Magic Quadrant for Customer Communications Management Software

G00260215

Magic Quadrant for Customer Communications

Management Software

Published: 25 November 2014

Analyst(s): Karen M. Shegda, Kenneth Chin, Pete Basiliere

Customer communications management

software enables organizations to more

effectively create, personalize and deliver

communications to any output medium. IT

leaders should use this research as a

starting point when compiling a shortlist

and evaluating providers.

Strategic Planning Assumptions

By 2017, 70% of customer communications will be digital, contextualized and consumed on demand via multiple channels, including the Web, mobile devices and social media.

Market Definition/Description

Customer communications management (CCM) is a strategy and a market fulfilled by applications that improve the creation, delivery, storage and retrieval of outbound and interactive

communications. CCM supports the production of individualized customer messages, marketing collateral, new product introductions and transaction documents. CCM software is a set of software components for composing, personalizing and formatting content (acquired from various sources) into targeted and relevant electronic and physical communications between an enterprise and its customers, prospective customers and business partners. CCM software enables customer interactions through a wide range of media including mobile, email, SMS, Web pages and print. The CCM market has evolved from the convergence of document generation/composition and output management technologies. CCM solutions today include the core elements of a design tool, a composition engine, a workflow/rule engine and multichannel output management. Vendors are providing new delivery models, such as cloud SaaS, and incorporating social and mobile features into their product road maps. Gartner estimates that CCM software was an $820-million market in 2013, based on total software revenue worldwide. It is forecast to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of approximately 11%.

Additonal Perspectives

Industry: Communications |

Energy and Utilities |

Magic Quadrant

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Customer Communications Management Software

Source: Gartner (November 2014)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Actuate

Actuate (www.actuate.com) is based in San Mateo, California, U.S., and became a CCM software provider through its acquisition of output management vendor Xenos Group and German CCM

vendor legodo. It has combined these offerings into a CCM suite, Actuate Customer Communication Suite.

Strengths

■ _{Actuate has assembled (from its acquisitions) a CCM suite that includes archiving and output} management as well as document composition capabilities. Its focus on a combination of CCM and analytics and visualizations, via the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) offering, is a competitive differentiator.

■ _{The BIRT PowerDocs component has a strong focus on social and mobile capabilities and} provides integration with CRM applications such as those of Oracle (Siebel and CRM On Demand), SAP, salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

■ _{Actuate is focusing heavily on accessibility requirements, including Section 508 compliance —} which should make it attractive to organizations that must meet legislative requirements.

Cautions

■ _{Actuate lacks brand recognition in the CCM market, because Xenos was best-known for} archiving and transformation and legodo was predominantly focused on the German market. Prospective customers should vet the maturity of Actuate's offering and assess its overall vision, its direct and partner resources, and its potential for future growth.

■ _{Not all of the components in the Actuate CCM suite, aside from the output, archiving and} transformation components, are currently well-integrated — as is common with acquisitions. Customers and prospects should monitor the product road map and assess the impact on any upgrades or migration plans.

■ _{Actuate has a nascent cloud strategy. The first cloud offering, its Cloud Correspondence} PowerDocs application, was launched in August 2014. A cloud-hosted version of the full CCM suite is in the product road map.

Adobe

Adobe (www.adobe.com) is based in San Jose, California, U.S., and markets Adobe Experience Manager Forms (formerly LiveCycle ES4), which can support CCM use cases, under the Adobe Experience Manager umbrella. Adobe Experience Manager Forms is the base bundle, containing both CCM capabilities and interactive form components.

Strengths

■ _{Adobe focuses predominantly on correspondence management and PDF output. It has a strong} focus on interactive PDF and HTML5 forms as well as on mobile capabilities.

■ _{Adobe Experience Manager Forms can be augmented with Adobe's digital rights management} capabilities and its EchoSign digital signature tool for enhanced security and document

authenticity.

■ _{Adobe's global footprint and track record with both creative professionals and marketers gives} it opportunities for cross-selling and the ability to support customers and prospects across the globe.

Cautions

■ _{Adobe does not have a strong focus on batch print communications, so prospective customers} should assess whether its capabilities are sufficient.

■ _{Despite the Adobe brand, customer awareness of Adobe as a CCM provider is lacking: it is not} often included on prospects' shortlists, even when Adobe Experience Manager Forms may be a suitable solution. Adobe must increase its marketing focus to address IT and line of business buyers outside of marketers.

■ _{Adobe Experience Manager Forms offers prepackaged enterprise content management (ECM)} connectors, but does not provide them for CRM and other line of business applications. Partners and customers can leverage the Web services APIs to build integration to these applications.

Aia Software

Based in the Netherlands, privately held Aia Software (www.aiasoftware.com) develops and markets the ITP platform for CCM. A Visionary in the CCM market, Aia targets the insurance, financial

services and utilities industries, as well as the public sector, and its software is often deployed in the departments of large enterprises.

Strengths

■ _{Customer support, ease of use, implementation assistance and training are areas for which Aia} has received positive feedback from its customers.

■ _{Application integration is seen as one of Aia's strengths, particularly the integration of ITP with} SharePoint and Office 365, as well as with Microsoft Dynamics and SAP.

■ _{Aia focuses on the business user, with Microsoft Word and Apache OpenOffice used for} authoring, and is deeply committed to leveraging mobile devices. The end-user interface for its interactive composition is an HTML5-based Web client that can run on tablets and

smartphones. Aia is also developing a series of task-oriented mobile apps.

Cautions

■ _{Customer feedback indicates that ITP is not as strong at batch communications as competing} products. Prospects should therefore determine whether ITP's capabilities are sufficient for their use cases.

■ _{Although in business for more than 25 years, Aia is relatively unknown outside of Europe (only a} small percentage of its revenue comes from other regions). Prospects may be unaware of Aia as a potential provider that can deliver CCM software and support their implementation. Aia does have global business partners that deliver and support ITP as an integrated part of their solutions to their customers.

■ _{ITP Enterprise lacks built-in analytics or reporting capabilities, a feature many of Aia's} competitors offer; however, ITP can be integrated with existing reporting tools.

Cincom Systems

Cincom (www.cincom.com) is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S., and benefits from being one of the few major CCM software providers that is privately held — enabling it to focus on its core markets rather than pushing into other areas to appease shareholders. A niche player, Cincom's trio of core base products is Eloquence Author, Eloquence Engine and Eloquence Web. The company's well-established customer base is midsize and large businesses, especially Tier 2 insurance firms, state governments and the banking and travel/leisure industries.

