CosmoCom, supplier of contact center technology, attributes product improvement to Japan partnership

March 2007 -- CosmoCom entered the Japanese market in 2002, providing technology for the delivery of contact center software as a service, also called "contact center on-demand." Meir Yaniv, senior vice president of market development at CosmoCom, spoke with JETRO about how the company's Japan business improved its overall technology and about the role Japan plays in their global strategy.

Could you describe your company's contact center-related activities in Japan?

When we started our business in Japan, we went for the biggest prize of them all, which was to capture NTT to be our partner and have them build an on-demand platform and provide the service to their customers.

NTT is using our technology to provide this contact center on-demand, or contact center as a service, to tenants throughout Japan.  NTT is by far the largest telco [telecommunications company] in Japan.  Actually, they have been split into three companies: NTT East, NTT West, and NTT-C, which is the mother of them all, and we are supplying to NTT-C.

How do your company's Japan activities compare with those in other countries?

Japan is a very special country.  Japan has its own characteristics.  Japanese companies pay very high attention to details, and they demand the highest possible service.  So the service has to be of the highest quality; they are used to the best services available.

So in line with this tradition, NTT-C took quite a long time to thoroughly test our product, our technology, to ensure they would be able to deliver the level of service the Japanese customer would be looking for.  So I would say the gestation period was quite long.  On the other hand, what they are offering today in the Japanese market is a very exciting service, which is growing very fast.

Because you offer your technologies to NTT, and because you need to offer the highest quality, were you able to raise the quality of your product to other countries as a result of working in Japan?

That was without a doubt, and this is not the first time in my career that this has happened.  The testing of the product that the Japanese partner is doing on your product is so detailed, so accurate, so exact, that you end up with another product.  There is no doubt about that.

We've had to invest a lot of effort to ensure that our product offers what NTT wanted, but it is no doubt that their testing and their stringent requirements helped us improve our product.  And of course our customers all over the world are enjoying the fruits of this improvement. Just to give you a feel of our relationships, NTT is not only the first-tier service providers.  We have very strong relationships with many European and Asian first-tier service providers, companies like British Telecom, France Telecom, Deutsche Telecom, Telefonica  they're all customers of us.  In Asia as well, Korea Telecom, Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan and PLDT in the Philippines.  So it's a select group of very famous, well-known first-tier telco's.  But there is not a doubt that the NTT name shines in there.

Have you been able to see any direct results after you started working with Japanese companies that maybe improved your sales in general or business all over the world?

There is no doubt the product improved as a result of working with NTT.  Having NTT as a customer is definitely adds to the credibility of the company in front of similar customers.

What made your company decide to expand its business to Japan?

Well, it's very obvious.  One of the things is the sheer size of the Japanese economy.  The other one is the fact that this model that we have, contact center as a service, we found that it fits extremely well with the Japanese way of doing business [expecting a high level of service], so we felt we would have a very good chance of doing good business in Japan.

We started first by using a local consulting company to represent us.  Then later on, we decided to start our own subsidiary. It was an issue of commitment and credibility. The big change is the acceptance of this model of contact centers on demand.  This is a new model all over the world, so I think this is probably the biggest trend, which is the acceptance of this model.  And it's only the beginning of it.  It's really only just getting started in Japan, so we have great hopes to take advantage of this trend.  As I said it took a long time to get started, but now it's moving really fast; it's going very nicely.

What do you anticipate for the future of your operations in Japan and the larger Asia-Pacific?

Well, we have to be very careful in Japan to always provide the best service and support.  As you know, you cannot do business in Japan, especially with a company like NTT, unless you provide first-class quality support.  So we need to continue to make sure of this.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of JETRO.

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