North American Audio Conferencing Service Markets: Industry Research Report

North American Audio Conferencing Service Markets

Published Date: June 2009

Published By: Frost & Sullivan

Page Count: 72

Order Code: R1-7279

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This Frost & Sullivan research service titled North American Audio Conferencing Service Markets provides an analysis of the factors positively and negatively impacting the market, discusses market and technology trends, and provides a forecast and a vendor positioning analysis. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine unattended (reservationless) audio conferencing services and attended (operator-assisted) audio conferencing services.

Market Overview

Compelling Benefits of Audio Conferencing Services Trigger Market Resilience in Times of Recession

Despite the widespread economic downturn exerting severe pressure on many fronts, the North American audio conferencing services markets have displayed resilience by attaining respectable growth in revenues. As businesses gravitate toward audio conferencing to trim travel costs, the market has seen a sharp demand upswing. “In the past, conferencing usage was highly fragmented as enterprises deployed a mix of technologies and service delivery channels to cater to their diverse conferencing needs,” says the analyst of this research service. “Consequently, they had to manage a certain percentage of customer premises equipment (CPE) as well as hosted services, ratcheting up both complexity of management and cost. Today, conferencing service providers (CSPs) are optimizing their capabilities to offer converged audio, video, and web conferencing, and hosted unified communications applications.”

The increased adoption of converged collaboration services will slow down the growth of standalone audio conferencing services. Instead, audio conferencing minutes will see increasing bundling with collaboration solutions such as the Web and video. The barriers to converged conferencing with respect to technology, cost, and management are beginning to diminish, overshadowed by the compelling benefits. Besides, ease of management within a tightly integrated collaboration environment often translates into enhanced productivity. More importantly, these advantages have led to a better acceptance of the technology itself as a way of doing business.

Participants Ramp up Portfolio Efficacy to Navigate the Competitive Landscape

Due to severe competition, incumbent service providers have been forced to relent to price pressure. Core markets are getting saturated, and entry barriers are being lowered. Competition stems mainly from the availability of free audio conferencing services offerings on the web. However, the web has emerged as a key tool for providing integrated, value added services and applications that can be bundled with traditional audio conferencing services. The industry is in a state of flux with new providers entering the market and rapid consolidation at the higher end of the spectrum. Though the market has experienced consolidation over the last few years, the relatively low entry barriers have lured a number of new market participants, both big and small. “The market is unique in the sense that it is witnessing both consolidation and fragmentation,” observes the analyst. “There is ongoing merger and acquisition activity at the higher end of the market and the entry of a number of small service providers at the lower end.” Several of the recent acquisitions in the market have been aimed at revving up portfolio capabilities.

Competition is expected to heighten, not just from within the industry, but from outside as well. Web conferencing services companies are including audio conferencing services as an additional layer to their portfolio. Competition stems from internet based voice over IP (VoIP) service providers. Unified communications vendors are keeping a keen eye on this market. In this highly contested space, CSPs that can offer differentiated services at the best possible price points will succeed. CSPs that have linked their services to measurable productivity gains have found higher acceptance in the market. Network service providers must redefine their market strategies and realign prices. CSPs must widen their capabilities, expand reach, and tap into newer markets.

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