‘Anywhere365 was built as a communication layer to reduce unnecessary dialogues and maximize the value of time in every interaction’: Enrico Karsten, CEO of Anywhere365

While the world has been floored by technology and its major advancements, a lot of companies have been incorporating contact centers. Managing customer interactions across various different channels becomes one of the top priorities at an organization. Anywhere365 was created for this specific reason: to reinvent the way business communications are carried out.

Anywhere365 saves time, increases productivity, and enhances customer engagement, delivering an experience customers fall in love with.

Enrico Karsten, the CEO of Anywhere365, is a passionate, entrepreneurial leader with decades of experience to back his leadership skills in start-ups. His unique expertise has resulted in him being a successful leader in up-scale corporate environments. To delve deeper into the inner workings of Anywhere365, its journey as an innovative company, and its impact on society, CIO Bulletin had the privilege to hear first-hand from the CEO himself.

Q. What is the story of Anywhere365? Can you share with us the journey of the company from inception to success?

Right from its inception Anywhere365 was built as a communication layer on top of Microsoft technology to reduce unnecessary dialogues and maximize the value of time in every interaction. It fully leverages existing investments in the Microsoft product suite to orchestrate and streamline communications for companies around the world.

Back in 2011, Anywhere365 started as an add-on for Lync and Skype for Business. Today, Anywhere365 Dialogue Cloud is a Microsoft-native Dialogue Management (as a service) platform on top of Microsoft Teams.

This technological advantage opens up infinite possibilities for organizations to unlock the potential of great customer experiences on a single screen through a myriad of digital workplace solutions.

Q. What is the vision of Anywhere365? How does the company plan to achieve it?

We envision a world where every organization thrives by delivering mind-blowing customer experiences. Experiences that will be a true source of inspiration, resonating deeply with each individual they touch.

To create these experiences, businesses should be able to de-silo their communications and remove friction in customer journeys. We enable them to do so with our Dialogue Management offerings, by creating an ecosystem of communications where everyone in the business can be a ‘customer service agent’ and where businesses have a 360-degree view on all their dialogues.

Q. How has Anywhere365 rethought and transformed business communications with its innovative offerings?

Many believe that the revolution in business communications is taking the old on-premise systems and bringing them to the cloud. However, we believe that the real transition of business communication requires a more fundamental paradigm shift. Today’s customers want to buy and get support in different ways than a few years back. Many companies are lagging behind, not because they don’t want to deliver on those new expectations, but because their technology stack won’t allow them to.

The real transformation technology vendors need to empower is from inside-out to outside-in thinking: organizing the business around the customer, instead of organizing customers around the business.

The future of work, productivity and customer experiences is constantly evolving — and not only in the space of human interaction. That’s why we’re also bringing machines into the equation.

Q. Could you describe a few of Anywhere365’s solutions?

A few of our solutions include, Anywhere365 Dialogue Cloud that was built as a platform with modular components. We believe in the power of augmented intelligence. Aviator is our (generative) AI solution to deliver scalable human-led personalization and empathy in every dialogue. Dialogue Studio is a powerful tool that connects to any API-based service, and at the same time, it is a graphical, low-code dialogue flow builder for citizen developers.

At Anywhere365, we also enable IoT to become part of dialogues. The Critical Dialogue Cloud for IoT reduces alarm fatigue and elevates sensor-based communication to new heights.

Q. In what ways does Anywhere365 encourage innovation among its staff members?

We reckon that innovation comes not only from incentivizing creativity but also from creating environments where these creative ideas can connect and be turned into action. As a global employer, we create these environments primarily in online collaboration spaces, but we also bring together all of our staff at least once per year to connect face-to-face.

We actively encourage our people to start with the use case. We don’t want to be at the forefront of technology, just to be at the forefront of technology. Innovation should be led by a ‘Why are we saving time for someone? Are we really making the experience better? Is the innovation scalable?’

Q. What are Anywhere365’s plans for the future?

We’ve always been very clear about our purpose: we want to enable a real transition in the way organizations provide experiences to their customers, applicants, employees and other stakeholders around them. We will keep innovating our technology in that direction, with beyond-smart routing, automation and digitization. We have a long-lasting partnership and a firm strategic alignment with Microsoft. We will continue to build on top of that while exploring opportunities beyond the Microsoft ecosystem, with our new product Dialogue Cloud Infinity.

Q. Would you like us to highlight something important happening in your company?

We understand the buzz around (generative) AI and all the opportunities it brings. However, for us it will never be about AI; it’s about the dialogue. To fulfill the needs of people, AI cannot be a standalone initiative. We see five critical checkboxes for AI to improve dialogue experience on both ends of the line, set in our HUMAN™ (Heartfelt, Unified, Measurable, Actionable, and Natural) Framework for AI.

A brief biography of the CEO

Enrico Karsten is the CEO of Anywhere365. He distinguishes himself as a passionate and entrepreneurial leader; with over 20 years’ experience of leadership in start-up, scale-up and corporate environments — primarily in SaaS & IT consulting. His creative drive and motivational skills have resulted in the ability to adapt quickly and lead a team towards ambitious goals and equally important, having fun while doing so.

“We want to enable a real transition in the way organizations provide experiences to their customers, applicants, employees and other stakeholders around them.”