When we look back at what the biggest trends were in 2014 in the contact center solutions community there can be little doubt that topping the list will be the momentum moving to the cloud has gathered. This has been true globally and it cuts across all organization sizes and industry verticals. In fact, maybe the community should adopt a tagline that is something along the lines of “The Cloud and Contact Centers, Perfect Together!”
Another example of how important the marriage of the cloud and contact center functionality has become is the announcement from Fusion, a cloud communications, cloud connectivity and cloud computing services provider, that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with TFB (Technology for Business Corporation) to integrate TFB's proprietary contact center and IVR solutions software into Fusion's cloud services platform.
The partners believe that bringing TFB's full application suite to the cloud will make the sophisticated solution more accessible to companies of all sizes. The Agreement allows for the future purchase of the software and associated Intellectual Property.
As noted, this is an exclusive agreement. Fusion now has the exclusive right to market TFB’s cloud-based contact center solution and its full suite of cloud communications, cloud connectivity and cloud computing solutions to TFB's more than 500 enterprises in healthcare, government, energy, finance and hospitality sectors. The opportunity here for Fusion is that most TFB customers are currently using the software on-premise, i.e., they are prime candidates for cloud migration.
As the partners pointed out in making the announcement, the cloud-based contact center segment is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 17.5 percent, reaching nearly $2.0 billion by 2018. Last year, more than 62 percent of organizations reported using some type of cloud-based contact center solution, and approximately half of those that are not using cloud-based solutions are planning to move in that direction in the next 18 months.
"The best way to evaluate technology benefits is to learn directly from the customers that use it," said Matthew Rosen, Fusion CEO. "We've learned from large enterprises served by TFB, including major nationwide retailers, expanding healthcare systems and government agencies, how significant an impact TFB's contact center solution has made on their organizations. Each enjoys outstanding service and support on advanced applications that were developed especially for their industry's unique requirements. We've taken the best of the best in contact center features and functionality to our cloud to ensure that our customers have the tools they need across all customer touch points, including intelligent routing, monitoring and real time reporting."
Charles Cuggino, TFB CEO, said, "We're excited about our exclusive partnership with Fusion to take our solutions to the cloud. We believe that the flexibility and scalability inherent in cloud solutions add tremendous customer value, combining a compelling OpEx financing model with the integration of future-proof communications, customer service and database applications that have been developed for enterprises with sophisticated requirements. The cloud allows us to place our advanced applications securely within the reach of all enterprises, regardless of their size or industry. Even the largest companies with multiple locations and seasonal business cycles can count on our integrated cloud solutions to more cost-effectively open their systems to the integration of support applications such as device-agnostic multi-media communications and enterprise-scale IVR on demand, delivering the services they need when and how they need them."
It is hard to ignore the numbers from the two research firms in terms of market potential. In fact, it could be argued that contact center solutions this year have emerged as one of the main drivers of cloud adoption. The reason is that the combination of the cloud’s ability to provide ubiquitous connectivity to an increasingly dispersed workforce, be a cost-effective enabler of real-time omnichannel interactions, along with act as the conduit for enterprise-wide information sharing that leveraging big data can be turned into actionable business intelligence, makes this a marriage of opportunity and not convenience.
It will be interesting to see what the research firms have to say when they tally up the year-end results.