If you are a current Tealeaf Technology, Inc. customer and would like to find out more how the merger will affect you, please contact us today.
ARMONK, N.Y. and SAN FRANCISCO - 02 May 2012: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Tealeaf Technology, Inc., a leading provider of customer experience analytics software that helps organizations to gain intelligence and react more swiftly to consumer trends in today's digitally transformed marketplace. Financial details were not disclosed.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearance and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012.
With this agreement, IBM extends its Smarter Commerce initiative by adding qualitative analytics capabilities that provide chief marketing officers (CMOs), e-commerce and customer service professionals with real-time and automated insights into online customer buying experiences across online and mobile devices. As a result, organizations can gain actionable insight that allows them to improve customer support, transform site usability, tailor marketing campaigns and increase online conversion rates.
The need to deliver a seamless mobile experience has become increasingly critical to CMOs with global online commerce expected to hit $1 trillion by 2014 and mobile commerce $200 billion by 2015. (1)
Tealeaf has over 450 customers worldwide including 30 of the Fortune 100 companies. These customers are predominantly in financial services, travel, retail and communications services. Current clients include: Dell, Wells Fargo, Air Canada, GEICO, Orbitz, Crate & Barrel, Neiman Marcus, Expedia, Zappos, ING Direct, Best Buy, DirecTV, McKesson and StubHub.
Organizations today are struggling to meet the demands created by the rapidly shifting buying patterns of their customers, who increasingly turn to online, social and mobile channels to gather information, make purchases and receive services. This new digital marketplace requires companies to be highly responsive to their customers’ behaviors in order to both compete and grow. The opportunity to better understand a customer’s experience on websites and mobile devices presents a major competitive advantage for businesses.
Tealeaf provides a full suite of customer experience management software, which records and analyzes a customer’s website and mobile interactions. As a result, marketers can spot patterns and address issues in website and mobile application design and provide a more streamlined online customer experience that leads to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity, and profitability.
For example, using Tealeaf software, the CMO of an online retailer can identify weaknesses in a recent mobile marketing campaign by spotting instances and replaying scenarios that triggered customer sessions to end prematurely. As a result, marketers can improve the customer’s experience by addressing usability, site design or ease of use and reach out to consumers to recapture their interest.
In another instance, an online travel agency finds that when visitors misspell a vacation package name and receive zero search results, nearly 100 percent of the visitors leave the site without completing a booking, prompting the website team to address the response and offer other navigation options. By replaying and analyzing each customer’s session, the travel agent can pinpoint the issue and immediately serve those customers and maintain their loyalty.
“Marketers must continuously deliver a better customer experience on both the Web and mobile devices to meet the expectations of today's empowered consumers," said Craig Hayman, General Manager of Industry Solutions at IBM. "With these new capabilities from Tealeaf, we can not only provide chief marketing officers and other marketing leaders the qualitative insights into how customers actually experience their brands, but show them how to react in real time across marketing, sales and service.
“Tealeaf's patented technology can be deployed into a business’s current environment with no needed modifications so they begin capturing customer data and delivering optimal experiences immediately,” said Rebecca Ward, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tealeaf. “IBM Smarter Commerce is the perfect fit for Tealeaf and further establishes IBM as the leading partner for businesses looking to succeed in today’s fast evolving environment.”
Tealeaf will extend IBM’s leadership in Smarter Commerce by giving companies qualitative web and digital analytics capabilities, allowing them to capture and replay a customer’s web and mobile interactions to provide a more granular and richer view of a customer’s experience. This insightful view helps marketers answer the question of “why” customers interact as they do and thus provide a more optimized online customer experience leading to improved revenue, customer satisfaction, customer service productivity and profitability.
Consistent with IBM's Smarter Commerce strategy and following the closing of the transaction, IBM will continue to support and enhance Tealeaf's technologies and clients while allowing them to take advantage of the broader IBM portfolio. Tealeaf will be integrated into IBM's Enterprise Marketing and Management (EMM) Group, which includes previously acquired assets from Coremetrics, Unica and DemandTec. IBM has invested more than $3 billion in building its Smarter Commerce initiative, a key driver of growth and profitability.
Tealeaf is based in San Francisco, California with additional offices in Europe.
More information on Smarter Commerce can be found atwww.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_commerce/overview/
To join the conversation, follow hashtag #smartercommerce on Twitter
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1. BuddeComm 2012, “Digital Economy - E-Commerce and M-Commerce Insights,” February 27, 2012.
If you are a current Vivisimo customer and would like to find out more how the merger will affect you, please contact us today.
