â€Contact centers have massive innovation potential, and when part of a complete enterprise communications strategy, they free IT and support teams to test new opportunities. That’s why contact centers are no longer seen as a cost, but a core, outcomes-driven component of the business.â€
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck businesses worldwide, the global Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) market was already projected to rise from $15.8 billion in 2019 to $24.8 billionOpens a new window by 2024. A year into the COVID-19-related lockdowns, businesses now have no choice but to make cost-effective cloud communications central to their survival plans to ensure productivity while struggling with budget constraints at the same time.
The switch to UCaaS is no longer just an option. On-premises solutions cannot compete with them in terms of cost and scale, and the plethora of options available with new features has made the UCaaS market highly competitive. According to Gartner, the growth of UCaaS has eclipsed the entire business software industry, and the global UCaaS market will expectedly touch $140 billionOpens a new window by 2025. According to Frost & Sullivan, the on-premise voice solutions market, meanwhile, will decline by 4.7% between 2018 and 2022.
By adopting new UCaaS solutions, businesses are now using a scalable unified communications stack that includes online meetings, team chats, digital phone services, performance dashboards, communications-enabled applications, and CRM. These solutions enable enterprises to switch between devices, comply with security and privacy legislation such as GDPR, and expand to new regions without having to ensure a physical presence in such areas.
In an interview with Toolbox, Bryan MartinOpens a new window , the Chief Technology Officer at 8×8Opens a new window , a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact centre, and enterprise-class API solutions powered by a unified cloud communications platform, shares his thoughts about how the pandemic will inform developments in UCaaS and CCaaS markets, including blurring the traditional lines between on-site and remote employees.
Martin also details how video conferencing as a service (VaaS) is gaining the attention of businesses worldwide, the untapped potential of contact centers, evaluating virtual contact centers for business continuity, and how business leaders must lead effectively through the crisis.
Key takeaways from this interview:
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- How the pandemic will inform future developments in UCaaS
- The need to secure and encrypt enterprise communications
- The future of video conferencing as a service market
- How contact centers help organizations improve customer experience
Here’s the edited transcript of the interview with Bryan Martin:
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you shaped the technology strategy at 8×8, making it a leader in UCaaS?
I’m an engineer by training and was taught that engineers need to make the world a better place. I’ve spent more than 30 years at 8×8 fulfilling that goal. We have pioneered many aspects of modern business communications by disrupting the status quo and thinking about delivering better communications more cost effectively and in a simpler way. Â
Our technology strategy has been guided by ensuring we owned the technology (and people) stacks where we could add innovation and differentiation and, over time, outsourcing those where we could not. This decision tree continues to change over time as technologies mature and commoditize, but adhering to this vision has served 8×8 and our customers very well.
2. Over the course of your career, you’ve seen the UCaaS and contact center industry evolve. Where do you think the industry currently is and where is it heading?
We’re in the middle of a vital crossroads for communication, collaboration and customer experience. The industry growth trajectory was already positive, and COVID-19 has essentially taken a pair of jumper cables to that trend. For 8×8 alone, the number of active users for our desktop and mobile applications and our video meetings service has exploded since we all collectively transitioned to remote work. A unified, adaptive, and scalable approach to communications infrastructure is what has kept businesses up and running in many cases.
With that in mind, we’re learning so much about how UCaaS will shape what business looks like long after recovery is behind us. Organizations are rethinking the need for physical locations, replicating their entire brand experience digitally, and extending communications to meet their unique challenges.Â
Learn More: Why RingCentral Is Ahead of the Pack in the UCaaS Market
3. How did the pandemic inform future UCaaS and CCaaS product developments?
We believe the impact will further accelerate the convergence of UCaaS and CCaaS and the importance of a modular, extensible open communications platform. Best-in-class CCaaS is grounded in exceptional customer experiences and seamless agent support – core customer expectations don’t change in the face of a pandemic. If anything, it’s a powerful incentive to ensure that any CCaaS solution has the tactical flexibility to respond to those expectations in as close to real-time as possible. When their lives and priorities change on a day-to-day basis, both contact center agents and front-line customer service representatives need to be sensitive to those changes and adjust accordingly.
On the UCaaS side, the pandemic has had an irreversible impact on the way employees collaborate, as well as the very notion of what a productive organization can look like. The lines between traditional workplace personas, such as on-site versus remote employees, have been blurred through work-from-anywhere enterprise communications. 8×8’s product roadmap had been built around the idea that with an open communications platform and the right suite of tools, effective collaboration can happen anywhere. So long as there’s an effortless movement from voice to video to chat, the possibilities are endless. Our biggest lesson was one of scalability. Never in our history had we seen organizations transitioning entire workforces to remote at the same time and within the span of a few days. It’s a testament to our team and our infrastructure that we were able to support customers’ work-from-anywhere efforts with minor disruption.
4. What’s your take on video conferencing as a service market?
Video conferencing is having a moment, and that’s amazing news for ourselves and our peers. Mass adoption of two-way video communications at affordable price points was always the equation the video industry was working to achieve, and we are now largely there. But again, we can’t lose sight of the complex matrix that is modern-day business communications. Employees and customers naturally gravitate towards the channel that’s easiest for the task at hand. Sometimes that is video, but sometimes that could be a phone call or chat. As long as it’s approached from a holistic lens, the potential is incredible.