Strengths

■ _{Cincom focuses on customer-oriented offerings targeted at the midsize business segment in a} few core verticals. It also serves larger customers that have significant document volumes and multiple concurrent users.

■ _{Cincom's graphical user interface is intuitive and enables enterprises to more easily design,} deploy and deliver high document volumes.

■ _{Customer references favorably cited Eloquence's architectural scalability and its ability to} support on-demand communications and workflow, strengths that are very important foundations for CCM solutions.

Cautions

■ _{Despite its long history and notable customer base, Cincom lacks brand awareness among} today's broader, more global range of CCM users. Thus, it may not be on shortlists where it could be a fit. Cincom is working to better target its offering at organizations embracing CCM for the first time, as well as firms that are replacing existing CCM systems.

■ _{Cincom does not lead with cutting-edge capabilities, preferring instead to work with partners} and to introduce new capabilities as the market demands them. For example, Cincom plans to roll out support for Web interface connectors and multiple email attachments.

■ _{Eloquence's processing speed enables fewer pages per server per hour compared with other} providers, some of which use linked servers and daily produce millions of pages per hour. Eloquence's interoperability of multiple servers may mitigate these constraints and increase the number of pages per server per hour.

Doxee

Doxee (www.doxee.com) is based in Modena, Italy, and is a SaaS CCM provider with over 90% of its revenue coming from cloud-based CCM software services. Its Enterprise Communication Platform is available as a public cloud or a private on-premises cloud service. Doxee is using

regional partners to expand its products and services to the international market. In the U.S., Doxee has partnered with Straatus Solutions to create a new company that offers "CCM as a service."

Strengths

■ _{Doxee has a strong business model complemented by a solid market understanding.} ■ _{Doxee's CCM software runs on a multitenant SaaS platform hosted at its own data centers}

located in several countries — ensuring public cloud customers are on the latest version of the Enterprise Communication Platform and their data is hosted in-region or in-country.

■ _{Doxee's cloud licensing model enables customers to readily configure the products and} capacity appropriate to their needs.

Cautions

■ _{Doxee has made only slight progress in acquiring new customers outside of its home region of} Western Europe, though its partnerships with Ricoh Mexico and Straatus Solutions should help. ■ _{Doxee remains one of the smaller providers in terms of annual revenue, which is reflected in}

lower-than-average marks for its marketing and sales execution.

■ _{Doxee's interactive document capabilities continue to lag behind those of its competitors,} despite its plans to address this issue.

EMC

EMC (www.emc.com) is based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, U.S., and is one of the Leaders in this market. EMC Document Sciences xPression supports both interactive and on-demand applications. EMC Document Sciences xPression is a standards-based CCM platform with a robust rule engine to dynamically create customized communications.

Strengths

■ _{Document Sciences xPression is well-integrated with EMC's Documentum to automate the} generation of customized customer correspondence from business processes, which is one of the most common use cases.

■ _{EMC Managed Services OnDemand, a private cloud-based managed service, can be used to} deploy Document Sciences xPression in the cloud — which can streamline and speed up implementation.

■ _{Document Sciences xPression has strong design capabilities with a broad set of options for} authoring tools, including Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Dreamweaver for content creation.

Cautions

■ _{Prospective customers should be aware that Document Sciences xPression is priced higher} than average, but its pricing is comparable with other high-end enterprise CCM solutions. Some customers cite its implementation costs as a challenge, because its multitier, services-oriented architecture requires deployment on a Java Enterprise Edition application server.

■ _{Some customers have noted that Document Sciences xPression has performance issues for} high-volume, structured CCM applications.

■ _{Some customers rate EMC as low in postsales and ongoing support.}

FIS

FIS (www.fisglobal.com) of Jacksonville, Florida, U.S., is one of the few CCM software providers that also has a print, mail and fulfillment offering. Its Output Solutions organization provides design, printing, mailing and electronic distribution/payment of transactional, contractual and

correspondence-related documents. FIS's CCM offering, CSF Designer, benefits not only from use by FIS in its day-to-day document outsourcing operations, but also from feedback from its client base.

Strengths

■ _{FIS's particular strengths are its geographic focus, deep knowledge of its core markets and} sales execution.

■ _{FIS enables ad hoc and interactive correspondence, as well as campaign management, in the} cloud for its Output Solutions and CSF Designer clients, with one-to-many document

processing and publishing of high-volume ad hoc communications.

■ _{FIS ranks among the top five CCM providers by number of clients and revenue. Its large} installed base gives FIS access to insights and trends regarding CCM uses.

Cautions

■ _{FIS's weak marketing execution (outside of its core financial services, insurance and utility} markets), and in particular buyers' continued reference to its core product as "Metavante" (five years after that firm was acquired by FIS), are factors that inhibit its growth.

■ _{While CSF Designer can produce highly targeted transaction documents, its ability to produce} graphically intense, personalized marketing collateral is not as strong as in competing products.

■ _{FIS is adding the ability to use multimedia output and anytime customer messaging and}

communication; a positive move, but one that potential buyers and upgrade customers need to fully test before implementing.

GMC Software Technology

Based in Appenzell, Switzerland, GMC Software Technology (www.gmc.net) is a major global player and one of the Leaders in the CCM market, with a strong, broad and capable platform. Its

multimedia output capabilities are used by enterprises across the publishing market — from the in-house operations producing transaction documents to the service bureaus and commercial printing companies producing a wide range of marketing materials.

Strengths

■ _{GMC has good market understanding, a robust product strategy and deep geographic}

penetration. It understands the market's evolving requirements and translates those needs into products and services. GMC now leads with its interactive and multichannel offerings, rather than with its traditional batch and file format transform capabilities. It has a significant mobile device (nonprint) sales pipeline.

■ _{GMC's capabilities and feature sets, particularly its authoring and document composition} capabilities, enable it to execute on its offering and customer installations exceptionally well. ■ _{GMC continues to have one of the strongest customer experience ratings among users}

surveyed for the Magic Quadrant. The value of such strong references is reflected in its presence on shortlists and the growth in its deal sizes during the past three years.

Cautions

■ _{GMC's parent company, Neopost, had little experience of selling complex software offerings} prior to acquiring GMC, but does allow its acquisitions to stand on their own with little corporate interference.

■ _{GMC's overall viability, and in particular our assessment of the likelihood that Neopost will} continue investing in the product and will advance the state of the art of the portfolio of products, is about average for the providers in this Magic Quadrant.

