Top Technology Trends for 2010

Earlier this month at our Technology Services World (TSW) conference, I released the results of my 2010 TSIA Member Technology Survey, which tracks the adoption, satisfaction and planned spending in 24 areas of enabling technology and services for professional services, field service and technical support. After a long and very dark time for spending over the last couple of years, the numbers show that pent up need for refreshed technology is finally translating to spend: more than half of the categories covered in the survey are being invested in by more than 20% of members in 2010-2011.

For complete results, see the TSIA 2010 Member Spending Reports under ‘Research‘ on TSIA.com.  There is one for each discipline: field service, professional services and support services. Highlights include:

• Mobile devices and applications proliferate. Mobile technology and devices came out on top of the spending survey, with 34% of field service members having budget for mobile technology. iPad, iPhone and Blackberry users demand native applications, and increasingly they are getting them. For example, Oracle announced an iPad application for Oracle CRM on April 20th. NTRglobal’s NTRconnect gives iPhone users full access to home computers, including the ability to shake the device to move from screen to screen in a multi-screen environment (a feature I LOVE). Our newest partner, Anoto, has created a line of writing devices that records as it writes, capturing data in real time and synching it with databases and applications.
• Make it social. No surprise, spending on social service is big this year. In fact, 31% of members have budget for social service tools, meaning 2010 is the year enterprise companies are pulling the social trigger. While most companies have already invested in online communities, this new round of spending includes social media monitoring tools (Baynote, Clarabridge), wikis and other collaborative content and tribal knowledge tools, idea storming, and integrations to incident and knowledge management.
• Focus shifts from knowledgebase to search. The emphasis of knowledge management programs shifts from KBs toward a “knowledge anywhere” approach, with 31% of members having budget for intelligent search tools than can mine content in any location, in any format. The new breed of search tools (Coveo, InQuira, Consona CRM) are also bridging the gap between traditional online support content and customer community content, helping to merge self-service, online communities and social service into single initiatives.

Other areas with high planned spending include workforce management/optimization tools, analytic platforms, quality monitoring tools, learning management, and professional services automation.

For any TSIA members starting a project to identify new tools, please leverage the inquiry process. I can give you additional information, such as top installed products by TSIA members, and member satisfaction with specific tools.  And as always, thanks for reading!

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Intelligent Search Market Overview Launches March 29th

My latest research opus, a Market Overview of Intelligent Search, is about to see the light of day. I kicked off this project last fall and thought it would be a 2 month project.  7 months later, I’m finally delivering the report. What took so long?  Good question.

It turns out that navigating the vendor landscape for search tools was even more complicated than I thought. A full third of my TSIA member inquiry volume last year related to search technology, and short lists of vendors began to include both knowledgebase and self-service search experts AND enterprise search specialists. As I started digging, these two worlds are also merging with an emerging search market: social search.

Merging Markets Create Intelligent Search

I started by surveying a dozen search vendors that spanned these three markets to find out what was “bleeding edge” in their world, and I compiled a list of the 20 most innovative selection criteria for search, spread across several categories such as displaying search results, content maintenance, integration, scalability, deployment model, and product breadth. Next, I had each vendor fill out a form indicating which of these 20 features they offered, along with details on prepackaged integrations and scalability. The following search vendors/TSIA partners participated in the study: Attensity, Baynote, Clarabridge, Consona CRM, Coveo, InQuira, KANA, nGenera CIM, Q-go, and RightNow.

The report, which addresses search needs of technical support, professional services and field service operations, goes live to all TSIA corporate members on Monday, March 29th. This Thursday I am doing a members only webcast to preview my findings, which includes the matrix of features by vendor. To register for the webcast or for more information, TSIA members should access the link for their service discipline:

• Support Services Registration: http://www.thesspa.com/webcasts/index.asp#intelligentsearch
• Professional Services Registration: http://www.tpsaonline.com/webcasts.asp#intelligentsearch
• Field Services Registration: http://www.afsmi.com/events/webcasts.asp#intelligentsearch

In my 2009 Member Technology Survey, intelligent search was one of the bright spots, with high planned spending. For companies launching a search for search, this report will help you create the RFP by understanding what really differentiates products today.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday’s webcast, and thanks for reading!