Abstract: 2012-2013 Workforce Optimization Product and Market Report

DMG Consulting’s 9th annual Workforce Optimization Product and Market Report - previously known as the Quality Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization - WFO) Product and Market Report - provides contact center and IT managers with unparalleled vendor, product, functional, technical, pricing and operational information. WFO suites come with recording and quality assurance (QA, also known as quality management or QM) applications and at least three of the following eight modules: coaching, eLearning, performance management, surveying, speech analytics, workforce management, desktop analytics and text analytics. The 2012 - 2013 Workforce Optimization Product and Market Report analyzes WFO suites and the two core applications within them. The remaining modules are essential components of these suites, and are addressed at a high level; most of them are also covered in-depth in separate DMG Consulting reports. This 528-page Report is designed to assist contact center, IT and enterprise leaders and managers in selecting the right solution, technology, functionality and partner to meet their organization’s current and future needs in both the front and back office.

As the economy continues its slow but steady recovery, the WFO market remains strong, even more than other contact center and IT sectors. Contact centers and enterprises alike are adopting WFO solutions for front- and, increasingly, back-office use. WFO differs from other sectors in that its core capabilities (recording and quality assurance) are mature, but vendors re-invent their solutions every few years, creating renewed demand in the market on an ongoing basis.

Evidencing of the strength of the contact center WFO market, revenue increased by 9.2% from $563.4 million to $615.4 million between the first half of 2011 and 2012. This is significant, as the growth occurred during a period of general economic sluggishness in the US, a recession in parts of Europe, and a slowdown in India and China.

WFO in the Cloud
The cloud-based contact center infrastructure market is booming (see DMG’s Cloud-Based Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report). End users around the world, in contact centers of all sizes, are adopting cloud-based solutions, and are considering this acquisition model an important enabler for their future. WFO is no exception. The big question is: Which vendors will succeed with their cloud-based initiatives?

Most of the WFO suite vendors have been very slow to respond to their customers’ desire to move to the cloud. These same vendors have finally heard the message, and are making substantial investments to ready their solutions for cloud-based implementations.  Being cloud-ready is the new mandate from users, who are realizing that the financial and operational benefits of the cloud are too significant to ignore.

DMG expects to see WFO vendors bring more cloud-ready solutions to market in the next 24 months. However, DMG advises users to carefully evaluate the vendors’ capabilities and fee structures before selecting a partner. Although cloud-based solutions are not for every enterprise or department, as more options become available, users will have solid choices, leverage to make a good deal, and a clear path to the future.

Back Office Rising
The boundaries between front and back offices are becoming less defined, especially in industries like insurance and healthcare where contact center representatives may handle many back-office tasks as part of their routine responsibilities. DMG estimates the back-office opportunity for WFO functionality is three times as large as the opportunity in the contact center, yet few of the contact center WFO suites are capable of giving back-office managers what they need to optimize their staff. When used properly, WFO suites can vastly improve the effectiveness and performance of back-office and branch-oriented operating groups in almost every vertical.

While some back-office WFO suites have been introduced in the last two years, as the pressure on users to lower their back-office operating expenses grows, DMG expects to see more solutions come to market. DMG advises users to validate claims by contact center WFO vendors that their solutions can handle back-office tasks. While front and back offices face similar challenges,  each requires unique functionality to meet their operational needs.

The Voice of the Customer
Is there anything more important than the voice of the customer? Customers are communicating on social media, they’re calling the customer service center, they’re talking with their friends. They’re being bombarded by post-call surveys. There is useful data to be gathered from various customer touch points that can help organizations understand what customers really think and feel about products and services.

While customers are “surveyed out” because of an overload of surveying programs, there is a new game in town for accessing the voice of the customer (VoC). It’s analytics. Speech, desktop and text analytics - when used with surveying, quality assurance (QA) and contact center performance management applications - can yield tremendous insight and recommended actions to address the needs identified in customer feedback.

As most of these solutions are new and enterprises are just learning to use them, it will take time for this new VoC concept (also known as multi-channel analytics) to catch on, but the market is heading in the right direction. The challenge is to bring together findings from disparate applications. Leading WFO vendors are striving to make this a reality, and have started to build the required integrations. DMG expects that the contact center will ultimately become the primary repository for the wealth of customer data that enterprises glean from these applications - making it available to other departments as needed to meet specific goals.

Customer Satisfaction
One of the most important things any user can do when evaluating solutions for purchase is to consider other users’ experiences and satisfaction. To help users with this part of the selection process,  DMG Consulting conducted an independent customer satisfaction study as part of the research for the 2012 - 2013 Workforce Optimization Product and Market Report. The study, evaluates the performance of the 12 vendors analyzed in detail in the Report. A total of 36 customer survey responses (three from each vendor) were received. The study reveals insight into customer satisfaction with everything from product ease of use and feature sets, to implementation, training and ongoing support. DMG also offers readers a summary of invaluable customer insights gleaned from a series of open-ended questions.

