Tuesday, July 28, 2009

KANA Creates New Consulting Services Unit to Maximize Service Experience Management Opportunity

KANA Software, Inc. (OTCBB: KANA), a world leader in innovative customer service solutions, today announced it has formed KANA Global Consulting Services, a new business unit charged with providing strategic business consulting, expertise in industry-specific business processes and delivery of new technology solutions critical to helping major corporations deliver superior service experiences for their customers.

As part of the formation of the new services unit, KANA is fully merging eVergance Partners LLC, its management consulting services subsidiary, into KANA to streamline operations and better align its strategic business services. eVergance and other KANA direct professional services will be re-branded as KANA Global Consulting Services. Chad Wolf, the former President of eVergance, has been appointed to the newly created position of Senior Vice President, KANA Global Consulting Services. He will report directly to KANA CEO Michael Fields.

KANA acquired eVergance in June 2007 to broaden KANA's management consulting and systems integration capabilities and deepen its expertise in select vertical markets, specifically financial services, healthcare, high-technology and telecommunications. Since its acquisition, eVergance has operated as an independent subsidiary delivering strategic systems integration and managed services that help major corporations provide end-to-end service experience solutions. Among its customers are Avaya, O2, Philips Healthcare, Toshiba, Waste Management and Xerox.

The eVergance team brings a blend of operational, business and technology expertise gained at top consulting firms and Fortune 50 organizations, including Accenture, JP Morgan Chase, McKinsey and Sprint. The firm has deep expertise in multi-channel call centers, Web self-service and knowledge management, is an SSPA "Recognized Innovator" for Web 2.0 and publishes the popular blog eVolved Thinking, which was recently named a blogRank top 50 blog in customer service.

"Chad and the eVergance team have added a new dimension to our strategic services offering over the past two years, and radically elevated the level of management consulting and business services we provide our customers," said Michael Fields, CEO of KANA Software, Inc. "We now see many benefits in bringing them fully into the mainstream of our company to better leverage their expertise, talents and insight."

"Ensuring exceptional experiences with a company's brand today is as much about understanding agile business processes as it is about deploying new technology," said Chad Wolf, the newly appointed SVP of KANA Global Consulting Services. "By merging the eVergance team fully into KANA, we're strengthening our ability to deliver on both fronts. At the same time, our team will continue to help our clients deploy best-of-breed portal, social media and knowledge management solutions along with the full suite of KANA customer service applications. With the launch of KANA 10 and our new services for enabling progressive companies to model and benchmark their service experiences, we look forward to not only providing customers with the new technology they need to empower their customer service teams, but also the ability to streamline and accelerate our customer engagements."

Announced on June 30, KANA 10 is the industry's first service experience management (SEM) platform for managing the end-to-end customer service experience. It gives major corporations and institutions the control needed to help ensure their customers enjoy exceptional brand experiences. KANA 10 has been selected by online travel service provider priceline.com.

Developed in conjunction with IBM and KANA customers, KANA 10 is a Web services-based solution that fuses the IBM service-oriented architecture (SOA) portfolio with KANA's decade of experience in knowledge management and messaging with new 'experience flow' functionality, all in a Web 2.0 platform. KANA 10 brings a new era of flexibility and control to customer service. It can replace traditional approaches by enabling companies to rapidly model and deploy their customers' entire service experiences. KANA 10 also transcends traditional solutions in which critical customer information resides in separate applications or silos that are difficult to integrate, making it hard for businesses to adjust quickly to changing business conditions.

About KANA

KANA is a world leader in multi-channel customer service. KANA's integrated solutions allow companies to deliver consistent, managed service across all channels, including email, chat, call centers and Web self-service, so customers have the freedom to choose the service they want, how and when they want it. KANA's clients report double-digit increases in customer satisfaction, while reducing call volumes by an average of 20 percent. KANA's award-winning solutions are proven in more than 600 companies worldwide, including approximately half of the world's largest 100 companies. For more information, visit http://www.KANA.com.

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