Telephone Call Centers Industry Profile

Companies in this industry operate telephone call centers that provide telemarketing, customer care, and other outsourced business services on a contract basis. Major companies include Convergys, Sitel, and West (all based in the US), as well as Infosys (India) and Teleperformance (France).

The global market for call center services accounts for about $150 billion in annual revenue. Increased outsourcing of business services could help expand the industry to more than $300 billion in annual revenue by 2018, according to Global Industry Analysts.

The US telephone call center industry includes about 4,200 companies with combined annual revenue of about $16 billion. Low growth is forecast for the next two years. Key growth challenges for the US industry include increased foreign competition and government regulation.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand is largely driven by consumer spending and business activity. The profitability of individual companies depends on efficiency of operations. Big companies have the scale to provide services to large corporate customers. Small companies can compete successfully for small and midsized customers because there are few economies of scale. The industry is concentrated: the top 50 companies account for about 55 percent of revenue.

The industry has been sharply affected in recent years by regulatory controls on telemarketing practices and strong competition from offshore operators.

PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Major services are telemarketing sales, customer care, technical support, and call answering. Smaller companies generally specialize in one of these ...