■ _{GMC's focus is on midsize to large enterprises, while parent company Neopost's focus is on} small and midsize businesses. Customers should monitor GMC's product road maps and strategic direction in case Neopost shifts development resources from the large- to the small-company end of the CCM spectrum.

HP

HP is based in Palo Alto, California, U.S. (www.hp.com), and is one of the Leaders in the CCM software market. HP Exstream provides a comprehensive set of capabilities in all areas, including authoring, workflow, composition and multichannel output. Its product supports high-volume, structured CCM applications well, due its scalability and output management capabilities. HP is

starting to bring together and leverage its other software products, such as those for ECM and analytics.

Strengths

■ _{With HP Exstream Empower Editor, HP provides a rich thin-client, "what you see is what you} get" editing experience to support interactive communications and the authoring process. The HTML5-browser-based editor interface requires no download or installation.

■ _{HP Exstream's strong multichannel output capabilities enable it to handle the full spectrum of} output formats and devices, including email, electronic and multichannel, multiple print formats and emerging channels, including video and social media.

■ _{HP Exstream provides deeply integrated solutions to salesforce.com, Guidewire Software, and} SAP Enterprise Portal.

Cautions

■ _{HP Exstream is often more costly than other CCM products for services and support, and its} implementation time is typically longer — although it's deployments are often also larger and more comprehensive.

■ _{HP Exstream has provided stronger capabilities for interactive CCM capabilities in its latest} release (version 9), but its strength and more typical deployments lie in structured CCM applications.

■ _{HP Relate, the SaaS version of Exstream, is still evolving, but many customers remain focused} on the on-premises version of HP Exstream.

Isis Papyrus Software

Isis Papyrus Software (www.isis-papyrus.com) is a privately held company based in Maria

Enzersdorf, Austria. The Papyrus Platform consists of a broad set of components of which CCM is just one element and includes content management, business process management (BPM) and some CRM capabilities. While Isis Papyrus comes from a document composition and output management heritage, it has expanded its platform to include these core capabilities. Isis Papyrus continues to expand globally, with success in Asia/Pacific through its partners.

Strengths

■ _{Isis Papyrus has a scalable architecture and is able to handle high volumes for batch CCM} applications. It has strong output management capabilities, including end-to-end automation of print shop and mail shop production processes.

■ _{Isis Papyrus provides an integrated platform to handle both inbound and outbound customer} communications.

■ _{Isis Papyrus has a strong set of process management capabilities and many of its customers} will extend their case management application with CCM.

Cautions

■ _{A significant part of the Isis Papyrus customer base is in EMEA; it is still limited geographically} in the North American and Latin American markets.

■ _{Isis Papyrus does not currently have a public cloud-based offering (or customers), although the} Papyrus Platform can be deployed as a private cloud option.

■ _{Feedback from Isis Papyrus' customers and prospects with whom Gartner has interacted,} indicated that the pricing model and price points were high relative to the CCM solutions they had considered.

Newgen Software

Newgen Software (www.newgensoft.com) is based in New Delhi, India, and has regional head offices in Washington, D.C., the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. Newgen delivers content applications, including its OmniOMS CCM software, on top of its core ECM and BPM stack. The OmniOMS CCM Suite addresses batch, interactive and on-demand communications use cases.

Strengths

■ _{Social and mobile capabilities are increasingly in demand from CCM buyers. Newgen has} responded by supporting the HTML5/CSS 3.0 format and using responsive design for delivering communications to mobile devices. Newgen partners with SMC4 to incorporate its bidirectional social media integration capabilities within the CCM suite.

■ _{Newgen has been steadily growing its partnerships and has seen some traction from its} integration with core application providers such as Flexcube, Infosys (Finacle) and SAP.

■ _{Newgen has seen good growth in its CCM revenue during the past year, driven largely by upsell} opportunities within its ECM and BPM customer base. Existing Newgen customers looking for CCM will benefit from this add-on capability.

Cautions

■ _{Outside of the Middle East and parts of Asia/Pacific, Newgen has limited market visibility and} penetration. Prospects outside of those regions must ascertain if Newgen has partners or the appropriate direct resources to support them, and should check references.

■ _{Newgen's cloud strategy is nascent; prospective customers should assess whether it meets} their functional and service-level requirements. Newgen provides hosting of its CCM offering in Amazon data centers.

■ _{Gartner's interactions with Newgen customers indicate that its design tools could be improved.} Newgen provides its own template-based Composition Designer and supports Word and Adobe InDesign via plug-ins. Customers will want to assess whether the built-in designer is

intuitive enough for their business users, or whether it is even necessary to use this tool if they already have Word or Adobe InDesign.

OpenText

OpenText (www.opentext.com)is based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and markets StreamServe, a CCM product with a strong history of providing document presentment and output management. Its strategic alliances with SAP (for SAP Document Presentment) and Infor (for Infor M3 Output

Manager) enable OpenText to win large enterprise deals with those customers. OpenText has aligned and integrated StreamServe with its ECM, customer experience management and case management products.

Strengths

■ _{OpenText StreamServe provides a flexible authoring environment along with its authoring tool,} StreamServe StoryTeller.

■ _{StreamServe provides enterprise-level workflow/BPM capabilities, including case management,} which can use the CCM capabilities to enhance the interactions with the customer.

■ _{StreamServe has good multichannel output capabilities, especially print output management.} StreamServe cloud delivery service for email, fax and SMS message distribution provides the ability for seamless scalability as electronic distribution volumes increase.

Cautions

■ _{StreamServe's interactive and on-demand CCM capabilities are still not very strong, but} OpenText plans to address some of the shortcomings in future releases.

■ _{Feedback from customer references indicates that StreamServe has a high total cost of} ownership and the software is expensive.

■ _{OpenText does not currently have a SaaS cloud offering for StreamServe, although it can be} deployed in a private cloud environment.

Oracle

Oracle (www.oracle.com) is based in Redwood Shores, California, U.S., and has provided CCM software since 2008, when it acquired Skywire Software. Oracle Documaker is a horizontal platform that addresses the communications needs of enterprises in the insurance, financial services and banking, and telecommunications and utilities markets, as well as in the public sector.

Strengths

■ _{Oracle Documaker is a mature product with a significant installed base, especially in insurance.} It appeals to organizations heavily invested in Oracle technology because it integrates with a variety of Oracle application offerings — including Siebel and WebCenter Portal.

■ _{Oracle's global footprint and its extensive sales and services resources enable it to support} Documaker implementations across the globe.

■ _{Documaker includes preconfigured review and approval workflows for production documents} and uses Oracle's Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) Process Manager for

interactive document workflows.