5. The industry is calling for a greater emphasis on security and privacy. How did 8×8 respond to this?
Absolutely. We go to great lengths, with multiple industry certifications and assessments, to ensure that 8×8 customers have the secure communications they need to thrive. There have been many discussions lately on how best to raise security standards in such a digital work environment, and it often comes down to end-to-end encryption.
You see, with advances in technology infrastructure and security practices, end-to-end encryption for 1:1 video meetings is increasingly common. That said, the calculus changes significantly when you start to patch in three, five, or 50 other people. Ensuring that the same level of encryption across multiple access points is much more complex.Â
Understanding the critical need for secure and private video meetings, in April, we published a specification for true end-to-end encrypted WebRTC-based video meetings. By opening it for public comment and calling on the open-source developer community to provide suggestions, we are committed to providing the most private form of communication possible. It continues to be a top priority for us today.
Learn More: Has COVID-19 Hastened the Emergence of AI-Powered Contact Centers?
6. As per industry analyst Patrick Moorhead, security needs to be built into collaboration tools from the start rather than bolted on after the fact. Do you agree security and privacy will become core differentiators for vendors to stay ahead in the UCaaS race?
Without a doubt. We’re not just talking about secure access to video meetings or chats, we’re talking about the highly sensitive customer and employee data. Every single part of the business needs to be built around customer centricity and support, which means having the infrastructure to protect critical information from those who would use it maliciously. I think it’s vital that IT and security professionals have a seat at the table from the get-go. Â
Learn More: Dialpad Raises the Bar in Cloud Communications With 100% Uptime Guarantee
7. What are the remote hacks that you would like to share to help business leaders lead through the crisis?
There’s no such thing as too much communication. Your organizations, your teams, your peers – everyone is under pressure as they juggle workplace responsibilities with familial ones all amid a global pandemic. I have the deepest appreciation for those within our community who have been taking on the roles of employee, teacher, parent and caregiver all at the same time. Given the nature of how we communicate now, that’s an opportunity for leaders to reach out and offer new flexibility where needed. It’s not a matter of being less productive, but getting business leaders more comfortable with what meaningful productivity can really look like.
Learn More: 5 Ways Containerized Session Border Controllers Improve UCaaS
8. Can you tell us about the 8×8 Voice integration for Microsoft Teams and how this will benefit Teams users?
Reliable, scalable global voice communications start in the cloud. By eliminating the traditional complexities of managing an enterprise-grade telephony solution without compromising the employee experience, 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams delivers work-from-anywhere communications for IT and end-users. The result is seamless crystal-clear communications for enterprises standardizing on Microsoft Teams for a common, global user interface to communications.
9. Can you outline benefits and savings seen from CCaaS solutions that go beyond business continuity?
Contact centers have massive innovation potential, they’re on the front line of the customer experience. And when part of a complete enterprise communications strategy with the full backing of the organization, it frees IT and support teams to experiment and test new opportunities to delight and surprise customers. It’s primarily why contact centers are no longer seen as a cost, but a core, outcomes-driven component of the business.
10. In closing, share best practices for evaluating virtual contact centers solutions for business continuity?
Best-in-class organizations meet customers where they are even if it’s outside the contact center. They require an open communications platform approach to become experience engines, leveraging the historic understanding of every individual customer touchpoint and using that to fuel new relationships and opportunities. By handing agents and employees with the tools, intelligence and contextual information they need to build powerful connections regardless of location, they can ensure that regardless of what disruption the organization may face, customer experience never skips a beat.
About Bryan MartinOpens a new window : Bryan Martin is 8×8’s Chief Technology Officer and Board Member, leading the company’s drive to patent a range of disruptive and innovative technologies on its way to becoming the leading provider of Unified Communications as a Service. Before becoming CEO in 2002, he held the positions of Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technical Officer and Senior Vice President, Engineering Operations. Martin holds 80 United States Patents in the fields of semiconductors, computer architecture, video processing algorithms, videophones, and communications. Internet Telephony magazine named Bryan one of the “Top 100 Voices of IP Communications.†Bryan also served on the California Broadband Task Force for the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, and later became Chair of the task force’s Emerging Technologies and New Applications Working Group. Martin is a member of the IEEE and Tau Beta Pi and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
About 8×8, Inc.Opens a new window : 8×8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT) is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact centre, and enterprise-class API solutions powered by one global cloud communications platform. 8×8 empowers workforces worldwide to connect individuals and teams so they can collaborate faster and work smarter. Real-time business analytics and intelligence provide businesses unique insights across all interactions and channels so they can delight end-customers and accelerate their business. For additional information visit www.8×8.com/ukOpens a new window , or follow 8×8 on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window and FacebookOpens a new window .
About Tech TalkOpens a new window : Tech Talk is a Toolbox Interview Series with notable CTOs and senior executives from around the world. Join us to share your insights and research on where technology and data are heading in the future. This interview series focuses on integrated solutions, research and best practices in the day-to-day work of the tech world.
Have UCaas solutions helped your business attune to the work from home shift? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!