Avaya expects five-fold jump in its PDS share

Avaya GlobalConnect Limited (AGL) is targeting a five-fold jump in its share of the predictive dialling system (PDS) to 25 per cent by 2005, a market that is estimated by Frost and Sullivan to reach $7.4 million by then.

"The new Avaya PDS has enhanced software and hardware features that brings to customers the best of breed technologies. We are using experts from the US and creating more awareness about the benefits of PDS usage among our customers," said Bill Pennabaker, international sales manager, predictive dialling applications, Avaya Communication.

The company is the global leader in the PDS market with a 26 per cent market share, according to Frost and Sullivan.

"According to Datamonitor in 2002, the in-bound market was 84 per cent and the out-bound market was 16 per cent. This figure is scheduled to change in 2007 when the out-bound market will touch 19 per cent with the in-bound market constituting the rest," Pennabaker said, at a forum on 'Optimisation of Outbound Contact Centres' in Chennai today.

AGL will introduce the Indian version 13 in two phases between April and September 2005.

AGL's PDS solution is a proactive contact management solution that the company claims increases live connects for outbound calls eliminating up to 97 per cent of busy signals and helps call centres reduce the number of abandoned calls.

"There are nuisance calling and do not call legislations in the US, UK and Germany where the number of abandoned calls can be only three per cent of the total outbound calls. Each abandoned call after the set limit can cost the company $750 as a fine in the US. Our system reduces the number of abandoned calls drastically by delivering more calls to the desktop," Pennabaker added.

The ICRM market, which counts PDS as one of the segments, is likely to grow at a CAGR of 25.2 per cent to $149.6 million by 2008, according to the latest market engineering research report for the Indian ICRM market 2000-10 of Frost and Sullivan.

The report covers 10 segments including automatic call distributor (ACD), out-bound systems, IVR, voice messaging, email management, call monitoring, workforce management, CTI-enabling, speech technology and real-time web collaboration markets. AGL is the leader in the Indian ICRM market with a 52 per cent market share.

Avaya is a joint venture partner in Tata Telecom. It increased its stake to 51 per cent following which it was renamed AGL. The company has invested $1 million in a research and development centre in Pune which also offers tech support to its India customers.