The Unica Journey – Our vision for future and Quick peek down the memory lane

Unica has had an eventful journey till now. Right from its inception in 1992, Unica has enjoyed leadership for ground-breaking innovations in the marketing automation space. IBM acquired Unica In September of 2010 and promoted the Marketing Software with its own branding and came to be known as IBM Marketing with products – IBM Campaign, IBM Interact, Marketing Operations, and Contact Optimization. With IBM, Unica got exposure to more enterprise customers, and the product suite progressed further with the 8.5 version release.

The Exciting Times of IPP partnership between IBM and HCL

IP (Intellectual Property) partnership between IBM and HCL in September 2017 brought another stepping stone in the Unica journey. HCL made significant investment did in Unica, and the team size grew by 100% within the first 1.5 years itself. We decided to expand the teams with older architects training the new hires while increasing the team size to cater to the old backlog as well as focusing on building new features. The new team members also brought in fresh perspectives and their contagious enthusiasm. We also introduced technologies like Angular 7, spring, etc. to improve efficiency, derive and pass on the benefits of the latest technologies.

As a result, we released version 11.1, with a new module of Marketing Software Director. This was the most significant release in Unica after many years especially in terms of features/enhancements defect fixes etc. Version 11.1 brought several new features to the whole Marketing Suite. We presented a new look and feel with many UX updates. Other critical elements of the update were-

During the IP Partnership, IBM continued to sell the products through its channel, and HCL was responsible for development and support.

The HCL Acquisition

Another big news came in July 2019 when HCL closed a $1.8 billion deal and acquired select IBM software products along with Unica. This was one big push to Unica and to the delight of the customers; it was the retrieval of the Unica Brand.

Unica – Towards the Glorious Future

Unica now looks forward to its future with version 12 release planned for the first quarter of 2020. Faster, smarter, and futuristic version 12 shall include-

Smarter Campaigns –

• Build highly optimized campaigns  powered by a deeper synergy of Campaign, Optimize and Interact capabilities
• Let’s the user’s design more intelligent campaigns by tapping into the historical data while considering conversion rates with an ability to get it the first time right
• Utilize the power of predictive modeling directly in Unica itself
• A Cognitive assistant function to automate routine tasks, run commands and give real-time guidance

Omni-Channel Journeys

• Create compelling customer engagement experiences with the new Journey tool and engage customers across different channels
• Distributed Marketing capability that can help marketers with last-mile customization of offers at the point of customer interaction
• Ability to roll out offers from anywhere in the suite with centralized offer management

Centralized Offer Management

A single place where all the offers are managed with integration to multiple Content management systems. The new Unified offer management is highly agile and multidimensional in catering to your engagements across channels.

Dockerization

We took the feedback from the market on the installation and upgrade issues. We will be entirely dockerized by V12. The pre-configured and pre-installed Docker images can be launched with a single Helm command and install the applications. Dockerization significantly decreases the user’s dependency on IT. Here is a detailed blog that explains why Dockerized Unica products would be your choice.

Opening our ecosystem And Our Hyper care approach

We are opening the Unica ecosystem through Rest API’s, and most of the functionalities would be available through Rest.

The TechConnect events across the globe and Customer Partner programs are a part of our hyper care approach. This allows our clients to engage with the product leadership and be a direct influencer in driving the product roadmap. We believe that the future of Unica will be glorious with our clients playing a vital role in advancing the products helping us to develop innovative solutions and customizations.

Come join us as we take your favorite Marketing Software to new glory and heights.