North American Contact Center Market

Large contact centers are making way for small- and medium-sized contact centers as capital expenditure in this industry is restrained due to an uncertain economy in North America. Contact center solution vendors are rapidly gearing up to take advantage of this new market trend. As the mid market has low budget allocations, the ability to provide sophisticated, bundled offerings that reduces implementation costs is likely to increase market shares. In many cases, this can be accomplished through an integrated or 'all-in-one' solution with common features rather than customized ones.

This report presents a quantitative overview of the North American contact center hardware and software markets. It also provides a detailed analyses of the automatic call distributor (ACD) and computer telephony integration (CTI) markets that comprise the core infrastructure for contact centers. As such, the report may be used by vendors and end-users to gain a broad perspective on different verticals, current market dynamics, and future trends in the total contact center solutions market.

Customer Migration Programs to Encourage IP Adoption and Cost Savings

As customers require "future proof" technologies, the time division multiplex (TDM) infrastructure will be replaced by the Internet protocol (IP) in the near future. Due to this, vendors should provide solutions that enable users to migrate to IP at their own pace. This upgradation will allow customers to enjoy substantial cost savings and benefits of business-performance enhancements.

The ability of vendors to offer customer migration programs that encourage smooth IP migration will result in both short-term and long-term growth of their client base. The analyst says, "Virtualization and enhanced reliability, scalability, and feature-richness are the key business drivers for the rapid deployment of IP contact center solutions." Vendors should be equipped to meet the upgradation requirements of existing as well prospective customers that are likely to consider a variety of technology providers for IP-based contact center solutions.

Use of ROI-based Sales Tools to Boost Market Growth

Vendors have set their eyes on ROI-based sales tools to win contracts in the prevailing business climate that is bogged down by reduced capital spending and lengthened sales cycles. The analyst adds, "With metrics for average speed to answer, average first call resolution rates, and abandon rates, these tools will demonstrate the advantages of adopting optimized operational practices. In addition, providing professional services, in-house business process consulting and case studies will enable the vendors to differentiate product offerings."

Vendors of contact center infrastructure, ACD, or CTI technologies, can increase their revenue streams by bundling facilities such as multimedia routing, workforce management, interactive voice response, and outbound-dialing infrastructure. Next-generation capabilities such as universal queuing, workforce optimization and IP-enablement will facilitate complete fulfillment of clients' requirement. Future market success will depend on the ability to win outsourcing contracts and competitive bids from diverse business verticals including the government, healthcare, and financial services.

1 Contact Routing Market

A. Market Overview

1 Introduction and Definitions

2 Total Contact Center Market Engineering Measurements

3 Total Number of Contact Centers Forecast

4 Total Contact Center Solutions Forecast

5 Vertical Market Analysis

6 Revenue Breakdown U.S.- Canada

2 ACD Systems

A. Executive Summary

1 Introduction and Definitions

2 Market Trends

3 Market Engineering Measurements

4 Challenges

5 Drivers & Restraints

B. Forecasts

1 Revenue Forecasts

2 Size of Contact Center Revenue Breakdown

3 Pricing

4 Competitive Structure

5 Competitive Analysis

3 CTI

A. Executive Summary

1 Introduction and Definitions

2 Market Trends

3 Market Engineering Measurements

4 Challenges

5 Drivers

6 Restraints

7 Forecasts

8 Pricing

9 Competitive Structure

10 Competitive Analysis

4 Strategies & Awards

A. Success Factors

1 Awards

2 Growth Strategies