Cloud-Based Call Center Software to the Philippines

Cloud-based solutions are suited to help meet the service and profitability goals of business process outsourcers (BPOs) worldwide, and particularly those in the Philippines, that need to rapidly scale as the market grows. inContact, a provider of on-demand call center software and call center agent optimization tools, announced today the expansion of its operations into the Philippines.

The company opened a new Manila office to support existing customers in the country, as well as the five new customers the company won since expanding operations in the country. According to the Commission on Communications and Information Technology (CICT), the Philippine market has seen exponential growth over the past few years, with 446,000 call center agent seats in 2009, of which approximately 90% handle calls that originate in the United States, according to the Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP). The market is projected to grow to $9 billion in 2010. With the rapid growth of the market in the Philippines, the country is perfectly suited as inContact's gateway to Asia, and the first location for its international expansion.

Although cloud-based business applications have become all the rage, with more than 70 percent of US-based businesses now using some form of cloud-computing, misconceptions about what cloud-based software can and cannot do have persisted. There are some companies out there that, for a wide variety of reasons, are just plain reluctant to replace their premises-based systems with cloud solutions. In many cases it's simply that they made a considerable investment in hardware, traditional software licenses and perhaps network infrastructure, and they're looking to get as much return on that investment as they can. In other cases they have fallen into misconceptions about the features and capabilities that cloud-based solutions can deliver – for a wide range of reasons they view these applications as being "deficient" in one way or another when compared to their premises-based systems. The more standards-based and open the underlying system, the easier the integration. Few integrations are easy, whether the solutions are premise-based or hosted. However it goes on to point out that software vendors today are putting a much stronger emphasis on interoperability and "out-of-the-box" integrations, providing connectors and APIs that make it many times faster and simpler for IT teams to carry out integrations. The newer the software, the more likely it is to include open standards, which in turn facilitates simpler and faster integration with other leading systems. It also points out that some of hosted contact center offerings are built upon premises-based systems, therefore they cannot be any harder to integrate than their underlying core technology.

Cloud-based solutions give BPO operators an extraordinary competitive advantage, as evidenced by our initial success in the Philippine market. We have been working with several outsourcers over the past several months, and are excited to have a physical office presence here now. The BPO market is highly competitive, and client dissatisfaction and low margins can be the end of an outsourcer's business. Our powerful portfolio of scalable, flexible, pay-as-you-go cloud-based call center outsourcing solutions enable BPOs to better manage their talent, reduce non-billable hours, increase revenue per call and differentiate their service offering. The technology is a very well-rounded, integrated and robust solution that was infinitely more scalable and less expensive than any premise-based system, a perfect solution for BPOs because ultimately it enables us to deliver more for our clients' customers.

The inContact platform combines call routing, workforce optimization and network connectivity solutions with a powerful work flow between the subsystems. Additionally, the platform boasts enterprise-class security, reliability, availability and the industry's best uptime guarantee of 99.99%. Unlike premise-based solutions, the inContact platform enables BPOs to scale up and down as their business dictates, making it a perfect technology match for their dynamic business model. The timing of inContact's expansion is perfect, as cloud-based, or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings are rapidly growing in popularity across the customer service industry. According to industry analyst firm Gartner, "by 2013, at least 75% of customer service centers will use some form of SaaS application as a part of the contact center solution." Analyst firm Ovum has said that, "given the new investment philosophy, a growing number of enterprises are looking towards hosted contact center services to reduce capital outlay and to access a wide range of technology options." Jarman concluded, "We are excited to bring our leading edge cloud-based offering to the Philippines to enable customers to operate more efficiently, optimize the cost and quality of every interaction, create new pathways to profit, and ensure ongoing business improvement and growth."