“We are helping customers sift through the AI noise and providing them with real generative AI solutions that are having a major positive impact on their businesses,” says NWN CEO Jim Sullivan.
NWN CEO Jim Sullivan said the company is breaking through the “AI noise” with a full stack of GenAI-powered managed services with intelligent virtual agents that is “turbocharging customer productivity.”
“What we have done is put intelligent virtual agents on large language models trained up on our data and our customers’ data,” he said. “We have really cracked that code. There is no hype here. We have had hundreds of deployments and scaled this very quickly… We are helping customers sift through the AI noise and providing them with real generative AI solutions that are having a major positive impact on their businesses.”
NWN is cutting through the AI hype with “real solutions with real ROI for customers” that it has been deploying for the last two years, said Sullivan. “It is really working,” he said. “In every business process in IT infrastructure there is an opportunity for generative or legacy AI machine learning to make a positive impact on customers’ business productivity.”
NWN’s big investments in automation and AI machine learning began six years ago when Sullivan launched the company’s Experience Management Platform (EMP). Those early investments in AI combined with GenAI innovation with intelligent virtual agents is now powering “tremendous growth” in the company’s customer experience and device-as-a-service practices, said Sullivan.
“We now have over 2,500 customers on EMP,” he said. “So we’ve had incredible adoption, traction, and growth. That automation, AI and machine learning continues. The difference now is we’re adding generative AI capabilities. It is different than the legacy AI capabilities. What we are doing now is really mapping these types of automation and AI solutions into a large language model that's mapping into the customer's data and then creating additional solutions focused on making our customers more efficient.”
NWN is stepping up its intelligent virtual agent march with the acquisition of AWS AI superstar InterVision Systems, a leader in AI customer experience solutions.
“This is just a massive addition of incremental capabilities that builds on what we have been doing with intelligent virtual agents in our customer experience and device-as-a-service businesses,” said Sullivan. “Now we have a full stack of AI-powered managed services with all the infrastructure and all of the customer experience. We tie it together end to end with AI componentry going across all these different domains. So we are implementing these AI solutions with large language (GenAI) models and mapping it into the customer’s legacy data. This is huge for customers.”
NWN is also adding an innovative new AI-powered managed services offering to its portfolio with the release of AiVA, an AI-powered virtual assistant that is providing automated IT diagnostics and fixes that have resulted in a 45 percent reduction in IT support requests from employees
In addition, the company is launching Managed DEX (Digital Employee Experience), a cloud-based platform that fulfills employee support requests including fixing slow PC response times and monitoring and improving device health and compliance issues.
“With every IT function customers have, there are new opportunities for us to help them innovate to improve the customer experience, reduce costs and potentially increase revenue,” said Sullivan. “We have solutions that can have an impact on all the value drivers that customers are looking at: innovation, costs, revenue, efficiencies, and optimization.”
How big a game changer is the InterVision Systems acquisition for NWN?
NWN has already made significant progress and growth in this AI-powered managed services marketplace. All of our core offerings have AI componentry in them, but in the customer experience and device-as-a-service markets we have developed significant solutions around implementing intelligent virtual agents and integrating those into the customer’s data and creating big impact solutions over the last 12 months.
So we have everything to support an end user and our customer’s customer with customer experience solutions. That has led to a tremendous growth in our customer experience and device-as-a-service or Digital Employee Experience (DEX) business. So our teams are having great success and great growth in those areas.
Intervision has been a market leader in delivering cloud customer experience solutions with AWS Connect and other AI cloud solutions. The capabilities that we are getting to accelerate what we have already built is a great game changer for us.
This is just a massive addition of incremental capabilities that builds on what we have been doing with intelligent virtual agents in our customer experience and device as a service businesses.
Now we have a full stack of AI-powered managed services with all the infrastructure and all of the customer experience. We tie it together end to end with AI componentry going across all these different domains. So we are implementing these AI solutions with large language (GenAI) models and mapping it into the customer’s legacy data. This is huge for customers.
Everyone is talking about AI but this is where it is really happening. This is all about making AI very useful for customers with intelligent virtual agents and being able to make it really useful for customer success teams and the customer’s customers experience.
InterVision has been a great leader. They are growing really strong at 20 percent year in and year out and getting great traction.
This brings in roughly 1,600 new accounts that are all incremental customers to us with the ability to upsell. Now the InterVision teams have a full end-to-end solution as well. They are picking up more offerings inside of their existing offerings. They are getting acceleration.
Now we are going to have over 6,000 customers in the U.S. with enterprise accounts, SLED accounts, federal accounts. So we are making incredible progress with very differentiated managed services solutions in some of the best accounts in the United States.
What kind of impact are you seeing from the AI-powered managed services you have already been delivering?
We have always been very innovative. We’re always working on the next thing. We had a lot of the AI automation going. We had teams and employees that were all over this.
With device as a service we have created real solutions for real intelligent virtual agents to make an impact in customer experience, contact center and service desk. There are technologies that we are building and deploying for customers where the ROI is immediate if deployed properly.
We are providing more value for customers and a great place for our employees to work to keep building this business. We have a very unique business where we are really mapping to our customer’s most critical needs.
Is this the first time you have been able to bring a full AI-powered managed services stack to customers from desktop to data center to cloud?
Yes. This fills out the entire stack. So we now have a full stack (of AI-powered managed services) from on prem to the cloud, all the way from the end user to the full back end in the cloud. It’s full end-to-end managed services and then with our Experience Management Platform (EMP) with GenAI solutions customers can co-manage these solutions. It is very unique.
You are integrating AiVA – an AI-powered virtual assistant – and Managed DEX (Digital Employee Experience) – to the Experience Management Platform. Is that turbocharging EMP with GenAI?
