Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

A London-based market research firm today is calling for dynamic growth for contact centers and customer service agents in the Asia Pacific region.

 

According to Datamonitor, a growing middle class in China and India and increasing demand for products and services are fueling the growth.

 

Mona Sultan, a customer interactions technology analyst with the firm, said the factors will lead to four times as many new contact center positions being created in developing markets over the next four years as compared to markets that are already developed.

 

“Vendors will need to carefully strategize which country and which vertical markets their sales and marketing teams are to target if they want to generate profitable revenue growth,” Sultan said.

 

She authored the report, “Asia Pacific: a Framework for Contact Center Growth,” which covers India, China, Australia, Japan and South Korea.

 

“A heterogeneous melange of cultures, languages, consumers and countries characterizes the Asia-Pacific contact center market,” Sultan continued. “Understanding the full range of macroeconomic, social and business trends in APAC is therefore vital for vendors creating successful go-to-market strategies.”

 

According to the report, India and China represent more than one-third of the world’s population. India has traditionally been perceived as an underdeveloped nation, according to the report, yet all market projections indicate that its middle class, and the money they make, are set to increase substantially.

 

The same is true of China, Sultan says, as recent reforms have put the communist nation back on the global trade map. The consequence of the reforms is an exploding Chinese middle class, leading to an increase in income and an increase in the consumption of goods and services.

 

But this poses a challenge for enterprises, according to Sultan.

 

“Enterprises need to not only tap into this emerging demographic but to retain their loyalty,” she said. “What we are seeing in India, for example, is that APs are set to increase significantly from 370,000 in 2006 to 567,000 in 2012 – a compounded growth rate of 5.6 percent.”

The Asia-Pacific region’s developed nations have strong economies and strong technological infrastructure and a growing need to service a sophisticated consumer base, according to Sultan’s report.

 

Despite deflation issues and intense competition amongst contact center vendors, “Australia’s kangaroo economy keeps bouncing along,” officials form the market research firm say.

 

In contrast, Japan’s once frail economy has strengthened in recent years, according to the report. Despite falling wages, Japan’s economic expansion of the past few years has dramatically increased the demand for labor, the report says.

 

“And in South Korea, we see cutting-edge communications technologies being used in everyday business, in the corporate world and among consumers. This is a very promising economic climate for contact center vendors,” Sultan said.

Michael Dinan is a TMCNet Editor. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.