Genesys Purchases Interactive Intelligence, KKR Buys Calabrio

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Genesys Purchases Interactive Intelligence, KKR Buys Calabrio

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC  |  October 28, 2016

Last month in this space I talked about how it had been a busy few months for acquisitions in the customer experience arena. Since then we’ve seen even more M&A.

The big deal on this front – Microsoft’s (News - Alert) move to purchase LinkedIn for $26.2 billion – is a horse of a different color. Meanwhile, in August, Genesys announced plans to purchase Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. for $1.4 billion. And just a day earlier global investment firm KKR announced plans to buy workforce optimization company Calabrio (News - Alert) for an undisclosed sum.

Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn, a deal that was announced in June, will give it ownership of a social media leader that continues to add members and functionality, has seen strong growth in terms of usage, and has expanded its horizons both organically and via acquisition. With LinkedIn in the Microsoft fold, the software and services giant hopes to drive increased engagement across LinkedIn as well as Office 365 and Dynamics, and accelerate monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising. Microsoft also noted that LinkedIn adds $115 billion to the $200 billion total addressable market that it already serves.

For Genesys, its move to buy Interactive Intelligence is all about scale, as both companies provide cloud-based and on-premises contact center solutions. Following the close of the deal, the larger version of Genesys expects to generate $1.3 billion in revenue and have an annual R&D spend of nearly $200 million. Part of its investment will be used to continue to support Interactive Intelligence’s PureCloud, Cloud Communications-as-a-Service and Customer Interaction Center.

As for Calabrio’s acquisition by KKR, that will enable the customer engagement and analytics software provider to scale to the next level.

“Calabrio has become one of the fastest-growing, quality companies in workforce optimization and customer engagement,” said John Park, director at KKR and a member of KKR’s technology team. “With our partnership, we hope to accelerate the company’s growth even further as the world continues to move toward a customer engagement model through omnichannel integration.”

A leader in Gartner’s (News - Alert) Magic Quadrant for Customer Engagement Center Workforce Optimization in 2015, Calabrio sells a solution called Calabrio ONE that includes analytics, call recording, quality management, and a workforce optimization suite. The company serves more than 4,000 companies, including Boeing (News - Alert), Maersk, REI, and VITAS Healthcare.

“Being named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant was a huge accolade for us, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg for us,” Calabrio President and CEO Tom Goodmanson told me in a recent interview. “We don’t just want to be the leader – we want to elevate the industry as a whole. The opportunities the contact center provides businesses are endless. By designing solutions alongside our customers that give them the right tools to better serve their customers we can transform the contact center into the epicenter of the customer journey and a leading driver of business growth.”

In light of the spate of recent mergers and acquisitions – including NICE’s acquisition of inContact, and Verint’s (News - Alert) purchase of Contact Solutions – Calabrio recently announced an alliance with Five9 that involves the companies integrating their products, which both companies will bring to market. Five9 has a Virtual Contact Center platform allows for inbound, outbound, and blended contact centers. It offers automatic call distribution; computer telephony integration; interactive voice response; and predictive, progressive, power, and preview dialers. Calabrio did not respond to how or if its acquisition by KKR would impact the previously announced alliance with Five9.




Edited by Alicia Young
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