Pramod Ratwani, vice president for Asia Pacific at Concerto Software (formerly known as Davox Corporation) spoke to Punita Jasrotia about the growing needs of the Indian contact centre industry and the company's offerings and plans for the same

How, according to you, is the CRM market evolving in the APAC region?
While the effects of a worldwide slowdown were visible on the CRM industry, (with the success rate being just 20 percent in some areas) the APAC region fared considerably better. Economic uncertainties are forcing companies to look for customer interaction management (CIM) solutions to forge closer ties with their customers. According to the international market research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, India is the fastest growing market for contact centre systems in the Asia Pacific region, with a projected CAGR of 24 percent from the year 2000 to 2007.

Driving this growth is the IT-enabled sector, which provides around 35-40 percent of the growth opportunity. However, over the past few months, what has become significant is the emphasis on quality, with the pressure coming from the contact centres itself. This has put an additional pressure on companies—already reeling under competition from China and Philippines in terms of cost. The only way left is to go up the value chain while continuously delivering solutions at a competitive price.

Considering all the factors that you just stated, how is Concerto Software positioning itself?
In a short span of time, we have been able to gather a considerable market share and position ourselves as a total solutions provider for CIM solutions. Our solutions help companies to manage customer interactions more effectively. We have four key products: ContactPro, a comprehensive multi-channel contact centre solution providing a single platform that routes, monitors, records, reports and administers all contact centre interactions via telephone, e-mail, fax or the Web; Ensemble Customer Contact Suite, which provides critical functionality required to deliver premium customer service via the telephone; Unison Call Management System, a complete outbound customer contact solution, built on an open and scalable architecture that integrates easily with other existing systems and designed to automate proactive customer outreach activities like collections, telemarketing, and fund-raising; and LYRICall agent desktop solution, which enables developers to easily build and deploy scripts to guide agents through calls and call flow.

How important is India as a market for Concerto Software?
India is a very critical market for Concerto, as it is also the second highest revenue earner outside the US. In India, we hold a market leadership position in CIM solution garnering 74 percent of the market share, which accounts for 25-30 percent of the market share in the APAC region. In 2001-02, we did a business of Rs 100 million. Though India is a nascent market for us, the growth opportunity is immense. Its high potential and price competitiveness—-compared to markets like China and Korea—are its key features.

Considering this, the past few months have seen a lot of strategic tie-ups with companies like IBM Global Services (to deliver packaged contact centre solutions) and (Wipro computer telephony interface product) to strengthen our position in the market. Outside US, India is the first country where we have successfully deployed 'EnsemblePro' at ZENTA Technologies. EnsemblePro 5.0 has been created to incorporate the functionality required by multimedia contact centres—including ACD, predictive dialing, IVR, e-mail, Web chat and collaboration, universal queuing, recording and reporting. This solution would enable Concerto Software to reach a broader base of potential customers as it greatly reduces complexity and accommodates the diverse requirements of both new and existing contact centres.

What are Concerto's future plans for India?
While call centres will remain our priority in the Indian market, we are also planning to introduce some entry-level products in this space. In addition to this, we plan to set up separate channel networks for Delhi and Mumbai and also plan to aggressively tap smaller cities. This year will see an increased focus on alliances and certifications.

In terms of our expansion plans, we would be soon setting up operations in Middle East, which would be managed by the Indian operations. Besides this, we would also be expanding our presence in countries like Australia, China, Korea and Philippines. While presently South East Asia forms 30 percent of the company's growth share, we are expecting to increase it to 50 percent in the coming years.