Business Services Industry

Research and Markets: Gain Insight Into the North American Contact Center Applications Market

Business Wire, Jan 28, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c80896) has announced the addition of "North American Contact Center Applications Markets" to their offering.

This Frost & Sullivan research titled North American Contact Center Applications Markets provides an overview of the current and forecast spending on contact center applications technologies, breakdown of market share among leading market participants, analysis of spending by end-user verticals, and an analysis of spending by technology. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine inbound contact routing technologies including automatic call distributors, computer telephony integration toolkits and applications; agent performance optimization technologies including quality monitoring and workforce management; multimedia systems including real-time web collaboration and e-mail management software; interactive voice response systems, and outbound dialing systems.

Market Overview

IVR and MM Markets hold Good Growth Potential

The North American contact center applications markets grew by a healthy 6.9 percent in 2006. Frost and Sullivan expects market growth rates to peak between 2008 and 2010, primarily driven by an uptake in the adoption of Internet Protocol (IP) technologies, as well as by the replacement sales of systems deployed around Y2K. Although inbound contact routing (ICR) is the dominant component of the applications market, the interactive voice response systems (IVR) and multimedia systems (MM) markets are likely to achieve maximum growth during the forecast period. As enterprises move to increase automation rates, these sectors are expected to continue to show impressive growth until commoditization occurs and software-only and hosted solutions gain traction.

Among the market sectors, the North American ICR market is likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2 percent during the forecast period. "The faster than expected adoption of IP within the contact center and rising implementations within the small-mid contact center market have been the major drivers for this market over the past two years and will continue to be significant drivers for the majority of the forecast period," notes the analyst of this research service. "At the same time, the market's growth will be challenged by factors such as saturation within the large contact center segment, lower price points for add-on system seats as well as the small-mid market, and the outsourcing of contact centers to international locations."

Increasing Automation Driving the IVR Systems Market

Automation of simple customer interactions remains the primary driver for the IVR systems market. This, combined with the ongoing replacement cycle for first generation systems, means that IVR systems will represent the fastest-growing market within the North American contact center applications space.

Frost & Sullivan expects higher growth rates when the current traditional IVR systems deployed during the Y2K period near the end of their replacement cycle. This trend is expected to take effect from late 2005 to late 2009. The high volume of replacement sales is expected to decline in late 2010 to 2012, making the market return to normal growth.

Much like the IVR market, the MM market is also likely to witness fairly impressive growth as enterprises are continuously seeking to increase automation rates and optimize costing. "The uptake in web-based self-service and the advent of hosted self-service solutions are creating opportunities for vendors to make inroads into the small and medium business (SMB) segment," says the analyst. "Increasing adoption within the SMB segment is likely to be a crucial driver for the MM market, as web interfaces provide the benefits of easy deployment and low costs, which are very attractive to this customer segment."

For more information, visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c80896.>