Research Overview

The year 2021 was pivotal for contact centers. Organizations grappled with the continual challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic while working to meet customer demand for efficient service and an improved customer experience (CX). The contact center and CX landscape was severely affected by the disruptions caused by the pandemic, which accelerated the digitalization of customer and supply-chain interactions and internal operations in Asia-Pacific (APAC).

The majority of contact centers operating in APAC today are running on legacy infrastructure and software that cannot keep up with customers’ digital needs. As the APAC Contact Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) market matures, many enterprise customers are exploring cloud technology as an attractive option to maintain on-premises systems.

Connecting the end-to-end customer and employee experience across multiple systems and geographies has created pressure on organizations to become agile, flexible, and scalable. Organizations want to engage with customers at every touch point of their journey through a digital-first approach; however, on-premises legacy contact center technologies limit the addition of new digital channels (e.g., social media, email, WhatsApp, WeChat) or integration of software applications (e.g., CRM, CMS, WFM systems, QM) and digital technology solutions (e.g., RPA, IVR, AI, ML, and analytics).