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New Report Says EMEA Contact Center Outsourcing Growth Will Remain Slow

By Tracey E. Schelmetic
TMCnet Contributor

Contact center business is booming outside of North America, right? Maybe not, according to the results of a new study, and it may be new business models for contact centers to blame.

In fact, the contact center outsourcing market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) experienced low growth in 2011, according to a new report from market analyst firm Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) – “Analysis of the European, Middle Eastern and African Contact Centre Outsourcing Market.”

The report noted that the market earned revenue of €12. 8 billion ($15.5 billion) in 2011 and estimates this to reach €14.7 billion ($19 billion) in 2017.

Frost & Sullivan said it believes the low growth rate trend will persist over the next five years due to the prevailing economic situation in Europe and stiff competition from in-house contact centers.

“Cost savings for enterprises, multishoring options and customer contact expertise offered by providers in the market, together with a large, educated labor pool, will promote the outsourcing of contact center services,” said Frost & Sullivan’s senior research analyst, Sathya Subramanian, in a statement announcing the study’s results. “The current economic situation, which has resulted in enterprises demanding higher-quality customer services, will add further impetus to market development.”

The report concludes that deteriorating margins in certain sectors thanks to global economic woes have resulted in the need to revise cost structures. This has been accompanied by a heightened focus on high-quality customer interactions, and to achieve this, enterprises have started to seek the expertise of third-party outsourcers, according to Frost & Sullivan.

Furthermore, in order to circumvent the need for substantial upfront capital expenditures, enterprises are opting to outsource, and hence switch to the operational expenditure model,” explained Frost & Sullivan’s industry analyst for ICT in Africa, Ishe Zingoni.