Revenue for the Latin American contact center systems market dwindled, from $266 million in 2014 to $248.5 million in 2015, but it is expected to recover and reach $339.9 million by 2020, Frost & Sullivan noted in its "Latin American Contact Center Systems Market 2015" report. The study covers inbound contact routing, interactive voice response systems and voice portals, outbound dialers, quality monitoring, workforce management, and contact center analytics.
Omnichannel customer experience strategies are expected to fuel the contact center systems market in Latin America, with contact center analytics, workforce management, and quality monitoring applications gradually capturing the most attention, according to the research.
"Companies have begun to realize the importance of speech, voice, and process analytics; workforce management, and quality monitoring applications," said Frost & Sullivan Digital Transformation Industry Analyst Maiara Paula Munhoz in a statement. "The poor economic scenario in Brazil and other Latin American countries translates to higher demand for these applications among companies that wish to boost productivity and efficiency, optimize costs, and retain customers."
Even though the Latin American market has been slow to adopt hosted and cloud-based contact center models due to the existing volume of legacy infrastructure and security concerns, the migration is inevitable, the research found.
"Firstly, organizations will gravitate to hosted and cloud-based contact center systems as their total cost of ownership is lower than that of premises-based solutions," Munhoz said in the statement. "Secondly, the shift from a capital expenditure model to an operational expenditure model will simplify cost management for companies."
Along with the transition to the cloud, the devaluation of Latin American currencies against the U.S. dollar is dampening investments in contact center systems. Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil will be particularly affected, as their currencies are expected to be devaluated by 24 percent, 14 percent, and 40 percent, respectively. Brazil, which accounts for almost half of the total revenue in the Latin American contact center systems market, is in the midst of an economic and political crisis.
With inflation in Brazil reaching 9.2 percent and uncertainty plaguing most markets in the region, contact center system vendors need to reinvent themselves for survival, Frost & Sullivan advises. They should also offer more innovative solutions to help their customers increase productivity, the firm said.