CRM - August 2008 - (Page 48)

SCOUTING REPORT BY DONNA FLUSS AND BETH EISENFELD The Hosted Contact Center: A Paradox No Longer Vendors were waiting for the market to pick up. End users were waiting for enhancements. Both waits are over T H E H O S T E D contact center infrastructure market is coming on strong. End users can now acquire feature-rich contact center solutions from traditional providers selling premise-based solutions, or they can tap into the offerings from the emerging hosting vendors. These vendors include relatively new entrants that concentrate solely on the hosted market, such as Contactual, Cosmocom, and UCN; enterprise software providers, such as Oracle; outsourcing vendors, such as West; and the betterknown contact center infrastructure manufacturers such as Aspect Software, Cisco Systems, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, and Interactive Intelligence, all of which have actively entered this segment, strengthening its position as a viable market. MANY BUSINESSES CHOOSE THE HOSTED MODEL BECAUSE THEY CAN ACHIEVE A ROBUST SOLUTION WITHOUT THE INITIAL CAPITAL EXPENSE. Innovative technology has been instrumental in opening up the hosted contact center market. Internet protocol (IP) and multitenancy technology have played important roles in making the hosted business model not just financially viable for vendors but economically practical for end users as well. The emergence of relatively inexpensive blade servers is likely to further speed adoption, as it reduces the need for vendors to build multitenant-capable software in order to be price-competitive. The growing acceptance of hosted solutions to meet a variety of enterprise needs is helping to build this market. [See “Believe the Hype about Hosted Contact Centers,” June 2008, for more on hosted offerings. –Ed.] The high-profile success of Salesforce.com has attracted a lot of attention and investments in different segments of the hosted market—a market now known by many terms, including on-demand and software-asa-service (SaaS). 48 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | AUGUST 2008 BENEFITS OF HOSTED CONTACT CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS Hosted contact center infrastructure offerings themselves are not new; what is new are the variety, capabilities, and sophistication of the current generation of hosted applications. By the end of 2004, a couple of these solutions had become almost as feature-rich as leading premisebased offerings; by the end of 2006, many of the leading contact center infrastructure vendors were offering hosted solutions. This changed the landscape of the contact center market, giving end users attractive new alternatives for acquiring these solutions. Our prediction is that, by the end of 2011, 30 percent to 35 percent of all new contact center seats will be hosted. There are many factors driving this trend, including: 1. Availability of functionally rich, competitive hosted contact center offerings 2. Viability of IP, which is altering the dynamics of contact centers 3. Increasing number of virtual contact center environments that use at-home agents 4. Growing need for flexible, multisite solutions that can easily and cost-effectively span the globe 5. Desire to minimize unnecessary financial risks for the company and its management 6. Ability to change providers without large penalties or write-offs 7. Avoidance of large capital investments and start-up costs 8. Need for technology-investment protection to ensure that solutions remain current without undergoing costly and time-consuming upgrades 9. Reductions in corporate technical resources 10. Low prioritization of contact center technology requirements by corporate technology executives 11. Desire of contact center managers to sidestep irrelevant technology standards set by IT for premise-based systems 12. High incentive for on-demand vendors to earn their customers’ business on a monthly basis www.destinationCRM.com http://Salesforce.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - August 2008

CRM - August 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Maximum Security A Code Win Doesn’t Blow Forming the Platform CRM on Twitter CRM Class Is in Session Making CRM Mandatory for University Administration Required Reading Cover Story: Calling it Quits Wouldja Look at That? 8 Enterprise Strategies That Stick CRM Searches for Search All Lines Are Not Busy UC: As Easy as A-B-C Even Contact Centers Have Room for Improvement Money Lying Around? Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - August 2008

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