It is doing that, but it is really turbocharging customer productivity and customer efficiency with these types of solutions.
You have driven an AI automation journey at NWN since taking the helm six years ago. As you accelerate the AI-powered managed services business both organically and through acquisitions like this what is the difference NWN is bringing in terms of driving AI ROI for customers?
When I started at NWN we were creating a full managed services stack, and then at the top of that stack was our SaaS Experience Management Platform (EMP) platform that could improve customer experience and increase efficiencies. That was AI and machine learning around automation, process improvement and providing the customer with capabilities to have more automation, better and faster processes and more efficiency.
We did that really well for customers. We now have over 2,500 customers on EMP. So we’ve had incredible adoption, traction, and growth. That automation, AI and machine learning continues. The difference now is we’re adding generative AI capabilities. It is different than the legacy AI capabilities.
What we are doing now is really mapping these types of automation and AI solutions into a large language model that's mapping into the customer's data and then creating additional solutions focused on making our customers more efficient.
What we’re doing is taking intelligent virtual agents to do internal work for customers. So we’re training these intelligent virtual agents to be highly efficient for a customer’s experience or their customer’s experience.
The GenAI technologies that came out in the last 24 months are enabling that work, assuming you can map it into the customer's data appropriately which is what we're doing. So we're training intelligent agents, implementing the customer’s data, and we are getting them off the ground, up and running, and deploying those intelligent virtual agents.
The customer is getting incredible efficiencies from these intelligent agents both on the front end of the customer experience and also with the cost efficiency of deploying these types of agents.
So, for example, we deploy device as service with our intelligent virtual agent and our AiVA (AI powered virtual assistant). That provides our customers the ability to get questions answered and the ability to do much more automated response to help desk tickets.
What we have done is put intelligent virtual agents on large language models trained up on our data and our customers’ data. We have really cracked that code. There is no hype here. We have had hundreds of deployments and scaled this very quickly.
InterVision builds on this with the ability to also do this with full cloud solutions and an ability to do this across all a customer’s domains with their entire infrastructure under one platform.
How do NWN’s AI-powered managed services capabilities combine with the InterVision AI-powered managed services capabilities?
Their unique people and software capabilities in the cloud get accelerated by us. We also increase their go-to-market capacity with our 5,000 customers. We quadruple their sales force. They had 1,600 customers and have already had tremendous success. It is going to be a major differentiation and accelerant for us. It is huge for our customers.
We are incredibly excited about InterVision coming into NWN. We’re very appreciative of what (InterVision CEO) Jonathan Lerner and his team have built.
This is a big accelerant for us. It's an accelerant for them. It rounds out our entire (AI-powered managed services) portfolio. It adds a lot more enterprise customers that we can bring the full NWN stack to.
We're laser-focused on customer satisfaction. Our customer net promoter score is 79. We are continuing to drive high customer satisfaction.
So we have a growing (AI-powered managed services) market with customers needing help with AI solutions. We are definitely a leader in the ability to help customers with AI IT solutions. We are helping customers sift through the AI noise and providing them with real generative AI solutions that are having a major positive impact on their businesses.
How big is the total addressable market for the AI-powered managed services you are bringing to market here?
For our market what we're doing in the United States, this is a $1.9 trillion opportunity as defined (market researchers) Gartner and IDC. This market is really accelerating. Generative AI solutions will keep rolling out in a lot of areas.
We are focused on real solutions with real ROI for customers that we've already been deploying for almost 24 months now. It is really working. In every business process in IT infrastructure there is an opportunity for generative or legacy AI machine learning to make a positive impact on customer’s business productivity.
How big a lead do you think you have with regard to driving ROI with AI-powered managed services for customers?
We have incredibly innovative solutions. We're extremely focused as a company to kind of deliver that ROI (return on investment) for customers. We’re going to keep innovating. We don't really think about competition or leads.
We have 6,000 great customers in the United States. We have tremendous opportunity inside our present customer base with new customers continuing to come in. We are really focused on their needs.
With every IT function customers have there are new opportunities for us to help them innovate to improve the customer experience, reduce costs and potentially increase revenue. We have solutions that can have an impact on all the value drivers that customers are looking at: innovation, costs, revenue, efficiencies, and optimization.
We’re also providing the managed services capabilities so the customer can strap on the ability to deploy these intelligent virtual agents and run them.
What was your message to the combined InterVision and NWN team regarding the acquisition?
This is strength on strength with tremendous opportunity, more capababilities and more resources.
For the InterVision team I want them to know they are coming into a culture that has been growing and winning. Our employee net promoter score is 86. I want them to know they are part of a growing and innovative company with an excellent culture.
This is a great place to work and a great place to be. We’re not done. We’re going to continue to grow this company and keep investing and innovating. We’re going to continue to make this is a great place to work. It is exciting. I love what we’re doing here. It is really working and it is really special.
You acquired Leverage Information Systems eight months ago, adding 60 federal contracts with over 200 customers. What kind of pickup are you seeing from that deal?
The Leverage acquisition is going great. That was really the foundation for us launching NWN Federal.The team is doing great building that practice and looking to really build the federal business up. Our guys are doing a great job with that.
How do you feel about the opportunity ahead as you reflect on the last six years and look forward?
I'm more excited now than I was in 2019. This is really working. We have more scale with a full stack platform, but we’re still nimble enough to be entrepreneurial and make it happen.
Customers are giving us larger opportunities to work with them on with the responsibility of providing them more services for them. I’m grateful for the NWN team in terms of what we have built and for our customers who keep leaning in and working with us. I am more excited now than ever!
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