There is a shift underway in how enterprises structure their software stacks in relation to contact centers. Multiple factors have coalesced to reduce the importance of the traditional call handling infrastructure (i.e., the ACD) as the foundational element of the tech stack. It no longer has to be the focus of buying or deployment decisions. It’s been superseded by a more extensible (but complex) combination of voice and data network providers, Communication-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) tools and cloud-based enterprise platforms. Contact centers also need systems to control the movement and use of customer data, and this is affecting buying decisions.
The traditional Contact-Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) operating model is at risk of being displaced by something that more closely resembles the deployment of standard enterprise software systems atop hyperscaler platforms. As enterprises focus more on using their contact centers to enable broader customer experience (CX) initiatives, the ability of standard CCaaS platforms to provide the necessary underpinnings diminishes relative to other enterprise platforms.
Changes in the software platform and architecture happen in tandem with changes in the operational structure of centers. Artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics are enabling the pivot from treating customer interactions as reactive activities towards seeing them as revenue opportunities orchestrated by CX teams outside the centers. Those same AI tools allow centers to consider headcount reductions. A smaller staff requires different agent management tools, especially when managers find themselves managing a hybrid human/automation workforce.
If you consider all of that from the point of view of market dynamics, it suggests to me that traditional market segments are quickly breaking down, to be replaced by something as yet undetermined. By 2030, I expect the mix of companies and products that now fall under the CCaaS umbrella will be very different from those currently on the market.
In the near future, winners and losers will be determined not by how deep a provider’s ties are to legacy contact center software, but instead by how well a provider can demonstrably create enterprise value. This may sound scary, but I think in the long run, providers that focus primarily on the operational needs of the contact center will often lose out to providers that focus on connecting the center with the informational needs of the enterprise. There’s still time to adapt, but times are changing quickly.
Recall why CCaaS gained traction in the first place. Premise ACDs go back at least to the 1970s. They were created in the image of central office telecom switches and were intensely proprietary, expensive to buy and upgrade, and designed for (at least) 7-10 year duty cycles. (Some were in place for as long as 30 years.) They were an extremely successful technology but were physically limited when you wanted to upgrade or expand capacity. They were also not well equipped to manage new contact channels or advanced self-service. CCaaS, as originally understood, was essentially an ACD in the cloud—porting functionality into a mode that could scale and also reduce the capex footprint (while ominously increasing the opex). This model opened the door to channel expansion and other operational goodies.
But (with software there is always a but) CCaaS evolved in the market mind into a cloud-based platform for all the contact center operating tools, including self-service, agent management and reporting. And when you plug a CCaaS system into an enterprise, you bring to light any limitations in integration to back-office systems, and you draw the interest and scrutiny of IT. You call into existence layers of middleware that complicate oversight and configuration. And you gradually realize that while you may have offloaded responsibility for your technology to a cloud provider, you’ve also ratcheted up the complexity by introducing connection points, niche solutions and compatibility issues.
Once contact center software is broken out of its age-old, ACD-derived silo, the enterprise is free to start making demands on it that are out of the comfort and experience zone of traditional CCaaS providers. For example, enterprises now need to connect their interaction-handling processes with backend knowledge and data systems. That’s not an expertise of CCaaS companies. Surprisingly, many CCaaS companies are not expert in agent management either, often choosing to white label tools made by specialist providers.
By definition, CCaaS providers are no more expert at creating AI applications than providers in multiple other market segments. As a result, enterprises can cobble together a customer-
So, when I think about what 2030 will look like, I see a diminished role for CCaaS, where it acts as a role-player handling commoditized functions like basic routing, agent management and some degree of self-service. It will sit alongside an enterprise-controlled orchestration layer that controls broader aspects of routing work (not just calls) along the entire customer journey, spanning departments. The role of the contact center will be to generate data and information that is then controlled elsewhere and commingled with CRM, ERP and marketing data. The enterprise will be able to do advanced analytics, build personalized experiences and deploy whatever next-gen AI applications come along—but without relying on the CCaaS provider to make it collectively work.
If you’re an enterprise user of any of the tools in this mix, I recommend you start thinking about which software elements are broad (i.e., span departments and functions) and which are narrow; which are of high value and which are commodities. Stop thinking about tools as contact center specific and start thinking about them as extensions of platforms. How do the narrow software elements fit (or not) into those enterprise platforms? Which combination of software providers, spanning which market segments, best fits the needs of a more complex customer-facing strategy? You may find that traditional CCaaS is more of a straitjacket in 2030 than you are comfortable with.
These transitions may explain why CCaaS providers are racing to rebrand themselves as CX platforms. Make no mistake—it is entirely possible and even advantageous to work with a CCaaS provider in expanding the functional footprint of contact center software towards enterprise CX. It is my strong recommendation to CCaaS providers that they should put more resourcing towards the non-commoditized future needs: managing data, knowledge, workflows and analysis, rather than moving interactions from Point A to Point B.
Regards,
Keith Dawson