Armonk, N.Y. - 25 Apr 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Vivisimo, a leading provider of federated discovery and navigation software that helps organizations access and analyze big data across the enterprise. Vivisimo is a privately held company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Vivisimo software excels in capturing and delivering quality information across the broadest range of data sources, no matter what format it is, or where it resides. The software automates the discovery of data and helps employees navigate it with a single view across the enterprise, providing valuable insights that drive better decision-making for solving all operational challenges.
Today's news accelerates IBM's big data analytics initiatives with advanced federated capabilities allowing organizations to access, navigate, and analyze the full variety, velocity and volume of structured and unstructured data without having to move it.
The combination of IBM's big data analytics capabilities with Vivisimo software will further IBM's efforts to automate the flow of data into business analytics applications, helping clients better understand consumer behavior, manage customer churn and network performance, detect fraud in real-time, and perform data-intensive marketing campaigns.
"Navigating big data to uncover the right information is a key challenge for all industries," said Arvind Krishna, general manager, Information Management, IBM Software Group. "The winners in the era of big data will be those who unlock their information assets to drive innovation, make real-time decisions, and gain actionable insights to be more competitive."
"Businesses need a faster and more accurate way to discover and navigate big data for analysis" said John Kealey, Chief Executive Officer, Vivisimo. "As part of IBM, we can bring clients the quickest and most accurate access to information necessary to drive growth initiatives that increase customer satisfaction, streamline processes, and boost sales."
IBM estimates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day from a variety of sources including sensors, social media, and billions of mobile devices around the world, making it difficult for businesses to navigate and analyze it to improve competitiveness, efficiency, and profitability. IDC estimates the market for big data technology and services will grow at an annual rate of nearly 40 percent to reach $16.9 billion by 2015.
Vivisimo brings over a decade of experience and innovation in data navigation and visualization technologies for both structured and unstructured data, making it easier for business users to get value from all of their data and content. Vivisimo’s ability to index and search data across multiple repositories is a distinguishing capability, applicable to all industries and clients.
Vivisimo has more than 140 customers in industries such as government, life sciences, manufacturing, electronics, consumer goods and financial services. Clients include Airbus, U.S. Air Force, Social Security Administration, Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. Navy, Procter & Gamble, Bupa, and LexisNexis among others. Upon the closing of the acquisition, approximately 120 Vivisimo employees will join IBM's Software Group. IBM will incorporate Vivisimo technology into its big data platform.
IBM Expands Partner Ecosystem for Big Data Platform
IBM is unique in having developed an enterprise big data platform that allows clients to manage, access, and gain intelligence on the full variety, velocity and volume of structured and unstructured data.
IBM's big data platform is based on open source Apache Hadoop. The platform makes it easier for data-intensive applications to manage and analyze petabytes of big data by providing clients with an integrated approach to analytics, helping them turn information into insights for improved business outcomes.
The platform provides clients with the industry's broadest array of advanced business analytics, Hadoop-based analytics, stream computing, data warehousing, integration, visualization, systems management, governance, and consulting services.
IBM's approach to big data challenges is differentiated as it blends traditional data management technologies that are well suited for structured, repeatable tasks, together with complementary new technologies that address speed and flexibility, and are ideal for data exploration, discovery and unstructured analysis.
IBM is expanding its big data platform to run on other distributions of Hadoop, beginning with Cloudera. Cloudera is a top contributor to the Hadoop development community, and an early provider of Hadoop-based systems to clients across a broad range of industries including financial services, government, telecommunications, media, retail, energy and healthcare. As a result, Cloudera Hadoop clients can now take advantage of IBM's big data platform to perform complex analytics and build a new generation of software applications.
IBM has the industry's broadest portfolio of big data capabilities with software, hardware, services, and innovations developed by IBM Research such as the Watson system. Over 100 IBM Business Partners have adopted IBM's big data platform, bringing a new class of solutions to market and extending the reach of IBM analytics offerings for clients.
For more information on IBM's big data platform, visit ibm.com/bigdata.
For more information on Vivisimo, visit www.vivisimo.com.
About Vivisimo, Inc.
Vivisimo provides enterprises with information optimization solutions that help maximize the business value of information. Unlike traditional information management products, Vivisimo’s innovative solutions help end-users find and take advantage of all appropriate and available information, regardless of source, location or type. Vivisimo’s innovative technology is delivered with a focus on end-user satisfaction and application control through easy-to-use interfaces, flexible security management and a modern architecture that enables quick deployment. Vivisimo products are available as standalone information optimization applications or as OEM versions embedded within partner applications and solutions. Vivisimo serves its clients from headquarters in Pittsburgh, USA, and through partners around the world. Visit Vivisimo.com for more information and the Information Optimized Blog at informationoptimized.com.
