As a result of the pandemic’s lasting impact, nearly a third of businesses are considering a new communications service provider within the next 12 months, a new research study by Dubber has revealed.
The report, commissioned with market intelligence firm Cavell Group, identified the top trends service providers globally will be focusing on in 2022.
The study found that 2022 will begin with a period of reassessment for solutions deployed in the first wave of the pandemic, during which enterprises and carriers sought to rapidly deploy solutions to support remote access and business continuity.
Moving forward, the focus for service providers will be on improving these “band-aid” responses and addressing a more permanent state of hybrid working.
In almost all areas of their business, service providers will continue to adapt to the dramatic changes in the workforce behaviour patterns that emerged in the global pandemic and will continue into the year.
Steve McGovern, CEO of Dubber, said these new set of new trends are poised to reshape the service provider landscape again.
“Dubber believes that 2022 will be a pivotal year for the global service provider industry as carriers seek to grow and adapt to the changes brought on by the mass distribution of workforces of the last two years,” McGovern said.
Another major trend identified in the report is how the rapid rise of unified communications and a proliferation of communications channels have shifted the strategic planning of service providers, increasing the pressure to create new sources of revenue and buttress margins; and to drive differentiation and retention.
“The first wave of the global pandemic rapidly accelerated unified communications and mobile, changing the service provider landscape materially,” said Matthew Townend, Executive Director at Cavell Group.
“The second wave will not be the same, with enterprises looking to bolster solutions deployed in the first with greater security and compliance; adapt to hybrid working as a permanent way of working; and secure greater intelligence and compliance from content,” Townend said.
The study also found that communication and collaboration solutions will continue to try and recreate in-person experiences. Services such as distributed video, Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS), Contact Centre as a Service, and CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) will continue to be in high demand.
Additionally, competition with hyper-scalers and OTT providers are projected to intensify throughout the year.
Compliance, security, governance, ransomware and risk mitigation solutions are expected to drive a new wave of demand from enterprises as they look for ways to “tighten up” across all major infrastructure, including communications.
Agile service providers and managed service providers will look to meet these requirements with new and differentiated service offerings
An area that providers are also realising can be extracted with additional value is voice data, which are unlocked with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies.
“AI and automation based on conversational data are new frontiers for service providers and represent a significant opportunity to improve revenue, differentiation and retention,” Townend said.
While the roll out of 5G services will continue to grab headlines in many countries, McGovern said that even bigger threats and opportunities exist that will remake what we view the traditional role of a service provider to be.
“We are very optimistic that strong growth opportunities will be available for Dubber and our service provider partners as we drive voice data and new value-added services that will improve business outcomes for our joint customers in the year ahead,” he said.
Source: Dubber
Zoe is a content creator, specialising in speech and corporate communications. She is currently the content producer of Supply Chain Channel— a learning ecosystem dedicated to connecting and empowering the Australian supply chain community.