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Milestones in Noetica’s ten-year history

 

1997: Noetica is founded by Roni Lewin & Danny Singer as a commercial vehicle in order to bring to market innovative call centre software products. The founders’ vision was based around Mr. Lewin’s assessment of an emerging yet vigorously growing call centre industry and some theoretical and practical ideas in the field of logic visualisation techniques developed by Mr. Singer independently in the early to mid nineties.

 

At this stage, Mr. Lewin & Mr. Singer had already been working together for over ten years (since 1987) on various other projects within the Lewin-owned Scandex Group and promoted successful technology companies such as Capscan, Justis and ReadyCall.

 

Noetica started in a one room small office in Bromley in Kent with a founding team of 5 developers. Most of these are still with the company today. This initial year was mainly spent designing the initial product and cutting code for the first experimental version.

 

The company name (“Noetica”) was arrived at as a joint effort between Mr. Singer and Dr. Harris (our Technical Director) who provided the final refinement. To those who don’t yet know, Noetica comes from the ancient Greek word “noesis” which basically means “a priori knowledge” or “knowing without learning”. This was precisely the philosophy behind the company at the time and has remained our basic guiding principle to this day.

 

Noetica wins the Highly Commended, Most Imaginative New Software Award at the Voice+ 1997 trade show at London Olympia.

 

In the same year…

·         Tony Blair becomes prime minister ending 18 years of Conservative governments.

·         Katrina and the Waves win Eurovision 1997 for the UK with Love Shine a Light, the most successful Eurovision entry ever.

·         Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car crash in the Alma tunnel in Paris.

·         Bill Clinton starts his second and final term as US president.

 

1998: The first commercial version of SYNTHESYS™is released and the first three beta customers get on board:

·         George S. Hall ltd – a building maintenance firm in Stoke on Trent.

·         Call Response – a small call centre bureau in Dunfermline.

·         Healthcall – a commercial emergency call centre bureau in Aberdeen.

All together, about 25 seats in total.

 

Noetica moves to its current location in central London and a research and development office is opened in Moscow, to assist in the development of component elements within SYNTHESYSTM.

 

In the same year…

·         The Monica Lewinski scandal breaks out in the US.

·         The movie Titanic wins 11 Academy Awards.

·         The Good Friday Agreement is signed in Northern Ireland.

·         Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin and overnight becomes the biggest search engine and the second most commonly visited web site in history

 

 

1999: CRM functionality is added to SYNTHESYS™. Version 2.1 of the product is launched and includes CRM capabilities including customer history and a visual CRM editor.

 

Noetica enters the Italian market partnering with contact centre experts, it&o Consulting in Milan. It&o are still our distributors in Italy to this day. There is also an early attempt to enter the US market through several partnerships. Noetica exhibits at call centre shows in Dallas, Texas and Los Angeles, CA.

 

New major customer deals are signed with Yellow Pages, Digicall in Lausanne(Switzerland) and City of Sunderland College.

 

Noetica grows to 15 London-based staff including a new Commercial Director, a Business Development Manager and a Marketing Executive. The UK development team grows to 10.

 

In the same year…

·         The Y2K bug preparations reach boiling point and predictions of imminent doom are rife.

·         The Kosovo war rages on and NATO begins it’s bombing campaign in Serbia.

·         TV presenter Jill Dando is murdered on her doorstep in Fulham.

·         Texas Governor George W. Bush announces he will seek the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States.

 

 

2000: Noetica wins many major new deals with  the London Borough of Islington, PNC Telecom, The Daily Telegraph, Telescope, Warranty Holdings, AnswerCall Direct, The Phone Room, Mediaphone srl (Italy) and Spin (Italy).

 

Synthesys Version 2.3i including International Language Support is released. Synthesys now supports Italian, French & German languages. The new version also includes support for Outbound Campaigns (in preview and progressive modes only) and additional CTI platforms.

 

In the same year…

·         The dot com bubble reaches its peak and America Online announces an agreement to be bought out by Time Warner for $162 billion. This is the largest-ever corporate merger.

·         The Tate Modern gallery opens in London.

·         The 2000 Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia.

·         George W. Bush is elected President of the USA in a widely disputed poll.

 

2001: Noetica releases its Unified Messaging module as an add on to SYNTHESYS™. This development was in response to customer demand and is immediately adopted by Switzerland-based paging service Digicall, which uses this component of SYNTHESYSTM for distributing pager messages, faxes, SMS and emails.

 

This is a period of growth and consolidation and the Noetica customer list grows to over 20 clients with the significant addition of major contact centre outsourcer 2Touch (part of Acxiom Corp.), Yes Car Credit, and several others.

 

Noetica continues to grow and it now employs over 25 staff at its offices in London and a further 5 developers in Moscow. Noetica expands into the Netherlands with the appointment of CallArt bv. as it’s distributor.

 

Between Christmas & New Year, as the year is drawing to an end, we receive an initial enquiry from Time Warner Inc. showing an interest in SYNTHESYS™ for their customer service operation.

 

In the same year…

·         The UK foot & mouth crisis begins.

·         Tony Blair wins his second term as Prime Minister.

·         Almost 3,000 people are killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

·         Pope John Paul II sends the first papal e-mail from a laptop in his office.

 

2002: Noetica enters the enterprise market by signing major deals with Time Warner Inc., University for Industry (Learn Direct), Highway Insurance and Arvato Services (Bertelsmann Media Group).

 

Noetica signs up its first two customers in Australia: Synergy in Perth and Insight in Sydney. Most of the year is spent focusing on the implementation of the new strategic deal signed with Time Warner Inc in Amsterdam in February. The first agents go live in late summer and the project is completely rolled out by end of March 2003.

 

A strategic decision is taken early in the year to give the green light to two new projects that will in due course have a profound impact on Noetica’s future.

 

The Noetica labs are given the go ahead to develop the revolutionary Synthesys Script-Aware Predictive Dialler module. The ideas behind this become the subject of a successful patent application launched in October 2002 which now protects the SYNTHESYS™ dialler around the world.

 

In a second move, the development teams are also moving forward with the next generation of SYNTHESYS™, called Synthesys.NET™ that would take advantage of the new Microsoft web enablement technologies.

 

Towards the end of the year, Noetica begins to feel the effects of the dot com collapse and the general slump that followed in the technology markets.

 

In the same year…

·         Euro notes and coins are issued across the Eurozone and become the official currency.

·         The funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother takes place in Westminster Abbey, London.

·         Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh ride in the gold state coach from Buckingham Palace to St Paul's Cathedral for a special service marking the Queen's 50 years on the throne.

·         George W. Bush signs the Iraq War Resolution.

 

 

2003: Noetica launches its Script-Aware Predictive Dialler. Danny Singer leads a media campaign for stronger regulation to help stop silent calls. The product is immediately adopted by  Insight in Sydney, Australia and AnswerCall Direct in Northern Ireland.

 

As a result of vertiginous growth in the previous year, Noetica is now employing nearly 40 staff and expands by doubling its floor space and taking on another wing of the building at its London HQ address.

 

Noetica launches its multimedia (inbound email, fax, white mail) extensions to Synthesys™.

 

At the same time dark clouds are gathering on the economic horizon. Noetica suffers as a result of the general slowdown in the IT/telecoms market and the generally depressed economic activity during the year. Budgets are tight, Noetica has to scale back its activity and reduce staff levels.

 

Despite this, several new customer accounts join the growing Synthesys user base. ICON in the Czech Republic and LoveTM and ITG in London are just a few examples.

 

In the same year…

·         Land troops from United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invade Iraq.

·         The body of David Kelly, a scientist at the Ministry of Defence, is found a few miles from his home, leading to the Hutton inquiry.

·         The Concorde makes its last commercial flight, bringing the era of airliner supersonic travel to a close, at least for the time being.

·         Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq, is captured in Tikrit by the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.

 

2004: Noetica launches the new Synthesys™ Advanced Recycling Editor as part of a whole range of advanced tools for outbound activities (SQI DB, SQI Files, Live Monitor, etc.). These are brought in to complement the already successful Synthesys™ Script-Aware Predictive dialler, and provide clear benefits to all Noetica’s outbound customers.

 

This is a year of reconstruction and renewed optimism. Following the previous year’s woes, Noetica emerges stronger, leaner and more importantly back on the growth path.

