Oracle Acquires InQuira

Oracle has announced an agreement to acquire Inquira, a provider of service knowledge management software that supports both web self-service and agent-assisted service.

The Oracle and InQuira combination is expected to deliver a comprehensive cross-channel customer support offering. InQuira, a privately-held company with over 85 blue-chip customers, helps companies improve customer service and satisfaction by helping customers find answers to their questions quickly and easily, either online or from a service agent.

"Oracle's announcement should be no surprise to any technology provider that is involved with customer interactions and contact centers," says UCStrategies UC Expert Art M. Rosenberg. "Telephony is leaving its call center silo to integrate with mobile, multi-modal contacts that are becoming more 'contextual' in terms of information and transactions that a customer may have already been involved with. In addition, the movement to unified communications will not only provide greater contact flexibility to mobile customers, but will also accelerate greater social networking activity. That is a great leap forward in understanding what customers and other end users are thinking and doing. I see the contact center becoming 'universal' for all end users, whether internal staff members or in customer-facing roles; everyone needs a smart contact center environment for different operational needs and automated applications."

Rosenberg adds, "We are starting to see all telephony-oriented services moving in this direction, as well as offering UC-based customer services on a hosted, cloud basis, as consumers rapidly adopt mobile, personalized smart phones as their principal means of business contact. The challenge facing all organizations will be to understand and define their operational needs to service the new breed of customers who want information as well as assistance in a variety of modalities. In addition, the needs of their internal staffs, who must support such customers, must be able to so in a more unified and efficient manner than with a blind telephone call."

According to UCStrategies UC Expert Don Van Doren, "Companies seeking to improve their interactions with customers need to manage a number of challenges, including having pertinent information readily available to the agents responding to a contact. In many enterprises, what's pertinent depends on specifics of the customer. Therefore, linking customer information contained in Oracle's CRM system with InQuira's knowledge management system can pay real dividends. This acquisition, the latest in a series of consolidations of CRM and KM solution providers, will enable even tighter integration and help improve responsiveness to customer needs."

While the financial details were not disclosed, the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

For more information, visit www.oracle.com.