David Liddicoat is fairly new to Indianapolis. The Australian native emigrated to the United States by way of the Genesys office in Manilla, The Philippines—the company’s second largest workforce location in the world. The biggest, of course, is right here in Indianapolis.

Liddicoat was tapped by Genesys CEO Tony Bates to serve in the newly created role of site lead for Indianapolis. It’s a role Liddicoat wears well after helping to establish the Manilla office as site lead and growing operations significantly in just three years.

“Part of the journey we’ve been going through as a company since Tony took the helm about 18 months ago is really defining where our key growth sites are going to be,” David said.

David Liddicoat
Indianapolis Site Lead, Genesys
“Indianapolis was already our largest site by headcount, but Tony stressed to me it’s more than size. He really gets how vital Indianapolis is to Genesys as we continue to grow and innovate. It’s because of the people. The Indianapolis site is a great location for us because it’s so rich in talent.”

Having been with the customer experience software provider for nearly seven years prior to arriving in Indianapolis, David was well aware of the potential of the Interactive Intelligence acquisition in 2016. He observed from a distance as Indianapolis took on a key role in continuing to drive innovation as a part of Genesys. “When we talk about things such as experience and empathy, the people here just seem to naturally get it and understand how to apply it to the business,” David said. “Those are key ingredients for innovation and products that create raving fans.”

As if taking on the new site lead role wasn’t enough, David relocated to Indianapolis in March 2020, just as the first of the COVID-19 lockdowns was about to happen. He says it was a challenge because he hasn’t been able to spend time at the company’s Northwest side campus and really get to know people face-to-face as he would have liked to, but “how our teams responded to the pandemic was inspiring.” The way Genesys employees adjusted and adapted so quickly to the constantly changing circumstances got David thinking about the future.

His number one priority since day one has been the health and well-being of every Genesys employee, but the vaccines becoming available before the holidays offered a lighted path to more forward thinking opportunities.

“COVID-19 has given us a chance to reevaluate how we do business, to look at what our policies are and ask ourselves what our workplace will be like in the future,” David said. “The pandemic smashed our perceptions of how things must be and forced a creative posture where ‘this is how we do things’ was instantly replaced by the question ‘how are we going to do things?’. We now know for a fact that being more flexible doesn’t have to mean less productive or profitable, and that the best interests of the company and the best interests of the employees can be better aligned due to that flexibility.”

Genesys prudently slowed it’s hiring during the pandemic, but according to David, the company is growing its presence again all over the world—including in Indianapolis. 

Though it may at first seem antithetical, the need for more talent was precipitated by the pandemic because customer service departments have become a lifeline, helping consumers manage uncertainty about their finances, health, travel and more. As the world shifted rapidly toward digital offerings over the past 12 months, more than 800 new customers turned to Genesys for its cloud and multicloud solutions to provide consumers with mission-critical support and to transition employees to remote work. 

Genesys was already stressing cloud adoption prior to COVID-19 to be sure, but it accelerated adoption to the point that customers and prospects have leap-frogged the more gradual process everyone expected at the beginning of 2020. This helped drive the company’s most successful period in its history, with sales growth and leading market share.

“Companies that may have been more resistant before have now experienced the benefits of the cloud because of the rapid deployments we made possible for them,” David said. “Whereas they leap-frogged the cloud adoption process and are digging into the advanced technologies of our current products, Genesys has to look into the future and figure out what they are going to need two years, five years or ten years from now. You do that by finding and hiring talented people. Luckily, in Indianapolis we’re in the center of some of the best university and community pipelines for tech talent.”

Genesys also has a bit of a hiring advantage having just been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for 2020 Contact Center as a Service, Worldwide a few months ago. Gartner recognized Genesys for the company’s completeness of its vision and its commitment to the four crucial pillars of customer service, technological innovation, geographic presence and its robust ecosystem of partners.

“Our vision is what really sets Genesys apart,” David said. “The history of contact centers is mostly about efficiency and effectiveness, but anymore those are simply table stakes for both agents and consumers. By giving the market a more complete offering that leverages data, digital technologies and robust artificial intelligence capabilities, Genesys enables businesses to use empathy in building trust and loyalty with their customers.”