GLASGOW, UNITED KINGDOM — (Marketwire) — 01/15/13 — , a global leader in customer service solutions delivered on-premise or in the cloud and used by more than 900 organizations worldwide, including half of the Global 100 and 250 government entities, today announced the continued growth and expansion of its European operations, as well as the appointment of several new executive management posts.
The new resources will be devoted to serving KANA-s growing European client base. The company has won significant new business with a number of new customers including Barclays, Eircom, IFDS and Mobile Money.
KANA is also pleased to report that numerous customers have leveraged their KANA customer experience management infrastructure to support call center excellence, in some cases to international acclaim, as in the case of . The utility customer was recently named the winner in the Most Improved Calls category and also named to the prestigious for its Customer Service Direct Debit Operations, which tracks customer preferences and offers services online from bill paying to meter reading.
To support the company-s growth in Europe, the Glasgow campus has been named a key software research and development center. Alongside its sister R&D facilities in Belfast and Sunnyvale, Calif., Glasgow will be one of the company-s main R&D hubs for the product. The Glasgow campus will house the development groups responsible for driving the development of new products, as well as the company-s professional services group. KANA is acquiring new talent in both these areas, expanding headcount by some 20%. The company is also looking to hire additional Project Management, Business Analyst and Sales personnel.
The company also announced several new executive management appointments, expanding its European leadership team. Importantly, all of the recent management appointments are former Ciboodle executives who have been retained by KANA to grow the company-s operations in Europe. These include Kenny Bain who is now general manager, EMEA; Steven Thurlow, head of worldwide product strategy; Paul White, sales director for EMEA; and Michael Cairns, head of professional services for EMEA.
While economic difficulties in Western Europe have slowed software sales overall, KANA is benefiting from organizations- continued investment in customer service initiatives and CRM — both in the commercial and public sectors. CRM (customer relationship management) software ranks within the fastest-growing segments, according to figures released in November 2012 by analyst firm IDC. Three of four CRM market subcategories showed double-digit growth so far this year, with contact center applications seeing a single-digit increase, according to IDC. Customer service, sales and marketing had a roughly 12% growth rate overall. The report also says CRM license sales are growing as companies replace aging on-premises systems with cloud-based offerings.
KANA also saw its business benefit from organizations- continuing investment in customer experience management technology to address key operational imperatives such as channel shift and cost optimization, and to leverage new delivery mechanisms, such as the Cloud.
“Given current economic conditions, it is perhaps more important than ever for organizations to look at how they can improve customer service and customer advocacy efforts and KANA is well positioned to assist them,” said Kenny Bain, general manager, for KANA in EMEA. “With our Enterprise and cloud-based Express solutions oriented to meet the needs of the midmarket, we offer organizations a technology portfolio unparalleled in depth and vision, combining deep contact center experience with web customer service expertise, on a global basis.”
KANA makes every customer experience a good experience. A global leader in customer service solutions delivered on-premise or in the cloud, KANA lets organizations take complete control over customer service interactions, so they can take care of customers, while managing costs and reinforcing brand. By unifying and maintaining context for customer journeys across agent, web, social and mobile experiences, KANA solutions have reduced handling time, increased resolution rates and improved net promoter score (NPS) at more than 900 enterprises, including half of the Global 100 and more than 250 government agencies. KANA is based in Silicon Valley, California and has offices worldwide.
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KANA is a registered trademark of KANA Software, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact:
Erin Lutz
Lutz PR for KANA Software, Inc.
+1 949 293 1055
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