This week’s version of Finovate International options an interview with Karen Elliott, CEO and Co-Founding father of Cinareo Options.
Headquartered in Ontario, Canada and based in 2022, Cinareo Options enhances workforce administration platforms, serving to them streamline contact heart operations and mitigate danger by enabling exact useful resource allocation and decision-making that’s pushed by information.
Cinareo made its Finovate debut earlier this yr at FinovateSpring 2025 in San Diego, demonstrating how its SaaS resolution gives scenario-based capability planning for each contact heart brokers and assist employees. The corporate’s expertise leverages industry-recognized statistical fashions and simulations to assist companies meet buyer calls for in addition to important monetary KPIs.
We caught up with Karen Elliott lately to be taught extra in regards to the discipline of capability planning, the position of enabling applied sciences like AI, and the way Cinareo Options helps contact facilities make sure that the precise individual with the precise expertise is in the precise place on the proper time.
What position does capability planning have in workforce administration? What makes it difficult and the way does Cinareo assist corporations higher meet these challenges?
Karen Elliott: Capability planning is the strategic spine of workforce administration. It determines how many individuals you want with the precise expertise, in the precise place, on the proper time, to fulfill service ranges with out overspending on labor. In touch facilities, capability planning sits upstream of scheduling—it makes use of historic information, forecasts, and enterprise assumptions to set headcount and funds necessities weeks, months, and even years prematurely. Efficient planning ensures buyer demand is met effectively and profitably.
The problem is that unpredictable demand, scattered information, and outdated instruments make planning a relentless problem. Most organizations resort to utilizing Excel spreadsheets and spend hours and even days of guide labor and embedded formulation to attempt to determine the optimum plan. Cinareo streamlines the method by ingesting your information and enabling fast “what-if” situation modeling and multi-skilling simulation to create optimized plans for each brokers and assist employees with the press of a button.
Not solely does Cinareo deal with planning with ease, however the platform additionally creates monetary budgets and recruitment and coaching plans so you understand who to rent, and when, to make sure you meet your service targets.
Who’re Cinareo’s main prospects? How do you attain them?
Elliott: Cinareo is an industry-agnostic platform for all contact facilities. We have now prospects worldwide in monetary establishments, telecom, journey, utilities, retail, and even authorities. We companion with CCaaS and WFM options to combine instantly into their platforms in order that information can stream seamlessly into Cinareo. Any group with variable demand, labor-intensive operations and repair or value targets would get enormous advantages from utilizing a platform like Cinareo.
We have now a large community of referral brokers and ISV companions that advocate Cinareo to their purchasers once they see a transparent want. Cinareo presents webinars and month-to-month product showcases to display the facility behind the platform—or may even organize customized demos and proof of ideas to verify potential prospects actually perceive the advantages of a contemporary planning platform like Cinareo.
What in your background led you to pursue innovation on this discipline?
Elliott: I spent 12 years on the IBM Innovation Middle earlier in my profession throughout the Consumer Expertise group with a key deal with user-centric software program options. After leaving IBM, I co-founded an expert consulting agency that specialised involved heart optimization that helped organizations enhance their individuals, processes, expertise, and data.
Years of consulting highlighted an enormous hole available in the market in regard to capability planning. We labored with numerous non-public and public sector organizations that will construct these advanced spreadsheets to find out their optimum staffing and we determined there wanted to be a greater means, so we created Cinareo. It was constructed to enhance any CCaaS or WFM platform available in the market and combine into no matter was the client’s platform of selection. If prospects change platforms, they will take Cinareo with them—having a conveyable, agnostic resolution was key to the design.
One other vital objective was designing a platform that was easy and intuitive based mostly on years of expertise in user-centric design. We even have our prospects as lively members of the planning and design of the answer—this ensures that the whole lot we construct is targeted on the wants and necessities of the individuals utilizing the software program.
What position do enabling applied sciences like AI play in creating revolutionary workforce administration options?
Elliott: Capability planning stays related involved facilities even when AI is concerned, and it may tackle a special however essential position in optimizing the general efficiency. Whereas AI can now deal with routine queries or easy updates, the fact is way more advanced. Cinareo helps decide the right combination of AI-driven processes and human sources to fulfill the demand effectively. Our prospects are modelling their operations utilizing Cinareo to find out the best stability of human brokers vs bot and the ROI on an funding in AI as effectively.
