Global consulting firm Quadrant Knowledge Solutions (QKS) has released the results of its SPARK Matrix: Workforce Engagement Management (WEM), 2022 report.
First distributed to paying clients in December last year, the study details rising WEM trends, introduces the vendor landscape, and offers competitive positioning.
Now, QKS has made much of this insight publicly available, including the Matrix graphic, which splits vendors into three groups: technology leaders, challengers, and aspirants.
Read on to discover the providers that have gained this leader status, alongside the pros and cons that QKS spots within each of their offerings.
The Definition of Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) Platforms
WEM platforms provide a solutions suite that aims to engage and empower contact center teams and – in doing so – help businesses meet their customer service objectives.
As this definition suggests, there is an overlap with workforce optimization (WFO) platforms, and many use the terms interchangeably.
Yet, QKS suggests that the rise of "WEM" underlines the technology’s evolution.
Vendors no longer mold their platforms around priming team productivity to meet business goals quickly. They are now more employee-exerience-centric.
That said, they still contain many conventional contact center solutions. These include workforce management (WFM), quality assurance (QA), and recording software.
However, many now also include conversational analytics, voice of the employee (VOE), gamification, and several other solutions.
Often these overlap. For instance, many vendors can automate call scoring by combining QA, recording, and speech analytics software.
Yet, this is only one example of many, and some providers are pushing the boundaries further.
QKS aims to single these vendors out by evaluating nine leading WEM against two central benchmarks: customer impact and technology excellence.
The analyst gauges customer impact against market presence, product strategy, and track record criteria.
Meanwhile, it evaluates tech excellence on factors such as competitive differentiation, technology sophistication, and application diversity.
In doing so, it places WEM providers on a matrix, segmenting them into leaders and challengers – with no aspirants positioned on the graphic below.
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SPARK Matrix: Workforce Engagement Management (WEM), 2022[/caption]
Delving deeper into this, consider the following analysis of the nine WEM providers, which draws from high-level insight from the QKS study.
WEM Technology Leaders
- NICE
- Verint
- Genesys
- Calabrio
- Alvaria
- Five9
NICE
The WEM suite native to CXone – NICE’s CCaaS platform – offers complete visibility for managers and agents into individual performance. It also provides real-time guidance based on these insights.
QKS spotlights these capabilities while noting NICE’s Enhanced Strategic Planner (ESP) as a considerable differentiator. The tool allows WFM teams to develop more accurate long-term workforce planning strategies and manage outlays.
The consultancy also pinpoints the native robotic process automation (RPA) bots, gamification, and schedule flexibility as significant strengths within the platform.
"Their innovation is advanced compared to other vendors," notes the analyst.
Moreover, despite warning of the increasing tech advancements touching the WEM space - which NICE must stay wary of - QKS states that the vendor is well-placed to maintain its growth trajectory.
Verint
Verint has experience deploying large-scale enterprise solutions across many locations, on-premise and in the cloud, leveraging longstanding partnerships with many contact center providers.
In doing so, Verint delivers a unified suite, which benefits from high interoperability between the solutions within its WEM platform.
Indeed, QKS notes that cross-domain workflows are a significant differentiator.
Other notable plusses include analytics-enhanced agent-assist capabilities, automated quality management, and centralized staff management features.
Yet, QKS also cautions that its portfolio is the result of many acquisitions and that there are opportunities for further integration that will make for a more seamless user experience.
Genesys
Sitting within Genesys Cloud CX, this WEM benefits from a microservice-based architecture, allowing for a composable design. As such, contact centers can configure the suite to best meet their needs.