Cautions

■ _{Though one of the more established CCM providers, with a large legacy installed base, Oracle} lags behind competitors when it comes to emerging technologies and capabilities such as social, analytics and cloud. Documaker does incorporate dashboards, and can be integrated with Oracle BI suite. Social integration is on the road map.

■ _{Documaker is hosted in a private cloud deployment by Oracle partners and via Oracle Cloud} Managed Services. The Documaker Studio component, however, is not yet available for cloud deployments.

■ _{IT leaders and CCM buyers looking for a solution for their marketing-related communications} should assess Oracle's product road map plans and timeline. To date, Documaker is integrated with the WebCenter Content ECM offering, but not yet with WebCenter Sites (for Web content management). It was only recently integrated with Oracle Marketing Cloud (formerly Eloqua).

Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes (www.pb.com) is based in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S., and is among the Leaders in this market — providing CCM software, hardware and services that enable both printed and digital communications. Its EngageOne Communication Suite is a complete solution for CCM and can be extended with Portrait Suite to provide campaign management and analytics.

Strengths

■ _{The EngageOne Communication Suite is very scalable, especially for structured CCM} applications, and has been enhanced in version 4 to provide better interactive CCM applications.

■ _{EngageOne has strong multichannel communication management capabilities, along with} customer communication delivery tracking and audit capabilities.

■ _{Pitney Bowes has a broad base of global CCM customers. It focuses on upper-midsize and} large enterprises looking for end-to-end CCM solutions.

Cautions

■ _{The authoring capabilities are still one of the suite's weak areas, with EngageOne Designer} being the only authoring tool available. Other authoring tools, such as Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign, cannot be used.

■ _{Feedback from Pitney Bowes customers with whom Gartner has interacted indicates that} overall customer and product support are areas that need improvement.

■ _{Pitney Bowes does not currently provide a cloud option for EngageOne and is not expected to} do so until 2015, although it does provide hosting services.

Xerox (XMPie)

Xerox's CCM offering is delivered by XMPie (www.xmpie.com), a wholly owned subsidiary based in New York City, New York, U.S. Drawing on its heritage of supporting commercial printing

companies that publish a wide range of highly personalized documents, as well as its transaction document clientele, XMPie's tools enable not only multichannel communications and marketing automation but also Web-to-print and personalized videos. XMPie's ability to execute and offer support for direct marketing campaigns makes it a Challenger.

Strengths

■ _{XMPie benefits from a financially strong parent in Xerox, and a management focus on enabling} all clients — and especially those that have focused on print media in the past — to publish content in multiple media.

■ _{XMPie provides tools not only for multichannel input and output, but also for marketing} campaign management and analytics.

■ _{XMPie's offerings are particularly well-suited to customers such as printing companies,} advertising agencies and service bureaus that serve other organizations by providing turnkey systems and platforms.

Cautions

■ _{Given that most of XMPie's customers are commercial printing companies, IT leaders} responsible for CCM decisions should determine whether its tools, implementation and

scalability meet the unique requirements of in-house operations with high transaction document volumes.

■ _{XMPie's lack of marketing execution outside of its core commercial printing company, agency} and small or midsize business (SMB) markets inhibits its growth in the high-volume transaction document CCM market.

■ _{Feedback from XMPie customers with whom Gartner has interacted indicates that overall} customer support and training are areas that need improvement.

Vendors Added and Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or

one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.

Added

■ _{Actuate acquired legodo in 2013, and the combined company now meets our inclusion criteria.}

Dropped

■ _{Sefas Innovation no longer meets the inclusion criteria for this research.}

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

■ _{Commercial Product. The vendor must currently have its own, proprietary (not relicensed)} CCM software commercially available, for on-premises or cloud deployment, and actively marketed and promoted as such.

■ _{Functionality. The vendor must have software or a SaaS offering that includes all of the}

following components: the authoring/design tool, composition engine, workflow/rule engine and capabilities for multichannel output.

■ _{Geographic Presence. The vendor must actively market its software in at least two major} regions — for example, North America and EMEA, or Asia/Pacific and Latin America. This means the vendor must have existing clients in both regions and either a direct sales presence in those regions or partners that are actively distributing and implementing its solution.

■ _{Revenue. The vendor must have $10 million in total software revenue derived from CCM, or} $10 million in annual subscription revenue for SaaS providers. Total CCM software revenue includes the revenue that is generated by sales of CCM software, plus software maintenance and support services. Total CCM software revenue is aligned to:

■ _{License — The right to use the software based upon contract type (perpetual or term} license)

■ _{Cloud — The revenue for cloud services, including business process as a service,} infrastructure as a service, back-end as a service and SaaS

■ _{Subscription — The annual fees for licensed, on-premises software as well as license} revenue for single-tenant managed services (such as hosting)

■ _{Technical Support and Maintenance — The contract fees for support services (not} including training) and new versions, updates and upgrades

Total CCM software revenue excludes revenue from professional services and the sale of products manufactured by other vendors. Revenue arising from customer requests for software changes may also not be considered, even if such changes are subsequently incorporated into

the core CCM offering. Increases in software license charges as a result of such changes can, however, be considered.

■ _{References. The vendor must supply five references, representing a diversity of industries,} company sizes and geographies, that have had its CCM software in production for at least a year.

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

For Ability to Execute, Gartner analysts evaluate how well a provider sells and supports its CCM products and services on a global basis. In addition to rating product capabilities, we evaluate each provider's viability, especially with regard to revenue growth and profitability, direct sales operation and/or partner channel, installed base, pricing, customer support and satisfaction, and product migrations from one major release to another.

Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Product or Service High

Overall Viability High

Sales Execution/Pricing Medium

Market Responsiveness/Record High

Marketing Execution Low

Customer Experience High

Operations Medium

Source: Gartner (November 2014)

Completeness of Vision

Completeness of Vision focuses on potential. A provider might succeed financially in the short term without a clearly defined vision or strategic plan, but it will not become a Leader. A provider with average vision anticipates change by accurately perceiving CCM market trends and exploiting technology. A provider with superior vision anticipates, directs and initiates market trends, particularly if it integrates its vision for a broad range of areas and capitalizes on product and service development. Part of our assessment involves looking at how well each provider

interactive and on-demand capabilities, as well as multichannel versus print output. We also assess how well the provider is anticipating or planning to address market trends such as cloud delivery options and the increased use of analytics, social and mobile technologies.

Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Market Understanding High

Marketing Strategy Medium

Sales Strategy Low

Offering (Product) Strategy High

Business Model Medium

Vertical/Industry Strategy Medium

Innovation High

Geographic Strategy Medium

Source: Gartner (November 2014)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders

Leaders drive transformation in the CCM market. They have the highest combined scores for Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. They are doing well and are prepared for the future with a clear vision. They have strong channel partners and a presence in multiple regions; they achieve consistent financial performance; and they offer broad platform support and good customer support. In addition, they dominate in one or more technologies or vertical markets. Leaders are aware of the ecosystem in which their offerings need to fit.

Challengers

Challengers are solid providers today and can perform well for many enterprises. The important question is whether they have the vision to succeed in tomorrow's CCM software market. A Challenger may have a strong CCM product, but a product strategy that does not fully reflect market trends — such as the increasing importance of the user's context, multichannel output and interoperability with adjacent technologies (such as CRM, ECM and Web content management).

Visionaries

Visionaries are forward-thinking and technically focused. For example, their CCM products may have unique capabilities, or they may set the market's direction through their innovation and product development. To become Leaders, they must work on some of the core aspects of their offerings and increase their Ability to Execute. They may also need to build financial strength, gain functional breadth, improve service and support, and expand their geographical coverage and sales and distribution channels. Their evolution may hinge on the acceptance of a new technology or on the development of partnerships that complement their strengths.

Niche Players

Niche Players focus on a particular geography or segment of the CCM software market, as defined by characteristics such as size, industry and project complexity. Niche Players typically have a comprehensive CCM offering, but a relatively limited customer base. This focus can enable them to outperform or be more innovative than other players, but there is no guarantee that this will be the case. A Niche Player may be a perfect fit for your requirements, but if a Niche Player goes against the direction of the market — even if you like what it offers — it may be a risky choice because its long-term viability will be under threat.

Context

Enterprises need to continue to reduce costs and control spending. This has led more of them to migrate to open platforms and service-oriented architecture, as older applications and mainframe CCM systems become more costly to upgrade and maintain and SaaS and cloud-based

applications continue to grow as alternatives to internally managed systems. This development increasingly involves a move from in-house-developed CCM solutions to packaged apps. Enterprises' CCM initiatives continue to focus on more cost-effective reuse of shared content resources such as product documentation, marketing messages and service representatives' scripts for discussions with customers. This content is used to upsell and cross-sell using "push" and "pull" marketing techniques that result in revenue gains from the use of highly targeted and personally relevant content. Moving beyond the basic personalization that was a staple of document composition tools, enterprises have also recognized the power of CCM solutions for handling on-demand and interactive scenarios. Today's CCM software must also support the revenue opportunities arising from instantaneous context-aware interactions with users who express their product and service needs via mobile devices and a variety of social media channels.

Market Overview

CCM software as a market has emerged from the convergence of document generation/

composition and output management technologies. CCM software is the engine that generates the electronic and print communications used by an organization to interact with its audiences.

notices, policy documents, claims, contracts, welcome kits and explanations of benefits. CCM software enables customer interactions through a wide range of media, including mobile, email, SMS, Web pages, print and customer self-service.

Increasingly, CCM is seen as a content application and tied to an ECM solution for archiving and retention of communications. In addition, providers are tying their respective CCM offerings more deeply to their Web content management, and search and analytics offerings, as part of a strategy for customer experience management or digital marketing. As CCM providers focus more on interactive, on-demand and contextual communications, and the delivery of those communications via multiple channels, the CCM category is both overlapping with and requiring of a high degree of interoperability with adjacent technologies such as CRM, marketing resource management and Web analytics tools.

IT leaders making decisions about CCM vendor selection should assess the potential vendor's ability to support their communication purposes. Not all vendors are well-suited to all three types of communications (batch, interactive and on-demand), nor do all vendors address the emerging social, mobile and analytics requirements.

See Note 1 for a list (not comprehensive) of other vendors that did not meet all our evaluation criteria for this Magic Quadrant, but that you might want to consider when compiling a shortlist.

Communications Context

Analyst(s): Kamlesh Bhatia

Customer communications management is becoming an integral component of communications service providers' strategy for improving customer experience. We highlight notable vendors that target CSPs with applications and related services for CCM.

Market Differentiators

Customer communications management (CCM) has been an integral part of communications service providers' (CSPs') operations. Most CSPs first adopted CCM as a strategy to gain efficiencies and cost reduction in the creation and delivery of outbound messages, including those for marketing/service announcements, customer correspondence and bill statements. However, recent change in market conditions as result of competition with Internet-based providers or over-the-top (OTT) providers, and an emphasis on digital services, is driving CSPs to consider CCM as an integral part of their overall customer experience management (CEM) strategy.

As personalization becomes the cornerstone for successful relations with the subscriber, CSPs are upgrading all manual and customized processes, including their CCM capability. New solutions for CCM are part of an automated data-driven approach for CEM that allows better

contextualization and message consistency across all customer touchpoints and channels, including higher upsell and cross-sell opportunities with existing subscribers.

CCM solutions in CSPs can also be the catalyst for a convergence strategy that cuts across CSP services and lines of business. The ability to seamlessly cross-bundle products and services, often from partners and third-party suppliers, can result in competitive advantage. As a result, CSPs seek flexible systems that allow them to participate in an increasingly complex ecosystem while retaining control of end-customer experience.

CSP services are increasingly becoming more real time, thus driving the need for seamless integration with underlying systems, including network data sources, which capture and

process customer and service data. The ability to interact with real-time data through advanced analytics capability will be needed as CSPs transform to become providers of digital services. However, CSPs need help to evolve their CEM strategy and determine the potential business value enabled by CCM technology. Vendors must complement their technical capabilities with business-level expertise delivered in a consultative model to help CSPs realize the full potential of their investment in CCM.

Considerations for Technology and Service Selection

Given the integral role of CCM in improving customer experience, CSPs must exercise due diligence in selecting the right vendor. Here are some factors to consider:

1. Ask for a list of CSP client references to evaluate domain and operational (scalability and performance) competence.

2. Evaluate functional compliance, including a well-defined road map for additional features, especially in the context of multichannel integration (including social), embedded analytics and user-interface capability for business users.

3. Assess the ability to integrate with various operations and business support systems (OSS/ BSS) and network data repositories through a service-based architecture, and comply with industry standards requirements like TMF eTOM and SID.

4. Seek service support in the form of consulting and training to jump-start implementation — using industry-specific tools and frameworks (rule-based/template-based approach for use by business users; for example — predefined customer segments to launch a marketing campaign for mobile money).

