Small business turns to call centre outsourcing

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 05:11

IT Industry - Market

The global financial crisis will see traditional customers of outsourced call centres spending less in the short term, but the same pressures are driving small business to outsource their call centres, according to Frost & Sullivan.

F&S says that, in the face of a recession, smaller players are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with larger multinationals and are turning to contact centres and outsourcing of processes to limit expense and tighten budgets.

"This trend is already evident in Australia and is expected to continue to grow throughout the region. During 2008 SMB demand rose for both outbound telemarketing and inbound services, and all major players including Salmat, UCMS, Stellar, EDS, Teletech, Sitel and Teleperformance are optimistic that the SMB market will remain a growing revenue stream," F&S reports.

In its latest Market Insight report - Contact Centre Outsourcing Trends In the Asia Pacific Market, 2008-2011 - F&S estimates that regional market value will grow from $US13.7b in 2008 to $US20.3b in 2011, with the majority of that revenue being generated in the growth markets of India, the Philippines, Malaysia and China.

"In the short term, the impact of the global financial turmoil – especially amongst the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector - will make outsourcing budget cuts inevitable," F&S says. "While this is likely to lead to a slowdown in growth, continued pressure on financial institutions to curb capital costs will help to ensure existing outsourcing contracts are not scaled back."

The study predicts a short-term decline in offshoring activity. However, "in the medium-to-long term...large vertical markets including BFSI, telecommunications, high technology and airlines are expected to lead the return to offshoring as a means of outsourcing processes and curbing costs."