Interactive Intelligence’s focus in Saudi Arabia will be contact centre solutions, unified communications and business process automation as it proceeds to build its business in the kingdom, the company’s Saudi territory manager Safwat Alshawaf said.

“We are noticing that large enterprises are exploring cloud-based solutions to reduce their operational costs. We do foresee in the near future customers in Saudi looking at adopting communication solutions running from the cloud. Security is also a big area of concern since there have been a number of high-profile security breaches in the kingdom and companies are investigating the latest security technologies and systems,” said Alshawaf in a report in Gulf Industry magazine, our sister publication.

Mobility and BYOD trend would gain traction in the near future as well, he said.

“Interactive Intelligence is looking to expand its local operation and have local resources that can perform professional services to support its partners and customers in deploying its solutions.”

The company is expecting a minimum growth of 30 per cent in Saudi Arabia in 2014 compared with the previous year – the level it seeks every year and which is in line with its growth in general, said
the official.

The company is also looking at expanding its customer’s installed base by adding new customers every year in different verticals.

Team creation

Interactive Intelligence has invested in building a local team in Saudi Arabia which covers several areas including sales support as well as after sales support. We also have a local support team in Saudi Arabia to support our channel partners as well as customers. Our strategy is to sell our solution through a solid partner network. Interactive Intelligence continues to expand its operation in Saudi Arabia.

“Interactive Intelligence is very active in promoting not just the company and its solutions, but also in educating enterprises in the kingdom about how they can evolve their contact centres and the communication networks in order to gain a competitive advantage. We do this through regular submission of expert opinion pieces which are published in leading media across the kingdom as well as participating in IT seminars, conferences and exhibitions. We also carry out co-operative marketing activities with our channel partners,” said Alshawaf.

Current and future products

Its current products include its flagship Customer Interaction Centre (CIC) product, an all-in-one IP communications software suite that can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises. It offers a contact centre edge, unified communications, and business process automation functionality to organisations of all sizes and types.

CIC offers contact centres a standards-based, multichannel software platform to blend all media types with the organisation’s business systems and its suite of integrated contact centre applications brings interaction processes and customer service best practices together. It manages and blends inbound/outbound multichannel interactions and gives customers their choice of contact options – voice, email, fax and chat, as well as SMS, business objects, and social media.

Currently, a majority of government organisations are evolving to unified communications and adopting the latest technologies in their contact centres in an effort to provide better services and streamline communications with citizens. This is where Interactive Intelligence believes its technology can provide significant value.

Future products to be introduced in the kingdom would be its Cloud Contact Centre and unified communications solutions which have already been launched in other parts of the globe.

Alshawaf commented that Saudi Arabia is embarking on a new era of ICT investments to support its growing industries and diversification of the economy.

“ICT investment contributes to capital deepening in all industrial and commercial sectors, thereby assisting in generating economic growth that is more sustainable in the long term,” he noted. - TradeArabia News Service