Frost & Sullivan analyzes numerous companies in an industry. Those selected for further analysis based on their leadership or other distinctions are benchmarked across 10 Growth and Innovation criteria to reveal their position on the Frost Radar™. The publication presents competitive profiles of each company on the Frost Radar™ considering their strengths and the opportunities that best fit those strengths, as well as their market positioning. This Frost Radar™ reveals the positioning of the key companies in the North American (NA) customer experience management (CXM) industry using their Growth and Innovation scores as highlighted in the Frost Radar™ methodology.

The Growth Index is a measure of a company’s growth performance and track record, along with its ability to develop and execute a fully aligned growth strategy and vision; a robust growth pipeline system; and effective market, competitor, and end-user-focused sales and marketing strategies. The 5 key variables considered for this index are:

o GI1: Market Share (previous 3 years)
o GI2: Revenue Growth (previous 3 years)
o GI3: Growth Pipeline
o GI4: Vision and Strategy
o GI5: Sales and Marketing

The Innovation Index is a measure of a company’s ability to develop products, services, or solutions with a clear understanding of disruptive megatrends. These offerings are meant to be globally applicable, able to evolve and expand to serve multiple markets, and are aligned with customers’ changing needs. Key elements of this index include:

o II1: Innovation Scalability
o II2: Research and Development
o II3: Product Portfolio
o II4: Megatrends Leverage
o II5: Customer Alignment

Industry Definitions

This Radar examines the NA CXM industry. It shows data on outsourcing services alone, excluding operations performed in-house and in shared service centers. The NA sector revenue represents outsourcer revenue associated with customer interactions that originate in the United States or Canada, regardless of the fulfillment model. This includes onshore, nearshore, offshore, home-agent, automated, and technology-enabled fulfillment.

CXM is a subset of the much broader business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. This is usually defined as a business arrangement in which a company contracts an outside supplier to perform a service rather than carrying it out in-house. Services can range from handling customer interactions to complex back-office processes to managing the entire relationship between consumers and brands throughout the customer lifecycle. Suppliers specialize in dealing with high volumes of inbound and outbound customer interactions for customer care, retention, and acquisition; help desk; technical support; collections; and telemarketing/telesales for business clients.

Inclusion Criteria

While Frost & Sullivan analysis of this sector includes close to 200 service providers, this Frost Radar™ profiles the 21 more significant industry participants in market reach, user adoption, growth rates, product innovation, and customer experience (CX).

Frost & Sullivan considered several factors for a company to be included in this Frost Radar™, including:

o Local market presence and brand awareness. A company must demonstrate that it regularly sells and operates CX services.
o Brand awareness through comprehensive and consistent marketing programs. The company also assists in developing strong partnership opportunities for sales and product integrations.
o Total revenue. The company exhibits annual revenues of at least $300 million US dollars in sales for NA clients, regardless of the fulfillment region (onshore, nearshore, offshore).
o Local clients. The company should demonstrate that it has a minimum of 25 active NA clients in several industry verticals.
o Innovation initiatives. Participants must prove that they have several product development endeavors and that they have a significant impact in the marketplace.
o Ethical considerations. Participants must adhere to several environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards.

Out of the 21 industry participants included in this Frost Radar™, many of them engaged with our analysis team by providing both written commentary and a live briefing (Arise, Foundever, Infosys BPM, IntouchCX, HGS, ibex, Startek, TaskUs, Teleperformance, Transcom, and VXI Global Solutions). However, a couple of companies (Sutherland Global Services and Qualfon) chose not to actively participate, while some (Alorica, Concentrix, TELUS International, Conduent, Firstsource, Genpact, [24]7.ai, TTEC) only provided partial collaboration.