COSMOCOM APPOINTS NEW VICE PRESIDENT OF EMEA

Telecom Industry Veteran, Nick Applegarth, to Lead Sustained Growth in Region

Nick Applegarth has recently joined the CosmoCom executive management team as Vice President for EMEA. With nearly 25 years experience in the telecommunications industry and a diverse background that includes senior general management, sales and marketing across international boundaries, particularly EMEA, Mr. Applegarth is poised to build upon CosmoCom's legacy of success in the region and lead his team to accelerated growth.

"Nick has a tremendous track record of sales achievement in EMEA. He understands both the Telco and the enterprise sides of our business and brings in-depth experience in both channel and direct selling models. He will add great strength and bring new thinking and fresh insight to both the EMEA region and the company as a whole," said Ben Eisner, CosmoCom President and Chief Operating Officer.

Nick will be managing the region from the UK office which recently moved to a new location in an eighteenth century manor house in Leatherhead, Surrey to support the growth in the UK market.

Learn more about Nick and his new role at CosmoCom.

CCU 6 UNIFIED CONTACT CENTER PLATFORM WINS PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

CosmoCom is happy to announce it has been recognized with another Product of the Year Award by Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine for CosmoCall Universe 6.

Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine is published by Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) who applauded CosmoCom for its dedication to improving the quality of technologies to better the contact center experience as well as the ROI for companies that use them. Earlier in 2009, editors said of CCU 6, "The system's new capabilities and enhancements will enable CosmoCom to take the licensees of its unified IP contact center suite into a new dimension of customer service and operational efficiency," and, "Perhaps the most interesting leader in this field [IP-Enabled Contact Centers] is CosmoCom, the company that introduced the term 'Unified Customer Communications' in 2000, and which has promoted the idea of Contact Center Consolidation 2.0, an all-IP contact center strategy that makes companies for accessible and responsive in a cost-effective way..."

TMC Editors have consistently recognized CosmoCall Universe with awards spanning the past decade. This is the eighth consecutive year that CosmoCall Universe has earned Product of the Year from Customer Inter@ction Solutions. CosmoCall Universe also received TMC's 2009 IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Award earlier in the year, adding to CosmoCom's growing list of more than 75 contact center industry awards.

"We appreciate this consistent recognition by the editorial team at TMC, which has provided excellent industry forums over the past two decades," said Ari Sonesh, CosmoCom's CEO. "It is a testament to the continual evolution of CosmoCall Universe, and to CosmoCom's commitment to customer satisfaction."

The 12th Annual Product of the Year Awards winners will be featured in the January 2010 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, www.cismag.com.

LOOKING BACK AND AHEAD

By Ari Sonesh, CEO - This is the time of the year I like to reflect on the outgoing year and set goals for the one ahead. Few would argue that 2009 was not an easy year for the entire industry, but despite the economic environment CosmoCom did quite well. In 2009 we had a profitable year, we added a significant number of new customers, and we introduced CCU 6 - our best and most significant version of our leading contact center suite. Furthermore, we ended the year with a strong Q4 creating great momentum for 2010.

Even though CosmoCom has always been an innovation leader, CosmoCall Universe version 6  really puts CosmoCom's technology ahead of the competition with groundbreaking improvements in: Unified Customer Communications; mobile contact center;  CosmoAnalyst OLAP-based Analytics infrastructure; highly-customizable CosmoDashboard realtime reporting; screen recording; virtual outbound dialing and much more. Customer and market response has been tremendous!

We added many new customers in numerous verticals. but one really stood out. Healthcare stands out most prominently, with significant successes all around the globe. Other stand-outs were telecom customer care, collections, insurance, banking, outsourcers and high tech manufacturing. All of these industries recognized the benefits of more effective customer (or patient) communications.

In 2009 we realigned CosmoCom to prepare for the expected fast growth ahead as the market recovers. We consolidated our global operation under Ben Eisner, who was named the Chief Operation Officer and President and is doing a fantastic job!

Let me reflect upon on our vision and mission...

