This year CSPs bridge the CPaaS Gap
And compete against the biggest at last
The Communications platform as a service (CPaaS) players have established themselves in the telecom landscape and offer real-time communication capabilities such as voice, video, and messaging to organizations through a cloud-based and APIs delivery model.
The CPaaS market is rapidly growing, Experts forecast that the CPaaS industry will generate more than $34 billion in sales by 2026. The global CPaaS market size is projected to reach USD 45.3 billion by 2027, growing at an annual revenue of 29.4%. According to Gartner research, by 2026, 90% of global enterprises will leverage CPaaS services.
Those markets are now mostly dominated by big international players, but as usage and market are increasing, other local or alternative players can jump on the growth train and offer their clients those new products. We believe that this will lead to another era of growth for alternative players and that it will democratize further telecom usage. According to Gartner research, by 2026, 90% of global enterprises will leverage CPaaS services and 87% of tech and telecom leaders cite automation as a priority for their business. It is therefore imperative for service providers to engage in this market and then they need is to choose the right tools and APIs to create these programmatic telecom services, we will come back to this at the end of the article.
As mentioned leading CPaaS platforms offer among other services the opportunity to take advantage of voice and video services. In fact, Voice and video services are becoming increasingly important for CPaaS platform, as they provide businesses with a very interesting range of options to improve their customer service, collaboration tools, and partnerships. In this article, we will detail the biggest voice and video opportunities in the CPaaS market and how Messaging platforms and other Communication service providers (CSPs) can take advantage of them.
The new voice era is here
Let's be clear, voice is not dead
Voice is and remains an important form of communication for any business. Hence CPaaS market offers several voice media like SIP trunking or WebRTC Apis and various products for businesses to benefit from like interactive voice response (IVR), voice chatbot, call tracking/analytics, etc…
Asynchronous digital communication channels such as email and instant messaging are still very popular without cannibalizing synchronous means of communication though. Telephony in the broadest sense, which remains, along with video, a major form of communication in the business environment. But it is true that usage has changed. Most of the new modern uses are integrated, cloud and programmatic and this is where CPaaS has an edge over other telecom players. This lead has been taken through a series of products that respond to new business needs: Here are below the most interesting cloud opportunities for CSP in a CPaaS model:
- Cloud SIP trunking Interconnection: SIP trunking is a method of delivering voice-over IP (VoIP) via the SIP protocol, and in this case, the SIP trunk link client infrastructure with a provider cloud-based telecom platform.Virtualized and cloud-based interconnection is much faster to set up than traditional lines and allows the rapid deployment of professional industrial telephony to end users.
- Programmatic voice APIs: WebRTC technology and APIs enable users to create voice services through web protocol. it requires the provider to handle all the telecom infrastructure and routing complexity and only present web-based APIs to the users. It removes most of the barriers for companies to create custom voice services as only web developers are needed to use those APIs. It’s an easy way to integrate voice into a chatbot/voicebot product for instance.
- Virtual phone numbers management via API: Virtualization of phone number management allows companies with local numbers in different countries to have a local presence which improves their global footprint and customer experience.
- Interactive voice response (IVR) setup: IVR is an automated system that interacts with callers, gathers information, and routes them to the appropriate department. Its implementation and design via APIs allow advanced customization almost instantly for each client.
- Data, Call tracking and analytics: Making telephone data available via API allows calls monitoring and analysis either through interfaces or through interconnection with business tools. The user can then track and analyze data related to his telephone activity in a professional context.
The addressable voice markets are considerable:
The global voice over internet protocol (VoIP) market is expected to reach $145 billion by 2024 [3]. IVR usage is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27% from 2020 to 2027 [6] and the global voice-bot market is expected to reach $14.2 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 36.0% from 2020-2025.
Those are huge growing markets!
So voice opportunities are here to be seized by communication service providers (CSPs). Combine with growing technological trends like AI and advanced automation, the voice channel will evolve and prove to be more than either relevant for many use cases and many businesses.
From a strategic point of view, CSPs have a strong interest in making their voice services programmatic. Firstly, because by design programmatic voice services are cloud-based, which reduces geographical barriers and opens up new business opportunities on a global scale. Especially in emerging markets, such as Africa and South East Asia. On the other hand, it accelerates product development. By handling only web APIs CSPs will be able to easily enter the growing UcaaS and fixed-mobile convergence markets if they are not already doing so.
From a business point of view, providing standard telephony is no longer sufficient, while creating customizable voice applications is, without a doubt, the way forward. To do this, CSPs will not only have to master the voice telecom base, but also make it as agile and accessible as possible. Only by providing flexible webRTC/SIP solutions and APIs will CSPs enable their enterprise customers to reap the full benefits of these new voice products.
