Cloud Adoption Driven by Senior Directors

Cloud adoption among contact centres is being driven by wider strategic business decision making at senior levels within the industry.

These are the findings of new research study entitled ‘Cloud as a Journey: The Reality of Cloud-based Solutions in UK Contact Centres’ commissioned by Genesys and carried out by contact centre expert ContactBabel.

The research, which surveyed 186 contact centres run by UK businesses, aimed to survey attitudes towards cloud technology in the industry.

The research found that strategic decision making at a senior or company-wide level was a ‘strong’ trigger in the adoption of cloud technology in around two-thirds (65%) of all cases. This was underlined by the finding that 90% of respondents said that CTOs had ‘considerable or great influence’ over decision making about adopting cloud technology, while 70% of people surveyed said the same about their CEO.

Benefits listed by respondents included quicker, cheaper IT maintenance and implementation (30% said it was the top benefit); speed of implementing changes and trialling new functionality (25%); easier integration (20%) and operating rather than capital expenditure (8%).

The report also showed an overall trend towards the large-scale adoption of cloud computing in the industry. While some concerns remain – almost one-third of respondents said data security was a concern – the majority are heading towards a cloud-enabled future, with 55% of respondents stating that their contact centre functionality would be cloud based by 2020.

“Cloud computing proved itself as a technology long ago. However, we are now seeing the strategic adoption of cloud, where it is being used to produce better business outcomes, increase profitability and future-proof contact centres,” said Keith Wilkinson, Vice President UK&I and Africa, at Genesys. “The wider business implications of cloud computing adoption also mean that other senior decision makers, such as the CEO and CFO, are now influencing the decision to move to the cloud. This marks a departure from previous years where decisions about technology rested firmly in the hands of the IT department.”

“The majority (51%) of contact centres have already implemented some form of cloud functionality, while around two-thirds of respondents stated that their contact centres will be entirely cloud based in around 5 years’ time,” said Steve Morrell, Analyst at ContactBabel. “As a result, the trend towards cloud adoption seems unstoppable for a large part of the contact centre industry.”

For more information about Genesys, visit their website.