While the contact center market in the U.K. has been somewhat stale since the global economic downturn in 2008 – hovering at about 50,000 seats and £2.6 billion ($3.9 billion) in revenue – there are signs of life in the industry thanks to two recent large acquisitions and a re-shoring trend.
Industry analyst group Apex Insight notes that the Scottish call center operation HEROtsc, which had been bought by Hero Group, the Indian conglomerate, as part of its then strategy to build a global customer management business, was sold to Webhelp Group, which is based in France and operates contact centers across Europe. In addition, LBM, which had undergone a successful turnaround under private equity ownership, was bought by Stream Global Services, the international customer management group based in the US.
Another positive sign is that a number of companies have begun to “reshore” contact center operations that had been formerly located in popular offshore destinations such as India. In the last few months alone, Play.com, Advanced Payment Solutions and Virgin Holidays have all brought call center operations back to UK shores. Apex Insight says it expects this trend to continue as wage inflation in Indian call centers minimizes the cost savings for UK companies to send their operations offshore and more UK contact centers adopt cloud solutions that provide them with optimum flexibility for locating call center agents at home or in lower-cost domestic locations.
The information is from Apex Insight’s most recent report, entitled “UK Outsourced Contact Centres: Market Insight.” The report reviews the UK contact center industry and quantifies the market size and historical growth rates while reviewing key factors behind these figures and exploring drivers of profitability. It also analyses drivers of industry growth – including relevant macroeconomic indicators and factors which determine volume and price for contact centers– setting out historical trends and forecasts, according to Apex Insight.