The 2012 Market Leaders
Professional Services
The Market
With the economy just now starting to recover, many companies cut back on their IT expenditures and resources. In many cases, an unfortunate consequence of this was the wholesale elimination of contact center positions, which presented a world of opportunities for outsourcers that can run a company's entire customer care and support operations. For that reason, we've refocused attention in our professional services category this year to recognize the vendors that provide this level of service.
Call center outsourcing has ushered in a radical paradigm shift in the way businesses handle customer service, and it's about a lot more than putting an agent in a seat with a script and headset. Many companies are finding that they can better serve their customers without sacrificing the fiscal and human resources necessary to run these operations on their own.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't the usual challenges. Price sensitivity is, of course, a big one, given the economy. Clients are continually looking for cheaper rates and high service quality levels. Many outsourcers have addressed this by offshoring operations, but political pressure and other outside forces could soon bring onshoring back into fashion. Also coming into vogue are call center operations that let agents take calls from their homes.
For companies hesitant about giving full control of their call center operations to a third party, the hybrid approach is always an option, and it's one that service providers are being forced to add.
The Leaders
Sykes is considered a leader in the industry primarily because of its ability to execute, for which it received a score of 4.2 from analysts. "Sykes has proven itself to be a stable and trusted competitor, offering a great breadth of services that has meant great service to its customers," says Peter Ryan, outsourcing practice leader at Ovum.
John Ragsdale, vice president of technology research at the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), takes it a step further. "Beyond very high-quality interaction outsourcing, Sykes has impressive references for incorporating up-sell/cross-sell into service interactions, generating revenue for their clients, as well as social media offerings, including community management," he says.
West, which also scored very high for its ability to execute (4.0), was considered by analysts to be a leader in its staffing options. "West is a focused organization that has made a solid offering with its work-at-home program, and it's been solid in its on-shore and off-shore delivery," Ryan says. "They've really kept their eyes on the ball the last couple of years."
The Winner
Teleperformance, the clear favorite among analysts, beat out its competitors by more than three-tenths of a point, with a 4.2 overall score. Its ability to execute score was 4.5, more than three-tenths of a point ahead of the rest of the field, and its 4.2 in number and breadth of services offered also led the field. "Teleperformance sets the standard for contact center outsourcing," Ryan states emphatically, praising the company for its willingness to go to new locations, incorporate new technologies, including social media, and implement security provisions. Ragsdale adds: "They get high ratings for handling multichannel [interactions]."
Vendor Contender
Convergys, the most widely known outsourcer among the analysts, also scored high in number and breadth of services (4.2) and ability to execute (4.0), but fell behind on cost and company direction. "There's significant potential for [Convergys] to remake itself," Ryan says. "There's been a lot of confusion, but they appear to be turning the page, re-establishing themselves as a contact center player and broad-based business process outsourcing provider."
In May, Convergys announced a leadership shake-up. It said the changes would align the leadership team with Convergys's sharpened focus on its customer management business. Among the moves, Andrea Ayers, president and COO of customer management, will succeed Jeff Fox as president and CEO.
Mobile Voice Search
The Market
The mobile voice search field exploded this year, due in no small part to the rabid fascination with Apple's voice assistant, Siri, on the iPhone 4S. While Apple doesn't have a stranglehold on the market, it is nipping at the heels of Google Android-enabled phones. The competition bodes well for the entire smartphone market.
When Verizon, the number one wireless carrier in the United States, released its earnings report for the first quarter of 2012 in April, it reported sales of 6.3 million smartphones during that time period.
AT&T, the number two carrier, sold 5.5 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2012, exceeding a first-quarter sales record set last year. Smartphones represented more than 78 percent of postpaid device sales.
A 2012 report from eMarketer estimates that almost 116 million Americans will use a smartphone by the end of 2012. By the end of 2013, that number is expected to jump to 137 million, and by 2016, an estimated 192 million will have one.
"Everyone is aspiring to reach a mobile audience with devices," one analyst says. "There's a lot of incentive for companies."
The Leaders
While its Siri voice assistant has garnered headlines, Apple didn't grab the top spot this year, but is gaining in market share. According to analysts at Wireless Intelligence, although Android devices are now thought to account for over half of all U.S. smartphones in service, the latest figures indicate that new buyers are choosing the Apple device over competitors.
A comScore survey published in May measured the smartphone market for the three-month period ending March 2012 versus a three-month average ending December 2011. Analysts found that Apple had 30.7 percent of the smartphone market in the United States and 14 percent of the mobile market in 2012's first quarter. Indeed, Apple says it sold 35 million iPhones in the January-to-March quarter of 2012.
Microsoft, which didn't place in the top rankings last year, gained favor with analysts, who gave it top marks for its accuracy and customer satisfaction. The company's TellMe software for Windows Phone 7 also took high marks in the user interface category.
"The Bing voice search app is pretty accurate, reasonably fast, and has a nice user interface," one analyst notes.
The Winner
For the fourth year in a row, Google bested its rivals in the mobile speech category, and scored particularly high in the accuracy category. Analysts cited the general voice search app for iPhone and Android and the Android "typing replacer" functionality, which lets users fill in forms by voice.
"Both are extremely accurate, reasonably fast, and have user interfaces that take advantage of multimodality," an analyst says. "The speech recognition is not only very good, but it's continually improving."
Google continues to refine and update Google Translate for Android, which supports text translation among 63 languages, voice input in 17 languages, and text-to-speech in 24. In 2011, the company released an update to Google Translate for Android's Conversation Mode feature, enabling users to translate speech back and forth between 14 languages.
Google made a splash this year when it launched Google Voice for Android with Ice Cream Sandwich voicemail integration. The mobile app allows users to view and listen to voicemails on demand directly from the call log on an Android phone. The messages can be slowed down or sped up, for those who are trying to catch a phone number or get to the end of a call quickly.
Vendor Contender
Nuance Communications' 2011 acquisition of previous analyst favorite Vlingo surprised many.
The former foes see the deal as a $5 billion market opportunity as demand soars for voice assistance and natural language solutions.
Steve Chambers, president of sales and marketing at Nuance and executive vice president of its enterprise division, says the move would help Nuance compete in the mobile space. "With the integration of our voice recognition and natural language, we're in a great position, with no shortage of people who want this technology."
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