July 29, 2024
As we move into the second half of 2024, the Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Customer Experience Management (CXM) landscape evolution continues to unfold at a rapid pace. Artificial intelligence, cloud-native solutions, and enhanced customer experience capabilities are driving innovation across the industry. In this quarter’s update, we’ll explore the latest developments in the six key market segments we track on the Aspire Leaderboard as we highlight notable advancements from larger powerhouses, niche players, and challengers alike.
CCM-CXM Communications Outsourcing
RR Donnelley
Since our last analysis, RRD has made significant strides in its efforts to transform itself from a transactional print company to a digital-first solution provider by greatly expanding its digital capabilities and offerings. Notably, RRD has improved its market positioning and messaging to better reflect its evolved digital-first approach while also working to integrate its previously siloed functional areas, creating a more cohesive experience for customers who previously had to interact with multiple separate teams.
CSG
CSG has expanded its vertical reach beyond its traditional telecommunications and cable/broadband focus, successfully entering new industries such as tolling & collections, property and casualty insurance (through its acquisition of Mass Printing), and healthcare. Additionally, CSG has made strides integrating its Customer Communications Management (CCM) and Customer Experience (CX) capabilities, aiming to present a more unified approach that combines communication design and delivery with journey orchestration to address omni-channel, personalized engagement use cases across the entire customer lifecycle. (This has been done using xPonent, which it acquired from Kitewheel and renamed Journey Orchestrator.)
CCM-CXM Implementation Services
VILT (formerly Tessi)
Tessi, a large Business Process Outsourcer headquartered in France has been a key player in the European CCM-CXM system integration market. Through its subsidiary, Tessi Consulting & Integration (formerly gDocs), the company acquired VILT in 2022, effectively doubling its consulting capacity and expanding its expertise in digital transformation, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and CCM-CXM. Tessi has since rebranded its CCM-CXM operations under the VILT name, integrating Tessi Consulting & Integration’s traditional CCM strengths with VILT’s digital expertise to offer a comprehensive “Total Experience” solution that combines Customer Communications Management, Customer Experience Management, and Employee Experience capabilities.
Solude
Solude, a Dutch-based company founded in 2024, makes its debut in our analysis as an emerging player in the Northwestern European CCM-CXM market. A recent spin-off from Pondres, a transactional service provider, Solude has already secured two dozen customers from its parent company. Recognizing that the constraints of operating as a print company were limiting its potential, the parent organization established Solude as a dedicated software-focused business to achieve higher growth and sharper market focus. The company offers a cloud-native Communications Experience Platform (CXP) with an emphasis on composition and workflow automation, targeting both mid-market and enterprise clients in the Benelux and German-speaking regions of Europe.
Canon Europe
Canon Europe, a leading CCM system integrator and vendor-agnostic reseller for the European market, has rebranded its information management business as Canon IM, emphasizing a comprehensive approach to both inbound document processing and outbound customer communications. Additionally, Canon has evolved its competence center model to leverage expertise across multiple countries, strengthening its ability to provide tailored solutions across diverse industries in the EMEA region.
AnyPrem CCM Software and Vendor-hosted SaaS CCM
Elixir
Elixir, an early adopter of cloud-native CCM, has gone through a major update and has rebranded its flagship product Tango+ as Elixir Cloud. This cloud-native solution leverages Docker and Kubernetes for enhanced scalability and integration, and it comes with a microservices architecture for improved robustness. Targeting 99.99% uptime with zero-downtime upgrades, Elixir Cloud includes a low-code workflow system and an iPaaS solution with a marketplace and SDK for rapid connector deployment. Employee experience is a big focus for Elixir – the platform comes with new dashboards as well as a newly developed and highly useful collaborative workspace environment that allows designers, business users, approvers or other users to easily interact and collaborate, (which is ideal for organizations operating in agile teams). Finally, Elixir has evolved its pricing models to offer a simpler model aimed at helping customers grow in a cost-effective manner.
Doxee
Doxee has made significant strides in expanding its capabilities, most notably through the strategic acquisition of Austrian-based Infinica, which has substantially enhanced its CCM offerings, particularly in online design and interactive CCM. The company continues to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning across its platform, especially in its Interactive Experience (ix) offerings, enabling business users to create personalized videos at scale and generate automated voiceovers using natural language processing. Additionally, Doxee’s Paperless Experience (px), part of the comprehensive Doxee Platform alongside Document Experience (dx) for CCM, offers robust electronic invoicing solutions that are seeing strong growth, driven by European-wide e-invoicing regulations.
Messagepoint
Messagepoint was the first in the CCM industry to integrate ChatGPT for content rewrite capabilities in 202 and it continues to lead in AI innovation. Building on this momentum, Messagepoint has introduced advanced translation capabilities in 2024 that leverage multiple Large Language Models (LLMs) and enhance accuracy through cross-verification between AI models. While not yet formally put through their full paces, these AI translations are passing rigorous tests and have even identified errors in content previously translated by certified human translators.
kwsoft
Since our last update, kwsoft has made significant progress expanding its international presence, particularly in France and Italy, and it is continuing to see solid growth in its native Germany. The company is also focused on cloud transformation, evolving its M/Cloud solution into a full-performance SaaS offering on AWS and transitioning its core architecture to a cloud-native approach.
Enterprise Communications Processing
Compart
Compart has dramatically evolved its product positioning by shifting from point solutions to integrated product suites, launching the DocBridge Communication Suite for CCM and the DocBridge Production Suite for document processing and output management. A key development is the evolution of DocBridge Gear as an integration layer and DocBridge Impress as an XML-based rendering solution ideal for digital use cases, particularly for integration with systems like Salesforce, SAP, or Dynamics.
Crawford
Crawford Technologies has significantly evolved its offerings and market positioning in recent years. It has a keen focus on cloud-based services, SaaS solutions, and Enterprise Communications Processing and it is also expanding its capabilities through strategic acquisitions and partnerships. Crawford Technologies has expanded its portfolio with several new offerings and partnerships in 2024. Notably, the company partnered with Docuvela to provide a native cloud-based solution for storing and managing customer communications, and with PossibleNow to enhance control over communication preferences and delivery.
As the customer communications industry continues to evolve, we expect to see widespread adoption of cloud-native solutions, integration of artificial intelligence and generative AI capabilities, enhanced focus on digital transformation, and the convergence of CCM and CXM functionalities.
For the most up-to-date and detailed analysis of the CCM-CXM market landscape, including comprehensive vendor evaluations and interactive comparison, please visit the Aspire Leaderboard. We offer valuable insights into the capabilities, strengths, and market positions of key players across multiple segments of the CCM-CXM industry.