Today, Neopost announced the introduction of a newly created business division: Quadient, replacing its Enterprise Digital Solutions (EDS) business division. With Quadient, Neopost combines three companies that operated independently under EDS into a new division focused on digital communications and customer experience solutions:
- Satori Software. Acquired in 2009 and a provider of mailing and data quality solutions. Satori software allows mail senders to validate addresses, correct them, update them in real time and remove duplicates.
- GMC Software. Acquired in 2012. Today, GMC Software is considered a leader and innovator in the customer communications management (CCM) solutions space.
- Human Inference. A data quality solution provider focused on master data quality improvement. Neopost acquired this Dutch based company in 2012.
The New Quadient Logo
These past acquisitions fitted into a bigger strategy. To leverage the power of that strategy, it makes sense to reorganizing into Quadient. By doing so, Neopost is repositioned to focus on offering enterprise solutions for customer experience management (including CCM), mobile application development/digital experiences, and data management. The logic is simple: as customer experience becomes a strategic component for businesses, businesses need ways to quickly implement and personalized these experiences along the customer journey. Tools for managing this process as well as the data (quality) required for personalization are key.
What is Changing?
Quadient has already redesigned all User Interfaces (UIs) so that solutions use a common look and feel as well as the same branding. Solutions are being made compatible so they can be easily combined/integrated. For example, the incorporation of Satori Ignite directly into a GMC Inspire workflow. A sampling of solutions that Quadient will offer going forward are as follows:
- Quadient Customer Journey Mapping. This offering helps enterprises to get more insights into different points of communications across customer journeys. It also acts as a collaboration tool between departments involved in these interactions breaking down organizational siloes.
- Quadient Mobile Advantage. This offering includes a low-code, no-code platform for easily building mobile applications and Mobile Advantage SDK (software development kit), which integrates customer communications content into existing mobile applications and websites.
- Quadient Inspire. With this rebranding of its successful GMC Inspire solution, Quadient continues to be committed to the CCM space. Native integrations with other Quadient solutions will greatly strengthen its competitive position within this market.
- Quadient Ignite, Quadient Architect, and Quadient Bulk Mailer. As part of the commitment to postal solutions, key Satori Software solutions have been rebranded and integrated into the Quadient ecosystem.
- Quadient Data Hub, Quadient DataCleaner, Quadient Quadient DataEntry, and Quadient Data Services. These solutions leverage the Human Inference solutions to provide solutions for data quality and data master management.
How does icon Systemhaus fits in?
It is interesting to note that Neopost’s icon Systemhaus (icon) is not part of Quadient. Neopost acquired this leading CCM provider in Germany last year. It has a strong customer base in the German insurance industry and offers a mainframe solution for former IBM customers to migrate their document creation systems.
This leads to speculation that Neopost seeks to move this customer base towards Quadient in the long term, strengthening its position in Germany as well as among those enterprises still depending on legacy mainframe solutions today. According to our latest annual transactional communications research in North America and Western Europe, this is still the case for about one-third of enterprises.
Impact for Customers
This is an industry that is seeing both consolidation among established players and emergence of new players. If we look at the CCM solution market, for example, around 20% of the solutions have been acquired or discontinued since 2010. All of these changes provide an opportunity for enterprise customers to review their current solutions against these modernized offerings to bring optimization to their organizations.
With Quadient, Neopost is gearing up for these changes by better leveraging the synergies of each individual company that were previously managed separately under EDS. These synergies exist both at a portfolio level and an organizational level with resulting benefits that can be directly passed on to their customers. This repositioning also allows Quadient to innovate its pricing models, and move away from legacy pricing structures towards more favorable subscription-based models. Many technology companies struggle in making this shift. A key turning point such as the Quadient introduction is an ideal opportunity to also introduce new pricing models and conditions.
Talking to senior executives at Quadient, they will continue serving their core markets of insurance, telecommunications, utilities, and healthcare, as well as print service providers worldwide.
InfoTrends Opinion
With the introduction of Quadient, three big brands are disappearing from the industry. Each one was a leading brand in its specific area. Having said that, we believe this move has been inevitable on the long term to become competitive in the customer experience market. Neopost also will be able to reduce its dependency on declining physical mail production as it strengthens its digital communications solutions, a strategic road they start following in 2012. This strategy has brought success as evidenced by Neopost’s share of revenues not directly related to mail more than tripling, growing from 8% of total revenues in 2012 to 26% in 2016.
Quadient defines its mission as helping enterprises to improve customer experience. Other traditional peers choose to broaden their offerings with enterprise-wide solution platforms. We look at OpenText’s Release 16 and Kofax’s TotalAgility addressing enterprise information management, Pitney Bowes with its four key enterprise platforms for Identify Management, Location Intelligence, Communicate Engagement, and Data Intelligence, and ISIS Papyrus with its Papyrus Platform as examples.
Our opinion is that the customer experience solution market is an integral component of digital transformation within enterprises and that customer communications is a critical piece of this puzzle. With Quadient, Neopost aims to gain a share in this market. Coming from strong ground, we believe Quadient is well positioned to be successful in this new endeavor!
David Stabel, Pat McGrew
InfoTrends, a division of Keypoint Intelligence, tracks the customer communications market from the perspectives of business strategy and investments, consumer preferences, as well as through enterprise outsourcing services, and the technologies that drive these communications. For more information on how to gain access to our research, market sizing & forecasts, or how to subscribe to our advisory service, contact Deanna Flanick today at deanna.flanick@buyerslab.com!
