OpenText Broadens ECM Suite with New Customer Communications Solution

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Jan 18, 2011, 09:15 ET

OpenText StreamServe Persuasion Increases Customer Engagement, Streamlines Document Processing and Gives Greater Control to Business Users

WATERLOO, ON, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ - OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC) today announced the availability of OpenText StreamServe Persuasion™ version 5, which helps businesses improve their customer communication in an effective, consistent, and engaging way. Persuasion is the first major product release from StreamServe since it was acquired by OpenText in October 2010 and represents an important addition to the OpenText ECM Suite.

Whether communicating with customers and suppliers or facilitating payment and revenue, documents keep business transactions flowing and the organization healthy. Persuasion helps increase the efficiency of document-based communication and improves customer engagement by allowing businesses to include impactful marketing messages that are best suited to individual audiences.

Linked with existing business systems, and requiring few or no changes to them, Persuasion adds extensive in-house capabilities for defining, producing and interacting with mass-produced, personalized documents. It provides straightforward tools for business users such as designers, marketing staff, customer support agents, and process owners to efficiently create and use the documents that matter to them.

Supporting Customer Communications Management, for example, Persuasion empowers business managers to rapidly and directly create content such as marketing messages, campaigns, and cross/upsell offers. It also gives them control over how and when this content is automatically included in customer correspondence and touch points, such as customer support conversations.

In document-intensive business processes—logistics and distribution, for example—Persuasion eliminates most, if not all, costly and error-prone manual handling. By allowing to automate the flow of paperwork through electronic checkpoints, Persuasion helps to reduce cost, accelerates timelines, and can assist substantially to improve the accuracy of the documentation. This can result in better customer, partner and supplier relationships.

"At OpenText, we're giving customers new ways to engage with, interact with, and improve the customer experience using our growing portfolio of technologies," said James Latham, Chief Marketing Officer at OpenText. These technologies include social media, web experience management, mobility, and now the customer communications solutions from StreamServe, with Persuasion becoming the first addition to the line up in the OpenText ECM Suite."

Enhanced Customer Communications

With little or no change to existing processes, Persuasion has the ability to consolidate data from business systems into smarter, more cost-effective internal and external business communications.

Full-featured, familiar design environment enables rapid development and implementation of superior customer correspondence templates
Intuitive, web-based tools enable business people to easily create new documents, and modify or leverage existing documents, on the fly
Ready-reference repository provides call center representatives with identical copies of documents the customer received and enables immediate re-send
High-volume, high-speed production automatically generates documents in the format each recipient prefers, organized for cost-effective and efficient delivery
Comprehensive management tools monitor and control operational and production processes

Efficient Document Processing

Persuasion offers order-of-magnitude improvements in document-driven processes, complementing OpenText's existing transactional content management (TCM) solution. In time-sensitive workflows, such as those that drive logistics and distribution, for example, Persuasion eliminates the manual steps that cost money, cause delays, and introduce errors that diminish customer satisfaction and incur cost to correct. It electronically stages documents produced by various sub-processes and sources and releases each document set as tasks are completed. In the production of driver-ready packs in the transportation industry, for example, the end result is near-automatic assembly of complete, order-of-delivery packs that are output as soon as the shipment is ready to go.

"Businesses are seeking ways to automatically generate customer correspondence, as well as to improve the quality, consistency and timeliness of their customer communications," said Melissa Webster, program vice president at IDC. "These solutions need to integrate tightly with both the enterprise content management system and the customer's enterprise applications. Since both StreamServe and OpenText were already strong partners with SAP, this newly acquired offering is a very good fit with Open Text's ECM Suite."

OpenText StreamServe Persuasion is available now from OpenText. Further information can be found at: http://www.opentext.com/2/products-opentext-streamserve-persuasion

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About OpenText

OpenText, a global ECM leader, helps organizations manage and gain the true value of their business content. OpenText brings two decades of expertise supporting 100 million users in 114 countries. Working with our customers and partners, we bring together leading Content Experts™ to help organizations capture and preserve corporate memory, increase brand equity, automate processes, mitigate risk, manage compliance and improve competitiveness. For more information, visit www.opentext.com.

Certain statements in this press release may contain words considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities laws. These statements are based on Open Text's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which the company operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict, and the actual outcome may be materially different. Open Text's assumptions, although considered reasonable by the company at the date of this press release, may prove to be inaccurate and consequently its actual results could differ materially from the expectations set out herein. For additional information with respect to risks and other factors which could occur, see Open Text's Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC and other securities regulators. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Open Text disclaims any intention or obligations to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Copyright © 2011 by Open Text Corporation. OPENTEXT and OPENTEXT STREAMSERVE PERSUASION are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Text Corporation in the United States of America, Canada, the European Union and/or other countries. Other trademarks, registered trademarks, product names, company names, brands and service names mentioned herein are property of Open Text Corporation or other respective owners.

SOURCE Open Text Corporation