Datamonitor: Outsourcing activities moving from US contact centers to India

US contact centers are fast seeing a drop in market share as more and more jobs are headed around the global outsourcing world to India.

Driving this outflow of jobs are tight profit margins and the call for automation. While these spell a shift in the job balance in the American workplace, countries such as India, Canada and the Philippines stand to benefit. These have also kept the outsourcing companies on their toes, constantly reinventing, partnering, merging, or simply outdoing other companies in the bid to remain alive in the cutthroat outsourcing market. This cutthroat environment is depicted in the Datamonitor report, ''The boundaries between US-based contact center providers and other business process outsourcers are dissolving, and firms are invading each others' territories,.'

A glimpse of US contact center scenario: 90% of jobs lost are outbound telemarketing posts, though this is also due to the Do-Not-Call registry and a higher revenue dangled by the inbound calls field.

The Datamonitor report says, ''In addition, the number of agent positions in offshore and nearshore countries will continue to grow, due to the growing demand from US and captive market businesses.”

2004 saw 37% of the world’s outsourced contact center population in the United States. Come 2008, it is expected to dwindle to 25%, with a drop from last year’s 315,000 headcount to 291,000 by 2008.

This has urged contact center outsourcers to venture beyond call centers and business process outsourcing (BPO) in the name of growth and survival. Companies originally geared towards providing contact center services are now taking on BPO functions, just as the BPO providers are learning the ropes for contact center performance.

Where does all this movement leave American contact centers?

''As the market contracts through to 2009, it will be imperative for outsourcing service providers to choose between competing on the basis of cost or reinventing themselves,.'

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