Pegasystems Acquires Robotic Automation Software Provider OpenSpan

April 12, 2016 No Comments

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – April 12, 2016 –Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company empowering the world’s leading enterprises with strategic business applications, today announced the acquisition of Atlanta, GA-based OpenSpan, Inc., a privately held software provider of robotic process automation (RPA) and workforce analytics software. OpenSpan uses robotic automation to ease the burden on customer service representatives (CSRs) by automating routine desktop tasks, thus increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction. By providing insight into desktop activity and automating or eliminating repetitive, time-consuming tasks, OpenSpan frees agents to focus their energy on delivering exceptional customer experience while also helping to lower operational costs.

Running on more than 200,000 desktops at leading global enterprises, OpenSpan provides advanced robotic automation and workforce analytics capabilities that complement and enhance Pegasystems’ Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application suite and Business Process Management (BPM) platform. This acquisition unifies robotics and workforce analytics with case management and real-time analytics for the first time. Organizations can quickly experience the benefits of an integrated desktop and leverage their insights and cost savings to transition effectively into a fully-unified CRM solution.

While customer experience continues to rise to the top of every business agenda, CSRs on the front lines are forced to navigate a hodgepodge of disconnected desktop applications while they try to engage with customers. Distracted CSRs waste time toggling between dozens of different apps to input or review customer data, which frustrates both the customer and the CSR. OpenSpan’s software provides insight into the CSRs desktop environment as well as streamlines and simplifies the desktop, allowing CSRs to focus their full attention on the customer. This opens new avenues for organizations to optimize complex CSR processes, including the ability to:

– Identify workflow inefficiencies: As a first step, businesses can quickly and more easily analyze their employee workflows to uncover hidden hotspots that are causing disruption in customer experience, such as needless and error-prone data rekeying across different apps. This visibility helps pinpoint inefficient processes that could be prime candidates for robotics to digitally transform their operations.

– Automate desktop processes: CSRs suffering from ‘app overload’ can now benefit from desktop applications operating in a single seamless process – moving data between applications where APIs don’t exist. Solutions can be deployed in weeks, quickly simplifying the employee experience, which leads to a better customer experience.

– Reduce repetitive tasks: Outside of customer service, many high-volume, low-complexity tasks traditionally done by employees can now be automated without the need for human intervention. Robotic process automation enables these processes – from reviewing claim details to updating transaction systems – to be run unattended, further freeing representatives to meet the needs of their customers.

OpenSpan solutions are deployed at many of the world’s leading financial services, insurance, telecommunications, and retail organizations. A list of clients and customer testimonials can be found at https://www.openspan.com/customer-success/customers/.

For more information on the acquisition, visit https://www.pega.com/openspan.

Quotes & Commentary:

“Organizations are under tremendous pressure to transform their businesses into customer service machines to meet the new demands of digital customers,” said Alan Trefler, founder and CEO, Pegasystems. “We’ve already seen the power of Pega and OpenSpan working together to help our clients with their digital transformation initiatives. We believe OpenSpan’s cutting-edge robotics, workforce analytics, and process automation capabilities, combined with Pega’s leading process and real-time analytics, supports an emerging era of intelligent automation working in concert with people to deliver a better customer experience.”

“Over the past 11 years, we’ve built a highly successful organization that has helped introduce the power of robotics and desktop intelligence to mainstream business,” said Eric Musser, CEO, OpenSpan. “But this is just the tip of the iceberg of what analytics and robotics can really do. By integrating with Pegasystems’ proven applications and platform, we believe we can advance robotic automation and desktop analytics in exciting new directions that will change the way businesses interact with their customers.”