A new study by independent outsourcing industry analyst firm, HfS Research, finds that one in four buyers are reinvesting heavily in their global shared services operations, with seven out of ten continuing to make investments in their outsourcing delivery.
The report finds that firms increasing their focus on both the outsourcing and shared services models has been consistent over the past several years, as large enterprises are moving more work to their internal shared services centers, while outsourcing investment grows at a slower, more moderate pace.
Organizations in the U.S. are spending more than $1.1 billion annually on contact center services, with approximately 78 percent of the spending costs used on in-house operations, leaving $219 million spent on outsourcing.
The steady growth of outsourcing is a reflection of the improved business value being delivered by the service provider community and the challenges and difficulty that clients face when attempting to build their own global services delivery capabilities, according to the report.
Growing complexity and the weak economy combine to produce a bright spot for contact center operators: conditions are favorable for outsourcing buyers. High internal operating cost and less than optimal agent productivity at many companies may turn the tide in favor of outsourcing, and the economic slowdown is helping the service providers’ performance as attrition rates are improving dramatically.
The integrated services model is going to force providers to evolve their capabilities if they plan on sticking around for the long term, before their clients can trust them to take them on.
The research study concludes that ignoring the current problem is going to fail for many, and transforming the global operations model into an integrated range of services, underpinned by cloud-based platforms and plug-and-play digital capabilities, is the Promised Land clients yearn to find for their organizations.
The International Data Corporation forecasts that U.S. spending for on-demand cloud contact center services will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.5 percent to $1.6 billion in 2018.