Countdown to Enterprise Connect 2018: The Growing Promise and Appeal of Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS)

In our first “Countdown to Enterprise Connect” blog, we discussed how social enterprise Orion Industries partners with Calabrio to further its mission of helping individuals overcome barriers to gainful employment. It’s a great use case and an amazing example of an innovative company using Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) to do great work.

Speaking of CCaaS … many of you probably remember Amazon unveiling its new “Amazon Connect” CCaaS offering at Enterprise Connect last year. It made a big splash, bringing to the forefront what a cloud-based approach can do for busy contact centres like those owned by Amazon. Amazon continues to innovate Amazon Connect at a rapid pace, recently adding new capabilities such as automated outbound calling and federated single sign-on (SSO) using SAML 2.0.

Here at Calabrio, cloud-based technology like CCaaS is a critical part of our go-to-market strategy, which is one of the reasons we’re widely considered the “chosen” workforce optimization solution for CCaaS by vendors listed as “Leaders” in Gartner’s most recent CCaaS Magic Quadrant. The growing criticality of CCaaS is why we decided—in this second and final “Countdown to Enterprise Connect” blog—to take a closer look at its appeal and promise.

CCaaS—More than Just Another Gimmicky Tech Acronym

Contact centre as a service is typically defined as a platform delivered as a hosted solution through the cloud. Gartner refines that definition even further, noting that customers pay a monthly subscription for CCaaS and that, with CCaaS, vendors put a “stronger focus on service capabilities, not just product functionality.”¹

It’s a big and growing market, thanks in part to CCaaS’s faster deployment and flexibility, and to market factors driving the need for improved disaster recovery and better compliance with information-related mandates—both of which CCaaS can deliver. In fact, MarketsandMarkets estimates the cloud-based contact centre market will grow from $5.43 billion in 2016 to $15.67 billion by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.6 percent.²

The benefits of CCaaS are many, but they typically net out to four main categories:

• Greater flexibility. CCaaS lets managers easily add agents, adapt quickly to change and extend functionality—without relying upon scarce IT resources or buying new equipment.
• More seamless scalability. CCaaS lets businesses more easily scale up or scale down operations as-needed to meet cyclical demands or unexpected spikes in interaction volume.
• Increased operational agility. The greater flexibility and more seamless scalability we just discussed combine to drive an added CCaaS benefit: increased operational agility.
• Opex budgeting and planning. Like other cloud solutions, CCaaS eliminates the need for large capital expenditure budget requests—a very cash-friendly move for the C-suite—because it shifts the financial burden from a capital budget expense to an operating expense.

Contact centre as a service truly makes the power of a modern contact centre available to any business, regardless of budget or technical expertise. The time is now—are you ready to learn more?

Speak live with Calabrio at booth #1001 at Enterprise Connect 2018—pre-schedule a live demo or private meeting today—and watch for special giveaways we’re offering in conjunction with our partner Five9 at the event!

If you missed our first “Countdown to Enterprise Connect” blog, read it now to find out how Orion Industries partners with Calabrio to drive social change and how you can speak with Orion’s Bill Holder live at next week’s event.

¹ GetVOIP, “Our Rundown of Gartner’s 2017 CCaaS Magic Quadrant.” Nov. 9, 2017. https://getvoip.com/blog/2017/11/09/ccaas-magic-quadrant/

² MarketsandMarkets, “Cloud-Based Contact Centre Market by Solution (Dialers, Reporting, and Analytics), Service (Professional and Managed), Application, Deployment Model, Organisation Size, Industry Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to 2021.” 2017. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/cloud-based-contact-centre.asp

Calabrio 

Calabrio is a trusted ally to leading brands. The digital foundation of a customer-centric contact centre, the Calabrio ONE workforce performance suite helps enrich and understand human interactions, empowering your contact centre as a brand guardian. We maximise agent performance, exceed customer expectations, and boost workforce efficiency using connected data, AI-fueled analytics, automated workforce management, and personalised coaching. Only Calabrio ONE unites workforce optimisation (WFO), agent engagement, and business intelligence solutions into a true-cloud, fully integrated suite that adapts to your business. For customers and partners.