| [May 08, 2007] |
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The Contact Centres Market: Focus on the United Kingdom
LYON, France --(Business Wire)-- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report related to the worldwide outsourcing industry is now available to its catalogue.
Contact Centres
http://www.reportlinker.com/p048808/contact-centers.html
Employment in contact centres continues to grow. The publisher estimates that, in 2007, the number of people working in front-line customer contact is 862,070. Staff turnover in contact centres is high overall, but is generally lowest in contact centres serving the public sector. Pay in contact centres rose significantly between 2003 and 2007, especially for managers, and a career ladder, supported by training, has developed.
Large purpose-built contact centres are located mainly in areas qualifying for Selective Finance for Investment in the least affluent parts of the UK, such as north east England, Northern Ireland and large areas of Scotland and Wales. Contact centres for the public sector, often outsourced to private-sector companies, were a major trend in 2005 and 2006 that continued into 2007.
The global business-process outsourcing market slowed down in 2006, amid concerns over security and infrastructure reliability, although IT outsourcing continued to expand rapidly.
The global consulting groups have a large but declining influence on the contact-centre industry's buying habits, because technology firms such as BT Group PLC have strengthened their own consultancy elements and can argue that they bring benefits of technical knowledge that the broad-spectrum consultancies do not possess quite so obviously. For consultants such as Convergys that specialise in contact centres, the future may be in integrating contact centres into overarching customer-relationship and business-processing programmes.
Indian outsourcing companies have opened contact centres in the UK to counter the threat of repatriation of work from India, but the country still remains the global offshore hub. However, barriers to future expansion in India include insufficient infrastructure, rapidly rising wages that reduce competitiveness and concerns about data security. China could replace India as the leading outsourcing destination by 2017. The Philippines is growing fast as an outsourcing centre, although difficulties include a growing scarcity of fluent English speakers. Some work that had been relocated to the Philippines has been repatriated because of poor customer service. South Africa, with a large number of English speakers, is a fast-growing location for contact centres serving English-speaking countries.
Offshoring has branched into multi-shoring -- the location of separate processes where there are the greatest short- or medium-term competitive advantages. Repatriation to the UK of the activities most important for brand values is part of the multi-shoring trend. Expansion within the UK could be faster were it not for shortages of multi-lingual staff, and of workers with up-to-date IT skills. Taxpayers are likely to scrutinise more closely government contracts placed with outsourcers, including contact-centre operators.
The principal contact-centre businesses in the UK in terms of turnover are Vertex Data Science Ltd and Ventura (a trading name of Club 24 Ltd). CPM United Kingdom Ltd, ClientLogic (UK) Ltd, MM Teleperformance Ltd, Response Handling Ltd, Telecom Service Centres Ltd, Sitel UK Ltd, LBM Holdings Ltd and CJ Garland & Co Ltd account for the rest of the top ten. US private-equity investors acquired Vertex Data Science in 2007, and consequently, only one of the largest five contact-centre businesses in the UK, Ventura, is UK owned.
The 2008 contact centre will want voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and Internet protocol (IP) telephony, automated call distribution, automated and intelligent voice self-service menus, callback systems, converged applications and interactive voice response (IVR). Microsoft's entry into the customer-relationship management (CRM) sector signals tougher competition for long-established specialist suppliers, but also indicates that Microsoft expects the contact-centre business to expand. In addition, private-equity investors' interest in contact centres indicates their expectations of future growth.
The publisher forecasts that more than a million people will have jobs in UK contact centres by 2012. The customer-contact industry will be crucial to both employment and prosperity. To an increasing extent, centres will be composed of linked hubs of varying sizes, often with home workers linked in.
