August 3, 2017, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors today announced the release of its new market study, “Customer Communications Management (CCM) Solutions Market Study, 6th Edition.” The report provides an overview of several CCM technology solutions available in the market, with a particular focus on how each solution has evolved to innovatively solve the challenges associated with customer communications management and the requirement to keep up with changing consumer technology and consumer demand for a digital experience.

“In the last few years, there has been a paradigm shift in the industry that is a direct result of organizations making customer experience management and digital transformation strategies top priorities," said study author, Gina Ferrara, senior analyst at Madison Advisors. "This shift has encouraged CCM solution providers to evolve and adapt their product offerings to stay abreast of these trends while meeting the increased requirement of enhancing the customer experience.”

The research presented in this study represents Madison Advisors’ continued focus on CCM technology solutions. Some of the key findings in this area include:

• Business user empowerment: To improve productivity and reduce costs many tasks previously managed by IT are being shifted to knowledge workers
• Integration with core processing systems: Real-time data collection at the time a communication is generated and supported through the use of web services and APIs, enabling faster delivery of legacy applications to other channels such as mobile and web
• Cloud technology: Acceptance of cloud-based technology within certain highly regulated verticals remains slow with data security concerns cited as the primary inhibitor. Other verticals such as utilities, manufacturing and telecommunications are early adopters
• Inbound communications: Some participants have integrated data from inbound communication with the outbound communications lifecycle. This remains an area of growth

Additionally, the study provides an update on changes in capabilities reviewed in the fifth edition of the report, including multichannel delivery and support for social media, as well as a review of current trends in the market and comprehensive matrices that detail how each solution is positioned to stay abreast of these trends while meeting the increased requirement of enhancing the customer experience.

To purchase the full report “Customer Communications Management (CCM) Solutions Market Study, 6th Edition,” click here.

Toronto-based Crawford Technologies, provider of document solutions that streamline, improve and manage customer communications, have announced the release of a new whitepaper it commissioned from analyst firm, Madison Advisors. The research evaluates how leveraging customer preferences can achieve customer retention, operational efficiency and revenue-growth goals.

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Ashley Roberts

In 1995, Cece Smith and her husband, Barney Smith, opened a traditional commercial print shop. Today, she is also the CEO of San Antonio-based Toolbox Studios, a full-service marketing and branding firm that specializes in print, social media management, Web design and development, and more. Five years ago, their print business model made an incredible transformation with the addition of an HP Indigo digital press and a trip to Dscoop.

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In an article published by Printing Impressions, "Print's Role in an Omnichannel World," Gina Ferrara, senior analyst at Madison Advisors, explains that millennials actually respond positively to direct mail.

“They’re the digital native generation,” she says. “However, despite the fact that they’re ‘mobile first,’ they do like to receive direct mail. So that’s an opportunity for marketers to use printed communications as another channel in an omnichannel marketing strategy.”

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Print and digital communications can and should be complementary aspects of a comprehensive, omnichannel marketing campaign. Gina Ferrara, senior analyst at Madison Advisors, explains that despite the fact that consumer preferences are different and may change depending on the vertical, brand or product, there still needs to be consistency across all means of communication.

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By Gina Ferrara

Determining whether to shut down your internal print and mail operation and outsource to a print service provider, or keep it in-house and potentially make a capital investment in new technology can be a tough conversation. Those in favor of the latter option will cite concerns over sending customer data outside the organization and advocate that investing in new technology will improve operational workflow, enhance the customer experience and increase brand recognition by adding color to documents, as well as potentially generate a better ROI for the organization.

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April 25, 2017, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors today announced that senior analyst, Gina Ferrara, will be addressing attendees at the Document Strategy Forum ’17, to be held May 1-3 at the Chicago Marriott Downtown.

Ferrara’s session “Business Case for Real-Time Document Generation & Delivery” will uncover the critical success factors for real-time document generation, the necessary components to support personalized and effective communications and considerations when designing communication workflows for all customer touchpoints. The session will be held on the first day of the event, Monday, May 1, at 2:00 p.m.

At Madison Advisors, Ferrara specializes in helping clients develop comprehensive customer communications management (CCM) optimization strategies that position an organization to meet strategic goals and objectives relative to revenue enhancement, cost and risk reduction and customer experience and retention. Ferrara’s additional focus is analyzing the latest enhancements and capabilities of the industry’s software and hardware technology providers.

