Convergys makes good on acquisition

Cincinnati-based Convergys took an important step in broadening its support system portfolio this week with the launch of a convergent customer management and billing platform and solution called Infinys. The offering demonstrates the company’s integration of recent acquisitions and the culmination of its multi-million dollar investment over the last two years in a next generation convergent platform.

It also sets the tone for an aggressive play in full-service OSS. “Convergys’ launch of Infinys is the tactical execution of our strategy to provide comprehensive BSS/OSS solutions,” said Tom Antunes, vice president of product and industry marketing at Convergys.

Infinys integrates the recently acquired Cygent order management technology with the Geneva rating and billing engine and provides for what Convergys is calling vertical market extensions for inventory management and flow through provisioning.

“It has always been Convergys’ strategy to expand upon its footprint in [business support and operations support systems,” Antunes said. “It was a logical next step for Convergys to integrate Cygent with Geneva to provide the most comprehensive ‘order-to-revenue’ functionality.”

All Convergys’ next generation products will come under the Infinys label and are intended to work in conjunction with legacy billing and customer care solutions. The current iteration is designed for wireline carriers. The vertical market extensions are being provided through strategic alliances Convergys also announced this week with Cramer Systems, Granite Systems and Syndesis.

In addition to providing Convergys with vertical extensions in inventory management, the alliances create joint marketing and sales opportunities, particularly in Convergys’ target wireline market.

And they will “ensure our clients can deploy Infinys with the inventory management functionality that addresses their specific requirements and integrates most seamlessly with their current OSS/BSS environment,” Antunes said.

Syndesis will handle provisioning, activation and maintenance as well as apply its NetDiscover solution for reconciling discrepancies between back office systems and network services.

In related news, Convergys also completed the acquisition of Avaya's global employee service operations this week and began providing human resources support services to Avaya’s more than 17,000 employees throughout the Americas (including Canada, Latin America, and the United States), Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific. Convergys will support Avaya from employee service operations in the United Kingdom, Russia, Israel, Singapore, Australia, China, India, Japan, and the United States.