If you are a current Varicent Software customer and would like to find out more how the merger will affect you, please contact us today.
ARMONK, N.Y. - 13 Apr 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Varicent Software Incorporated, a leading provider of analytics software for compensation and sales performance management. Varicent is a privately held company, with headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Varicent software automates and analyzes the collection and reporting of sales data across finance, sales, human resources and IT departments to gain efficiencies, uncover trends andimprove sales performance. The acquisition accelerates IBM's Smarter Analytics capabilities across line of business operations in all industries, and will be combined with IBM's existing software offerings that are delivered to clients through on-premise or cloud computing models.
"The acquisition of Varicent advances IBM's efforts to drive analytics capabilities into the hands of front line employees to transform business operations and ultimately improve the bottom line," said Les Rechan, general manager, business analytics, IBM. "For the thousands of sales organizations still relying on silos of data, spreadsheets and e-mail to manage sales, there is an enormous opportunity to apply analytics to this vital area of business and uncover new, untapped growth opportunities."
“Sales Performance Management is still viewed by many in the industry as an art versus a science, but there is plenty of opportunity for this mind set to change,” said Dan Shimmerman, president and CEO, Varicent. “As part of IBM, we can now bring our technological expertise in maturing and advancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales function to a broader range of clients across the globe who are looking to improve their processes, and strategically align incentive compensation with profitable growth.”
With growing volumes of data, companies are increasingly looking for ways to automate and gain faster, more accurate intelligence on sales and financial management data in order to increase competitiveness. According to Gartner, organizations that adopt compensation management solutions can expect to reduce errors by more than 90 percent and reduce processing times by more than 40 percent.
Varicent's software automates and integrates all aspects of sales, client and financial performance management across the enterprise, which is traditionally a labor intensive process. Unlike traditional tools, Varicent provides a single management system that relies on a sophisticated calculation engine to model and analyze the effectiveness of incentive spend.
The software allows clients such as banks, insurance companies, retailers, information technology and telecommunications providers to more accurately determine compensation, streamline territory assignments, manage quotas, and report and analyze sales activities. The software also strengthens audit and compliance readiness and provides transparency for all aspects of incentive compensation.
Founded in 2003, Varicent has more than 180 customers using its software, including: Starwood Hotels, Covidien, Dex One, Manpower, Hertz, Office Depot and Farmers.
IBM will combine Varicent with its R&D and prior acquisitions including Algorithmics, Clarity Systems, OpenPages, Cognos and SPSS, to expand IBM capabilities in business analytics and optimization across finance, sales, and customer service operations. These acquisitions are part of IBM's larger focus on analytics, which spans hardware, software, services and research.
IBM has established the world’s deepest portfolio of analytics solutions, business and industry expertise. This includes almost 9,000 dedicated business analytics and optimization consultants and 400 researchers. IBM secures hundreds of patents a year in analytics, and continues to expand its ecosystem, which consists of more than 27,000 IBM business partners. IBM has also created eight global analytics solution centers in Berlin, Beijing, Dallas, London, New York, Tokyo, Washington and Zurich.
These investments have enabled IBM to introduce Smarter Analytics Signature Solutions to address vital client issues such as fraud detection, financial operations and customer service. They have also led to breakthrough technologies like IBM Watson, a new class of industry specific analytical capability that uses deep content analysis, evidence-based reasoning and natural language processing to identify relationships buried in large volumes of data that can be used to improve decision making.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012. With the closing of this acquisition, it is expected that all of Varicent’s employees will join IBM's Software Group.
About Varicent Software Incorporated
Varicent Software Incorporated, a global pioneer in Incentive Compensation and Sales Performance Management delivers innovative, industry-leading solutions for finance, sales, human resources and IT departments in high-performing companies across industries. Varicent solutions streamline administrative processes, maximize efficiencies and drive improved sales performance. In addition to ranking in the top 5 two years running, in the PROFIT 100 list of Canada’s Fastest Growing Companies by PROFIT Magazine, Varicent was named the highest overall “hot” vendor in the Ventana Research 2011 SPM Value Index.
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For additional information, please visit: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/announce/varicent/
For more information about IBM and Analytics, please visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/27163.wss
IBM YouTube Analytics Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ibmbusinessanalytics