January 2015 Newsletter
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A Word From Our CEO
Lou Marianacci
To all our Customers and Partners!
First off, I want to extend to all of you our best wishes for a happy, healthy and very prosperous 2015.
As with many of our clients, most of you have budgeted projects for 2015 that did not have the budget dollars or time to get implemented last year.
As with most of us, our priorities get juggled constantly and time just flies by. Before you know it, 1st quarter becomes 2nd quarter and all of a sudden projects need to be started and completed with very, very tight time frames and no contingency allotted for errors/delays/etc...
We see this happening every year. As with all great leaders, it is important to do things differently if you want a different result, right?
This year, it's time to get ahead of the game!
Start early, build in possible delays and those things that may creep into a project that are out of your control... so you can enjoy the ride and most importantly, enjoy the success!
M&C is committed to helping you make every project a success. Let's start right away and enjoy the ride together!
Lou
"Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you
can do something about it now."
Alan Lakein, writer
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Service Highlight of the Month
Agent Screen Consolidator
Today, contact center executives are faced with significant challenges-deliver more and provide better service to customers-all with reduced budgets & resources.
They are also faced with significant technical challenges. Many call centers still rely on legacy green screen applications. In order to enter or retrieve customer data, agents must navigate through disparate applications and an extensive number of screens in order to access the information that is needed.
These legacy applications have become a roadblock to improving productivity and service levels. In fact, they impede the ability to provide the service quality that is critical in today's competitive environment.
Today, M&C Associates is working with many enterprise contact centers, to optimize the delivery of legacy applications to the agent desktop with an intelligent web-based interface.
Through a simple process, we can consolidate legacy green-screen applications into a structured, user-friendly graphical web interface on your agents desktop. This is a non-invasive process and works without changing your host application.
We will completely customize the web interface based on your specific requirements and goals. This will facilitate dramatic improvements in call center performance.
For more information on our Agent Screen Consolidation service, please contact us at (631) 439-1684.
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What's Hot at M&CAre You Aware?
Windows Server 2003 support is ending July 14, 2015
Microsoft will discontinue support for Windows Server 2003 on July 14, 2015. Any bugs, security vulnerabilities or other problems users have with the software will force them either to live with a flawed product, purchase an extended support contract or migrate to a newer, supported operating system. Microsoft reports there are about 24 million active and virtual instances of Server 2003 today. Consensus among industry analysts is that many organizations won't complete their migrations in time, but everyone should consider the move mandatory. This change will also take the products from a 32 bit OS to a 64 bit OS.
With just under 10 months of support remaining, most organizations won't make the deadline, because it should take nine to 15 months to migrate a "decent-sized" data center, he said. Undertaking a smooth migration will be largely a matter of performing an inventory, planning which pieces of software or hardware might need to be upgraded and determining whether some services might need to have planned outages if the migration can't be completed in time.
A Gartner report published in April outlines processes for managing risk beyond the support deadline, and estimates that customers budget $1,500 for each server that doesn't get upgraded, accounting for additional support fees, management fees, and additional software.
To find out more information about whether you are prepared to migrate off Windows 2003, click here.
For more information on why migration is very important, click here.
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M&C Appearing at these Events
Arrow S3 National Sales Conference
February 9-11, Palm Springs, CA
Breakout Session: Trends, Successes, New Services for 2015...
...Optimum Contact Center Reliability and Efficiency -
- What you need to know!
Be a winner
THREE $100 gift certificates to be drawn at end of session!
Silver Sponsor Exhibit Hall: Visit us for What's New in M&C Services
Be a winner
Samsung Tablet to be Raffled!
IAUG Converge 2015
Intl Avaya User Group
June 14-18, Denver, CO
- Breakout Session & Exhibit details
to be announced!
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Important Wins in the Last 30 Days
M&C is proud to be working collaboratively with our channel partners with many prestigious organizations on mission critical projects within contact centers of all sizes and vertical markets. Here are just a few highlights of wins that came through over the last thirty days:
Communications service provider in the Mid-Atlantic agreed to the M&C annual Platinum System Maintenance program. This makes our 24x7 communications center and full-time service staff of manufacturer-certified technicians available to them for the highest level of support.
Utility Company in the Southeast to implement a comprehensive Virtual Hold Solution. Previously, M&C was contracted to upgrade their contact center and IVR solutions, as well as introduce Speech technology to both their English and Spanish callers.
Major healthcare provider located in New England received training in the M&C POM Service (Proactive Outreach Monitor) for their contact center. This is one of M&C Associates newest service offerings to help maximize the customer's POM investment - Avaya's Proactive Outreach Manager for implementing automated outbound contact center campaigns.
A West Coast Florida Utility company upgrades to the next version of AACC - Avaya Aura® Contact Center! While an upgrade may seem simple on the surface, it involves many steps and considerations, and that's just what M&C has done. From backing up the existing version of AACC 6.3 to AACC 6.4 software and configurations to upgrading and migrating the sites and desktops; and testing; etc. The primary objective is to keep the customer on the most current software to ensure stability, all while enabling new functionality and guaranteeing support from the manufacturer.
For more information about upgrading to next version of software and configurations, new services, training programs, or partnering with M&C, please contact us at (631) 439-1684.
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Who's Who at M&C
Karen Ferraro
Vice President of Marketing
Karen is leading the M&C marketing team with imagination and bringing the marketing plan to life by defining and communicating the corporate mission, brand, value proposition, and marketing strategy. She aligns product marketing with business objectives, and directs channel partner co-marketing initiatives, campaigns, and events. A 25-year veteran, Karen held global marketing positions at Periphonics and Nortel, leading a robust team of marketing professionals in all aspects of strategic marketing, including its user group-PACE.
Subsequently, in her role as VP of Marketing for Misys/Allscripts, she built a new marketing plan and launched the new Practice Management brand, developed a sales support system for new business, and introduced a PR strategy. In her most recent role as Director of Development for Guideposts Foundation, a NFP organization, Karen identified funding opportunities and raised major gifts for its outreach programs.
Karen is already at work with the dedicated team at M&C and Channel Partners. She is designing a dynamic new communications plan including Monthly Newsletters, pre-event invitations, and special news announcements to Partners. In addition, she is building a new Public Relations program to generate awareness of 'new' wins, service and training offerings, and Partner engagements. Collaborating with partners to expand our presence in conferences, user group meetings and webinars is part of the marketing strategy going forward. There will also be the addition of 'Case Studies' with testimonials from project managers and decision makers.
Karen's commitment to creating marketing plans that build business momentum, and her experience with branding and go-to-market strategies, will ensure M&C of its business objectives and 'Place' in the market.
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