IVR Technology Solutions

This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to IVR Vendors and custom IVR software and products. Business phone systems and toll free answering systems (generally 800 numbers and their equivalent) are very popular for service and sales organizations, allowing customers and prospects to call your organization anywhere in the country. The PACER and WIZARD IVR System is just one of many DSC call center phone system features..

What is Interactive Voice Response?. An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) processes inbound phone calls, plays recorded messages including information extracted from databases and the internet, and potentially routes calls to either inhouse service agents or transfers the caller to an outside extension.

Contact DSC today. to learn more about our IVR services and IVR application development software.

BY Datamonitor

According to Datamonitor speech technology, already widely embraced by businessesworldwide, is poised for further success and revenue growth.

A report by Datamonitor, "Voice Business Value Chain II," predicts that theglobal voice business market will grow from a value of USD656 million in 2002 toUSD3.1 billion in 2008, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30percent. Enabling software will account for the biggest portion of the voicebusiness pie over the next two years. Nevertheless, Datamonitor expects the valueand therefore revenue mix to shift up the value chain through 2008, focusing moreon the applications and services segments, and less on the platforms and enablingsoftware segments, which are trending towards commoditisation.

While The Americas and Europe will represent the largest geographic markets forvoice business, Asia Pacific is set to grow at a CAGR of 41 percent between2002-2008, almost doubling as a proportion of the global market in terms ofrevenue. In fact, Datamonitor says China is well poised to become the fourthlargest market after the US, UK and Germany.

According toDatamonitor, the applications segment will become the biggest portion of voicebusiness by 2008, representing 32 percent of total revenues. This segment willattract growing interest from players currently focused on other aspects ofspeech solutions, and many of them, such as SpeechWorks, Intervoice, andSyntellect, are already trying to further expand their reach into theapplications space.

While the customised applications subsegment will continue to grow at a healthyrate, Datamonitor expects a surge in the "packaged" applications subsegment.

Voice business services will be one of the fastest growing value chain segmentsthrough 2008, with a CAGR (2002-2008) of 35 percent. Large system integrators(SIs) still remain largely under the radar, but have begun to ramp up theirinvestment in speech expertise. Large SIs are inherently well positioned toaccelerate growth of the voice business market overall, due to their strongbrand, existing relationships with large enterprises, and experience withlarge-scale multi-channel projects. Smaller SIs and consulting companies willalso experience growth, and the most successful will be those that focus on nicheverticals or solutions.

The development of standards has created a new market opportunity, as it ischanging the way enterprises think about self-service solutions. This has placedpressure on traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) vendors to rethink theviability of the proprietary technologies business model.

Historically, proprietary systems meant that components of a voice solution werelocked in, thus promoting bundling of products and services along proprietarylines. The move to standards will allow partners and customers to increasingly beable to choose best-of-breed speech technologies without fear of costlyintegration or loss of advanced functionality.

While Datamonitor expects the transition to standards to continue, the presentchange in emphasis is aspirational. Although the demise of proprietary languagesis an eventuality, deployments in the market are still far from beingstandards-dominated. Moreover, Datamonitor expects traditional IVR vendors tointroduce standards-based platforms going forward.

Datamonitor expects large systems integrators and technology vendors likeMicrosoft, IBM, and HP to increase their prominence in the voice business marketover the next two years. This will cause a change in the voice businesscommunity, in both competitive structure and prominence of the voice businessindustry in general. "Vendors must watch for downward pricing pressure,diversify their revenue streams, and determine their partnership strategy withthese large players," says Katherine Lam.

Datamonitor's report, "Voice Business Value Chain II," examines the valuechain associated with network-based speech technologies and services. The reportsizes and forecasts supply-side revenues by value chain segment (platforms,enabling software, applications and services). It examines customer issues,competitive dynamics, and future trends that will shape the industry, and makes recommendations for vendors. Regions covered in the report include the Americas(Brazil, Canada, Mexico, US, Other Americas), Europe (France, Germany, Italy,Nordic region, Spain/Portugal, UK, Other Europe and Asia Pacific (Australia/NewZealand, China/Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Other Asia Pacific).