Report Shows IT Purchases Focusing More on Customer-Centric Systems
June 27, 2007
The rise and fall of the contact center industry has far reaching implications that can impact various other industries. When the industry is doing well, those companies that provide contact centers with the equipment to perform also do well. When these centers are struggling, the opposite is true. The effects are also felt when there is a rise and fall in the frequency
of offshoring operations and the change in strategy in the industry as a whole.
Vendors that can be affected by the contact center industry include those that supply BSS and OSS solutions. According to a new report, Billing and OSS Trends: the transition to telecoms IT, the number of system sales announcements for telecoms IT (BSS/OSS) solutions dropped significantly in 2006.
The report, published by Analysys, the global advisers on telecoms, IT and media, revealed that in 2006, there were 456 system sales announced globally. This figure represents the decline from 569 system sales in 2005 and 514 in 2004.
“We’re still in a tough market but the decline in system sales announcements isn’t indicative of another recession,” says the report’s author, Teresa Cottam, in a statement. “The decline is being caused by a combination of market factors, such as mergers and acquisitions on the supply side of the market, consolidation on the demand side and the investment cycle moving from system selection and purchasing to system implementation.”
Other findings from this report include:
- Sales remained strong in 2006 for CRM and order management systems, while billing, revenue assurance and mediation system sales fell significantly, except in Africa and the Middle East. There appears to be a switch in investment away from systems related to cash and towards those concerned with customers.
- A significant fall in the number of announces sales of service provisioning and inventory management systems was seen in North America, while there was strong supply-side consolidation in this market during 2006.
- The global market is dominated by a small number of vendors. The top ten vendors account for roughly 36 percent of all system sales announced in 2006, with the top vendor now accounting for nearly 10 percent of the global total.
This report also examined how changing dynamics in the telecoms IT market affects investment patterns globally and how these changing patterns are reshaping the supply side of the market.
There are many theories as to why certain revenue-focused system sales are slowing. The most compelling is that these organizations are focusing more on responding to customer needs than to pushing for payment options. In doing so, IT budgets must focus on those systems that support these customer-centric strategies, which can consume much of the IT budget for the year.
Want to learn more about contact centers? Then be sure to check out ContactCenterSolutions’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. The papers are authored by industry leaders, who, in turn, receive qualified sales leads from interested parties. Check here for the latest in CRM information.
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