Aspect Software made its own purchase in the steadily consolidating market for contact center workforce optimization (WFO) software by acquiring the assets of Applied Information Management (AIM) Limited. Chelmsford, Mass.-based Aspect will add AIM's performance management software, which helps companies motivate, measure and manage contact center employees, to its own suite of software. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
'It's a very good fit,' said Donna Fluss, founder and president of DMG Consulting LLC, a contact center research firm based in West Orange, N.J. 'Aspect has been building out their workforce optimization solution, and this is one of the faster-growing segments of their portfolio.'
The acquisition of U.K.-based AIM will bring in-house technology that Aspect has for the past five years provided to its customers through an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Merced Systems.
Aspect has been focused on adding performance capabilities to its own suite of contact center and unified communications software and providing best-of-breed capabilities, according to Bob Kelly, vice president of Aspect's PerformanceEdge group. 'As we were looking at that area, we wanted to do more than we could through not owning the technology,' Kelly said. 'Through Merced, we had great best-of-breed capability but we couldn't do the synchronizations we wanted to do or, at least, to do so would have affected Merced's product roadmap, and that was problematic.'
AIM's architecture also fit better than Merced's with Aspect's technology, he said. Merced is built on a Java-based architecture, whereas AIM's analysis and reporting services are built on the Microsoft SQL Server stack, as Aspect's are.
The acquisition was the latest in a series of acquisitions in the contact center performance management market. In 2007, Verint Systems acquired Witness Systems, combining its business intelligence, speech and data analytics with Witness's WFO technology; and in 2006, NICE bought IEX and Performix for their workforce management and performance management technology. It will also allow Aspect to better compete with NICE and Verint, according to Fluss, who noted that Aspect ranks third in total revenue in her forthcoming report on the performance management software market.
While the timing of the acquisition makes sense for Aspect, it also makes sense for organizations seeking to purchase WFO software, according to Ken Landoline, vice president with Reno, Nev.-based Synergy Research.
'We're going to see workforce optimization and customization of that area be more important in 2009 and beyond,' Landoline said. 'People are looking to squeeze every efficiency out of their contact center.'
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