In a new report on the world workforce optimization (WFO) solutions market, DMG Consulting concludes that it’s “a pretty exciting time” right now.

DMG’s seventh annual Quality Management/Liability Recording WFO Product and Market Report forecasts that contact centers will continue to make substantial technology investments in 2011 and 2012. The WFO suite market is expected to grow by 7 percent in 2011, 6 percent in 2012, and 5.5 percent in 2013.

With a stronger market and increasing options, Donna Fluss, president of DMG, says it is even more important now for end users to select vendors that will cater to their individual contact center and IT needs. “Looking beyond the salesman” and prioritizing price, product functionality, future direction, and customer satisfaction rankings should factor into the end user’s ultimate vendor decision, she says.  

The 445-page report covers 18 vendors, addresses trends and challenges in the market, and features detailed product and company assessments for the top 13 leaders and contenders in the industry, including Aspect, Avaya, Calabrio, CallCopy, dvsAnalytics, Interactive Intelligence, KnoahSoft, NICE Systems, OAISYS, OnviSource, Verint Systems, Voiceprint International (VPI), and Zoom. Cybertech (which was recently acquired by NICE), Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, inContact, Nexidia, and UTOPY are assessed in substantial detail, as well. Analysts focused their research on the WFO suites, quality management, quality assurance, recording, coaching, and eLearning.

Fluss says the report took about three months and more than 1,000 manpower hours to compile. “The report makes it easy to see what’s in the marketplace,” she says. “I’ve been in this market for awhile and this is a pretty exciting time. There is a high amount of innovation and products continue to be introduced. It’s a buyer’s market.”

Other trends highlighted in the report include the following:

• The WFO market has recovered from the recession and 2011 is off to a strong start.
• Research and development spending on WFO suites are high and expected to increase as vendors invest in innovation and building suite synergies.
• Vendors are embedding workflow into their applications to make results easier and more actionable for end users to apply the findings.
• End users are demanding payment card industry-compliant applications from WFO vendors.
• Desktop analytics is gaining traction and expected to pick up momentum.
• An increasing number of contact center infrastructure vendors have entered the market with their own WFO suites.
• Vendors are offering more feature-rich WFO solutions for small to mid-size companies.
• End users in both large and small contact centers are pushing vendors to deliver hosted WFO and stand-alone applications.
• End users are increasingly interested in purchasing multiple applications from a single suite provider.