Speech Analytics Is on the Rise

Based on the market’s rate of growth since 2004, research firm DMG Consulting expects the speech analytics market to double in 2007 and then again in 2008.

In its “2007 Speech Analytics Market Report,” DMG explains that the market has grown from 25 implementations in 2004 to 603 in 2006. That averages out to a 391 percent annual growth rate, with 95 percent of all seats in North America.

“Speech analytics is a new and emerging technology so there is still an education process. The technology is there, so customers are fascinated
by it, but they are still learning how to get the value out of the application,” says Roger Woolley, vice president of marketing at etalk, an Autonomy company.

“When a market emerges, there is generally a question of: Is this a real market? What is the value of the market? What are the applications? Are they any good? and What do they do,” says Donna Fluss, DMG’s president. “We think speech analytics will contribute significantly to all areas of enterprises because it structures the unstructured. There is no similar application like this in enterprises today,” Fluss continues.

“It is a market where the vendors are creating interest, but they are not pushing interest. The interest is being pushed by the customers,” asserts Ted Lubowsky, executive vice president of worldwide sales, marketing, and client solutions at UTOPY. “Unlike many markets out there today, customers are out trying to solve problems, and a large number of them have decided there is a technology that they could use to solve problems in their business or help them strategically. The growth in that report and the reasons why people are buying shows that this is a dynamic market.”

“In my almost twenty-four years I have never seen an application that I thought could not only contribute to the contact center but to the enterprise overall. I have never seen anything like this application. The potential for this application is huge, and the market is clearly recognizing that potential,” Fluss concludes.