We believe that businesses must, and will, implement new strategies and technology to overhaul their customer communications and customer service processes. Given the rapid pace of change in the market place, they will demand feature-rich and flexible solutions that can be implemented quickly, and operated easily and economically. And many enterprises will fully integrate most employees -- including mobile workers --into the customer service process making the "formal" call center, as we know it today, a thing of the past. Also, CosmoCom technology, as a disruptive technology, will penetrate new industries and create new applications like we are experiencing with the healthcare industry.  

So, based on the vision, our mission is to create customer value by excelling in development and delivery of technology that improves customer service communications and related processes.

I wish to all of our friends, customers, partners and employees a very happy, healthy and successful 2010. I am convinced that it will be a very successful year for CosmoCom.

SPOTLIGHT ON COLLECTIONS

CosmoCom Sponsors Collection Technology Event

Readers of the CosmoChronicle are used to hearing us talk about how our technology benefits healthcare enterprises and telecoms to name just a couple of verticals. However, did you know that collections is another industry that can -- and does -- derive great value from unified contact center technology?

A growing number of collections organizations are realizing this too, and looking to CosmoCom's technology and expertise to help them, contributing to an expanding customer base in this important industry. CCU has so many strengths and features that are appealing to collections enterprises, but perhaps one of the most cited features is the powerful and flexible outbound dialer capabilities of the product. For many collections agencies the outbound part of their business is the most critical, and the place where the right technology can make a huge difference to their effectiveness and the bottom line.

CosmoCom sponsored the Collections Technology Summit 2010 in Austin, Texas in January. We are happy to have supported the event and hope everyone who attended learned a lot. We look forward to mutual success with those in this growing industry in the months and years to come.

THE US CONTACT CENTER DECISION MAKERS' GUIDE NOW AVAILABLE

The US Contact Center Decision Makers' Guide, from noted industry analyst group Contact Babel, is a major annual report studying the performance, operations, technology and HR aspects of US contact center operations. Taking a random sample of the industry, a detailed structured questionnaire was asked to 212 contact center managers and directors between April and August 2009. Analysis of the results was carried out August to November 2009. The result is the 3rd edition of the largest and most comprehensive study of all facets of the US contact center industry.

CosmoCom is proud to be a lead sponsor and underwriter of the report. You can download a complimentary copy of the 30 page executive summary from our site and if you are hungry for more, there are links within to download the full 250+ page report (also complimentary).

SEE COSMOCALL UNIVERSE AT UPCOMING JAPAN AND EMEA EVENTS

For our readers in Japan and Europe, the coming month(s) will give you some opportunities to see CosmoCall Universe (CCU) in action at regional events closer to home.

Starting out the month, for anybody in the Tokyo vicinity on February 5, you can visit the CRM Forum 2010 at Tokyo Midtown Hall A / B and find CosmoCom partner NCLC (NCL Communications) showcasing CCU in booth #6. Representatives from NCLC, with the support of the CosmoCom Japan office, will be happy to answer your questions about virtual contact center and more. In addition NCLC's Executive Vice President, Mr. Mitsunori Matsuzaki, will be delivering a session on Cost Effective Contact Center Platform in the Cloud at 4pm.

The following week, from February 9 - 11,  those of you in or around Germany many want to head over to the Estrel Convention Center in Berlin for CallCenterWorld 2010, which is one of the largest and most popular industry events in the region. CosmoCom Germany will once again be exhibiting and showcasing the latest version of CCU in Stand A10 or Hall 1.1. Our booth has drawn a good amount of attention in previous years, and this year we expect to be even busier since attendees are already expressing great interest in CCU 6. We hope to see you there.

Finally, in March, you'll have ample opportunity to experience CCU in CosmoCom and partner booths at Strategie Clients in Paris, France. The event is the consolidation of the famous Seca+IT outsourcing and call centers services trade fair with two other related industry shows. We'll share more details about the who, what and where next month. Stay tuned for further details.

This January's Global Sales Meeting (GSM) and Global Sales Engineering Meeting (GSEM), held near CosmoCom Headquarters in New York, were perfect opportunities to capitalize on the momentum from 2009's strong finish and to galvanize the worldwide sales and management teams for success in the year to come.

