SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The rising relevance of the cloud in the current business environment is prompting contact center solution providers (CCSPs) to shift from a premise-based legacy infrastructure to hosted/cloud contact centers. Global, as well as mid-sized CCSPs such as Avaya, Genesys, Verint, NICE, Cisco, Unify, Interactive Intelligence and West Interactive, are strategically offering an omnichannel customer experience (CX) to attract business across end-user segments. A richer CX is a significant differentiator at a time when the market is becoming increasingly competitive due to the influx of market entrants and the emergence of new price points, features and business models.

Frost & Sullivan analysis, Growth Opportunities in the Hosted/Cloud Contact Center Market, finds that the market for cloud contact centers continues to increase. In addition, the study reveals that the acceleration of omnichannel and digital transformation, coupled with the C-suite demand for stronger and swifter growth, is driving technology acquisitions.

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""Hosted/cloud contact center solutions will benefit from converged tools, newer social channels and deeper integrations to expand their footprint from 24 percent  of the total seats base in 2015 to a likely 40 percent by 2020,"" said Frost & Sullivan Digital Transformation Principal Analyst Nancy Jamison. ""CCSPs can drive home the advantage by delivering an omnichannel CX that aligns with the needs of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, prospects, suppliers, distributors and partners.""

Furthermore, the analysis indicates that major process transformation and top-down cross-organizational support can make omnichannel customer care a success. Millennials and the succeeding generations will expect excellent CX, continuous feedback, as well as social rewards for positive performance.

While there are many benefits to operating in a cloud, businesses with unamortized and functional premise-based, solutions perceive no economic benefits in an infrastructure upgrade, including a switch to hosted/cloud contact center services. Additionally, CCSPs have to battle persistent customer concerns regarding reliability, security and privacy. In spite of these challenges, it is clear that cloud-based applications are the way forward, as pure-play cloud providers continue to expand offerings at a rapid pace, and traditional contact center systems suppliers begin to offer add-on cloud offerings

""Overall, contact center vendors need to find a way to tap greenfield opportunities while still catering to their large installed base of premise products,"" observed Jamison. ""Vendors that deliver a comprehensive suite of cloud contact center solutions comprising of mobile, social, web real-time communication, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, automation and personalization technologies, will grow faster than best-of-breed solution providers.""

Growth Opportunities in the Hosted/Cloud Contact Center Market is a part of Frost & Sullivan's Customer Contact Growth Partnership Service program.