Incorporating AI into Cinareo is a given—we’re already full steam forward in our strategic plans to make sure that AI-driven capability planning could make a dramatic distinction. However true innovation in buyer assist isn’t about changing the individuals—it’s about giving individuals the power to work quicker and smarter – and we’re doing that with Cinareo.
You latterly launched Versatile Month-to-month Planning. What’s the worth proposition with this new providing?
Elliott: We initially supplied Cinareo as a strategic, long-term capability planning platform the place customers might construct 12-, 24- or 36-month plans. Nevertheless, as we continued to reinforce Cinareo, our prospects have been telling us they wished extra flexibility of their planning, so we constructed within the functionality to do weekly planning as much as 52 weeks to ensure that contact facilities to create tactical plans over the brief or medium time period.
To proceed to develop on Cinareo’s versatile platform, we lately launched extra flexibility into our month-to-month planning as effectively, so prospects can construct a plan for any variety of months as much as 3 years prematurely. These enhancements have been all pushed by the wants of our purchasers since our objective is to have our software program mirror “the voice of the client” and actually be user-centric.
You made your Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this yr. How was the expertise?
Elliott: We had a improbable debut at FinovateSpring! We generated loads of nice curiosity within the resolution from the demo we offered. Previous to FinovateSpring, we had lately began onboarding extra fintech purchasers and seen an uptick in curiosity from banks, credit score unions, and insurance coverage businesses on the lookout for an answer like Cinareo. We thought FinovateSpring could be an excellent alternative to demo Cinareo to a wider viewers and get fintech corporations to see the realm of the potential with a contemporary capability planning resolution. There’s such a transparent want on this sector for an answer that won’t solely enhance CX and EX, but additionally present vital KPIs like the fee per contact to assist with monetary administration.
What can we sit up for seeing from Cinareo within the months to come back?
Elliott: We’re excited over a few of the new options which are set to launch within the months to come back—we’ve got been scaling up considerably to fulfill buyer demand. A pair new options which are quickly to be launched are multi-lingual performance along with the power to check a plan along with your historic information in a fast and simple means. We will likely be providing our purchasers a solution to see how their plan carried out towards their actuals in each efficiency and staffing—right down to the 15-minute interval stage. This new function will assist our prospects perceive developments and patterns and be capable of enhance their planning transferring ahead.
That’s simply the tip of the iceberg—we’ve got so many extra thrilling issues deliberate over the following whereas. We might love to extend our buyer base to have much more voices driving the way forward for our software program! If you wish to see how Cinareo can resolve your capability planning challenges, be happy to contact us.
Right here is our have a look at fintech innovation world wide.
Center East and Northern Africa
Whish Cash groups up with Mastercard to allow cross-border funds to Lebanon.
Financial institution of Algeria joined the Pan-African Fee and Settlement System (PAPSS) launched by the African Export-Import Financial institution (Afreximbank).
Qatar-based AlRayan Financial institution went dwell with Finastra Company Channels.
Central and Southern Asia
India celebrated Nationwide Fintech Day earlier this week.
Ukrainian fintech Fintech Farm launched its cell banking service Tezbank in Uzbekistan.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) introduced plans to unveil new Data Techniques Audit Requirements to reinforce audit practices for startups, fintechs, and e-commerce corporations.
Latin America and the Caribbean
Brazil-based digital monetary companies platform Nubank launched Armando Herrera as new CEO of its Mexican operations.
Uruguayan cross-border cost platform dLocal teamed up with cross-border market platform Tiendamia.
Puero Rico-based transaction processor and fintech EVERTEC introduced plans to amass a controlling stake in Brazilian fintech vendor Tecnobank.
Asia-Pacific
Japanese fintech JPYC introduced plans to launch the primary yen-denominated stablecoin this fall.
Thailand unveiled a brand new pilot program to allow guests to transform cryptocurrencies into the native Thai Baht to facilitate purchases.
New Zealand-based small enterprise administration platform Xero companions with UAE-based Wio Financial institution PJSC.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Digital funds supplier Peach Funds launched real-time clearance (RTC) payouts for retailers on its platform in South Africa.
South African fintech Avenue Pockets raised $350,000 in new funding.
African enterprise financial institution Absa Enterprise Banking chosen Community Worldwide as its digital funds expertise companion.
Central and Japanese Europe
OYAK ANKER Financial institution GmbH migrated its core banking methods to Berlin, Germany-based Mambu’s platform.
Turkish funding platform Midas raised $80 million in Collection B funding.
Disruption Banking appeared on the growing recognition of crypto in Lithuania.
Picture by Derek Sutton on Unsplash
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