Witness Systems is to purchase Blue Pumpkin Software for approximately $75 million.
Datamonitor research estimates 2008 global call center spend on workforce optimization technologies will total a staggering $1 billion.
Workforce optimization is a fast growing call center technology. In 2003, $695 million worth of the global call center budget was spent on workforce optimization technologies. Datamonitor expects vendor revenues to exceed $1 billion by 2008 as call centers globally seek to better call center agent performance, efficiency of human resources and effectively capture, record and analyze telephone and data interactions between customer and call center agent – all of which will serve to boost bottom lines.
Vendors across the workforce optimization space are looking to consolidate their position in the market. Acquisitions are one way of achieving this.
WOT solutions fall under four broad categories:
– Quality monitoring, the recording and analysis of telephone and data interactions between customer and call center agent.
– Workforce Management, the efficient scheduling of human resources in call centers.
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– Agent analytics, the analysis of agent performance using data from call center sources;
– eLearning, the online delivery of training to call center agents to improve their performance in key areas.
According to Datamonitor, call center spend on agent analytics and eLearning technologies (two components of WOTs), will show the fastest growth with compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) between now and 2008 of 26% and 19% respectively.
The creation of a workforce optimization suite, especially one made from well established component parts, will help Witness access the potential this market is showing. Vendors need solutions to address the core goals of workforce optimization, efficiency and effectiveness in call center operations.
