Christine Bentsen: Hi, this is Christine Bentsen with OpenCall podcast. Today I'm speaking with Dominic Sjogren, solutions marketing manager for OpenCall products. Our topic today is IVR consolidation. Welcome Dominique. Dominique Sjogren: Thank you very much. Christine Bentsen: Could you tell me a little bit about HP software and your role within HP? Dominique Sjogren: Of course. HP software consists of HP OpenView and HP OpenCall. HP OpenCall is a part of HP that commonly works with telecommunications software. We're a bit unknown, you can say, because we have mostly been working in a role as OEM. But our systems are deployed in 40 of the top 50 service providers around the world and we have more than 4000 interactive voice platforms deployed with more than half million channels. My role is to develop and market solutions within the interactive voice space. So media platform also called. Christine Bentsen: I see. And where are you speaking to us from today? Dominique Sjogren: I'm speaking to you from Stockholm, Sweden. Christine Bentsen: Excellent, excellent. OK, so when you talk about IVR consolidation, what exactly does that mean? Dominique Sjogren: Well, first of all we can define IVR. IVR is a term that is quite wide. But in this context we mean all the media platforms where you interact with a machine. So when you make a call and you actually don't receive a person, you receive a system that tells you to please press one or something similarly, that is an IVR. What we mean by IVR consolidation is that IVRs are all around in a service provider. They usually have many, many different IVRs from different suppliers. What we want them to do with IVR consolidation is to use one platform, one standardized platform to do all these different IVR services. And in this way reduce the needed capacity and costs around driving an IVR. Christine Bentsen: So the main driver is to reduce the infrastructure by consolidating IVRs? Dominique Sjogren: Yes, one could say that. That is one of the main drivers. There are also many positive side effects related to that. Which is more flexibility. Because having one system to drive many applications instead of always one system per application gives you bigger flexibility for capacity. Being able to use your infrastructure for one service one day and another one the next day. Which also makes it easier for you to deploy new applications. Because you have this big chunk of capacity and infrastructure. So not only reducing the infrastructure in number of ports, which is what we're counting, but also really adding flexibility and lowering cost. Christine Bentsen: So IVR consolidation, when you talk about that you're talking about consolidating more than just voice response systems. Is that correct? Dominique Sjogren: Well, yes, it could also be... that is why today we don't always say voice response systems but also video. Today video is entering here. That's why we call it media services more than voice services now. So it could be more than voice services. And it's also traditionally, in the term IVR, are the voice portal customer care. But we are also talking about voicemail and announcements and a bigger chunk of applications. Christine Bentsen: So is this something that is newly possible or has this been possible for a while? Why is IVR consolidation such a big topic right now? Dominique Sjogren: It has been possible for a long time. First of all, you could always say I choose one vendor and make all my IVR applications with him. But then I would be stuck in a proprietary environment. But since roughly six, seven years there are open standards in this segment of the business. Voice XML being one of the main ones. This is a Web-based standard. So the fact of having open standards makes this possible. A second important factor, because these open standards are here six, seven years, is that IMS, the drive toward IMS does imply going from a vertical solution to having horizontal layers. And that is actually what we are also saying in IVR consolidation. Instead of having vertical solutions, separate pipe stoves, you do have a horizontal layer of infrastructure on the bottom and then the application layer above that. So really you can say that IVR consolidation is taking the first step toward and IMS compliant architecture. Christine Bentsen: I know that consolidation in general and particularly IVR consolidation is very important to service providers. As you mentioned, if they're thinking about moving to IMS, is IVR consolidation only important if you're considering moving to IMS? Dominique Sjogren: No, not at all. It's as relevant if you're not moving to IMS. It will give you as big savings. It's just that it actually helps. If you're going to IMS this is a first step to it. But in itself it has little to do with IMS. It's just that it is an IMS-like architecture. And voice XML and all that is IT-based, Web-based. So it's a modern architecture. So even if it's independent of IMS it has similarities because it is a modern architecture in contrary to the legacy systems, which were very vertical and very proprietary. Christine Bentsen: So it's preparing your infrastructure for the future. Dominique Sjogren: Yes, and your organization. Christine Bentsen: I see. So this is good for service providers. Are there any tangible benefits to the end-user? Dominique Sjogren: Not directly, not that they should notice. Hopefully not because hopefully it would seamlessly be changed so that the end-user doesn't notice it. But he should notice it