5. Involve business stakeholders in the due diligence process around vendor selection. This helps align CCM requirements with the broader CEM strategy early on.

6. Insist on support for local regulatory requirements for data protection, privacy and compliance.

Notable Vendors

Vendors included in this Magic Quadrant Perspective have customers that are successfully using their products and services. Selections are based on analyst opinion and references that validate IT provider claims; however, this is not an exhaustive list or analysis of vendors in this market. Use this perspective as a resource for evaluations, but explore the market further to gauge the ability of each vendor to address your unique business problems and technical concerns. Consider this research as part of your due diligence and in conjunction with discussions with Gartner analysts and other resources.

Actuate

Actuate has CCM customers in several verticals, with telecommunications among its top three verticals. Actuate has five of the top 10 telecommunications providers worldwide as customers, among which it counts the largest U.S.-based telecom company, which processes

transactional volumes for 65 million subscribers accessing content online. Actuate follows a direct sales model and has partners that offer support services and reach in specific markets.

Adobe

Adobe has a large client base composed of more than 10,000 customers across various verticals. Telecommunications is among the top five industry verticals for the company. Adobe targets this vertical with a generic core base product in Adobe Experience Manager Forms 6.0 (released in May 2014). Sales and marketing is not vertical-specific but industry use cases and reference collaterals are used to engage with prospects and clients. Adobe provides end-to-end services for its CCM solution, including consulting services. The company also has a well-established partner program for services and support to enhance geographic coverage. Adobe also pursues a resell and co-sell approach with its partners.

Assentis

Assentis is privately held and has over 100 customers across verticals. The company has a strong vertical focus on banking and financial services. Assentis lists telecommunications among its top three verticals along with government. The company offers its DocFamily product across verticals, with professional services for telecommunications clients. The company has a service-specific partnership model to augment its own service organization.

Brite:Bill

Brite:Bill, is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and privately held. The company has a total of eight live CCM installations, all of which are with large and midsize CSPs, mostly in Europe and North America. The Brite:Bill platform offers CCM software that enhances existing CSP billing system capability. The product allows the CSP to abstract the complexity of legacy back-end billing systems and deliver a modern, flexible and personal billing experience. It offers the ability to source billing data from one or more billing engines and then present consolidated billing information and personalized, targeted communications to the end customer. The company

also offers analytic capabilities through dashboards and a customizable reporting suite to support corporate billing operations and reporting. The platform supports multiple-delivery channels — paper, online, mobile and messaging. Brite:Bill sells directly to CSPs by leveraging its specialized subject matter expertise in bill design and user experience. The company is expected to announce partnerships that will result in Brite:Bill also offering its product portfolio to non-CSPs.

Doxee

Doxee is privately held. The company is primarily a cloud CCM solution provider, and lists telecommunications among its top five verticals. Doxee targets specific vertical industry markets by preconfigured vertical setup and by specialized professional services capabilities. No separate product line is used. The company has a modular solution in Doxee Enterprise Communication Platform version 2.0, and recently launched new features for better interactivity, personalized video bills (for example, that allow CSPs to explain changes in billing statements) and improved campaign management capabilities. The company partners with a range of companies for global scale and vertical expertise.

GMC

GMC has more than 1,800 customers across verticals, with a strong presence in the print service provider segment. The company started its verticalization focus in 2012, and lists telecommunications among its top five verticals. GMC targets specialized verticals with the same product (GMC Inspire) and addresses vertical-specific needs through professional

services. The company is working to productize vertical-specific integration efforts into product functionality, which in turn will reduce cost and time for integration. GMC has its own sales and professional services organization, but regularly sells through partners that include hardware companies and system integrators.

HP

HP has more than 1,000 CCM customers that use its product HP Exstream. The company lists telecommunications among its top five verticals and offers vertical-specific professional

services capability. Telecom companies use HP Exstream for multichannel output in high-volume billing applications, on-demand communications and interactive applications such as correspondence. HP lists a telecom client that produces 25 billion images per year among its larger implementations. The company offers its own services around the core product, but also has an extensive strategic alliance partner program that includes system integrators, resellers and independent software vendors for domain expertise, and client-specific requirements to streamline sales engagement, compliance message control, customer service and experience, online self-servicing, and consolidated billing and transpromotional messaging. HP also offers a SaaS-based version of its product in HP Relate.

Intense Technologies

Intense Technologies, which is headquartered in India, is publicly listed. The company has nearly 90 CCM installations globally, of which 61 are with CSPs — mostly across Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. Its CCM solution called uniserve 360 is vertical-agnostic and uses a library of prebuilt adapters to connect with multiple CSP billing platforms across B2B and business-to-consumer (B2C) segments. The platform supports multichannel communication with modules for reporting, document tracking, template management and analytics. The ability to offer B2B analytics and interactive e-statements is a source of competitive differentiation. The company offers its own professional services capability for installation and ongoing support, with skills certified by TM Forum. Intense Technologies supports both a direct and partner-led strategy for go-to-market. The company has ongoing projects with system integrators like IBM, HCL Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro and Tech Mahindra. This is in addition to working with OEM vendors for CSP revenue and customer management software.

Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes has more than 600 customers across 65 countries. The company lists telecom among its top five verticals. Pitney Bowes targets telecom through a combination of industry-specific capabilities offered as part of its solution, such as vertical-industry-specific analytics models. Its fast-path migration utilities with built-in adapters allow rapid migration from legacy platforms. In addition, the company partners with vertically relevant service and solution providers where appropriate. Pitney Bowes also offers domain-specific consulting and product management capability as differentiators.

Energy and Utilities Context

Analyst(s): Kenneth F. Brant

Presentation of personalized, clear and uncontested printed bills is the basic requirement for customer communications management in retail utilities; however, the ability to deliver real-time messages with data insights to customers via many channels is of strategic importance.

Market Differentiators

Managing customer communications in the utility industry is a challenge driven by key business and operating objectives; this task will become even more demanding and differentiated with the increasing competition in utility markets and with the increasing use of smart meter data to effect important changes in consumer behavior. The market context for customer

following industry-specific capabilities, which will become increasingly important success factors for achieving business value in the utility industry's CCM programs through 2020: ■ _{Efficiently present timely, accurate and insightful billing statements, leveraging investments}

and data from CRM/customer information systems (CISs) and from meter data management (MDM) infrastructure.

■ _{Intelligibly present the key parameters and factors driving the periodic cost of services to} customers, and clearly convey an analysis of usage, what-if scenarios and incentives to customers.

