Every year we talk with the leading service providers globally - this year’s conversations contain familiar themes with a new backdrop. 

The rapid dislocation of workforces and reinvention of core business functions in the face of Covid accelerated the adoption of new communications technology adding further fuel to the challenges of revenue growth, customer retention and differentiation through new services.

Behind the need to address today’s shifts and new customer needs, AI, big data and demand for rich, remote communications services are driving entirely new thinking on what it means to be a service provider.

And the acceleration won’t stop in 2022. Demand for Unified Communications will continue on an exponential growth curve. 5G will enter the mainstream. And voice will continue to grow as a primary way of interacting with technology.

Across our literally hundreds of conversations with service providers, the agenda for 2022 is being shaped around a set of key trends. 

The race is on to increase differentiation across Unified Communications platforms - and how to make it a revenue spinner

“We are seeing businesses starting to go all in on Unified Communications solutions, whether there are traditional phone networks under the hood or not. There’s a business drive to present a unified system to present to employees, increasing employee experience. Offering Microsoft Teams or Zoom or Webex alone, without a point of differentiation, is not compelling in attracting and retaining customers. Where’s the value vs competitor offerings?” - James Slaney, COO, Dubber

For service providers, this means a pressing need to differentiate while addressing customers critical business needs. Take answering the need to meet compliance mandates by recording conversations across the core UC platform and the plethora of other applications used by employees through Dubber. Doing so turns every UC endpoint and service into a revenue multiplier. 

At the same time it unlocks the opportunity to deliver rich new services based on conversational data sets.

Larger managed service providers emerge

“Channel consolidation means larger managed service providers are emerging. You can tell a lot from the acquisitions space.” - Matthew Towned, Cavell Group

Gartner is predicting record highs in global tech provider mergers and acquisitions in 2022, resulting in large scale MSPs, in what has traditionally been a regionally fragmented market. This includes making super-umbrella groups that deal in managed security, applications, data service, infrastructure, networking, and more. 

With this in mind, customers will expect service providers to be a one-stop shop for all IT needs. Call recording, playback, and keyword and sentiment-triggered workflows will be a core capability for business data programs, and so a critical inclusion.

Get the edge.

Download our free guide by analyst firm Cavell Group and learn how service providers can get the edge with CX, call recording and conversational data.

Download Now

 

Remote-first businesses continue to accelerate thanks to 5G rollout

“The combination of 5G, the portability requirement for hybrid work, and cloud-based backend systems, means that we are going to see more businesses with remote-first operating models. The workforce is on the cusp of working from anywhere, not just home or office. When you can run lightning fast enterprise webapps on the beach in Thailand, the need for ownership of heavy-duty hardware and fixed lines evaporates.” - Steve Wilson, Chief Technology Officer, Dubber.

While 5G isn’t quite the death-knell for fixed-line internet (yet, at least), its rollout leads to an acceleration in a new business infrastructure model - remote-first. Once only practical for very small businesses without heavy reliance on stable internet, the power of 5G will mean anyone can run an entirely remote business - and so conversational capture can’t just be from a fixed point.

The emergence of Conversational Data as a Service

“As organisations become increasingly digitalised, many are looking at DaaS models as they move to the cloud to streamline the delivery of data and their data supply chain.” -  Simon Field, field CTO EMEA at Snowflake

As businesses mature their data capture and analytics capabilities, it’s easy to see where offering Data as a Service products, when packaged effectively, can help service providers win more market share. 

Central to Conversational Data as a Service is the need to capture voice, chat and text across all end-points, transforming and unifying them as data. Dubber’s always-on conversational data stream across all communications mediums makes for a key lever in the enterprise service offerings provided by service providers. 

2022 will see digital transformation accelerate further. And service providers creating data from the content on their networks - and unlocking its potential - stand to benefit.

Get the edge.

Download our free guide by analyst firm Cavell Group to learn how service providers can get the edge with CX, call recording and conversational data.

Learn about:

• Why customer experience is a critical driver

• How voice data and unified conversational recording can differentiation

• How COVID, changing communications and the cloud are driving changes in Service provider offerings