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North American Automatic Call Distributor Systems Markets
Frost & Sullivan, April 2006
This Frost & Sullivan research service titled North American Automatic Call Distributor Systems Market provides an overview of current and forecast spending on ACD systems, analysis of spending by end-user verticals, as well as by size of contact center and a breakdown of revenues between the U.S. and Canadian markets. In this research, Frost & Sullivans expert analysts thoroughly examine the following markets/applications/technologies: ACDs (IP as well as TDM-based), and the role of all-in-one contact center suites in the future.
Market Sector
Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sector in this research:
By Application:
- Contact Center
Technologies
The following technology is covered in this research:
- Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) Systems: An ACD system is the software and hardware that routes inbound calls to a group of agents based on certain intelligent routing and skill-based criteria stored in the database. The ACD system may work on either traditional circuit-switched or IP voice platforms. It includes proprietary stand-alone ACD systems that are integrated with private branch exchange (PBX) systems or key telephone systems (KTS), stand-alone hardware-based ACD systems and software-only ACD systems. The ACD system processes inbound calls on a first come first served basis. If agents are unavailable to take the call, the ACD system holds the call in a queue and then transfers it to the first available agent. ACD systems can also be configured to route calls made to a particular number for priority handling. These systems also work in conjunction with computer telephony integration (CTI) software, which transfers data obtained from the caller to the agent’s computer screen over the ACD link, as well as other contact center applications.
Market Overvie
Rising Demand from Small and Medium-sized Contact Centers Stimulates Growth in the North American Automatic Call Distributor Systems Market
With the saturation of the large contact center market, vendors of call center infrastructure technologies such as automatic call distributor (ACD) systems have begun to focus on small and medium-sized contact centers. Vendors are offering a number of packaged products that are targeted at smaller contact centers and available at affordable prices, states the analyst of this research service. As they develop effective channel strategies, penetration of this space will increase.
Meanwhile, the technological shift toward Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructures is gaining momentum and an increasing number of smaller companies are implementing IP-based ACD systems. The growing demand for all-in-one contact center suites is also expected to encourage vendors to concentrate on consolidating product set expansion and market share growth. These new opportunities in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) space are expected to drive steady growth in the ACD market.
Increasing Adoption of IP-based ACDs to Drive the Market
The North American ACD systems market continues its positive growth trend, after having recovered well from the economic downturn. The growth in the percentage of IP-based systems sold has helped boost the average agent seat price for ACDs. For the last several years, customers were reluctant to migrate to IP due to concerns of poor quality of voice, reliability, and security as well as the high up-front costs, explains the analyst. However, vendors are now providing network readiness assessment services that ensure quality of service and reliability within converged networks and assist in the migration path. Such education and migration programs enable quicker adoption of IP.
Additionally, there has been a remarkable increase in the willingness of verticals such as healthcare and public sector/education to adopt IP-based ACDs. The market is expected to greatly benefit from the governments’ move to increase their expenditures on e-government initiatives and healthcare’s rapid adoption of enterprise technologies. The growing trend of bringing outsourced contact centers back to North America has also helped enhance the market for ACD systems, notes the analyst.
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