For more information about the Document Strategy Forum, visit:

http://documentstrategyforum.com/

About Madison Advisors

Madison Advisors specializes in offering Fortune 1000 companies context-specific guidance for a range of content delivery strategies, particularly those addressing enterprise output technologies and print and electronic customer communications. Madison Advisors’ analysts and consulting professionals are dedicated to technology and market research that is delivered through short-term project engagements as well as articles, publications and presentations. In addition, the company’s hands-on experience developed through assisting its clients with deploying selected solutions adds a practical dimension to their approach not typically found with consulting generalists or other analyst firms.

Madison Advisors on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madison-advisors

Madison Advisors on Twitter: https://twitter.com/madison_advisor

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630-964-8500 x 228

sarmstrong@sterlingkilgore.com

April 19, 2017, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors today announced that its COO, Warren Lederer, will be sharing his expertise in optimizing companies’ customer communications management (CCM) at the Kofax Inspire 2017 conference to be held April 23-26 in Nashville, TN.

Lederer’s breakout session, “Managing the Myriad of Challenges in Optimizing Inbound and Outbound Communications” on Wednesday April 26, will review market trends and explore how to create a strategic roadmap for implementing optimization initiatives consistent with a company’s business goals. The session will also feature case studies that share how the right mix of technology and internal management can introduce best practices, increase efficiencies and lower costs.

Additionally, Lederer will participate in the panel discussion “Birds of a Feather - Banking and Insurance” on Monday, April 24. It is an interactive session that will cover business and technology trends, the challenges banking and insurance companies are facing and the resulting solutions.

Now in its 11th year, Kofax Inspire 2017 will be attended by more than 1,500 Kofax customers, partners and associates from all major industries, including healthcare, higher education, government, banking, insurance, retail and manufacturing. Kofax is a provider of software to simplify and transform the First Mile of business. It combines capture, content, process management, data integration, mobile, e-signature, customer communications management, search and analytics capabilities from Kofax, Perceptive Software and ReadSoft into a unified process automation development and deployment platform.

April 12, 2017, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors today announced that its 2017 CCM Executive Roundtable, held March 20-22 at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, was a success according to attendees, sponsors and presenters. Participants representing top enterprises in the insurance, finance and banking industries learned from and participated in highly focused interactive sessions that addressed today’s most pressing customer communications management (CCM) challenges.

In its seventh year of providing ahead-of-the-curve industry knowledge, this year’s Madison Advisors CCM Executive Roundtable explored the connection between CCM and customer experience (CX) at each step in the customer journey. Attendees shared their own industry experiences and worked together to outline best practices and processes for improving the quality of the CX.

Along with an impressive list of attendees, the CCM Executive Roundtable welcomed a roster of notable sponsor companies that included Canon, CEDAR Document Technologies, Content Critical Solutions, GMC Software, icon Communication Dynamics, Inlet, Kofax, Messagepoint, NEPS and RR Donnelley. Sponsors presented educational sessions discussing their unique insights on CCM best practices, shared case studies and revealed what companies should be doing today to better improve existing CCM processes. Attendees also heard from Madison Advisors analysts on the latest issues in CCM: customer experience, preference management and customer journey. Additionally, the group toured Canon’s Customer Experience Center facility in Boca Raton as part of the event’s agenda.

“The decision makers who attend Madison Advisors’ annual CCM Executive Roundtables represent a group increasingly committed to overall customer experience improvement,” said Kemal Carr, president of Madison Advisors. “Having identified the strengthening link between CCM and customer experience, this year's program was organized around the critical strategies needed to achieve excellence in CX throughout the customer journey. We thank our sponsors, speakers and attendees for yet another highly successful program.”

April 6, 2017, Colleyville, TX—Madison Advisors—Madison Advisors today announced that senior analyst, Jeff Weldon, will be participating in a session at FIS Connect 2017 on the state of the customer communications management (CCM) marketplace. FIS Connect is hosted by FIS™, the world’s largest global provider dedicated to financial technology solutions. FIS Connect 2017 is for customers and partners of FIS and will be held April 10-13 in Kissimmee, FL at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center.

Weldon will share his expertise in CCM in connection with the theme of this year’s event, “Imagining Possibilities,” discussing with attendees the latest trends in CCM and recent mergers and acquisitions within the CCM market.

As a senior analyst for Madison Advisors, Weldon provides both end-user and vendor project-based advisory services in the CCM space to enterprises and print service providers. He has extensive knowledge of output management systems in the transactional and print-on-demand markets, including print management and workflow systems and leading electronic delivery solutions.

With more than 20,000 clients in over 130 countries and 55,000 employees, FIS (NYSE: FIS), empowers the financial world with software, services, consulting and outsourcing solutions focused on retail and institutional banking, payments, asset and wealth management, risk and compliance, trade enablement, transaction processing and record-keeping.