CSPs could be the main beneficiaries of the opportunities offered by programmatic voice in the future. Thanks to their tradition of support and their proximity to their customers, they are all designated to facilitate the integration of this voice medium into the business processes of companies, adding voice authentication and creating support chatbots with voice commands for example. On the other hand, these products will surely be a major part of the development of these corporate customers in the future, as they will improve the user experience, increase sales, reduce customer support costs and thus optimize their overall business. CSPs will therefore be even more crucial partners for their customers.
Video products will keep on being a hit
And become a major medium
One of the outcomes of the COVID crisis is the outstanding increase in video-based tools usage. People are now much more confident to use video either to chat, do business, or get support.
As a result, Video is becoming an increasingly major form of communication, especially with the rise of remote work and virtual events. Perhaps even more obviously than voice, video is a topic dominated by CPaaS players over FSCs. This is changing at the margin with the addition of this channel in most off-the-shelf UcaaS services, but CSPs are generally absent when it comes to providing custom or programmatic video services. So below are the top cloud video products that CSPs should be able to provide:
- Video calling API: Video calling allows people to communicate in real-time through video. This channel can be used "one to one" between 2 people or "one to many" when streaming an event.
- Video conferencing API: Video conferencing allows people to hold virtual meetings through their phone or computer from any location. The particularity of this channel is that all participants can participate in the conversation.
- WebRTC APIs and WebSocket: WebRTC technology, is a web-based video and voice protocol. It can be used to create real-time communication applications in web browsers without the need for plugins or downloads. This protocol supports voice and video conversations right from the browser or the app the APis and WebSocket are integrated.
- Video analytics: As much as telephony data, Video data can be provided through APis and will be used to create analytics to improve the user experience and gather insights on user behavior.
When it comes to market figures let’s mention:
The global video conferencing market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2020 to 2027. The global video streaming market size is expected to reach USD 330.51 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 21.3% from 2022 to 2030.
So those are big and growing markets.
As much as it is true for voice CSPs have great positioning to offer video APIs and can greatly benefit from taking advantage of video opportunities in the CPaaS market. This media is not short of use cases, among others, we can think about video-based virtual events and webinars, video-enabled customer services such as video chat support and co-browsing, video-powered marketing actions, like video ads and personalized video messages.
On the security side, video services are very reliable too. Video communications can remain “on-network” and need no interconnection with tiers, video-based services can be end-to-end encrypted for maximum privacy and safety.
Also, video APIs are cloud-based and usually not tied to phone numbers or locally specific regulations, so those services can be used by any company in the world and increase dramatically the reach of CSPs and accessible markets.
Finally, those video services will be of great tool to streamline companies' operations, sales, and customer support and will become a major integration opportunity for any business. Once again this highlights the opportunity for CSPs to be at the heart of their customers' business and product development!
Let’s be a part of this revolution
The way to cloud services is not that hard anymore
Voice and video opportunities are of growing importance in the CPaaS market, and businesses will take advantage of these opportunities to improve their communication and user experience. Communication service providers and SMS aggregators are generally absent from these opportunities. The goal is to tap into the growing market for cloud and programmatic voice and video by offering new customizable services and APIs. The objective is to take advantage of these opportunities by offering the right services and APIs to stay relevant as a trusted communication partner. By integrating voice and video communication into business processes, expanding services into emerging markets, and creating customizable voice and video applications, CSPs can increase their global presence, their portfolio and stay the one-stop shop for all professional communication needs.
The trend is here and growing, the integration of voice and video is not only a means of communication for companies. Combined with process automation and AI, for example, these programmatic channels will be a way for companies to streamline their costs, improve overall customer satisfaction and increase their level of business.
CSPs willing to continue to bring the maximum value to their client, in the long run, should be able to offer flexible, apified voice and video products. But it is not simple, isn’t it? Creating a voice and video service from scratch or even updating a legacy voice platform to a cloud standard is not an easy task.
Well, it doesn’t have to be that complicated, providers like Cantoo offer cloud-based 100% apified cloud PBX with all the modern voice and video capability on a white label basis and for a fraction of the in-house development cost. This platform will enable you to launch your video and voice product in weeks, under your brand, supporting your clients' business cases without having to worry about managing the platform.
Opportunities are there to grasp and our technology can help you do this, feel free to reach out to us.
Sources:
https://www.uipath.com/solutions/industry/telecom-automation
https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/communications-platform-as-a-service-cpaas-market
https://www.juniperresearch.com/researchstore/operators-providers/cpaas-research-report
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/communication-platform-service-cpaas-market-size-projected-
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/communication-platform-as-a-service-cpaas-market
https://www.uctoday.com/unified-communications/cpaas/the-gartner-market-guide-for-cpaas/
https://www.vonage.com/resources/articles/cpaas-market-leap-hype/
https://www.openpr.com/news/2131791/voicebots-market-2020-trends-market-share-industry-size