Blue Pumpkin Software and Siemens to Co-Develop Industry's First Integrated Skills-Based Routing and Scheduling Solutions for Call Centers.MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 13, 1999-- New Partnership Also Provides Blue Pumpkin's PrimeTime Products Access to Siemens' Extensive Sales and Distribution Channels Blue Pumpkin pumpkin, common name for the genus Cucurbita of the family Cucurbitaceae (gourd family), a group that includes the pumpkins and squashes—the names may be used interchangeably and without botanical distinction. C. Software, and Siemens Information and Communication Networks today announced a strategic partnership to co-develop the industry's first uniquely integrated call center skills-based routing and scheduling solutions for enhanced customer relationship management (CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. ). These leading-edge solutions will combine Blue Pumpkin's PrimeTime scheduling application with Siemens' ResumeRouting(tm) suite of call center solutions, enabling companies to forecast call center activity based on historical information, determine which agent skills are required and schedule agents with the appropriate skills. The combined applications will allow companies to reduce costs by optimizing agent utilization and increase customer satisfaction levels by improving the precision with which customers are matched with agents skilled to serve them. Joint development will also include integration of Siemens' ResumeRouting with PrimeTime Enterprise and PrimeTime Skills, the latest additions to the PrimeTime Product Line of workforce management Workforce Management (WFM) encompasses all the responsibilities for maintaining a productive and happy workforce. Sometimes referred to as HRMS systems, or even the larger ERP systems (Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP). There are many software vendors within this space. solutions driven by the changing needs of the call center industry. The partnership also provides Siemens with the right to distribute Blue Pumpkin's family of PrimeTime products. Today's customers demand that call centers be staffed with agents that can handle a wide variety of multiple media interactions. Siemens' ResumeRouting allows the customer to reach the agent skilled to handle the transaction, and Blue Pumpkin's skills-based scheduling ensures the agents with the right skills are available to handle the transaction. Together, skills-based routing and scheduling technologies enable the modern call center. Comprehensive Solutions for Skills-based Call Centers "These integrated products will provide definitive answers for call centers relying on skills-based routing," said Doron Aspitz, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Blue Pumpkin Software. "Skills-based routing and scheduling are extremely complicated problems for many call centers today -- problems that often cost a great deal of money. Integrating Blue Pumpkin's skills-based forecasting and scheduling solutions with Siemens' sophisticated ResumeRouting suite is a crucial step for the call center industry -- our integrated systems will be the first comprehensive solutions for skills-based environments." "Siemens is committed to helping companies maximize the lifetime value of their customers. The combined solutions from Siemens and Blue Pumpkin will empower companies to serve customers with greater consistency and efficiency," said Al Baker, director of product management for call center and CTI (Computer Telephone Integration) Combining data with voice systems in order to enhance telephone services. For example, automatic number identification (ANI) allows a caller's records to be retrieved from the database while the call is routed to the appropriate party. solutions at Siemens Information and Communication Networks. "We are very pleased to have the opportunity work with Blue Pumpkin and are confident that this collaboration will result in many robust call center management solutions." The Siemens-Blue Pumpkin partnership comes at a time when customer care centers are rapidly becoming one of the most significant financial investments within a large cross-section of industries. Call centers are multiplying due in part to the transition companies have taken over the past ten years in how they communicate with customers and the impact of the "new economy" formed by the shift of companies toward a customer relationship management business model focused on e-commerce. Currently there are more than 100,000 call centers worldwide, with an expected increase to 300,000 by 2001. Additionally, the number of people employed to work in call centers is expected to increase from nine million to 18 million in 2001, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Frost & Sullivan. Blue Pumpkin PrimeTime Blue Pumpkin PrimeTime has earned a Product of the Year award from Call Center magazine and an Editor's Choice Award from CTI magazine while PrimeTime Enterprise has received an Editor's Choice award from the publication Call Center Solutions. PrimeTime provides powerful "what-if" analyses to predict how call volume and staffing changes will affect call center operations. Designed to be simple to install and use, PrimeTime runs on Windows 95 or NT. PrimeTime allows customers to begin improving operations within a few days, as opposed to the weeks or even months required by other more expensive and cumbersome systems. Blue Pumpkin PrimeTime is network-enabled, and users are able to designate any Windows 95 or NT PC as a server. With PrimeTime, call centers can reduce overstaffing costs and increase revenues by capturing previously lost sales. Customers who have implemented the Blue Pumpkin PrimeTime solution ADP (1) (Automatic Data Processing) Synonymous with data processing (DP), electronic data processing (EDP) and information processing. (2) (Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Roseland, NJ, www.adp. , Inc., Airborne Express Airborne Express (IATA: n/a, ICAO: ABX, and Callsign: Abex) was an express delivery company and cargo airline. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, its hub was at Wilmington, Ohio. , AT&T, EDS (Electronic Data Systems, Plano, TX, www.eds.com) Founded in 1962 by H. Ross Perot (independent candidate for the President of the U.S. in 1992), EDS is the largest outsourcing and data processing services organization in the country. , PeopleSoft, and Union Bank of California Union Bank of California is one of the 30 largest commercial banks in the United States. It has 327 branches, the majority of which are in San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange Counties. . Siemens ResumeRouting ResumeRouting is an award-winning suite of advanced call center solutions, offering greater precision and efficiency in call routing and call center management than competing systems. Named product of the year by Call Center Solutions magazine and recipient of multiple editors' choice awards, ResumeRouting enables incoming transactions to be routed to specific agents with specific skill sets, rather than agent groups based on the requirements of the customer and the skills-sets of available agents in the call center. Additionally, call center managers today can assign competency COMPETENCY, evidence. The legal fitness or ability of a witness to be heard on the trial of a cause. This term is also applied to written or other evidence which may be legally given on such trial, as, depositions, letters, account-books, and the like. 2. values and preferences, skill-by-skill, for each agent. This capability enables a very precise match between customer and agent. Among other components, the ResumeRouting suite offers off-line, skills-based traffic simulation. Using historical call activity the ResumeRouting Simulator (1) Software that enables the execution of an application written for a different computer environment. Same as emulator. (2) Software that models the interactions of hypothetical or real-world objects or business processes. , determines whether or not there are enough agents with the appropriate skills scheduled to respond to projected caller profiles. This capability, unique in the industry, provides invaluable management information, allowing managers to see how changing an agent schedule or skills resume will affect service-level and other measurements in the call center before activating the configuration in the call center. The simulator can also be used to analyze marketing programs to determine return on investment and to assist with decisions on hiring or training. ResumeRouting provides comprehensive measurements of call center performance, with real-time, historical, call-by-call and life-of-call reporting. Its reporting environment supports ODBA ODBA Outboard Drag Boat Association ODBA Open Data Base Access ODBA Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 ODBA Oracle Data Base Administration (Open Data Base Access) standards, to allow integration of call center performance information with other business applications. In addition, ResumeRouting offers a pre-defined interface to allow easy integration with most major CRM applications on the market (eg., Remedy, Siebel). About Blue Pumpkin Blue Pumpkin Software is a privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. founded in 1996. Blue Pumpkin is the only workforce management company named to Upside Upside The potential dollar amount by which the market or a stock could rise. Notes: This is basically an educated guess on how high a stock could go in the near future. See also: Bull, Downside magazine's Hot 100 Private Companies, an elite list of rapidly growing high-technology firms. Blue Pumpkin developed PrimeTime to allow call center professionals to improve customer service and increase call center efficiency. Call centers in need of computer-aided forecasting and scheduling include those providing technical support, customer service, travel reservations, financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. and telemarketing telemarketing, the practice of selling goods or services to customers by means of the telephone or of surveying consumer preferences in telephone conversations. . For more information, visit the Blue Pumpkin web site at http://www.blue-pumpkin.com or call 877/257-6756. About Siemens Information and Communication Networks Based in Boca Raton Boca Raton (bō`kə rətōn`), city (1990 pop. 61,492), Palm Beach co., SE Fla., on the Atlantic; inc. 1925. Boca Raton is a popular resort and retirement community that experienced significant industrial development in the 1970s and 80s. , Fla., Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc. provides integrated voice, data and video communications networks The transmission channels interconnecting all client and server stations as well as all supporting hardware and software. to carrier and enterprise customers. Last year the company's 7,000 U.S. employees generated sales of nearly $2 billion. Its parent firm is Siemens, the pioneering electronics giant with more than 400,000 employees worldwide and global sales of more than $66 billion. For more information, visit the company's web site at www.icn.siemens.com. |
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