BELFAST, UNITED KINGDOM -- (Marketwire) -- 01/30/13 -- KANA Software, Inc., a global leader in customer service solutions delivered on-premise or in the cloud and used by more than 900 organisations worldwide, including 250 government bodies and half of the Global 100, today announced a number of key milestones in the growing adoption of KANA Lagan technology among public sector organisations in the UK. These include:

• A continued increase in its UK client base, expanding the company's public sector footprint by more than 10% year-on-year;
• A dramatic up take in the delivery of Lagan solutions via hosted/managed services; and,
• Significant growth in the use of Lagan solutions for shared service delivery between multiple local authorities.

KANA added 13 new UK local government customers to its client base in 2012, including Staffordshire Connects; Central Bedfordshire Council; Essex County Council; Doncaster Council; Glasgow City Council and Harborough District Council. Significant incremental business was also signed with existing KANA customers, including Cheshire West and Chester Council, the Highland Council and Hampshire County Council.

Cloud Solutions Support Hosted/Managed Services and Shared Services Delivery Models
In the current age of austerity, government agencies are tasked with saving money whilst maintaining a wide range of services. Throughout 2012, KANA leveraged its expertise in secure, cloud-based managed services and in configurable, shared service customer service solutions to accelerate these benefits for its customers. For example, Essex County Council selected the Lagan Enterprise Hosted Managed Service via the KANA Cloud, providing a speed of deployment that allowed the Council to go live within 9 weeks of placing the initial order.

Staffordshire Connects, a partnership of local government councils recognised for its transformation of public services, selected the Lagan Enterprise CRM offering to support streamlined and cost effective public service delivery via a shared services model. Lagan offers the requisite flexibility to support the partnership's unique operating model of both shared and segregated data, processes and services. (See Staffordshire Connects Selects KANA Lagan Enterprise CRM Software to Support Innovative Cloud-Based Shared Services Approach).

Lagan Enterprise Managed Services supports both hosted and on-premise deployments, and provides services including application management, application administration, and the company's continuous improvement program within a fully secure IT infrastructure, offering information security (up to IL3). With Staffordshire Connects, Essex County Council and Central Bedfordshire Councils all utilising the Lagan Enterprise Hosted Managed Service delivery model, this totals an extra 1.7 million citizens serviced through the KANA Cloud.

"It is really encouraging in this age of austerity that UK local authorities are recognising the value of investing in improved infrastructure to help them address the demands of both meeting customer service delivery expectations whilst significantly lowering their costs," said Mike Hobson, vice president of Public Sector Sales. "In a marketplace that has seen dramatic churn in vendors and CRM solutions over the last ten years, Lagan remains the brand that the public sector can trust to deliver."

David Moody, head of Worldwide Product Strategy for Public Sector commented, "The Cloud is here, it's real, and we remain fully committed to delivering to our customers the same highly functional and configurable customer service solutions from the Cloud as they would expect to receive for a 'traditional' on-premise solution. The fact that in 2012 we implemented cloud-based systems to supply local government services to an additional 3% of the UK population is testament to the fact that this train is now fully rolling and not likely to stop any time soon."

About KANA Software
KANA makes every customer experience a good experience. A global leader in customer service solutions delivered on-premise or in the cloud, KANA lets organizations take complete control over customer service interactions, so they can take care of customers, while managing costs and reinforcing brand. By unifying and maintaining context for customer journeys across agent, web, social and mobile experiences, KANA solutions have reduced handling time, increased resolution rates and improved net promoter score (NPS) at more than 900 enterprises, including half of the Global 100 and more than 250 government agencies. KANA is based in Silicon Valley, California and has offices worldwide.

Follow KANA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/KANAsoftware

KANA is a registered trademark of KANA Software, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.