ICT Group Inc. - Call Centers - Category Main Page 
800-799-6880

100 Brandywine Boulevard
Newtown, PA 18940

www.ictgroup.com

Sales

$298 million

ICT Group, Inc.  is a leading global provider of outsourced business services solutions. The Company provides a comprehensive mix of sales, service, marketing and business services outsourcing solutions. ICT’s comprehensive, balanced mix of outsourced solutions includes call centers, inbound and outbound sales and customer acquisition, customer care and retention, cross-selling/up-selling, and technical support/help desk services as well as market research, database marketing and analysis.

ICT also offers a comprehensive suite of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) technologies, which are available on a hosted basis, for use by clients at their own in-house facilities, or on a co-sourced basis, in conjunction with the Company’s fully compatible, Web-enabled call centers. These technologies include: automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR) and advanced speech recognition, contact management, automated e-mail management and processing, sales force and marketing automation, alert notification and Web self-help, for the delivery of consistent, quality customer care across multiple channels. The Company’s internet address is www.ictgroup.com .

ICT’s Services

ICT delivers its customer management solutions through two business segments that are supported by the Company-wide sales, marketing, IT and corporate support units. The Domestic segment provides inbound and outbound telesales as well as marketing research services, database marketing services, technology hosting services and ongoing customer care management services on behalf of customers operating in the Company’s target industries. The International segment provides the same services to Europe, Canada, Mexico and Australia, and includes operations supporting the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets. This segment also includes business from ICT’s operations centers in Barbados and the Philippines, which provide cost-effective, near-shore and offshore sales and service support for clients. A portion of the International segment’s assets and capital expenditures are used to provide services and generate revenue for the Domestic segment. The operating income of the Domestic segment is also impacted as the depreciation and amortization of these assets remains with the International segment. ICT’s sales force and operating units are organized according to geography and vertical industry sectors, enabling the Company to provide highly specialized sales, service and marketing support for their clients’ full range of outsourced customer management needs and administrative business services. A further discussion of the Domestic and International segments are set forth in Note 9 to the consolidated financial statements.

Domestic Segment

The Company’s Domestic segment is comprised of the following business units. These units are supported by facilities in the U.S., which are managed directly as well as from facilities managed by operations in the International segment.

TeleServices. TeleServices provides telesales support activities primarily for clients in the insurance, financial services and telecommunications industries. This unit is supported by contact centers located throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Barbados and the Philippines.

Customer Care Management Services. This business unit was established to pursue outsourcing opportunities for customer care management across a broad range of industry markets. Depending on client needs, ICT will assume sole or shared responsibilities for the management of a client’s customer care operations. As of December 31, 2003, this business unit operated contact centers in Lakeland, Florida, Spokane, Washington and Colorado Springs, Colorado and was supported by contact centers located in Canada and the Philippines.

Financial Marketing Services. This business unit’s management team consists of professionals who have client-side banking experience. As of December 31, 2003, ICT Financial Marketing Services operated dedicated inbound/outbound contact centers in Amherst, New York, Morrilton, Arkansas and Conway, Arkansas and was supported by contact centers located in Canada and the Philippines.

Medical Marketing Services. Through this business unit, ICT provides service for the increasingly complex needs of healthcare and pharmaceutical clients. This unit is staffed by dedicated personnel to meet the sophisticated product and customer profiles of specific clients. As of December 31, 2003, ICT Medical Marketing Services operated dedicated contact centers in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Langhorne, Pennsylvania.

Research and Database Marketing Services. This business unit provides businesses across a wide range of industries with value added market research and database marketing services. As of December 31, 2003, this unit conducted surveys primarily from its center in Depew, New York and was supported by a research center in Canada.

Technology Services. This business unit provides a comprehensive suite of CRM technologies including IVR and advanced speech recognition solutions. This unit’s services are available on a hosted basis for use by clients at their own in-house facilities or on a co-sourced basis in conjunction with ICT’s fully compatible, state-of-the-art customer contact centers.

International Segment

The Company offers multilingual sales and customer care support services through six business units comprising ICT International Services. These units include:

Eurotel. Eurotel provides pan-European, multilingual teleservices and customer care services to Europe from its contact centers in Athlone, Ireland, Dublin, Ireland and London, England.