Table of content
1. Introduction
THE TOPIC
OBJECTIVES
METHODOLOGY
Original Research
Problems in the Research Process
DEFINITION
2. Strategic Overview
RISING EMPLOYMENT
`Fuzzy' Classifications
CONTACT CENTRE NUMBERS
The DTI: Reconciling Different Estimates
Most Centres are Small
Geographical Distribution
OUTSOURCING AND E-MAIL
MAJOR PLAYERS IN CUSTOMER CONTACT
By Turnover
By Profit-to-Sales Ratio
By Average Employee Remuneration
By Sales per Employee
KEY POINTS
3. Work in Call and Contact Centres
APPROACHING A MILLION WORKERS
MANAGERS' PAY RISING FAST
HOME WORKING -- BENEFITS AND BARRIERS
BUILDING A TRAINING LADDER
LINGUISTICALLY CHALLENGED
KEY POINTS
4. Contact-Centre Specialists: The In-House Strand
INTRODUCTION
VERTEX DATA SCIENCE LTD
VENTURA
THE CAPITA GROUP PLC
KEY POINTS
5. Contact-Centre Specialists: The Telemarketing Strand
MOVING AWAY FROM OUTBOUND
CPM UNITED KINGDOM LTD
CLIENTLOGIC (UK) Ltd
TELECOM SERVICE CENTRES LTD
MM TELEPERFORMANCE LTD
RESPONSE HANDLING LTD
LBM HOLDINGS LTD
CJ GARLAND & CO LTD
PROMOTIONAL LOGISTICS LTD
INKFISH CALL CENTRES LTD
THE LISTENING COMPANY LTD
BECOGENT LTD
BROADSYSTEM LTD
MOONRIVER GROUP LTD
SPARK RESPONSE LTD
ANT MARKETING
PELL & BALES LTD
ARVATO SERVICES LTD
TELEGEN UK LTD
TRG EUROPE PLC
KEY POINTS
6. Contact-Centre Specialists: The Telecommunications, Systems and
Software Strand
INTRODUCTION
SITEL UK LTD
THE MERCHANTS GROUP LTD
ACXIOM LTD
KINGSTON COMMUNICATIONS CONTACT CENTRES LTD
EXAMPLES OF KEY INTERNATIONAL OUTSOURCERS
BT Group PLC
Convergys Corporation
Electronic Data Systems Corporation
EXAMPLES OF COMPANIES SIGNIFICANT IN CONTACT-CENTRE DEVELOPMENT
Avaya Inc
Blue Pumpkin Software UK Ltd
Business Systems (UK) Ltd
Cable & Wireless PLC
Cincom Systems (UK) Ltd
Citel Technologies Ltd
Concerto Software (UK) Ltd
Mitel Networks Ltd
Nice Systems Ltd
Plantronics Ltd
Virgin Media Group
KEY POINTS
7. Promotion and Consulting
Exhibitions
Questex Media Group Inc
SharedInsights US
Tarsus Group
CMP
CONTACT CENTRES WITHIN A LARGER TECHNOLOGY SECTOR
CONSULTANTS ARE STILL INFLUENTIAL, BUT THEIR ROLE IS UNDER PRESSURE
KEY POINTS
8. An International Perspective
CONTACT-CENTRE OFFSHORING SLOWS DOWN
INDIA STILL THE OFFSHORE HUB
SCOURING THE WORLD FOR LOWER COSTS
Eastern Europe
Egypt
Tunisia and Morocco
The Philippines
South Africa
Latin America
KEY POINTS
9. PEST Analysis
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS
SOCIAL FACTORS
TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS
Compatibility and Convergence
Speech Recognition
E-mail: The New Frontier
Microsoft
KEY POINTS
10. Consumer Dynamics
INTRODUCTION
GREATER SATISFACTION WITH CONTACT-CENTRE STAFF
MUCH MORE POLITE
CUSTOMERS DEMAND CHOICE OF COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
PEOPLE WANT LOCAL BRANCHES
INTERNET POLARISATION
THUMBS DOWN FOR AUTOMATED ANSWERING SERVICES
AUTOMATED RESPONSE WASTES TIME
AUTOMATED ANSWERING: LESS USER-FRIENDLY OVERALL
AUTOMATED ANSWERING IS TOO SLOW
CONFLICT BETWEEN COST AND SERVICE
CONTACT CENTRES BENEFIT ORGANISATIONS MORE THAN CUSTOMERS
UNDERSTANDING CAN STILL BE WEAK
ALWAYS ABLE TO UNDERSTAND STAFF
TELESALES APPLYING LESS PRESSURE
KEY POINTS
11. The Future
PERMISSION MARKETING
MULTI-SHORING
TECHNOLOGY FOR MULTI-CHANNELS
MICROSOFT'S EXPANSION
GROWTH COULD BE FASTER IF WORKERS WERE MORE HIGHLY SKILLED
KEY POINTS
13. Consumer Confidence
METHODOLOGY
KEY FINDINGS THIS QUARTER
THE WILLINGNESS TO BORROW
SPENDING FROM SAVINGS
14. Further Sources
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