Welcome to 2011! Time to Own the Change!

I wish all who read this a safe and prosperous 2011; a special note of thanks to all our clients and partners for the incredible things you have accomplished with Pega technology. Because of you, Fortune Magazine ranked Pegasystems as the third fastest-growing tech company in 2010.

Because of the terrific business outcomes you have achieved with our software, Pegasystems is recognized as #1 in BPM by Forrester, and Gartner. The same seamlessly unified product is also a leader in CRM, as recognized by Forrester and Gartner. I am now also delighted to announce that Forrester has just recognized us as having the leading offering for case management.

Imagine, one product leading in three completely separate software categories.  This was no accident. We recognized the synergies between these categories – and how a truly unified solution could yield benefits and performance no one thought possible. We are delighted to lead the industry in helping to break down both operational siloes and artificial category distinctions.

2011 will be the year of the change agent. The business world, and the software that supports it, is at a tipping point. Pega’s growth is due, in large part, to the fact that more and more organizations are hitting a wall with their current enterprise applications. In the biggest migration since Y2K, most organizations are now looking to extend or replace core systems with new systems that offer more innovation and differentiation. A growing number of them are selecting us for that purpose.

Clients are looking for three basic things. First, they are looking for out of the box solutions that have all the benefits of a packaged enterprise application, but with none of the traditional downsides (hard to change, slow innovation cycles, high maintenance costs, inability to adapt to new situations). This is what they get with our core customer service, call center, work and case management capabilities.

They are also looking for extensible starter kits for specific industries which allow end-to-end processes, which is what they get from our ever growing portfolio of industry solution frameworks.

And, they are looking for pure innovation, unbelievably fast and dynamic business apps that become, in a sense, the enterprise app store and a hotbed for growth initiatives and continuous improvement – all powered by a mature, embedded BPM methodology and next-generation application development tools.

Pega’s unified and seamless offering reduces IT cost and complexity, and empowers business people. We think that is a powerful combination. Our single, unified all-in-one offering means, among many other things, faster training, faster deployment, high levels of re-use, better governance and security, and most importantly, ease of use.

Confusing? Absolutely. It is a bit like watching a sports team win in baseball in the summer, and then seeing that same team come out to play in a football or a hockey match. Why is Tom Brady lacing up his skates next to Didier Drogba and Kobe Bryant? That’s Pega.

So is Pega a case management system? …a business process management system? …a customer service CRM solution? …a business analytics tool that allows business people to use predictive models to improve business outcomes? …a business rules management system? … a composite application development for optimizing user experiences?

The answer to all of these questions is – yes. And I do not blame anyone who may find this implausible. In fact, I have a special offer just for you – come to PegaWORLD in June of 2011. If, over the course of the three days, you are not completely blown away by what Pegasystems clients are doing with our award-winning Build for Change technology, and leave feeling that software pigeon holes are definitely a thing of the past, we will completely refund your conference fee, no questions asked.

Take the Pega Challenge. Come to PegaWORLD and talk to your peers who are making the changes and breaking out of the prison of agonizingly slow innovation and high maintenance imposed by big software. You’ll meet top banks using Pega to onboard new retail and commercial accounts, transform their online banking practices and dramatically improve their cross-sell and up-sell rates and customer retention as they parse huge volumes of transactions for exception handling and fraud. You’ll hear from healthcare organizations using us to modernize client services, tackle personalized client care management, revolutionize pharmacy benefits management, and get ready to embrace a tsunami of change coming from Washington.

You’ll connect with telecommunications leaders using us to predict future customer behavior and recommend the next-best action to better retain customers and reduce churn. You’ll see how travel and hospitality organizations are using us to wrap multiple booking systems into a single composite layer and create not just a single view of the customer, but personalized offers for everyone.  And dozens more stories of innovation and client success.

Of course, you don’t have to wait until June. You can call us CRM or BPM or Case Management or Decision Management or Technology Management, but just call us, for more information on taking the Pega Challenge just send an email to challenge@pega.com!

One thing I can tell you, the career trajectory of Pega champions within their organizations is noticeably upwardly mobile. We continually have to upgrade the titles on our customer testimonials, but this is a labor of love that we celebrate each and every time it happens! We would love to add you that rapidly growing list, and welcome the opportunity to engage with you as you look for the best possible way to build your business.

I conclude by observing that there are certain important life lessons you learn from your mother, and mine taught me (as depicted in these two short videos) to avoid complexity and be wary of the high cost of doing things from scratch. These lessons have helped guide and define our mission, to deliver an entirely new kind of trans-category software that can help you to reliably predict and improve business outcomes.

Have a great 2011, and as I find myself saying more and more often these days, see you at PegaWORLD!