Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

July 15, 2008

Frost & Sullivan: Asia-Pacific Contact Center Industry Continues To Grow

By Rajani Baburajan

TMCnet Contributor

The current economic slump in the United States has not had a major impact on the Asia-Pacific contact center applications market in 2007, according to Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert), a growth partnership firm, in a recent analysis.

The report, “Asia Pacific Contact Center Applications Market,” finds that the revenues in the contact center applications market covering 14 Asia-Pacific countries rose 12.2 percent year-on-year in 2007 to a total of $665.4 million. It is expected to show 14.2 percent growth this year. Frost & Sullivan also estimated that the revenue would reach $1.31 billion by end 2014.

In 2007, contact centers from all of the Asia-Pacific countries except Philippines increased their investment on infrastructure and business applications to improve their services, officials from the market research firm say.

Japan topped the market with 24.9 percent ($165.5 million), followed by India at 17.8 percent ($118.6 million) and Australia at 15.3 percent ($101.7 million), Frost & Sullivan says.

“Customer service has taken high priority amongst organizations in Asia,” said Shivanu Shukla, an industry manager at Frost & Sullivan. “Business users are placing greater emphasis on contact center performance, thus investing more on sophisticated applications such as quality monitoring, voice portals and analytics solutions.”

There has been a tremendous economic growth in Asia-Pacific, driving new call center setups and expansions in the region, migration to IP driving upgrades and replacements and off-shoring businesses from bigger markets such as United States and Europe, according to the company.

Offshoring and outsourcing continue to thrive in Philippines, India, Malaysia and China, mainly due to cost-friendly factors such as cheaper labor and overheads of Asian outsourcing centers, officials say. According to Shukla, the credit crunch in United States may now pull more businesses from US to these countries and result in more growth in the sector.

However, if financial crisis in United States continues, the contact centers will suffer towards late 2008 or early 2009, said the study. The first ones to face the blow would be those from banking, financial services, and insurance sector.

While countries such Malaysia picked up business from other ASEAN countries, China flourished from its domestic markets, according to the company. Contact centers in mature markets such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and South Korea shifted largely to IP-based contact center solutions. Contact center markets in these countries witnessed a greater degree of infrastructure and technology upgrades rather than new center developments, said Frost & Sullivan.

The future contact centers will greatly rely on self-service applications and unified contact center solutions, as they will help companies lower labor overheads and ease business processes, according to Shukla.

Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. Today’s featured white paper is The Compelling ROI Benefits of Contact Center Quality and Performance Management Technologies, brought to you by Voice Print International (News - Alert).

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