PALO ALTO, Calif., March 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The market opportunity for hosted contact center solutions is huge. It ropes in previously under- penetrated SMB markets and informal call centers into the mainstream contact center market. At the same time, it appreciably reduces the cost of provisioning and managing multi-site and multi-sourced contact centers. Leading service providers and outsourcers are making significant investments in hosted contact center infrastructure alongside IP migration initiatives.

Frost & Sullivan (http://www.commapps.frost.com/ ) finds that the North American Hosted Contact Center Market earned revenues of $127 million in 2005 and estimates this to reach $1.2 billion in 2012.

If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end-users, and other industry participants with an overview of the latest analysis of the North American Hosted Contact Center Market, then send an e- mail to Mireya Castilla - Corporate Communications at mireya.castilla@frost.com with the following information: your full name, company name, title, telephone number, e-mail address, city, state, and country. We will send you the information via e-mail upon receipt of the above information.

"Hosted contact center solutions presents an opportunity for telecom service providers to protect and grow their revenue streams by offering higher margin and higher value-add services beyond commoditized telephony. It also offers an opportunity for customer care outsourcers to diversify their businesses and create new revenue streams," states Frost & Sullivan Program Leader Ashwin Iyer. "Although nascent today, going forward, service providers and outsourcers providing hosted contact center solutions will increasingly compete with well-established premise-based solutions for enterprise business."

Contact centers particularly in North America have significant investments in premise equipment, with trained IT staff for development and support. Switching to a hosted/managed services solution will not be an easy sell. Moreover, enterprises are concerned about losing control over contact center operations if they turn over technology ownership to the service provider.

"Service providers need to demonstrate technology competence, and at the same time employ attractive pricing and bundling strategies to appeal to enterprises," notes Iyer. "Solution providers need to leverage robust multi- tenant architectures for economies of scale, and at the same time provide a customizable environment for end-users."

It is imperative that service providers will have to develop competence to market, sell, and support hosted contact center services. More than technology readiness, their main challenge is, and will be sales readiness.

North American Hosted Contact Center Market is part of the Contact Center subscription, which also includes research in the following markets: customer care outsourcing markets, interactive voice response (IVR) markets, outbound dialing markets and automatic call distributor (ACD) markets. All research included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews are available to the press.

Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development of innovative strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services, and corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities. Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community by providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets, technologies, econometrics, and demographics. For more information, visit http://www.frost.com/ .

North American Hosted Contact Center Market F644-76 Contact: Mireya Castilla Corporate Communications - North America P: 210.247.3830 F: 210.348.1003 E: mireya.castilla@frost.com Janina Hillgrub Corporate Communications - Europe P: +49 (0) 69 77 0 33 11 F: +49 (0) 69 23 45 66 E: janina.hillgrub@frost.com Sarah Lourdes Corporate Communications - Asia Pacific P: +603 6204 5878 F: +603 6201 7402 E: sarah.lourdes@frost.com

CONTACT: Mireya Castilla, Corporate Communications - North America,
+1-210-247-3830, or fax, +1-210-348-1003, or mireya.castilla@frost.com , or
Janina Hillgrub, Corporate Communications - Europe, +49-0-69-77-0-33-11, or
fax, +49-0-69-23-45-66, or janina.hillgrub@frost.com , or Sarah Lourdes,
Corporate Communications - Asia Pacific, +603-6204-5878, or fax,
+603-6201-7402, or sarah.lourdes@frost.com , all of Frost & Sullivan

Web site: http://www.frost.com/
http://www.commapps.frost.com/