Wainhouse Research Report Uncovers Emerging Gap In Large Conference Calls & Webcast Event Market

NEW YORK, May 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Wainhouse Research, an independent market research firm that focuses on critical issues in the Unified Communications and rich media conferencing fields, today released a new research report titled, "Navigating the Emerging Gap in Large Conference Calls & Webcast Event Solutions." The whitepaper is sponsored by Cinchcast, a leading provider of cloud-based solutions for enterprise conference calls and webcasts.

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Large conference calls and webcasts are used by companies of all sizes. As adoption continues to increase, a large gap in price and features and functionality between traditional, full-service, operator-assisted event services and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) self-service alternatives has emerged.

To gain an understanding of the characteristics and magnitude of this emerging gap from the user's perspective, Wainhouse Research conducted an online survey of more than 150 large conference call and web event producers.  The research report summarizes the state of event solutions, discusses user preferences based on survey data, and reveals why this gap is forming and the solutions that are emerging to fill the gap.  The report also offers Wainhouse Research's criteria for success that enterprises can use to reevaluate their event solution providers.

"The $7 billion conference calling and webcasting market is a fast growing market that is undergoing its largest transformation in 15 years," said Marc Beattie, report co-author and Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research. "A new breed of event-oriented service providers are emerging that offer the flexibility to best match each event with the appropriate degree of managed vs. DIY services. Critical to success is finding a single provider that addresses the critical user needs and challenges revealed in the survey."

Key study findings reveal:

• 90% of the respondents using full-service solutions indicate that having one provider to deal with is highly valued.
• A majority of event producers employ a mix of full-service and self-service solutions; yet seek to minimize hassles by having one provider to deal with.
• Event producers are experiencing challenges with existing solutions. The following pain points rank as either a major or medium issue: streaming audio performance, timeliness of event reports and archives, overbooking capacity, problems with downloads, inaccuracies in the participant list or collected data, and the requirement to book events too far in advance.
• Event producers who use full-service solutions for a portion of their events are very interested in a self-managing parts of the events process.
• Features that help streamline the process of getting participants into the event score highly.
  
  

The need to manage cost-related items including straight-forward pricing and avoiding charges for unused services resonated with the survey respondents.

Commenting on the report, Alan Levy, CEO of Cinchcast stated, "The value of conference calls and webcasts has become well-proven and widespread adoption continues to grow but not without any challenges. The market for large-scale events like investor relations, analyst calls, marketing events, training and eLearning has been led by a handful of service providers. The result, high prices and little to no innovation."

To download a copy of the comprehensive report, http://budurl.com/WainhousePaper.

On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 at 1 PM Eastern Time, WR Sr. Analysts Marc Beattie and Andy Nilssen, the paper authors, will review research findings and take your questions via live Q&A. Register to join this web seminar here: http://budurl.com/WainhouseWebinar.

About Cinchcast
Cinchcast enables companies to connect and communicate with the people that are most important to their business, while saving time and money. Cinchcast Connect, a patented, cloud-based platform, powers conference calls and webcasts for the leading companies in the world. By streamlining and simplifying the event, meeting and content creation process, Cinchcast helps executives, marketing and communications professionals, meeting and event planners, HR leaders, content creators, and online training specialists enhance their internal and external communications. Cinchcast is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit http://www.cinchcast.com.

About Wainhouse Research
Wainhouse Research is an independent analyst firm that focuses on critical issues in the unified communications and collaboration market. The company provides 6 different vendor subscriptions covering unified communications, group videoconferencing, personal & web-based collaboration, audio conferencing, streaming & webcasting, and distance education & e-Learning solutions, as well as a single all-inclusive subscription for enterprise users. The company acts as a trusted advisor providing strategic advice and direction for both the UC&C industry and its enterprise users. For further details contact sales@wainhouse.com or see http://www.wainhouse.com.

For more information, please contact:
David Bray
david@dbraymedia.com
(917)685-2841

SOURCE Cinchcast