Isreali software firm Nice Systems has purchased analytics provider Nexidia for USD135mn in cash. Per their press release, the acquisition will create a ‘customer analytics powerhouse’ that provides ‘unparalleled accuracy, scalability and performance’. Nice currently lists Telefónica, BT, Starhub, Telus, Cablevisión Argentina, GoDaddy, eBay and Celcom amongst its customers, and says the purchase will increase earnings this year.
Nice’s offerings are pitched in three broad categories: enhancing customer experience; safety and security services; and anti-fraud prevention and compliance. Nexidia has technology which appears to provide clever ways to enhance all Nice’s offerings; their speciality is speech analytics, audio indexing, and mining software. Nexidia’s software can search through voice recordings, and is said to “fully leverage actual phonemes that define human speech, resulting in the fastest and most accurate solution available for compliance, discovery and knowledge management”.
Presumably Nexidia’s technology will help Nice to perform automated searches of calls made to contact centers, amongst other things. Automatic analysis of speech could help with such varied tasks as reviewing and improving the efficiency of customer contacts, identifying instances of social engineering, and providing an audit trail to demonstrate compliance with various regulatory obligations.
Nexidia’s technology also has many other interesting applications, whose significance may grow over time. For example, Nexidia recently won an Emmy award for the way their product can search through the dialogue of videos, allowing media businesses to find new ways to exploit their back catalogue.