■ _{Effectively support demand response in real time via dynamic price offers and peak load} reduction credits in real time via electronic communications to smart appliances, mobile devices and social media.

■ _{Proactively mitigate customer concerns and risks during service outages by creating a} front-end, customer-facing communications facility for network-centric, internally oriented outage management systems.

By acquiring these critical capabilities via CCM — often integrated with big data analytics platforms and utility-industry-specific applications such as CIS — utilities aim to reduce the cost of operating call centers while both improving customer satisfaction and changing consumer behavior in ways that benefit their overall cost of providing service.

Considerations for Technology and Service Selection

CCM will be a critical element in the strategic development of retail utilities as they seek to transform from commodity service providers to value-added and market-responsive service providers. However, CCM alone will not be sufficient, given the requirements for operational data to inform and change consumer demand. Retail utilities must make the following considerations when selecting a provider for CCM software:

■ _{Does the CCM provider have an established record of providing solutions to retail utilities,} and does it have an understanding of their business processes?

■ _{Does the CCM provider have complementary software modules for MDM (operational data} analytics, business intelligence and CIS)?

■ _{Does the CCM provider offer integration frameworks and prebuilt integration to build} composite solutions, including CCM? If not, does it have the strategic partnerships in place today to enable integration of software for end-to-end business processes?

■ _{Does the CCM provider support the retail utilities' periodic printed communications needs} (traditional billing) as well as electronic communications needs (Web/social media, email, text and M2M) that will increase in importance through 2020?

■ _{Does the CCM provider have a utility vertical orientation for software development and} partnerships with consulting and system integration (C&SI) providers with expertise in the utility vertical?

■ _{Are the business stakeholders in your organization positive about the CCM provider's} ability to provide solutions that represent their future customer communications

requirements, including service differentiation, outage management and demand response? ■ _{Does the CCM provider (along with its partner network) have the means to meet local}

regulatory requirements for data protection, privacy and compliance?

Notable Vendors

Vendors included in this Magic Quadrant Perspective have customers that are successfully using their products and services. Selections are based on analyst opinion and references that validate IT provider claims; however, this is not an exhaustive list or analysis of vendors in this market. Use this perspective as a resource for evaluations, but explore the market further to gauge the ability of each vendor to address your unique business problems and technical concerns. Consider this research as part of your due diligence and in conjunction with discussions with Gartner analysts and other resources.

Doxee

Doxee, headquartered in Modena, Italy, is a focused provider of CCM SaaS, with more than 90% of its revenue coming from cloud-based CCM software services. Utilities will find Doxee, founded as Ebilling in 2001, to be a viable alternative for CCM in the cloud, offering potential efficiencies — via software acquisition and maintenance costs — which are especially

appealing to resource-limited utilities, especially those operating in regulated markets with price controls and limited IT staff for application development. Doxee's Enterprise Communication Platform can be deployed by utilities in either a public or a private (on-premises) cloud, and it offers multichannel communications for distribution in print, email, Web, archive, SMS, fax, customer support and smart devices. To date, Doxee has been successful in developing utility business primarily in Europe. For North American utilities seeking a cloud approach to CCM, Doxee can deliver "CCM as a Service" via its partnership with StraatuS Solutions, an Omaha, Nebraska-based SaaS infrastructure provider. Doxee does not offer a deep suite of vertical-specific solutions for the utility industry, although it promotes its CCM platform as "industrial strength," having a modular, customizable and secure design — all of which are important to utilities.

HP

HP, based in Palo Alto, California, U.S., offers utilities the HP Exstream CCM system. Utilities will find that HP Exstream provides a comprehensive set of horizontal capabilities, including authoring, workflow, composition and multichannel output. HP's product supports both high-volume structured CCM applications and interactive capabilities that are increasingly important to the utilities. While HP does not offer a CIS for utilities, HP Exstream integrates with CIS solutions — including a packaged integration with SAP, which is a leading provider of

applications to the utility industry. Importantly, HP's Autonomy unit adds a deeper capability for the utilities to leverage advanced data management and analytics for more relevant, industry process-centric and effective customer communications. HP's HAVEn platform — combining the capabilities of Hadoop, Vertica, Autonomy/Intelligent Data Operating Layer (Idol) with

security enhancements — is potentially relevant to the utilities seeking to get a return on their investment in smart meters/grids. The platform would enable the CCM to acquire and convey customer insights from real-time data in operational technology environments. HP Exstream is also designed to enable the full spectrum of output formats and devices — including email, electronic and multichannel outputs, multiple print formats, and emerging channels (such as video and social media) — that matter to utilities. As utilities strive to create more personalized experiences for their customers based on insights from big data and multichannel analytics, HP's broader capabilities in digital marketing can help them discover and target these opportunities.

OpenText

OpenText, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, markets the StreamServe CCM system to utilities. OpenText StreamServe's capabilities for correspondence management, analytics and print management are extensive. OpenText does not have proprietary vertical business applications for utilities; however, the company maintains a critical strategic alliance with SAP (for SAP Document Presentment), which has enabled OpenText to win large-enterprise deals with SAP customers in utilities. OpenText offers complementary Smart Grid Data Archiving facilities for its StreamServe customers in utilities. OpenText also provides ancillary software tools for creative and process management (the StreamServe StoryTeller authoring tool and enterprise-level workflow/business process management [BPM] capabilities), which

complement its CCM capabilities and can enhance the utilities' interactions with their

customers. OpenText also provides multichannel output capabilities, allowing utilities to reach customers via print and electronic means. StreamServe Cloud Delivery service for email, fax and SMS message distribution provides scalability as electronic distribution volumes increase in the utility industry.

Oracle

Utilities will find that Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, California, U.S., offers both a broad and deep portfolio of CCM, vertical-specific CIS software and integration frameworks for their industry. Oracle's product and service mix for the utility industry makes it a compelling option for CCM, especially in competitive energy markets, where the utility industry must communicate with its customers in many more situations, and with greater insight and service options as the industry transforms. The Documaker CCM platform addresses the generic customer

communications needs of utilities; furthermore, Oracle can bundle CCM with its infrastructure software, and horizontal and vertical software in combinations that are relevant to utilities' goals to provide differentiated services in both regulated and nonregulated markets. Utilities'

communications with their industrial, commercial and residential customers can be enhanced using Documaker CCM, in combination with Oracle's vertical industry-specific software, such as Utilities Customer Care and Billing, Utilities Customer Self Service, Utilities Quotations Management, Utilities Meter Data Management, and Business Intelligence for Utilities. These integrated solutions can provide enhanced insights to customers across multiple

communications channels in document-centric and non-document-centric business processes. Oracle's vertical solutions for utilities can be consistently built using the Oracle Utilities

Application Framework. Integration of horizontal CCM software with key applications in the Oracle Utilities suite can be achieved via Oracle's Application Integration Architecture. Given the importance of architecture and system integration services to build the utility industry's CCM solutions, Oracle's PartnerNetwork must be considered a strength in this market segment. Oracle has attracted and developed a talented worldwide set of implementation partners, including global consultants and system integrators, as well as a network of regional players that can address the utility industry's needs for solution design, implementation, integration, product localization, training and support.

