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OpenText broadens ECM Suite with new customer communications solution


Johannesburg, 19 Jan 2011

OpenText Corporation, the pre-eminent provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software, today announced the availability of OpenText StreamServe Persuasion version 5, which helps businesses improve their customer communication in an effective, consistent, and engaging way.

Persuasion is the first major product release from StreamServe since it was acquired by OpenText in October 2010, and represents an important addition to the OpenText ECM Suite.

Whether communicating with customers and suppliers or facilitating payment and revenue, documents keep business transactions flowing and the organisation healthy. Persuasion helps increase the efficiency of document-based communication and improves customer engagement by allowing businesses to include impactful marketing messages that are best suited to individual audiences.

Linked with existing business systems, and requiring few or no changes to them, Persuasion adds extensive in-house capabilities for defining, producing and interacting with mass-produced, personalised documents. It provides straightforward tools for business users such as designers, marketing staff, customer support agents, and process owners to efficiently create and use the documents that matter to them.

Supporting Customer Communications Management, for example, Persuasion empowers business managers to rapidly and directly create content such as marketing messages, campaigns, and cross- or up-sell offers. It also gives them control over how and when this content is automatically included in customer correspondence and touch points, such as customer support conversations.

In document-intensive business processes, logistics and distribution, for example, Persuasion eliminates most, if not all, costly and error-prone manual handling. By allowing the automatic flow of paperwork through electronic checkpoints, Persuasion helps to reduce cost, accelerates timelines, and can assist substantially to improve the accuracy of the documentation. This can result in better customer, partner and supplier relationships.

“At OpenText, we're giving customers new ways to engage with, interact with, and improve the customer experience using our growing portfolio of technologies,” commented James Latham, Chief Marketing Officer at OpenText. These technologies include social media, Web experience management, mobility, and now the customer communications solutions from StreamServe, with Persuasion becoming the first addition to the line-up in the OpenText ECM Suite.”

Enhanced customer communications

With little or no change to existing processes, Persuasion has the ability to consolidate data from business systems into smarter, more cost-effective internal and external business communications.

* Full-featured, familiar design environment enables rapid development and implementation of superior customer correspondence templates.
* Intuitive, Web-based tools enable business people to easily create new documents, and modify or leverage existing documents, on the fly.
* Ready-reference repository provides call centre representatives with identical copies of documents the customer received and enables immediate resend.
* High-volume, high-speed production automatically generates documents in the format each recipient prefers, organised for cost-effective and efficient delivery.
* Comprehensive management tools monitor and control operational and production processes.

Efficient document processing

Persuasion offers order-of-magnitude improvements in document-driven processes, complementing OpenText's existing transactional content management (TCM) solution. In time-sensitive workflows, such as those that drive logistics and distribution, for example, Persuasion eliminates the manual steps that cost money, cause delays, and introduce errors that diminish customer satisfaction and incur cost to correct.

It electronically stages documents produced by various sub-processes and sources and releases each document set as tasks are completed. In the production of driver-ready packs in the transportation industry, for example, the end result is near-automatic assembly of complete, order-of-delivery packs that are output as soon as the shipment is ready to go.

“Businesses are seeking ways to automatically generate customer correspondence, as well as to improve the quality, consistency and timeliness of their customer communications," added Melissa Webster, program vice-president at IDC. "These solutions need to integrate tightly with both the enterprise content management system and the customer's enterprise applications. Since both StreamServe and OpenText were already strong partners with SAP, this newly acquired offering is a very good fit with Open Text's ECM Suite.”

For further information, please contact Rob Shaw: tel +27 83 626-3811, fax +27 86 646-4178, e-mail rshaw@opentext.com.

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OpenText

OpenText, the pre-eminent enterprise content management software, helps organisations manage and gain the true value of their business content. OpenText brings two decades of expertise supporting 50 million users in 114 countries. Working with our customers and partners, we bring together leading Content Experts to help organisations capture and preserve corporate memory, increase brand equity, automate processes, mitigate risk, manage compliance and improve competitiveness.

In southern Africa, OpenText's business partners are Accenture, Business Connexion, Datacentrix, IA Systems and SAP Africa; and, its customer base includes organisations from across both the private and public sectors such as Alexander Forbes, Anglo Platinum, BMW, Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Distell, Engen, Exxaro Resources, Mittal Steel, Office of the President, Provincial Government of the Western Cape, SABMiller, Sasol, Telkom SA and Toyota.

Safe harbour statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

This news release may contain forward-looking statements relating to the success of any of the company's strategic initiatives, the company's growth and profitability prospects, the benefits of the company's products to be realised by customers, the company's position in the market and future opportunities therein, the deployment of OpenText ECM Suite and our other products by customers, and future performance of OpenText Corporation. Forward-looking statements may also include, without limitation, any statement relating to future events, conditions or circumstances. Forward-looking statements in this release are not promises or guarantees and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. The risks and uncertainties that may affect forward-looking statements include, among others, the failure to develop new products, risks involved in fluctuations in currency exchange rates, delays in purchasing decisions of customers, the completion and integration of acquisitions, the possibility of technical, logistical or planning issues in connection with deployments, the continuous commitment of the company's customers, demand for the company's products and other risks detailed from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2009. You should not place undue reliance upon any such forward-looking statements, which are based on management's beliefs and opinions at the time the statements are made, and the company does not undertake any obligations to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management's beliefs or opinions change.

Copyright (c) 2010 by OpenText Corporation. OPENTEXT and OPENTEXT STREAMSERVE PERSUASION are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Text Corporation in the United States of America, Canada, the European Union and/or other countries. SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. This list of trademarks is not exhaustive. Other trademarks, registered trademarks, product names, company names, brands and service names mentioned herein are property of OpenText Corporation or other respective owners.

For more information on OpenText, go to: http://www.opentext.com

Editorial contacts

Paul Booth
Global Research Partners
(+27) 82 568 1179
pabooth@mweb.co.za