Indian contact centre industry to grow 16 pc: Report

Bangalore, Jan 23 (UNI) Callcentres.net, Asia Pacific's leading call and contact centre research and publishing company, has forecast that the contact centre industry in the country is all set to grow over 40,000 seats in the coming year.

Giving details of its 2006 Asian Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Report here today, company President Catriona Wallace told reporters that the countries leading the growth rate in Asia were the Philippines and Thailand, both projected to grow at 33 per cent annually, followed by Singapore and Malaysia at 32 per cent a year. China's growth rate was projected to be at 22 per cent in 2007 and India was expected to grow at 16 per cent a year.

''The Asian contact centre industry is in a period of strong growth and it is exciting to see newer contact centre markets such as Malaysia, China and Thailand leading the growth rates,'' she said.

Mature markets such as India, which at 27,000 seats was the largest contact centre in the region, had a significant annual growth of 16 per cent, she added.

The survey was conducted using a combination of telephone and online interviews of 501 contact centre managers, representing 747 contact centres across all industry segments in Singapore, China, India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

The study examined contact centre strategy, operations, human resource management, technology, customer service, channel management, outsourcing, key performance indicators and management challenges.

The report estimated the total industry seat size in the countries researched to be 5,76,000 seats and projected that the number would increase to 7,04,500 in 2007, up by 23 per cent per annum.

UNI