There was already a strong trend towards over-the-top providers, including Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) providers, boosting the market. But the pandemic stepped growth up a gear, to levels providers hadn’t foreseen – or planned for.

During the pandemic, the CPaaS market evolved considerably to support customers with their shift to remote working. Organisations everywhere wanted to upgrade their communications strategy at speed to become more future-ready and to suit their new and more distributed ways of working.

Organisations needed new collaboration tools, UC platforms, and cloud contact centre solutions with integrated Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking. Many CPaaS providers quickly stepped up to fill this gap in the market, expanding their offerings into the latest UC technology and moving into new markets and regions as a result.

They thought fast and moved even faster to meet evolving customer needs with no real chance to review their medium-term strategy.

Rapid growth in new markets with evolving regulatory compliance and legal requirements takes specialist skills to navigate. Understandably, this hasn’t been the primary focus for many CPaaS providers under pressure to deliver quickly for customers. The dual challenge is staying current with regulations and navigating constant changes.

In many cases, these providers are rapidly growing software-based companies that may not have the in-house experience and skills to handle this at the same time as keeping pace with the latest emerging technologies.

As customers adopt new SIP and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions, they’re expecting providers to support them across a range of areas which adds to the pressure CPaaS providers are under. Customers want support on:

Customers need technical assistance with new UC platforms and SIP trunking, particularly with VoIP signaling and security protocols and making the correct equipment investments.

When customers design solutions themselves, they can easily become confused with the billing and reporting options available. They will expect partners to help them simplify this experience.

Documentation and systems for number porting and emergency calling usually vary from country to country. Accidental non-compliance can cause damaging penalties and affect the end user’s service experience. Because of this, it’s critical customers can turn to providers for advice and expertise.

Customers often need guidance on the type of access required for each of their sites and support in ensuring the maximum quality of their voice services by taking into account the number of employees they have at each location.

Customers are also expanding into new countries, which increases the burden on supplier relations, supervision, and management to provide help in overcoming these operational challenges.

CPaaS providers are turning to partners that can bring in the expertise they need. They’re looking for strength, global reach, and reliability across all services. And they want a high-quality and centrally managed global voice service, delivered on a secure network with both inbound and outbound SIP functionalities. CPaaS providers want a partner capable of supporting them to expand their coverage in terms of reach and quality in a simple and streamlined way.

The ideal partner has a strong track record of offering expertise in areas the CPaaS provider may not have, such as international experience and credentials in compliance across multiple geographies.

It’s worth asking any potential partner whether they will be providing a range of self-service options, management tools with automation capabilities, in-depth reporting, and analytics.

AT BT, we present an industry-leading CPaaS partnership. Our reseller-ready GSIP solution spans 17 countries, providing direct connectivity to major cloud providers globally. It’s built on an extensive ecosystem of industry-leading partners and continuous investments in the latest innovations. We also provide voice quality and SIP performance reporting and analytics tools. Through our dedicated CPaaS team, we offer support on international tax, regulation, and technical requirements.