Research and Markets: Latin America Contact Center Applications Market Report

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/574237/latin_america_cont) has announced the addition of Frost & Sullivan's new report "Latin America Contact Center Applications Market 2009" to their offering.

“Despite the recession and slashed technology budgets, understanding the place of the contact center as a revenue generator is more relevant than ever before”

Latin America Contact Center Applications Market Report

The Latin American contact center applications market generated revenues of $414.8 million in 2008. The first semester of the year presented a healthy growth; however, as economies slowed down in the fourth quarter of 2008, purchase decisions were extended, and contact center projects began to slow down. In this scenario, it is crucial for companies to differentiate. The shift to more common architectures based on industry standards is making inbound contact routing (ICR) systems increasingly more similar to each other. Vendors will be challenged to differentiate their systems as this trend continues and the market matures

Market Overview

Competition among Global and Regional Outsourcing Providers Paves the Way to Progress in the Latin America Contact Center Applications Market

Although the Latin America contact center applications market has not attained saturation point, the market stage and degree of competition vary across countries. Major markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina are approaching maturity or have already done so, in terms of quality of service (QoS) and infrastructure. Competitiveness among global and regional participants is fierce, and contact center CIOs are demonstrating increased interest in next generation solutions, such as unified communications and speech analytics. Consequently, vendors are forced to resort to innovation in terms of interoperability, open standards, and bundled solutions. "The migration to support internet protocol (IP) networking in contact centers is in full swing as enterprises continue to converge their voice and data networks," notes the analyst of this research service. "The majority of enterprises are operating on hybrid (part time division multiplexing (TDM) and part IP) networks at this point as the full migration to IP is likely to take several more years." With enterprises offering customers more channels for interaction, (telephone, Web, e-mail, and SMS), the need to coordinate services across these channels for consistency, accuracy of information provided, and management of customer experiences has grown. 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. .

Although market prospects look upbeat, there are some challenges clouding the landscape. 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. The complexities surrounding management approvals for purchase decisions are slowing decision cycles, End-user budget constraints are likely to rein in sales of ICR systems. This is particularly true for companies that view their customer service groups and contact centers primarily as cost centers. The shift to more common architectures based on industry standards is making ICR systems increasingly similar to each other. Vendors will be challenged to differentiate their systems as this trend continues and the market matures.

"Despite the recession and slashed technology budgets, understanding the place of the contact center as a revenue generator is more relevant than ever before," says the analyst. "In the short term, vendors who make the strongest cases on ROI and revenue generations will be able to justify their offerings." Historically, contact center is one of the first and easiest places to make cost reduction when the economy falters. As we head into what may become a major, long-lasting decline, the progress that the industry has made is clearly at risk. Evidence suggests that there is already a reversion to the traditional stance of using the contact center to contain costs. This implies that even in a downturn, certain aspects of the contact center applications will remain viable purchases. Contact center applications are not recession-proof, but in some respects, they are recession-resistant.

Market Sectors

Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research: