Getting the Mojo Working
WFM vendors will quickly gear up to serve a $1.2B market by 2004

By Paul Stockford

Writing about the Workforce Management (WFM) software industry would have been much easier 18 months ago. There were four players in the market using essentially the same approach, and the market was limited mostly to high-end enterprise contact centers and a few forward-thinking smaller contact centers.

As call centers have evolved into multichannel contact centers and multiskilled agents become the norm, managing agent resources has become more important than ever. Agents represent the first (and sometimes last) line of defense in the never-ending battle for customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty. As the range of skills gets ever more complex and specialized, managing this increasingly valuable human resource has become a critical success factor.

All this hasn't been lost on the entrepreneurs out there. There are at least eight U.S. companies dedicated to selling WFM software to a contact center industry that is weary of Internet hype, yet still eagerly interested in technologies that truly help meet the objective of world class customer service.

Now that the contact center industry has gotten over its Internet infatuation and “e-ness” envy, supervisors and managers are looking once again for the type of rock-solid products that helped create the momentum behind the industry's growth.

A High-Growth Market

For those not already familiar with WFM software, the products create and optimize agent schedules in contact centers of any size. WFM also spills over into other industries like transportation for scheduling airline flight and ground crews. The common thread is the need to schedule specific skill sets that keep the operation moving. The contact center industry, however, seems to offer the greatest potential for vendors of WFM software.

Over the past year, the number of WFM vendors in the U.S. market has more than doubled and competition is beginning to increase. The result of this new competition is just becoming apparent as market leadership changes, weaker companies disappear and new companies intensify their marketing efforts. What was once a small industry with a few dominant players is rapidly evolving into a high-growth market that will, according to data recently released by Saddletree Research, hit nearly $1.2 billion in revenues by 2004.

Ones to Watch

Just another startup with a funny name a couple of years ago, Blue Pumpkin Software of Sunnyvale, CA has emerged from the shadows of the larger companies to become, as far as I can tell, today's de facto WFM industry leader. Although privately held (which makes it difficult to determine market leadership from a revenue basis) it is apparent that Blue Pumpkin has become the company to beat. While Blue Pumpkin is clearly in the sights of many other vendors of WFM software, it has at its disposal a war chest full of new, innovative and proven products.

Expect some of the newer vendors, though, to get their 'mojo' working with some innovative ideas of their own. Keep an eye on Interactive Software Systems of Fort Lauderdale, FL. The company's e-FORCE software may prove to be a force to be reckoned with.

Same is true with ISC of New York. Don't be fooled by the harmless sounding name of its WFM product, Irene. The toughest student I ever had in my years of teaching martial arts happened to be a woman named, coincidentally, Irene. Don't turn your back on ISC's Irene, either.

The WFM software market promises to be one of high growth that will produce some of the high profile companies that we'll be talking about during the early part of this decade. Expect to see more competitors jump into the market, with an aim toward getting the lion's share of business in a market that has seen penetration rates into the customer base of less than 12 percent, according to Saddletree Research.

This won't be a market for the faint of heart, but with a compound annual growth rate in revenues of over 70 percent through the year 2004, it's enough to get anyone's mojo working.

Paul Stockford is president and chief analyst at Saddletree Research (saddletreeresearch.com). Readers may send comments to CIrespond@advanstar.com.