The industry reflects, looks ahead

Lui Sim Hua, vice president for the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions, Aspect Software

	Lui Sim Hua, Aspect Software
	Many companies want to seamlessly move to an IP environment, yet they must also leverage past investments in technology and contact center solutions.

Q. What do you remember as the biggest industry news for 2007?
Lui: For 2007, the biggest news was unified solutions. Organizations have begun recognizing the value propositions of single platform systems and a consolidation of vendors.

These companies are increasingly investing in solutions that help turn their integrated contact centers into unified contact centers driven by companies' increasing need to maximize resources, increase flexibility and control, and essentially do more with less.

Another area of big interest for contact centers in 2007 was performance optimization solutions, particularly quality monitoring and performance management solutions. Contact centers are moving from cost centers to profit centers, and having to better align their performance with the overall objectives of the business. Performance optimization solutions are allowing them to track their performance, identify areas for improvement and increase productivity and customer service levels.

Companies are recognizing the growing importance of improving operational efficiency and agent effectiveness with fewer resources. As such, they are increasing their investments in unified and performance optimization solutions.

Name three hot technologies to watch in 2008.
•  Investments in performance optimization solutions will increase because companies are recognizing the growing importance of improving operational efficiency and agent effectiveness with fewer resources.
•  The move toward unified communications. Companies are seeing the value of unified communications strategies to expand the customer experience beyond just call centers to the rest of the enterprise to leverage the expertise of knowledge workers.
•  Move toward VoIP and open standards such as SIP (session initiation protocol). Open standards are particularly valuable to companies because they deliver increased compatibility among components, enabling true interoperability. As open standards continue to mature, we will see the development of a number of new and innovative products and services using new standards, such as VoiceXML, SCXML, CCXML, which have been built on early protocol standards such as HTTP and SIP.

Moving ahead in 2008

 

 

1.	Socializing goes big in 2008
2.	The urge to merge in 2008
3.	New chips on the block
4.	Web threats dominate security landscape
5.	Battle for the mobile platform space in 2008
6.	The industry reflects, looks ahead

Looking back on 2007

 

 

1.	Looking back at 2007 with envy
2.	Predictions that went right and wrong
3.	2007's movers and shakers

Name one prediction that the analysts got wrong or right.
Analysts were spot on regarding the issue of security. Security has always been a hot topic and will continue to be an important issue, which enterprises, regardless of their size, need to deal with. Undeniably, rising security threats have also increased corporate IT budgets.

From a contact center's perspective, data security is a major concern. Contrary to popular belief, it is not attacks from outside hackers that are the biggest technology security threats; rather the risk comes from the actions of employees--both intentional and inadvertent. The past year has therefore seen the need to secure confidential data at contact centers. In the event of a security breach, the contact center is also the key to retaining customer loyalty, by being responsive to customer inquiries.

Security breaches have been a major concern for companies during the past year and will continue to be a top worry for CIOs in the future. By developing preventative plans and taking the right responsive steps, companies can avoid a security breach or mitigate its impact on customer loyalty.

The biggest challenge facing IT departments is...
... Maximizing its technology investments and managing those system capabilities with customer requirements. In a competitive marketplace, businesses are always looking for ways to do more with fewer resources. Many companies want to seamlessly move to an IP environment, yet they must also leverage past investments in technology and contact center solutions.

The right technology will enable companies to take advantage of the cost savings of VoIP, while also using these existing applications. With the emergence of various technology innovations, companies in the Asia-Pacific region are tasked with prioritizing corporate spending across the board, at the same time ensuring that the cost is closely aligned with their business models, and IP-based solutions will play a key role in helping companies lower costs and maximize operations.

 Allied Telesyn 

AT&T  

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