A two-year partnership between Teesside University and TeleWare underlines the growing role that educational institutions will play in shaping the future look of comms products and services.
This collaborative Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) aims to drive innovation and turn academic thinking into real world solutions. KTPs are part funded by Innovate UK.
Key focus areas are Big Data, machine learning and analytics, which will help Teleware to explore the best way to collect data from customer interactions - whether through traditional call centres, social media, web chats or other channels - and analyse it to enhance the customer experience.
Dr Teng Fu, an Artificial Intelligence specialist, will be based with TeleWare full-time, and the comms firm will gain access to research from Drs Yifeng Zeng and Claudio Angione who are based at the university's School of Computing.
Dr Geoff Archer, Head of Knowledge Exchange at Teesside University, said: "To maintain a technological advantage, businesses today must gain insight from a range of different sources including the latest academic thinking and theories.
"This will allow them to more fully understand the needs of their customers and their industry.
"Through working with TeleWare, we are able to give them the benefit of our knowledge to guide them in their development process. It's exciting for us to then see a practical application of our thinking."
"Machine learning is a large part of TeleWare's CX Analytics as the technology can learn best practices and then deliver those insights back into businesses," said Paul Millar, Chief Innovation Officer at TeleWare.
"We've always had a great relationship with Teesside University. Our CEO Steve Haworth is a Teesside graduate. The KTP is proving to be fruitful for us as we continue our journey into CX Analytics and enhancing the communication between businesses and their customers.
"Having this academic support to constantly improve our knowledge is paying real dividends in terms of how we develop our solutions."