Market Projections
DMG projects that the WFO market will continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate, during the next few years. DMG expects leading WFO vendors to acquire companies from other IT sectors that were not previously counted as part of the sector, which will help grow the revenue base, even if organic growth stays at its current rate. DMG expects the WFO market to grow between 7% and 9% in 2013 and 2014, and to increase by at least 10% in 2015, due to an expected pick-up in the worldwide economy.

The 2012 - 2013 Workforce Optimization Product and Market Reportis the most comprehensive, fact-based and timely analysis of this IT sector. The 2012 - 2013 Workforce Optimization Product and Market Report analyzes 14 leading and contending vendors. Twelve are covered at a detailed level - more than in any past Report - due to the quality of their offerings. They are: Aspect, Avaya, Calabrio, CallCopy, dvsAnalytics, Interactive Intelligence, KnoahSoft, NICE, TelStrat, Verint, VPI and ZOOM. Two vendors, OAISYS and OnviSource, are covered at a higher level.

Report Highlights:

• Although mature, the core components of the contact center WFO market continue to show growth, due in part to ongoing innovation that cyclically renews demand.
• Contact center WFO revenue increased by 9.2%, from $563.4 million to $615.4 million, between the first half of 2011 and 2012; this is significant given that the economy is not performing at full strength.
• The cloud is changing the WFO landscape. As users look to reap the benefits of this flexible, scaleable and game-changing model, the existing WFO vendors are finally addressing the growing demand.
• The opportunity for back-office WFO is large, and solutions have begun to emerge. DMG expects to see great innovation in this area as enterprises invest in these suites to reduce back-office operating costs.
• Heeding the voice of the customer has never been more important. Analytics of all kinds are making their way into the mix, along with QA and surveying, as critical tools for gathering this valuable data. Taking action on that data is critical, and leading vendors are already starting to work on integrations that make it possible.
• Analytics is the future. Analytics-enabled QA has emerged as a viable and cost-effective alternative to the traditional people-intensive QA process. Finally, there is an easier way to execute a necessary but previously extremely cumbersome task.
• Recording will become increasingly commoditized, as it should, when more solutions are released at price points that challenge the major players. Users will be pleased to see this happen, as they know they need recording, but just don’t understand why it’s still so expensive.
• DMG expects the WFO market to grow between 7% and 9% in 2013 and 2014, and to increase by at least 10% in 2015, due to both organic and aquisitive growth.

 Key Reasons to Buy this Report:

• Analysis of the functional building blocks that comprise leading and contending WFO suites, including a preview of emerging back-office WFO solutions
• Analysis of WFO trends and challenges that are driving investments by enterprises and vendors
• Discussion of the advantages and benefits of building multi-channel contact center environments that are designed to handle social media interactions
• Examination of how analytics is transforming surveying, VoC initiatives, quality assurance, and many other important business activities
• Review of the emerging role of real-time guidance and next-best action in empowering agents and transforming the customer experience
• Market activity and market share analysis, adoption rate, and four-year projections for 2012 - 2015
• Analysis of how the top leading and contending WFO solutions help users comply with PCI-DSS requirements
• An introduction to gamification and the role it is expected to play in the future of contact centers and WFO solutions
• Overview of the 12 leading and contending WFO vendors, including company snapshots and summaries of their products, packages and service delivery models
• A review of the growing role of cloud-based applications in the WFO world 
• An analysis of the top 8 functional and technical suite differentiators, and how each of the top 12 leading and contending solutions performs in these areas
• Overview of the WFO competitive landscape, including a chart depicting market leadership
• Analysis of the ROI and benefits of WFO suites and offerings
• Detailed critique of new product features, product innovation and what the vendors plan to deliver in the next 12 - 18 months
• Analysis of survey results that measured end-user satisfaction across 15 product components and 10 vendor categories
• Detailed comparison of vendor pricing for premise-based, cloud-based/hosted, managed service and small and medium-sized business (SMB) offerings for the 12 top WFO market competitors
• Company reports for the 14 leading and contending vendors, analyzing their products, technology, functionality, and product future development plans
• In-depth review of functional and technical capabilities in side-by-side analyses that reveal product differentiators for the 12 leading and contending WFO vendors
• Comprehensive WFO Market Directory

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Table of Contents

Order Information
To order a copy of the Quality Management/Liability Recording Product and Market Report contact Deborah Navarra at deborah.navarra@dmgconsult.com or 516-628-1098. You may also purchase the report online.

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The Abstract and Table of Contents are also available in PDF format.