 

More names join the Synthesys user family in 2004. Among these are Outright Insurance, Newhall Publications, Answer4u (ICS Group) and HCL (Apollo Call Centres) in Northern Ireland.

 

Noetica launches its call blending add-on to Synthesys™ a solution allowing contact centres to fill the troughs in inbound activity with outbound work or email/white mail work.

 

In the same year…

·         The film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King directed by Peter Jackson, wins Academy Awards in every category it was nominated for, with 11 wins in total, including Best Picture and Best Director.

·         Simultaneous explosions on rush hour trains in Madrid kill 190 people.

·         The largest expansion to date of the European Union takes place, extending the Union by 10 member-states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus.

·         Greece beats Portugal 1-0 to win the Euro 2004.

 

2005: 2Touch replaces its incumbent dialler with the Noetica Script-Aware Predictive Dialler across its entire operation and benefits instantly from a 20% improvement in productivity therefore achieving complete ROI (return on investment)  in only two months. This alone delivers annual savings of £450,000 to 2Touch and receives widespread publicity including an article in Computer Weekly.

 

Noetica continues to consolidate its customer base with new contracts with German giant Bosch in Holland, Germany and France and Medacs and Tompson Holidays (TUI) in the UK.

 

On the product side, the main development focus shifts now to the final stages of development of the Synthesys.NET™ platform that is now seen as the new strategic direction of the company. The entire development team is now concentrating on the release of this new product, which is a major rewrite of the Synthesys™ platform and had been in development since 2002.

 

In the same year…

·         George W. Bush is inaugurated in Washington, D.C. for his second term as the 43rd President of the United States.

·         Pope John Paul II dies; over 4 million people travel to the Vatican to mourn him.

·         The marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles takes place, after being briefly postponed after the Pope's death. Camilla assumes the titles Her Royal Highness and The Duchess of Cornwall.

·         United Kingdom general election: The Labour Party is re-elected with a substantially reduced majority.

 

2006: Noetica launches Version 1.1 of Synthesys.NETTM enabling contact centre managers to centrally administer campaigns via the web and make remote and home working agents a reality.

 

The first live installation of Synthesys.NET™ is at the new Time Warner operation in Nagoia in Japan running on a web server in Amsterdam and linked to a mainframe in Tampa, Florida. The system runs in the Japanese language and is successfully deployed in time and within budget.

 

In the same year, Noetica’s products are adopted by outsourcing giant Sitel in the UK (at their sites in Stratford, Kingston & Newcastle) and in Germany (Krefeld), Spain (Madrid) and Sweden (Orebro). The relationship with Sitel is still going strong to this day and Synthesys™ is one of Sitel’s platforms of choice.

 

In the same year Noetica receives an expression of interest from Microsoft in Redmond, WA as a result of their involvement with Arvato Services (Bertelsmann) in the UK. Negotiations begin with Microsoft for the use of Synthesys worldwide.

 

In the same year…

 

·         UK Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy resigns after revelations that he has a drink problem.

·         Celebrations are held in Salzburg and around the world for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

·         Italy wins the 2006 FIFA World Cup by beating France 5-3 on penalties. The score after extra time is 1-1.

·         Israeli troops invade Lebanon in response to Hezbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers and killing 3. Hezbollah declares open war against Israel 2 days later.

 

2007: Noetica celebrates its tenth anniversary with the launch of Version 2.1 of the Noetica SYNTHESYSTM software framework. This is a major release and a significant leap forward in the product’s capabilities.

 

Also, a major contract is signed with Microsoft in Redmond to supply Synthesys.NET™ and professional services to Microsoft for use around the world. In addition Noetica signs a significant contract with insurance giant Allianz for the supply of its Script-Aware Predictive dialler across their outbound operation in the UK and India.

 

This year will also see the release of Version 2.2 of Synthesys.NET which includes numerous improvements and new features making this one of the most advanced products aimed at the contact centre market today.

 

At the end of 2007, we are taking this opportunity to look back on 10 years of incessant activity, the ups as well as the downs, and draw from this vast reservoir of experience in order to service out customers better and make the most of the wide-ranging opportunities that this growing market will undoubtedly deliver over the next few years.
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