Spantel. Spantel provides bi-lingual English and Spanish teleservices from its Nogales, Arizona contact centers to the rapidly growing marketplace of Spanish-speaking American consumers and businesses and provides similar services from its contact center in Mexico City to the Mexican market.

Canada. Canada provides telesales and customer care support via service representatives who are fluent in French and/or English. As of December 31, 2003, Canada has contact centers located in Miramichi, Moncton and Riverview, New Brunswick, Canada; Lower Sackville, New Glasgow and Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada; Cornerbrook, Carbonear and St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada; and Lindsay, Woodstock and Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.

Australia. This unit provides telesales and customer care support for multinational companies in the Pacific Rim. As of December 31, 2003, Australia operated two contact centers in Sydney, Australia.

Barbados. This unit provides telesales support for existing and prospective clients serving consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. from its contact center in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Philippines. This unit provides sales and service support for existing and prospective clients serving consumers in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia from its contact center in Manila, Philippines.

ICT Approach:

ICT believes that it has distinguished itself in the industry by having a balanced growth strategy, vertical market and customer-centric focus, comprehensive portfolio of services, and substantial resources to support future expansion. The Company continues to expand its worldwide network of state-of-the-art operations centers in order to deliver globally integrated, multi-channel sales, service and administrative support solutions to meet the specific needs of its clients.

With extensive experience providing outsourced business services, the Company is well-positioned for continued growth in a large and growing market. By leveraging its experienced management team, proven business model, global infrastructure, operating and technology investments, and expertise in target industries, ICT intends to advance its position as a leading global supplier of integrated outsourced services solutions by:

• Adding Services That Leverage Infrastructure. Large multinational companies are looking for a larger complement of services from their external service providers. ICT plans to develop new services to expand opportunities with both existing clients and prospective clients. These services include IVR and speech recognition, value-added marketing services and a variety of administrative support business services.

• Increasing International Presence. The Company plans to broaden its geographic reach and further develop its position in international markets by focusing on businesses with multinational operations. ICT currently provides services to customers in the United States, Europe, Mexico, Canada and Australia. ICT intends to expand its operations in these areas, as well as explore additional geographic markets in Latin and South America, Europe and Asia.

• Developing Strategic Alliances and Acquisitions. ICT intends to continue pursuing strategic alliances with, and acquisitions of, domestic and international businesses that provide complementary outsourced business services.

• Maintaining Technology Investment. The Company intends to continue making substantial investments in technology to maintain its technological strength. ICT has been an industry leader in the implementation of innovative CRM technologies to lower its effective cost per contact and to improve its sales and customer service. The Company has made significant investments in information and communications technologies and the Company believes it was among the first to offer fully automated CRM services, collaborative web browsing services and to implement predictive dialing equipment.

• Continuing Commitment to Quality Service. ICT has consistently emphasized quality service and extensive employee training by investing in quality assurance personnel and procedures. The Company intends to continue its commitment to providing quality service, as illustrated by its achieving the new ISO 9001:2000 certification in 2003. This certification replaced the previous designation: ISO 9002, which the Company had maintained in 2002 and in prior recent years.

• Expanding Into New Vertical Markets. ICT has consistently dedicated part of its sales, marketing, and operations resources to enter new vertical markets. ICT will pursue opportunities both directly as well as through strategic relationships to provide contact center, CRM technology, administrative support services and value-added marketing services to these markets.

Operations Facilities

The following table lists the Company’s operating facilities as of December 31, 2003

Locations

Conway, AR; Morrilton, AR; Nogales, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Lakeland, FL; Louisville, KY; Oxford, ME; Wilton, ME; Amherst, NY; Depew, NY; Lancaster, OH; Allentown, PA; Bloomsburg, PA; Burnham, PA; Dubois, PA; Langhorne, PA; Lockhaven, PA; Trevose, PA; Chesapeake, VA; Spokane, WA; Kearneysville, WV; Parkersburg, WV; Westover, WV; Carbonear, Newfoundland, Canada; Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, Canada; St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada; Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada; Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada ; Riverview, New Brunswick, Canada; Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada; Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada; Lindsay, Ontario, Canada; Peterborough, Ontario, Canada; Woodstock, Ontario, Canada Athlone, Ireland; Dublin, Ireland; Bellmullet, Ireland; London, U.K.; Sydney, Australia (2); Bridgetown, Barbados; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, Philippines

Target Industries

ICT’s domestic sales force is assigned to specific industry sectors, which enables its sales personnel to develop in-depth industry and product knowledge. Several of the industries that ICT serves are undergoing deregulation and consolidation, which provides the Company with additional opportunities as businesses search for low cost solutions for their marketing, sales and customer support needs. The industries targeted by the Company and the principal services provided are described below.

