A new Datamonitor report, Call Center Component Technologies, concludes that Internet protocol (IP) and speech recognition technologies will substantially fuel increased revenues for, respectively, automatic call distributor (ACD) and interactive voice response (IVR) solutions through 2007.
In IP-networked call centers, all communications, including voice, are treated as packet data within a single enterprise network using IP. In speech recognition-based IVR systems, callers can retrieve information from, or transact with, an electronic or recorded voice by speaking commands (as opposed to pushing touchtones in traditional IVR systems).
Chart 1 shows the growth of ACDs in North America. By 2007, IP-enabled systems will represent 13.3% of the market, up from 3.0% in 2002. Revenues from traditional (circuit-switched) ACDs, after peaking in 2004 at $1.6 billion, will decline steadily through 2007.
Contributing to the expected decline is the growing market for IP-enabled call centers. In 2002, the average number of agents in an IP-enabled call center was 33; Datamonitor expects this number to rise to 47 by 2007.
Datamonitor forecasts that revenues from IVR solutions will to grow to $822 million in 2007 from $591 million in 2002, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.8% (see Chart 2). Driving adoption of IVR solutions is the addition of speech recognition, plus heightened competition from new IVR vendors. Most of the growth will occur in the small to mid-size business (SMB) market.
As a result of these factors, adoption of IVR systems will grow faster than that of ACDs in both the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and North American markets.
Datamonitor PLC is a business advisory company specializing in industry analysis. Through proprietary databases and expertise, Datamonitor provides 5,000 clients with analysis and forecasts for six industry sectors: automotive, consumer, energy, financial services, health care, and technology. Authored by Elizabeth Kennedy, Managing Analyst, Datamonitor.
