Western European Conferencing Services Market

This Frost & Sullivan research service titled Western European Conferencing Services Market provides an in-depth analysis of industry challenges, market drivers and restraints against a backdrop of the financial turmoil. It also provides overall revenues for the base year 2008 and revenue forecasts to 2014 for each of the market segments. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the following technologies: audio, video and web conferencing.

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Market Overview

Economic Downturn Drives Conferencing Services Market in Western Europe

The market for conferencing services in Europe remains a place of both opportunity and challenge with a complex picture emerging out of regional differences of legacy, new technology and media-type adoption across the continent. Challenges such as decreased investment capital, the lack of seamless interoperability and a slowing trend of outsourcing conferencing services will likely be countered by a need to connect with people quickly, efficiently and on-demand, as well as the need to significantly reduce travel expenses.

"The more mature markets of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (GFU), the Nordic countries, and the Benelux region are likely to continue exhibiting strong, overall demand for audio and web conferencing", says the analyst of this research. "The markets in Rest of Western Europe (RWE) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are poised to claim an expanding share of the overall market in revenue terms, creating growth opportunities for service providers, who are looking at expansion opportunities." The need to stay in touch with employees scattered around the country, or even the world is driving market growth. Enterprises are looking for rapid and efficient ways of connecting, without the need to spend money on costly travel. This is providing a fillip to the adoption of conferencing services.

Intensifying Competition and Decreased Investments Pose Threat to Market Development

In spite of optimistic growth forecasts, the conferencing services market in Western Europe is faced with several challenges, of which intensifying competition between service providers and decreased investments are most important. The financial crisis is delaying investments in the conferencing services market as businesses are now inclined to spend money on more pressing issues; limited operating expenditures (OPEX) is forcing companies to reduce spending on conferencing services, as maintaining them generally requires expensive professional support. "The presence of telcos, independent providers, local conferencing companies, and large software companies in the conferencing services market is creating fierce competition among those who offer such services in Western Europe," remarks the analyst of this research. "Range of service offerings, price, quality, and the redundancy of services are among the most important competitive factors."

Service providers entering the emerging markets in the RWE and CEE regions will need to be able to create an appropriate combination of global service platform and technologies with a sensitive approach to the needs of localisation. Investments in in-country sales and support and language capabilities will be critical even as companies need to recognise the realities of potentially very different attitudes to commercial agreements. In the more developed regions of Western Europe, the challenges facing service providers will become more intense as industry consolidation progresses and the competition for enterprise communications between IT participants and the providers of basic hosted services increases. "Regardless of how a market region is developed, service providers should focus on a greater integration of the synchronous conferencing technologies of audio, web and video with asynchronous collaboration of workspaces, wikis, and shared databases," concludes the analyst. "Such rich collaboration will allow market participants to defend themselves against declining prices."

Market Sectors

Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research:

• Audio conferencing
• Video conferencing
• Web conferencing
• Unified communication and collaboration

Technologies

The following technologies are covered in this research:

• Audio conferencing
• Video conferencing
• Web conferencing
• Telepresence