Archival Becomes Key: Smart Communications Strengthens Conversation Cloud with Joisto Acquisition

By Jim Lundy

 

Archival Becomes Key: Smart Communications Strengthens Conversation Cloud with Joisto Acquisition

In the dynamic landscape of customer communications, managing the sheer volume and complexity of interactions while adhering to stringent regulatory requirements presents a significant challenge for enterprises. Ensuring that every customer conversation is not only personalized and timely but also securely stored and readily accessible for compliance and future reference is paramount, especially in regulated sectors.

Against this backdrop, Smart Communications’ announcement of its acquisition of cloud data archive company Joisto marks a notable development. This blog overviews the Smart Communications acquisition of Joisto and offers our analysis of its market implications.

Why Did Smart Communications Acquire Joisto?

Smart Communications announced its acquisition of Joisto, a provider of cloud data archival and management solutions. According to Smart Communications CEO Leigh Segall, the acquisition integrates Joisto’s cloud archival expertise into their platform to address an increasing need for regulatory-compliant and accessible storage of customer conversations. Joisto specializes in a pure cloud-based archive solution designed with a comprehensive set of APIs for seamless integration across diverse corporate systems.

Its architecture supports high-volume data ingestion and meets stringent requirements for data retention and compliance, including GDPR and ISO 14641 certification. Joisto CEO Tommi Hänninen highlighted the shared passion for providing industry-leading capabilities through a modern, cloud-based approach. This move follows a period of significant growth for Smart Communications in the cloud CCM and IXM sectors, particularly within healthcare, financial services, insurance, and government.

Analysis

This acquisition is a strategic imperative for Smart Communications, solidifying its position in serving heavily regulated industries. While Smart Communications has excelled at the generation and delivery of sophisticated customer communications, the long-term, compliant archival and retrieval of these interactions have become increasingly critical components of the overall customer conversation lifecycle. Regulatory bodies worldwide are placing greater emphasis on data retention, accessibility, and integrity, making a robust, certified archival solution a necessity, not a luxury, for enterprises in sectors like financial services, healthcare, and insurance.

Integrating Joisto’s specialized cloud archival capabilities directly into the Smart Communications Conversation Cloud™ platform provides customers with a seamless, unified solution. This eliminates the complexities and potential compliance gaps associated with managing separate communication generation and archival systems.

For Smart Communications, this acquisition expands its value proposition significantly, offering a more complete end-to-end platform for managing the entire customer conversation, from creation and delivery to long-term, compliant storage and retrieval. This move differentiates Smart Communications in a competitive market by directly addressing a critical pain point for its core customer base and raises the bar for other vendors in the CCM and IXM space, potentially forcing them to build or acquire similar capabilities to remain competitive in regulated markets.

What Should Enterprises Do About This News?

Enterprises, particularly those in regulated industries currently using or evaluating workflow and content automation or customer communications management platforms, should take note of this acquisition and understand its implications. Many enterprises have old archival process and this could represent an easy way to do a technology refresh and eliminate a legacy provider. 

Bottom Line

Smart Communications’ acquisition of Joisto is a strategic enhancement to its Conversation Cloud platform, directly addressing the critical need for integrated, compliant cloud archival of content, such as customer communications, especially in regulated industries.

This move strengthens Smart Communications’ offering and underscores the increasing importance of managing the entire lifecycle of customer interactions, including long-term retention and retrieval. Enterprises should view this development as a signal to evaluate their own archival strategies for customer communications and understand how their technology vendors are equipped to handle these essential requirements for compliance and operational efficiency.