Verint and NICE Lead the QM/Liability Recording Market

The quality management/liability recording market grew to nearly $2.4 billion in 2007, up 13 percent from the previous year, according to a recent report from DMG Consulting, based in West Orange, N.J.

In the study, "Quality Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization) Market Share Report," the consulting firm says that the contact center segment of the market was the fastest growing, increasing by 19.2 percent to $981.6 million in 2007.

However, that growth was down slightly from the 28.2 percent compound annual growth rate for the sector over a four-year period. DMG attributed much of the sustained growth to sales of newer, analytical-oriented applications, including speech analytics, performance management, and surveying, as well as the continued rapid adoption of IP-based recording.

"This is a massive market," says Donna Fluss, president of DMG. "While it’s a mature market, there are new application areas that are very new, very hot. For example, speech analytics grew at 106 percent."

The report reveals that Verint is the market’s dominant player, thanks in part to its merger with Witness Systems. Verint has 36.7 percent of the market. That puts it just ahead of NICE, which has 35.3 percent of the market. NICE benefited from its acquisition of Actimize. Aspect Communications, with 11.3 percent of the market, sits third, with Autonomy etalk (7 percent) fourth and several other firms fighting for the other 10 percent of the market.

"Despite the maturity of the market, there are new players coming into the market," Fluss adds. "This is an extremely unique market. With the exception of one or two vendors, they are all profitable."

Fluss adds that some overseas players are starting to come in to the market. She doesn’t expect any more call center acquisitions among the biggest companies, because most of the smaller firms are too small to make a difference for the large vendors. However, a couple of the smaller vendors could merge, Fluss says. She adds that NICE could be looking for acquisitions in the analytics market.

The growth in the quality management/liability recording market will shrink in 2008, though at an expected 6 to 8 percent, the increase will still be substantial, Fluss says. She expects the speech analytics sector of the market to grow by 71 percent.

This growth will occur despite a slowdown in the overall economy, Fluss predicts. While other technology purchases will slow down with the economy, call center operators will be forced to do more with less. Therefore, they will continue to be looking for and buying technologies that improve efficiencies, Fluss says.