As in previous years, this GSM had its usual share of dynamic discussions, team building and knowledge transfer on everything from product roadmap to best practices. However, the agenda was more heavily weighted this year toward an abundance of inspiring case studies and success stories. One-by-one colleagues presented accounts of enterprises who are benefitting from CosmoCom technology directly or via one of our service provider partners. What was especially refreshing and invigorating were the new and innovative ways that people are using CosmoCom's customer communications technology. We also heard many stories of large deployments across widening geographic ranges proving that our message of contact center consolidation is very much in line with market needs.

Of course, we have to thank our wonderful guest speakers from a very innovative, award winning telehealth customer (that you'll be hearing more about this year). They delivered a highly stimulating and interactive keynote session that punctuated the strong healthcare vertical focus of many of the success stories.

In the days immediately following the three-day GSM, our sales engineers commenced the GSEM and packed into our HQ Training Center to dig deeper into our technology -- especially CCU6 -- and to share their tips, tricks and best practices for successful customer deployments.

After a hard week of work, and lots of after-hours partying and camaraderie, everyone got back in their trains, planes and cars to  return to their respective corners of the globe --  tired in body, but energized in spirit for the challenges and rewards to come in 2010 and beyond!

 BITS & PIECES: SOME VOIP FACTOIDS

Cloud Computing a Trend to Watch
According to a new report by Datamonitor called 2010 Trends to Watch: Cloud Computing, "Cloud computing is emerging as a major disruptive force for both IT vendors and users. It is still very early days, though, for what many rightfully consider to be the most important trend of decade. The next three years will see cloud computing mature rapidly as vendors and enterprises come to grip with the opportunities and challenges that it represents."

Larger Companies Turning to IP Contact Center Solutions Too
The new ContactBabel US Contact Center Decision Makers' Guide shows that, "Cloud computing is emerging as a major disruptive force for both IT vendors and users. It is still very early days, though, for what many rightfully consider to be the most important trend of decade. The next three years will see cloud computing mature rapidly as vendors and enterprises come to grip with the opportunities and challenges that it represents."

NEW MEMBERS OF THE COSMOCOM FAMILY

CosmoCom EMEA

Nick Applegarth is the new Vice President of EMEA for CosmoCom. Read the story above.

CosmoCom Israel

Moshe Harari joins CosmoCom as Sales Director, Mediterranean Region working from the Israel office. He has extensive experience in Sales and Marketing processes and a deep understanding of Call Center, IT and Telecom industries trends, processes, challenges and services. For the past two decades Moshe has held sales and management positions in the telecommunications industry including such companies as Bezeq, Nortel, Telrad Networks and Motorola. He has a degree in Economics from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	CRM Forum 2010 February 5, 2010 Tokyo Midtown Hall A / B Tokyo, Japan See CosmoCall Universe in partner NCLC  (NCL Communications) booth #6 Plus hear Mr. Mitsunori Matsuzaki, Executive Vice President, NCLC speak about Cost Effective Contact Center Platform in the Cloud on Feb 5 (16:00-16:40)
	CallCenterWorld 2010 February 9 - 11, 2010 Estrel Convention Center Berlin, Germany Join CosmoCom in Hall 1.1 Stand A10
	Strategie Clients - Seca March 16 - 18, 2010 Paris Expo Porte de Versailles - Hall 1 Paris, France More information coming soon
	American Telehealth Association 2010 Annual Meeting and Expo May 15 -18, 2010 Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center San Antonio, TX, USA Join CosmoCom in booth 942 to learn more about CosmoHealth
	ON-DEMAND WEBINARS
	View On-Demand Webinars including "New Horizons in Telehealth", "Consolidation 2.0", "Hosted Contact Center for Outsourcers", "Contact Center On-Demand" and "Telecom Customer Care"

	SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
	Please pass this issue of CosmoChronicle on to others who might be interested. If you are not already receiving the monthly CosmoChronicle you can sign up now. This and past issue are also available in the CosmoChronicle Archives.