Mon, March 23, 2009 — Computerworld — Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see new opportunities in an existing technology. LiveOps Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif., was founded in 2001 as a call center outsourcer. To be competitive with in-house call centers, LiveOps developed its software as a Web-based application on Linux. The application stack was designed to manage multiple customer campaigns simultaneously among tens of thousands of operators.

Azita Martin, vice president of marketing, says that because it was LiveOps' own system, it was designed to deliver a high level of uptime. The company charges users by the minute, so any downtime would lead to lost revenue.

LiveOps' system has a classic multitenant, high-availability SaaS architecture. In 2006, new CEO Maynard Webb saw an opportunity, and LiveOps began offering its tool as an on-demand application.

Matt Wise, senior director of external customers at West Marine Corp., a $630 million boat services company in Watsonville, Calif., says his company in January dropped plans to upgrade the PBX phone system and call center equipment in its Largo, Fla., facility, choosing instead to subscribe to the LiveOps service.

He says the cost of maintaining a dedicated facility contributed to the decision. But West Marine chose to use LiveOps SaaS instead of outsourcing for a couple of reasons. First, Wise says, there are more than 47,000 parts in its catalog of recreational and commercial boating products, and existing staffers have a deep knowledge of those products that would be difficult to impart to outsiders.

Also, in lean economic times there will be less work for employees in West Marine's 300 retail stores because there will be fewer shoppers. However, since LiveOps is a Web-based app that product-savvy workers can access from home, the company can expand its telemarketing campaigns and allow some employees to work as at-home call operators.

Without SaaS, Wise says, West Marine might have been forced to choose between reducing staff to support a new call center facility or outsourcing the operation to workers with far less know-how.

Next: SaaS integration: A tricky, but manageable task

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