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The Case For Hosted Workforce Management Applications
January 14, 2009
Raise your hands, virtually of course. How many of your contact centers are housed in buildings that your organization actually owns, rather than leases and rents? Just as I suspected, very few of you do. Now, who can tell me why does your outfit lease/rent rather than own? Avoiding tying up capital? That’s a great answer. Flexibility to expand or contract to meet changing needs? That’s excellent too. To enable upgrades and minimize direct maintenance costs. Those ranks right with the others. You’re a brilliant class.
Now here’s the next question, are these not the same or similar reasons why your contact centers should have hosted i.e. software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) workforce management (WFM) solutions rather than buying licenses, and installing and integrating the applications? Or for that matter, hosted applications to manage other functions, including ACD, CRM, IVR, and predictive dialing?
There is a strong case for WFM especially in this tight economy as it enables contact centers to derive more productivity and reduce costs by precisely matching agent availability and demand with contact volume. Hosted WFM, in theory, goes one better by radically cutting back if not eliminating IT and maintenance expenses associated with on-premises systems while enabling superior scalability in both directions. Yet at the same time it provides the same functionality as premises-installed tools.
One can argue that the hosted/SaaS delivery method is ideal in this tight economy for both would-be purchasers and for WFM suppliers alike. There is reported data indicating that over a three -year period, SaaS hosted solutions can be less than half the cost of premises-based offerings, translating into hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large contact center with 500 agents.
By dispensing with high capital costs, hosted/SaaS makes WFM affordable for firms considering new or upgraded solutions, giving them the tools to survive, but who otherwise would have balked at buying them despite their benefits. Giving this choice to especially new customers will generate ongoing sales, which, like building rents, keep producing profits.
Yet note the caveat ‘in theory’. Most WFM applications are, and will likely be premises-based. A Gartner study, “SaaS Impact on Contact Center Workforce Optimization” published in July 2008 predicts that suppliers will be slow to offer SaaS. The key reasons are that their technical efforts are instead focused on integrating suites of products as a result of acquisitions and with other features, such as with call recording, and on plugging remaining functional gaps. There is also a lack of interest in SaaS from enterprise customers.
“As SaaS-based offerings emerge, organizations should assess their suitability as part of planned upgrades, paying attention to particular aspects, such as call network and operational system integration,” recommends the report.
“As SaaS-based offerings emerge, organizations should assess their suitability as part of planned upgrades, paying attention to particular aspects, such as call network and operational system integration,” recommends the report.
An article in the October, 2008 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions “Workforce Optimization: Refining Products, Revolutionizing Delivery?” reports that at presentfew suppliers who offer SaaS version, and most of those that do provide it indirectly through resellers.
ISC’s Irene WFM solution has been hosted from the get-go, when she came onto the scene in 2001. Don Koosis, vice president of operations, says demand has been slow if steady. It has been coming from both ends: small firms that need workforce management but cannot afford premise solutions and from enterprises that want flexibility and reduce administration costs. Mid-sized contact centers that have their own solutions have seen less need to change.
“What we are finding is that our small firm clientele are staying with us as they grow to become midsized companies because our scalable solution has worked for them,” explains Koosis.
ISC’s Irene WFM solution has been hosted from the get-go, when she came onto the scene in 2001. Don Koosis, vice president of operations, says demand has been slow if steady. It has been coming from both ends: small firms that need workforce management but cannot afford premise solutions and from enterprises that want flexibility and reduce administration costs. Mid-sized contact centers that have their own solutions have seen less need to change.
“What we are finding is that our small firm clientele are staying with us as they grow to become midsized companies because our scalable solution has worked for them,” explains Koosis.
Other suppliers have been looking at SaaS. Aspect has gone the furthest down the road. Its Aspect (News - Alert) eWorkforce 7.0, released in March 2006, has a multi-tenancy feature whereby multiple companies can access the WFM application from the license holders’ server. That has given the firm experience in devising ways to make WFM platforms suitable for hosting for a wide range of clients.
Yet given benefits of hosted WFM when will these vendors finally meet the needs of a marketplace that has need for these solutions, but have money to spend? Is it not more prudent in today’s economic environment to offer even a stripped-down or modularized hosted offering and gain customers than to face little or no growth or a drop in sales compared with previous years?
“It takes a certain infrastructure, billing, and management setup to make SaaS successful,” explains Aspect PerformanceEdge (News - Alert) vice president Bob Kelly. “We’re learning this with our new offerings and you’ll see in time that we will move into that area.”
Brendan B. Read is TMCnet�s Senior Contributing Editor. To read more of Brendan�s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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