Cloud a 'First Semester Trend' Seriously Shaping the Contact Center Industry

By Allison Boccamazzo, TMCnet Web Editor

The contact center industry has experienced some serious growth over recent years, and perhaps has even accelerated in 2012 alone with higher revenue than ever before. Many industry-leading analysts are claiming that this is largely (or mainly) due to “first semester trends” in the global market, as well as the country’s reputation as the top destination for the voice outsourcing sector, Business World reported today. One of these “trends,” of course, has been cloud call center adoption.

At the recent International Contact Center Conference Expo 2012, Chief Executive of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), Benedict Hernandez, explained that the contact center industry is currently eyeing to snag over $8.4 billion in revenue for 2012 – or a little over 18 percent more than the $7.1 billion the industry generated in 2011.

So what is prompting them to strut their stuff? Something Hernandez coins as 2012 “first semester trends,” as depicted in a CCAP survey conducted last month. Additionally, the industry is reportedly looking to add more jobs in the space; 493,000, to be exact, which is again a little over 18 percent higher than the recorded 416,000 from last year.

This steady growth is not so much a leap but more of a skip for the industry, who is clearly looking to follow the steps taken for a 15 percent increase in improvements made between 2010 and 2011.

“In 2011, the call center industry grew by 15.24 percent from $6.15 billion revenues in 2010. Mr. Hernandez went on to reiterate that the sector is looking to generate 862,000 jobs and $14.7 billion in revenues by 2016 given a "conservative" 15 percent annual growth,’” Business World notes.

Felix Leong, regional manager for contact center solutions at Avaya (News - Alert), stressed the importance of the cloud and how it is making a dent into today’s contact center industry.

“One of the key things is that larger enterprises are really leveraging on cloud,” he says. “They are willing to pay to get good access for good cloud services,” he added during his conference session titled, “The Future of Technology.”

Also included in this list of “first semester trends” for the contact center industry are leveraging social media for enhanced consumer interactions and making the slow but steady walk away from non-voice channels – both which seem to go hand in hand. In other words, step outside of the box (and your comfort zone!)

It seems that cloud will most certainly continue to play a large role in the evolution and sophistication of contact centers everywhere.

Want to learn more about cloud communications? Then be sure to attend Cloud Communications Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct 2-5, in Austin, TX. Stay in touch with everything happening at Cloud Communications Expo. Follow us on Twitter.