The Channel has always been in a state of transition as new technologies and opportunities collide with ever-evolving business demands. CPaaS is not a new term for the market, but many partners are still trying to work out what the technology means for their businesses and how they should react.
According to IDC, The CPaaS market will be worth $10.9 billion by 2022. Since the beginning of 2020 businesses have been scrutinising their communications estates more than ever. Driven by a global pandemic, communications has often become a disparate mix of applications and services which are both insecure and inefficient. As we look forwards into 2021 and beyond, the optimisation of our workspaces will continue to be front of mind for technology buyers.
Here is what our Channel experts had to say.
Is CPaaS a Channel Opportunity in 2021?
Mike Mills, Head of Cloud & Infrastructure Channel Sales at Gamma, said:
“In my opinion, it is skills dependent. Most CPaaS providers require software development expertise to consume the service so unless the partner has invested in that as a point of differentiation then they are going to struggle. It does not mean to say that they should not be considering it though”
Simon Horton, VP of Sales, Europe at Sangoma, commented:
“It potentially can be, but CPaaS being a channel opportunity needs some context. CPaaS, itself, means essentially selling use of APIs, which are typically charged by usage. Applications written with CPaaS access these APIs (and in turn specific functions the application has asked to do) during execution of the application they’ve written. This application ‘goes and gets the resources’ the API asks for via the cloud.
The reason CPaaS is a hot topic these days is because using them is easy, and one can add in voice or SMS to an already existing application relatively inexpensively. For example, one might want to add text messaging to an appointment application from say a dentist or hairdresser.
When talking about CPaaS being a channel opportunity we are really talking about the applications that run on CPaaS. So, if you are already selling cloud services, and used to selling in a model of recurring revenue, then yes, CPaaS could be a channel opportunity for you in 2021.”
Nick Dicksee, CPaaS Specialist Lead, Avaya UK&I, said:
“Yes, very much so. However, it does depend on the CPaaS ecosystem that is offered. CPaaS solutions offering packaged applications that can be easily configured, deployed and supported give Channels a capability to get to know CPaaS then decide if they want to invest in, and develop, their own cost of sale apps. They have an opportunity of not getting left behind by some larger Channels who may have teams of Developers available and they are able to build a transformation proposition into their customer base. Avaya OneCloud CPaaS offers Channels this rich capability of pre-packaged and build-your-own.”
(pictured, left to right) Mike Mills, Nick Dicksee, Simon Horton
What are the Major Barriers to Partners Selling CPaaS?
Nick Dicksee, Avaya UK&I, said:
“In many situations, positioning CPaaS will almost be like pushing on an open door. Partners should understand the capabilities of what CPaaS can offer: primarily it is to provide communications capabilities into business applications and processes”
“How best to approach those conversations with organisations who have not integrated their applications (for example) into their customer experience platforms?
“If anything, the pandemic has forced organisations to look at digital transformation and utilising self-service and automation capabilities – not only to meet customer demands but to help their human resources focus on the critical customer situations with time to be supportive and empathetic. In order to successfully position and sell CPaaS solutions it is important to understand the business challenges, work closely with your CPaaS partner on solutions and ensure those solutions deliver value throughout the lifecycle.”
Simon Horton, Sangoma, commented: “You are selling a service, one that is recurring. So as a channel partner, there wouldn’t be a “make a big deal” and get the revenue from the enterprise all at once, then sell maintenance contracts. It would be a revenue model based on continuous usage, that could go on for years. That’s very different if you aren’t familiar with cloud.
Secondly, you would either need a stable of applications to sell, likely from some kind of store the CPaaS provider would have, or develop a couple of applications yourself.”
What are the Driving Factors Behind the Uptake of CPaaS technology?
Simon Horton commented: “Easy customer interaction. Think Uber or something like that where it’s trivial for a customer or potential customer to get hold of their supplier without having to figure out how to get the contact number from the app to their phone dial pad. The problem for the channel is how to keep hold of at least some of this application-led communication and how to monetise it. Perhaps channels need to pivot to start offering ready-made apps or at least the easy building blocks to allow these apps to be created.
It’s relatively easy to add voice, text or video to an existing service. You just need to understand programming a web page.
Most importantly though, communicating it becoming more complex in terms of options. Typically you think of communicating with voice or text. But now, there are chatbots, there is IoT, etc. Being able to interact differently, beyond the traditional methods, a big driver of new types of CPaaS applications.”
Nick Dicksee added: “Key factors have been excelling with self-service and automation as part of the customer journey, especially when combined with Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS). For example, CPaaS can offer cloud IVRs that can deliver many capabilities that either legacy IVRs cannot or are too expensive to deploy; offer callers a chatbot to self-serve, or deflect mobile callers with an SMS text offering content or context. Effective and valuable in the customer journey – especially with complex and large-scale projects such as COVID-19 contact tracing and vaccinations communications.
CPaaS is an innovation accelerator for partners and businesses looking at building customer experience automation, innovation and differentiation with simplicity, speed and is consumption-based. For example, combined with CCaaS, customers can add and remove digital channels, integrate AI use cases that contextualise engagements for their CX agents, automate outbound channels, to name a few.”
Mike Mills said:
“The key driving factors for me are an increasing demand for multi-channel customer engagement and a need to bolt smarter capability on to legacy enterprise systems quickly to enable them to do more with less capital investment”
Thank you to my channel contributors! CPaaS is a growing trend and is currently enabling businesses to build communications into workflows and make them more efficient. Although some partners might lack the development skills to take advantage right now it is worth looking to customer’s businesses to see if this type of communications will bring benefits and cost savings in that sector. We could see partners look to skill-up over the next 12-24 months in order to retain customer contracts and help them drive digital transformation projects.
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