Financial Services Context

Analyst(s): Rajesh Kandaswamy, Vittorio D'Orazio, Derry N. Finkeldey

The financial services industry needs CCM software for deeper, consistent and more effective customer engagement. Many of the top CCM providers focus on this vertical with industry solutions and targeted marketing efforts.

Market Differentiators

Regular, accurate and secure communication with consumers is paramount in financial services, whether in banking, securities or insurance. Three key areas of information that they need to share are customers' financial relationships, product literature and regulatory

disclosures. Due to the volume of communications — especially in banking — customer

communications expenses are noteworthy for the firms in this industry and an important area of cost control. Not all customer communications are treated equally. Sensitive customer financial data needs a high level of protection compared with product literature. Forward-thinking

financial services firms have also realized that every communication, whether mandated by regulation or otherwise, is an important touchpoint with the customer that can grow the relationship and build upon the brand promise, or degrade it.

Online and mobile are additional channels that the industry needs to support for these communications to meet customer expectations, while also providing a more economical alternative to paper. The proliferation of channels not only increases complexity in multichannel and cross-channel interactions but requires additional care in consistency of branding and communication across these channels. While the financial services industry has made strides in using these channels, this is continuing work. It is not only the need to support the same

communications on the new channels but also identifying what information will be of use, why (context-sensitive), where (location-sensitive) and when (time-sensitive). This requires treating customer communications planning and implementation not just as an IT exercise that

consolidates systems but as a foundation on which customer engagement strategies need to be overlaid to achieve the most impactful and cost-effective communications.

Considerations for Technology and Service Selection

Due to their heavy reliance on customer communications management (CCM) across multiple channels and lines of businesses, financial institutions need to evaluate their choices over multiple aspects. Use the following list to evaluate CCM vendors:

■ _{Channel Support: Does the solution support all channels that you require today and in the} future? The solution needs to provide consistency in design, composition, output

management and reporting functionality.

■ _{Functional Coverage: Does the solution have prebuilt and customizable solutions for the} areas that are relevant to you (such as bank statements, credit card statements,

performance reports, insurance policy notices and benefit explanation notices)? ■ _{Process Management: Does the solution allow you to implement and manage the}

operational processes over all the groups involved? Is there a robust workflow layer to support your needs in access control, approvals, scheduling and measurement?

■ _{Integration Needs: What is the effort required in integration with other systems, whether in} content management, operational data stores, business process management systems or operations management systems? What is the position regarding support for industry architecture standards (Banking Industry Architecture Network [BIAN] and The Open Group Architecture Framework [TOGAF])? Are there adapters available to vertical-specific

software that you use (such as core banking platforms and policy administration systems)? Given that many financial services providers will have multiple core systems, this capability becomes a key area of focus and is a driver to a CCM provider with a stated industry subsegment focus (for example, retail banking versus insurance).

■ _{Industry Maturity: Can the vendor provide you with client references from other institutions} that have used its solutions in a similar functional area, over multiple channels and for the scale you need?

■ _{Regulatory Readiness: What is built in to support regulatory and compliance needs?} These could be specific to the functional area (such as disclosures specific to bank accounts), the geography or an industry (such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council).

■ _{Industry Standards: Does the solution support the industry standards that your}

organization has adopted (such as BIAN and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development XML transaction specification)?

■ _{Implementation Needs: What are the resource, time and skills requirements to roll out a} solution with all the integration required? Are there unique requirements that can

complicate implementation?

■ _{Global Coverage and Internationalization: Is the solution available for the languages that} you need, and is support available in geographies where you need to implement the

Notable Vendors

Vendors included in this Magic Quadrant Perspective have customers that are successfully using their products and services. Selections are based on analyst opinion and references that validate IT provider claims; however, this is not an exhaustive list or analysis of vendors in this market. Use this perspective as a resource for evaluations, but explore the market further to gauge the ability of each vendor to address your unique business problems and technical concerns. Consider this research as part of your due diligence and in conjunction with discussions with Gartner analysts and other resources.

Aia Software

Aia Software has a strong presence in financial services in the European market, especially in insurance and leasing. While the company does not separate products for verticals, it has created an ecosystem with several independent software vendors (ISVs) that have built specific vertical solutions. Typically, these solutions are built on top of the API provided by Aia Software. The company's future plans include building features that such ISVs need to serve specific insurance or other industry needs. For instance, the company is looking to improve support for templates that will help ISVs to better leverage industry norms, such as International

Organization for Standardization (ISO) forms. The company offers consulting and implementation services for its solutions.

FIS

FIS, the largest vertical-specific software provider to the banking and securities industry (see "Market Share Analysis: Banking Vertical-Specific Software, 2013"), offers CSF Designer as its primary solution for this industry, as well as insurance. In banking, its presence is strong in core banking, and the company serves institutions of all sizes, with the larger ones more on software licenses and the smaller institutions more on outsourced solutions. FIS integrates CSF Designer to its core banking platforms. The company's CCM solution is offered to insurance, as well — the life and annuity segment is its largest, followed by property and casualty (P&C). The company's future plans include improved integration of its CCM solution deeper into its banking platforms and wider across all channels, especially mobile. More CCM integration is also envisioned for its cloud-based platforms. The company has a large consulting arm

(through its acquisition of Capco) and plans to better integrate its consulting and product arms in the future.

GMC Software Technology

GMC has a strong presence in the banking and insurance markets. The company's flagship product is GMC Inspire, and the company provides vertical-specific solutions as configurations of this product. Increased vertical focus is a key aspect of the company's growth strategy, and it has invested in sales and marketing to accomplish that. The company is also building

adapters for vertical-specific software, such as with Temenos in banking or Guidewire in insurance. The company aims to provide more vertical support while keeping integration costs down with a combination of product configuration and prebuilt adapters. For implementation