to differentiate their offerings, with some vendors trying to make the contact center platform more of a business toolkit, tying it to the back office. ...

The practical advancement of artificial intelligence is being realized by embedding it into applications across human capital management processes. Using AI to generate personalization enables workflows for managers to make quicker and better decisions, ranging from talent acquisition to engaging candidates to become more effective workers. The challenge for organizations is to find applications that use AI to support daily tasks of workers and HR teams, advancing the talent of the...

While total compensation is not an area that can be handled by a one-size-fits-all solution, many companies lack dedicated compensation software. According to Ventana Research, many HR departments are not equipped to manage sophisticated programs that extend beyond the annual review process. Even among HR departments that do acknowledge the importance of total compensation management (TCM), many rely on outdated systems such as spreadsheets. The use of spreadsheets rather than dedicated...

Contact centers are investing in a wealth of new ideas for better assisting their agents. These include engagement tools, better knowledge management and a more robust hiring pipeline and retention strategies. Also, a rising theme from many contact center users and providers is the availability of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies. Ventana Research asserts that by 2026, three-quarters of organizations will have expanded the stakeholders influencing customer experience...

Data is moving to the cloud. And as cloud applications are adopted, it means that many critical sources of data for analytics now, or soon will, live in the cloud. In fact, nearly nine in 10 participants in our research (89%) reported that they plan to use cloud-based analytics deployments, and the overwhelming majority of organizations (86%) expect that most of their data will eventually be in the cloud. But, as organizations look to embed analytics and reporting into their applications, they...

The current sales cycle software space is one of complexity. Business-to-business sales across all industries are becoming more complex and require more care in their management. The rise of the subscription economy is one example contributing to this complexity. Buyers are not just buying one product at a time, but rather could be buying multiple products over different periods of time, with renewals on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Contact centers are undergoing a radical reshuffling of the workforce, partly because the pandemic shifted agents to remote work. But the trends were in place to reorganize the world of work long before the pandemic. Digital contact channels, which are gaining popularity, require workers that are better informed and capable of handling more complex and interdependent interactions and processes. That’s changing the nature of training, management and even process design between departments....

Ensuring continuous collaboration and digital communication across an organization advances its ability to engage workers and maintain workforce resilience and readiness. Achieving this goal requires a platform that enables business operations to continue under any circumstance.

Contact center technology is moving to the cloud at a slow but consistent pace. That has allowed the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) segment to grow steadily, opening the door to many different approaches for managing the infrastructure needed to serve customers. Some vendors try to include everything under the sun in their offerings to appeal to the widest possible market. Others, like 3CLogic, are taking a more surgical approach, focusing on specific aspects of the call-handling process...

The hybrid work model is being adopted as the standard for organizations after the pandemic unveiled the weak foundation of conventional business operations. More workers are now performing tasks both in the office and remotely. This, however, can lead to disorganized communication between peers. Workers feel secluded from each other. Additionally, existing methods and tools for collaboration and communication have not been effective in addressing more pressing work demands. Organizations need...

Remote and hybrid work environments are prevailing in enterprises, regardless of size. The pandemic caused long-lasting disruption in traditional business operations, requiring organizations to rethink digital communication inside and outside the workplace. The expectation today is that a digital communications platform will meet the unique needs of an organization. Teams must be equipped with cloud-based technology that is easily accessible and enables business communication, such as chat with...

Marketing and Customer Experience (CX) are typically treated as separate business functions or, in some cases, poorly connected. But there is a growing effort to (effectively) conjoin these areas as organizations are discovering that these departments and processes are more successful if they work together to facilitate/promote a unified approach to the customer life cycle.

With the increasing exodus from on-premises solutions, organizations are migrating towards cloud computing for data analytics. Cloud computing supports rapid growth, collaborative analysis and real-time insights without requiring large capital investments in IT infrastructure. A cloud-based approach to analytics can help organizations be more agile and responsive to opportunities in the market.

Organizations that use technology for work management have a competitive advantage over those without collaborative, digital systems. However, existing work management technology may not be sufficient to keep up with the rate of digital work that is being performed.

Data lakes began to emerge 10 years ago in response to the desire for analytic data platforms that could economically store and process large volumes of raw data. These platforms access data from multiple operational applications in a variety of formats to be queried by multiple business departments for a variety of analytic workloads.

The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.

The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT that optimizes organizational resilience and workforce readiness.

The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT that optimizes organizational resilience and workforce readiness.