From the Top
From the Top
- Executive to Executive -
It’s almost been a year since Amdocs completed the acquisition of the Clarify assets from Nortel. This week, Amdocs announces a new version of Clarify. Hear from the top executive at Amdocs in charge of the Clarify product line how he plans to leverage Clarify’s historically strong installed base and Amdocs’ telecommunications expertise to grow the company’s CRM market share.
Dror Pockard, President, Amdocs ClarifyCRM Division of Amdocs
RealMarket: Tell us why Amdocs made the Clarify acquisition?
Pockard: Amdocs is a very focused company. We provide billing solutions to the telecommunications industry. We were looking to expand our offering, and customer care is a natural extension to billing solutions. Our existing clients saw the strategic value in CRM and understood the importance of bringing billing and CRM together.
| "We have over a thousand clients using Clarify today. And we are growing steadily by adding new Clarify users." |
We also wanted to expand beyond the telecommunications industry. Clarify is strong in many different vertical industries, and we saw in Clarify a very strong company with loyal clients. We also found a very high success rate among Clarify clients. That success rate is something that continues to impress us time and time again.
RealMarket: How big is the Clarify installed base and what are Clarify users saying about the acquisition?
Pockard: We have over a thousand clients using Clarify today. And we are growing steadily by adding new Clarify users. Clarify clients are extremely happy with our new approach to the market. We are not just selling software. We are taking responsibility for implementations - something we call “making it work.” Our philosophy is to be very involved in the implementation even when system integrators take the lead. This is the single most important factor for CRM success and differentiates us from other CRM vendors.
RealMarket: What have you done with the product line since the acquisition and what do you have planned in the upcoming year?
Pockard: We have invested a lot in R&D as evidenced by the new release we are announcing this week. Existing clients will benefit from our new solutions and new capabilities. We believe that the new release will allow us to attract even more new clients.
RealMarket: What can we expect to find in the new release?
Pockard: We made key fundamental changes to the product. The first is the addition of thin and thick client co-existence. Of course, everyone has thin client capabilities, but Amdocs Clarify is unique in the way we implement it. We are not forcing everyone to go to thin client - we have the ability to allow our users to have both thick and thin clients in the same environment. On a case-by-case basis, they can move what they want very quickly to the new thin client but keep their investment in thick client where it still makes sense.
The second important part is a new Process Manager module. This is a module across all parts of the solution set. It is more than just a workflow engine - it allows our clients to plan, manage and control customer processes and operations.
The third part of the release is an XML-based Integration Gateway for integration with all external systems that have XML interface capabilities. This includes systems like ERP, back-office, and wireless devices, and actually opens up the system for faster implementations. As you would expect, we have special integration with the Amdocs billing application, and Vodafone is already implementing it in the UK.
When we put all this together, it adds up to quick ROI - that’s what organizations are looking for.
RealMarket: Amdocs primarily focuses on the telecommunications market. What does that focus mean to the non-telecom Clarify installed base?
Pockard: Clarify has an independent product line, and thus we maintain the Clarify focus on multiple vertical industries. However, we are committed to mimic the Amdocs success of focusing on successful implementations. An example of functionality that is applicable for non-telecom vertical industries is the analytics component within CRM for campaign management, churn management, and lifetime customer valuation. We see this as not only back-office marketing but proactive marketing that fits the needs of the customer service agent and the agent’s real-life processes.
RealMarket: You talk with CEOs from leading companies. What do they see as the number one issue or opportunity facing CRM today?
Pockard: Let me give you two - cost cutting and customer retention. Executives tell me that the ability to keep the customers they have, provide them with better service while managing the bottom line is what keeps them up at night. We are doing it in all aspects. We commit to ROI, and process management in the product.
RealMarket: When you say you commit to ROI, does that mean you will share the risk of implementation?
Pockard: We are working with our clients to achieve the ROI they are expecting. Up front, we are very frank about what is possible and what is not. We are ready to have skin in the game to share the risk and, of course, the reward. That is what long-term relationships mean.
Of course, each client has its own measures but let me give you an example. One of our customers managed to recover the implementation costs within weeks. After the second day, they saw improvement. It was amazing. It was a several million-dollar project, and by using our systems to reduce churn, they were able to re-coup their investment in a matter of weeks. Yes, that’s right - weeks!
RealMarket: In a crowded market, how does Amdocs differentiate itself?
Pockard: The biggest differentiator is our business model. We are not just a product company. We are selling a solution, and we found that focusing on successful implementations sets us apart from our competitors. Yes, we believe we have the best end-to-end functionality, especially in customer service and support, but it is the ability to turn that functionality into business benefit that makes us unique.
| "Telecom is a very complicated and unique industry. We have 9,000 people focused on telecom. Addressing the real needs of telecommunications companies means more than just wizards, terminology and name changes." |
RealMarket: We are seeing some of the larger companies like SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle and Microsoft getting more interested in CRM, many with a focus on telecommunications. What does that mean for Amdocs?
Pockard: Telecom is a very complicated and unique industry. We have 9,000 people focused on telecom. Addressing the real needs of telecommunications companies means more than just wizards, terminology and name changes. I don’t know of any other company that has as many dedicated people that know telecom inside and out like we do.
RealMarket: Tell me more about Amdocs roadmap to providing better ROI and a more complete solution offering.
Pockard: Going forward, we are investing a lot in customer service and customer support. That will continue to be our key capability. We are also continuing to expand the integration of analytics, which is of key importance. Front and back-office integration is also another major focus. Lastly, we are expanding into the selling side of things as well.
RealMarket: There has been quite a bit of press in the last year about CRM failure rates. How do you balance delivery versus expectations?
Pockard: CRM failures are a myth. We believe that there are failures because of two main reasons. Vendors sell software and then go on to the next deal -- leaving the clients to figure it out by themselves. Vendors didn’t spend the necessary time on the implementations. The second reason is that sales force automation (SFA) was the original push -- and SFA is very difficult because sales reps do not change their processes very easily. We focus on the most important parts - customer service and support rather than SFA. That way, we can achieve quick results for our clients.
RealMarket: What is the average size Amdocs implementation? What is the range and what percent are implementation services?
Pockard: We see everything. We see implementations that are out of the box with minimum costs and quick ROI. And we see clients that do quite a bit of customization requiring a large amount of implementation resources. The average client is not a number that makes any sense.
RealMarket: Looking to the future, what is the biggest change you see on the CRM horizon?
Pockard: We are starting to see what I mentioned before - an emphasis on cutting costs, a focus on customer retention, and a commitment to integration with back office applications. CRM is no longer hype and myth. It is about managing and retaining customers - and it is about business process improvement.
top of page