South African contact centres, while lagging those in much of the rest of the world, are reaching a cloud adoption tipping point, says Andre le Roux, African region MD for Interactive Intelligence.
Le Roux says that globally, Interactive Intelligence saw only around 10% of its revenue from cloud-based solutions five years ago, with 90% related to on-premise solutions. "Now, the ratio is around 50:50," he says. He says the same trend emerging in SA, albeit 12 to 18 months later.
"We are having a lot more conversations with local contact centres about cloud solutions," he says. "Eighty percent of those now looking to the cloud have existing on-premise contact centres, and are considering migrating, often at a time when their hardware is due for a refresh.
"Interestingly, we are also seeing indications that regions such as Nigeria and Ethiopia might move ahead of the adoption curve. Nigeria, as the largest economy in Africa, looks set to significantly expand its contact centres and might leapfrog directly to the cloud. In countries like Ethiopia, there are indications that legislation might in future force financial institutions to open their own contact centres where they currently have none, which also presents the possibility that companies will move directly to the cloud."
The main drivers locally are the fact that contact centres hosted in the cloud don't require in-house resources to maintain and manage the hardware and software, and that cloud-based solutions offer rapid scalability for peak times, says Le Roux.
"So in busy months, you can simply add seats as needed, and you only pay for what you use. Also, companies are leaning towards an Opex model and looking to simplify their costs and licencing, which cloud allows them to do."
Le Roux will be among the speakers at the upcoming Contact Centre in the Cloud Executive Forum in Johannesburg and Durban, which will address global contact centre cloud adoption, the pros and cons of cloud solutions for contact centres, and issues such as migration and ROI. For more information about this event, click here.
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