While the call center outsourcing market in Europe continues to expand, users that have consistently looked at cost as the greatest benefit of outsourcing are now looking at other factors including high-quality and value-added services.

industries, including the public sector, travel/hospitality and retail/consumer packaged goods, will all continue to show record growth from the period 2011 to 2017.

Recent research just released from Frost & Sullivan shows that the call center outsourcing market earned approximately €13.056 (18. 30) billion in 2010 and estimates this to reach €16.044 (22.48) billion in 2017.

“While the call center outsourcing market in Western Europe is relatively mature, Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS and Middle East and Africa will experience higher growth rates starting from 2011,” said Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) Senior Industry Analyst Suvradeep Bhattacharjee. “Growth will be driven by the underlying growth of GDP in these regions and by demand from the expanding telecom and financial services sectors which are being liberalized and opened to private ownership.”

In Western Europe, according to the research, expansion in the outsourcing market will be mainly within the public sector, travel/hospitality and retail/CPG verticals. Spending reviews done by multiple European governments will increase outsourcing activity in the public sector, dominantly in the United Kingdom and Germany, while the launch of new products from retailers in Europe will spur a high level of demand from the retail/CPG division.

As the economy continues to be restored to what it used to be and the amount of competition from outsourcing providers rises, Frost & Sullivan estimates the market will achieve an annual growth rate of 3 percent from 2010-2017.

In addition, over the last couple of years outsourcing companies that utilize social networking sites has grown rapidly. “Some call center outsourcing vendors have rightly identified social media as the channel for future growth, but few have developed strong offerings to drive that growth,” Bhattacharjee commented. “Building strong offerings on social media-based customer interaction will enable contact centre outsourcing vendors to succeed.”

source: TMCnet