in the way that... one of the results is that you get more flexibility. It's easier to put a new application on the market. I can be quicker with a new application on the market. Christine Bentsen: A new application like? Dominique Sjogren: Well, let's say I have a voice application in a voice portal with an information service. And suddenly there is a…well, not suddenly. Well, we have a tennis tournament coming up in a month. Now I can, without any problem, just say marketing decides we would need a new application around this tennis tournament. And I can produce that in a matter of days or weeks instead of like before, matter of months. So I'm quicker so the end-user should see more changes. I can update my applications very quickly with voice XML so he should also notice more up to date applications. Christine Bentsen: I see. OK, great. I was wondering if you could tell me about some of the IVR consolidation projects that HP has been involved with? Dominique Sjogren: Yes, I can mention some. One of the interesting natures of IVR consolidation is that they are different from customer to customer depending on their install base, the history, depending on the popularity of services. But one example can be, a small one we have in Eastern Europe where they have reduced the number of ports they have in the system with 70% by doing IVR consolidation. So what they did was to merge two information portals, so-called voice portals, and their voicemail system into one system. And by that reduce the number of needed ports by 70%. And the project in itself was paid by reducing the opex costs so much that the payoff was done within one year. Christine Bentsen: Wow, within one year. How long did that project take, what was the time span from start to finish? Dominique Sjogren: Roughly three months. Christine Bentsen: Wow, OK. Are there any key considerations that you would tell customers to be aware of? Dominique Sjogren: Well, one of the key considerations we have seen from experience is really the one that every customer is different. So for HP it's very important when we engage to have this in mind. And for the customer also, not to believe there is a one solution fits all. So this is really a case by case study that needs to be done to find the most optimal way to deploy an IVR consolidation strategy. Because the gains that can be made from operator to operator. Sometimes it's mainly about saving capacity, reducing CAPEX and OPEX. Other times it's more about having the same IVR platform in the organization to be quicker and more responsive. Everything from deploying new services to changing them to having staff know the platforms, etc. Christine Bentsen: I see. Is there anything that HP brings to the table that other vendors might not? Dominique Sjogren: Yeah, I think there are many points here. Actually except for the product itself and the regional operations with their professional services, there is of course the HP worldwide support. And also the fact that we really, when we bring a project like this, bring many components from one supplier. So not only the software platform in itself, but the standard servers, Linux-based, are all from HP. So the expertise, the professional services, the software, the platform, and the hardware. Christine Bentsen: So it's an end-to-end solution. Dominique Sjogren: Yes. Adding to that we also have a unique partner program. And coupled with an experience center, which is kind of a demo center but a much wider term, which also brings in all the other components that might be in an IMS deployment that come from HP OpenCall. Christine Bentsen: Oh, these are the OpenCall experience centers? Dominique Sjogren: Yes. Christine Bentsen: And I understand that there are several around the world. What would a customer find in one of those? Dominique Sjogren: In an experience center, there are three of them. We have one in Europe, one in Asia, and one in America. The customer would find, for example, demos of all our partner applications. We have some 20+ partners who have created many, many more applications than that. I think it's somewhere between 50 and 100 applications. And many of these applications can be viewed in the experience center. The customer would also see that the OpenCall media server, which is our IVR platform, is not alone. That OpenCall also can be supplied with other components that fit together with the IVR. And that are in the IMS solution. Christine Bentsen: Excellent. Dominique, HP also completed a project with a major operator in Asia. Could you tell me a bit about that? Dominique Sjogren: Yes. That's an interesting one because they have implemented the IVR consolidation strategy in two ways we can say. It started with that they joined three different applications into one portal and put that on our OpenCall media platform. Following up on that they also added totally independent application, but this time on a separate OpenCall media platform. So in that way they have…the first step was a, call it a real IVR consolidation, where they really gained capacity. Both CAPEX and OPEX, by reducing the number of ports. In the second case it was a pure OPEX cost reduction because they are really now standardizing to one kind of platform, although it's very diverse services. Christine Bentsen: Great. I really appreciate your time today, Dominique. For more information about OpenCall and for more OpenCall podcasts, please visit us on the Web at: www.hp.com/go/opencallpodcast.
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