Financial Services

ICT provides banks and other financial services clients with a wide range of services, including card-holder acquisition, active account generation, account balance transfer, account retention and customer service. ICT’s Financial Marketing Services operations offers banking services, such as marketing and servicing home equity loans, lines of credit, loan-by-phone, checking and deposit account acquisition, mortgage loans and other traditional banking products. Among ICT’s financial services clients in 2003 are GMAC Mortgage, Capital One, Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Barclays and Lloyds.

Insurance

ICT works with large insurance companies to market and provide sales and customer support services for products such as life, accident, health, and property and casualty insurance. The Company has a full-service agent-licensing department and a continuing education department, which enables the Company and its agents to obtain licenses in 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and 8 Canadian provinces and to maintain their compliance with insurance regulations. Insurance clients in 2003 include, but are not limited to, Aegon, Prudential and Sears Life Alliance.

Telecommunications

ICT provides teleservices and customer care management services for major telecommunications companies for long distance, cellular and cable products and services, regional telecommunications companies, and companies which provide billing support services to telecommunications carriers. Within the telecommunications industry, ICT clients in 2003 include, but are not limited to, Verizon, Integretel, Virgin Mobile USA, Rogers Wireless/AT&T and SBC.

Pharmaceuticals and Health Care Services

The Company, through its Medical Marketing Services business unit, serves pharmaceutical manufacturers, health insurance companies, and other health care related suppliers, for the sale and marketing of products to both health care professionals (hospitals, physicians, pharmacists and nurses) and health care consumers (patients and prospective patients). The services the Company offers in this market segment consist of business-to-business, business-to-professional and business-to-consumer, utilizing inbound and outbound services to sell products, to conduct market research, develop marketing databases and provide customer care service. Clients in this category in 2003 include, but are not limited to, Pfizer, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Therasense.

Computer Technology and Consumer Electronics Products and Services

ICT provides sales and service support for clients in the computer technology and consumer electronics industries. These applications include, but are not limited to, customer service, first-level customer technical support and customer retention. Clients within this vertical industry in 2003 include, but are not limited to, AOL, VTech and Panasonic.

Clients

The Company generally operates under month-to-month contractual relationships with its teleservices clients. The pricing component of a contract is often comprised of a base service charge and separate charges for ancillary services. Services are generally based upon an hourly rate for outbound calls and per-minute rates for inbound calls. On occasion, the Company performs services for which it is paid incentives based on completed sales. ICT’s customer care clients typically enter into longer term, contractual relationships that may contain provisions for early contract terminations.

ICT targets those companies which it believes have the greatest potential to generate recurring revenue to the Company based on their ongoing direct sales and customer service needs. At December 31, 2003, ICT provided direct sales, market research and customer service to approximately 170 clients.

Competition

The CRM services industry is very competitive and the Company’s principal competition in its primary markets comes from large service organizations, including, but not limited to, SITEL Corporation, Sykes Enterprises, TeleTech Holdings, Inc., APAC TeleService, Inc. and West Corporation. The Company competes with numerous independent firms, some of which are as large or larger than ICT, as well as the in-house operations of many of its clients or potential clients. In addition, many businesses that are significant consumers of these services utilize more than one service firm at a time and may reallocate work among various firms from time to time. Some of this work is contracted on an individual project basis, with the effect that the Company and other firms seeking such business are required to compete with each other frequently as individual projects are initiated. Furthermore, the Company believes there is a trend among businesses toward outsourcing the management of their contact centers to new competitors, some of which may be substantially larger and better capitalized than ICT.
 

Ticker

ICTG

SIC Code

7389 - Services-Business Services, NEC