Contact center outsourcing offers businesses several advantages such as cost savings, business flexibility, and access to skilled talent, the best-in-class technology, and a mix of locations and delivery models. Also, outsourcing helps reduce the cost and risk exposure to businesses, and protects companies from industry, economic, and political uncertainties, thus allowing companies to be more flexible and responsive to the changing economic and market conditions.

As customer interaction is rapidly shifting from traditional channels to digital channels, the multi-channel customer experience has become a strategic priority. Contact centers are heavily investing in the omni-channel infrastructure to deliver non-voice services through digital channels including email, webchat, and social media among others. Artificial intelligence-powered chatbots are becoming more popular, as they have the potential to eliminate the heavy dependence of the contact center industry on human labor.

In the wake of these changes, the Australian contact center outsourcing market is undergoing a transformation. In 2018, Australia reported a decline of negative 2.3% in its contact center market revenue; a further decline is expected with revenue reaching $0.81 billion by 2025.

Australia continues to be an expensive market to operate in; the average salary of an agent employed in Australia is higher than that of agents employed in neighboring APAC countries. Therefore, countries are vying to establish themselves as an outsourcing destination for Australian firms. Apart from India and the Philippines, countries such as South Africa, Malaysia, Fiji, and even Congo have been marketing themselves in this aspect.?

Several mergers and acquisitions have taken place within the contact center industry in 2018 to drive geographic expansion and portfolio enhancement. Improving automation capabilities, and developing AI and cloud technology are other key reasons for industry consolidation.

This study provides forecasts for the contact center outsourcing market by industry vertical, namely banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), consumer retail, information and communication technology, telecommunications, travel and hospitality, and others. The top 3 contributing sectors towards Australian revenue in 2018 were BFSI, telecom, and technology.

This study also highlights the contact center market revenue based on domestic outsourcing and offshore outsourcing forecasts. It covers market sizing based on forecasts for seats for 2014–2025. Various market drivers and restraints along with their impact on short- and long-term growth of the market are also discussed in this study.