Now is the time for forward-focused contact centers to scale up their IT in the cloud.

 PULLING TOGETHER ONLY summary data won’t give you what you need to understand complex patterns and correlations that show how customer needs are being met.

Cloud computing makes it cost-effective.

Contact centers of any size or budget can profit from high-performance computing power and data storage to aggregate huge quantities of data and predict outcomes.

 Renting computer power in the cloud has been steadily taking off with the rise of cognitive technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and with open source software.

This has spurred "multi-cloud and hybrid environments for enterprises to create a more agile and cost-effective IT environment," finds Ashutosh Bisht, International Data Corporation (IDC) Consumer Insights & Analysis.

 Marketers need data in the “age of assistance” to be “seen, smart and speedy,” think with Google. There are massive amounts of priceless, raw data to be analyzed, categorized, managed and turned into meaningful experiences that have monetary value, think with Google.

 By employing the power of the cloud, growth-focused contact centers can scale up their technology to deliver curated experiences (curated cx) across multiple devices and touchpoints.

 Telecom, SaaS, ERM and CRM forecast to see largest public cloud spending.

 IDC FORECASTS THE telecom industry will see the second fastest growth rate for public cloud spending worldwide, expected to have a 23.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the 2016-2021 forecast period, IDC Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide.

 Software as a Service (SaaS) is forecast to be the largest computing category, accounting for "two-thirds of all public spending in 2018."

 Enterprise resource management (ERM) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications "will see the most spending in 2018, followed by collaborative applications and content applications." 

Good news for forward thinking-contact center pros who want to use cognitive technologies and data analytics to deliver curated cx in the age of assistance.