One of the hottest technology trends of the next few years appears to be cloud computing. According to Forrester Research, the cloud computing market is worth around $40 billion and is expected to grow to about $241 billion in the next 10 years. This quickly expanding technology may be very beneficial to call centers.

Cloud computing, also known as software as a service (SaaS) refers to the remote location of software computation. This means that rather than running computer programs from a device located on a company's premises, the software receives commands and executes functions from a remote source. Often, this source is a collection or "cloud" of multiple computers. To utilize cloud computing, companies pay for access to powerful computational devices.

Call centers often use a great deal of software for a variety of functions, including scheduling, call routing and interactive telephone menus. The decision to migrate to the cloud and surrender computation to remote services must be carefully made. When making financial calculations regarding this matter, call center managers must take into account that SaaS or cloud computation costs are regular payments to a subscription service. The subscription fees for this service ought to be weighed against the price of updating on-premise hardware every so often. It is also important to include Net Present Value in calculations to derive the true benefit of cloud computing adoption to a call center.