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Unified Communications to Spur a New Life Cycle in the Telecommunications Industry in South Africa, Says Frost & SullivanCAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, Mar 16, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- As the South African unified communications (UC) market remains at an early growth stage, it presents profitable opportunities for telecommunications service providers in the country. These opportunities include offering individual UC components/applications as well as fully integrated UC solutions. However, the challenge for vendors and system integrators is to demonstrate to customers the benefits of UC and its return on investment, as there is a lack of industry standards on its applications and solutions as well as successful case studies. Hosted UC solutions and cloud computing will help in overcoming the bottleneck of service adoption as they minimise the capital expenditure on UC infrastructure and IT spend. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.conferencing.frost.com), South African Unified Communications Market, finds that vendors in this market earned revenues of $60.0 million in 2009 and estimates this to reach $409.7 million in 2016. "Outsourced contact centre services are driving the adoption of UC," notes Frost & Sullivan ICT Research Analyst Jiaqi Sun. "The demand for hosted UC applications will attract SMEs and SOHO users." Outsourced contact centres are major areas for UC applications. They are focus areas for improving the quality of customer support services, which is increasingly considered as a key value-added service for telecommunications service providers. At the same time, hosted UC solutions are poised to drive market growth as SME and SOHO customers boost their spending on UC solutions in the near future. However, the lack of skilled labour looms as a major challenge to market development. The requirement of intensive on-the-job training is considered a major bottleneck for UC market growth, as the implementation and maintenance of UC systems require high levels of ICT expertise. Legacy customer premise equipment also threatens market prospects by restraining system integration. "Legacy infrastructure on customers' premises prevents businesses from deploying and integrating advanced and cost-effective UC applications," explains Sun. "This is due to the fact that some organisations will not benefit from improved voice and data communications as these businesses are small in scale." Interoperability of different applications and systems poses yet another challenge for UC adoption. Although vendors have been seeking industry standards to align their hardware and software, system integration remains an issue when products of different vendors are connected on-site. "The skills shortage in the South African ICT sector requires the government's engagement on continuous education," states Sun. "Such initiatives started a decade ago and are set to yield positive results in the near future." Equally promisingly, legacy equipment is anticipated to gradually be replaced in educational institutions. Distance learning is becoming an effective tool to extend training to people who are otherwise constrained by their location. "The government at all levels is migrating to the next generation IP telephony system, thereby reducing the issue of system integration related to legacy equipment," concludes Sun. "Moreover, the inconsistent standards of UC products are expected to change, as vendors demonstrate greater willingness to form partnerships with each other to bundle their competitive strengths." South African Unified Communications Market is part of the Conferencing & Collaboration Growth Partnership Service programme, which also includes research in the following markets: South African Managed Service Market, South African Managed Network Service Market and Sub-Saharan Africa Network Convergence Market. All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. If you are interested in more information about this study, please send an e-mail to Christie Cronje, Corporate Communications, at [email protected], with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com. South African Unified Communications Market M5FC Contact: Christie Cronje Corporate Communications - Africa P: +27 18 464 2402 E: [email protected] http://www.frost.com SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan mailto:[email protected] http://www.frost.com/ |