CPaaS and BSS integration: reshaping communication services
The market for CPaaS services is anticipated to grow to nearly $30 billion worldwide by 2026. Shashank Singh considers what’s driving this growth, and the benefits and challenges faced by CPaaS providers.
Communications-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) is focused on delivering a comprehensive suite of enhanced services, including video, chat, social media integration, location-based services and other real-time communications (RTC). It enables richer and more interactive experiences and offers easy integration with existing business applications and CRM systems through open APIs and pre-built connectors.
As a simple example, a travel agency might leverage CPaaS to send text messages to customers with booking confirmations, flight updates or travel reminders, using the customer’s preferred chat / messaging platform. A more sophisticated use case might be for an innovative FinTech app that wants to create a frictionless onboarding journey for its customers, using the latest CPaaS capabilities like interactive video chat, multi-channel communication, AI-based contextual engagements and perhaps biometric authentication tools too.
The CPaaS market gained prominence last year through a number of high-profile acquisitions, such as Tata Communications’ $100m acquisition of Kaleyra, strengthening its omnichannel capabilities with messaging, video and push notifications, and Proximus’ purchase of a majority stake in Route Mobile, expanding the former’s presence in India and other emerging markets.
But it was Ericsson’s acquisition of Vonage that marked the most significant consolidation in the CPaaS space, even if the gamble hasn’t paid off for the firm yet. As Vonage CEO Rory Read put it: “With the demand for UCaaS, CCaaS and Communications APIs growing rapidly, the combined expertise, talent and innovation is good news for our customers and partners.”
IDC forecasts that the worldwide CPaaS market will continue to grow from $14.3 billion in 2022 to $29.7 billion in 2026 as “many enterprises embrace cloud-enabled communication API solutions and services that help them easy [sic] and affordably increase customer engagement and improve operational efficiencies.”
But what’s driving this new gold rush? Digital empowerment, seamless customer experiences and customer delight are not just management buzzwords anymore, they are essential in making or breaking a business these days. And the common connector between these objectives is “simplified communication” with the customer. That’s where a CPaaS provider steps in, offering the following key benefits:
Build it without breaking the bank
CPaaS removes the need for hefty upfront investment and lets you pay-as-you-go. Start small, scale on demand and experiment without the fear of financial avalanches. Think agility on steroids!
Innovation playground
From integrating voice and messaging into your app to powering interactive marketing campaigns, CPaaS opens a toolbox of new possibilities. Imagine sending personalised notifications, building chatbots or enabling real-time customer support – the sky’s the limit.
Global reach, local touch
CPaaS transcends borders, letting you connect with customers worldwide. But it doesn't stop there. Tailor your communications with local numbers, languages, and complying with local regulations, ensuring relevance and trust wherever you go.
Unleash the developer within
Gone are the days of relying on telecoms giants for every aspect of a service. CPaaS empowers developers to build and integrate communication features seamlessly, turning them into communication wizards.
Future-proof flexibility
The world of communications is constantly evolving, and CPaaS lets you easily adapt to new technologies and channels, ensuring your business stays ahead of the curve.
CPaaS isn't just a trend; it’s a revolution. It's empowering businesses of all sizes to break free from communication constraints and unleash their creativity. So, whether you're a budding startup or a seasoned enterprise, CPaaS is your invitation to build, connect and engage like never before.
However, despite its importance, CPaaS providers face a number of challenges:
Commoditisation: Core features like SMS and voice services can become commonplace and price-sensitive, making it harder to compete solely on functionality. While these services will continue to be a major revenue source for CPaaS providers, the profit margins have already started to take a hit, so they must look to expand the range of monetisation options.
Focus on revenue growth: Maintaining rapid growth may lead to neglecting customer support and product development, impacting user experience and long-term success. CPaaS companies need a modern CRM platform that’s fully integrated with their billing, charging and interconnect systems, as well as a unified product catalogue to efficiently manage all their offerings.
Faster time-to-market: Automated processes and streamlined operations enable faster service launches and updates. This has encouraged a number of CPaaS providers to form partnerships with API vendors, data centres, RCS suppliers, etc. The key differentiators between CPaaS providers will be how fast they can launch new products, the quality of customer experience they deliver, and how automated the customer journeys and backend processes are.
Data-driven insights: And lastly, utilising the wealth of CPaaS data to gain valuable insights into customer behaviour and market trends. This is perhaps the most important one, informing strategic decisions for on-going tuning and optimisation of services.
If you haven’t noticed so far, all of the above challenges can be overcome with a fully integrated BSS platform. BSS has proven to be not just a back-office tool for CPaaS providers, but a critical engine for driving revenue growth, enhancing customer experience, and ensuring operational efficiency in today’s competitive landscape.
Read our Link Mobility case study to see how Cerillion supports one of Europe’s leading CPaaS providers with our pre-integrated suite of BSS/OSS products.