Latin America Contact Center Applications Market Can be Further Tapped
July 29, 2010
By Anuradha Shukla, TMCnet Contributor
The Latin American contact center applications market has not attained saturation point, but the market stage and degree of competition vary across countries.
This finding is evident from the Latin America Contact Center Applications Market 2009 report that provides an in-depth analysis of market drivers and restraints, industry structure, and competitive environment, besides dealing with the challenges and issues faced by market participants.
Drawing on market orientation literature and longitudinal case study data, Frost & Sullivan's (News - Alert) expert analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors for this report: inbound contact routing, agent performance optimization, interactive voice response systems, and outbound dialing.
According to the report, big markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina are approaching maturity or have already done so, in terms of quality of service and infrastructure. Competitiveness among global and regional participants is fierce, and contact center CIO's are demonstrating increased interest in next generation solutions, such as unified communications and speech analytics.
On the other hand, vendors are forced to resort to innovation in terms of interoperability, open standards, and bundled solutions. The migration to support internet protocol networking in contact centers is in full swing as enterprises continue to converge their voice and data networks.
The majority of enterprises are operating on hybrid (part time division multiplexing and part IP) networks at this point as the full migration to IP is likely to take several more years. The report states that social network customer support is an emerging trend, particularly in certain industries and among young consumers. Leading enterprises are supporting customer forums, which will enable interactions among peers and eventually build links between them and their formal customer services.
Many companies, including those that intend to replace legacy ICR systems and buy new IP contact center solutions, have put these plans on the back burner, as capital budgets have been slashed. Moreover, the credit crisis is making it extremely difficult for companies to borrow money to either procure new systems or expand the existing line-up.
Anuradha Shukla is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anuradha’s article, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Juliana Kenny