Backgrounder
Enterprise communications has evolved from a series of disparate on-premise point solutions. These solutions were capital intensive, carried substantial annual support charges and required extended time and money to implement and support across multiple locations. The ability to scale was limited by time, complexity and the capital costs to complete the 3-year refresh cycle. These communications included, voice call, 800 toll-free call, voicemail and email. The voice and data network IT groups were separate silos and separate networks. The advent of VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol was a threat to the data network It created new demands for these two groups to work together to partition and maintain voice quality of service while protecting and preserving the integrity of the data network bandwidth requirements in support of critical business applications. Cloud and mobile devices unlocked other innovative approaches to communications and collaboration. UCaaS and CCaaS are only as good as the network they are delivered on. They are especially prone to packet loss, latency and jitter in the network. Although UCaaS can provide better collaboration and productivity for a company, dropped calls, distorted audio/video and slow file transfers can present negative consequences. SD-WAN can tag UCaaS traffic and optimally and dynamically direct it across first mile internet links, through the middle mile and finally to the UCaaS destination in the last mile while delivering an optimized and predictable user experience.
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) that integrates voice, video, chat and email. Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) is a specialized version of UCaaS that supports an enterprise contact centre that focuses on communications external to the organization and supporting prospects, customers and partners. CCaaS demands more comprehensive management controls and application integration.
8×8 is a global leader in the Software as a Service integration of cloud phone, video collaboration, team chat, contact centre support, analytics and enterprise grade API integrations supporting critical business applications. Eliminate organizational silos with full analytics and collaboration between contact center agents and functional area experts. 8×8 is the only SaaS provider who appears as an 8 time leader in the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant and also in the Gartner CCaaS Magic Quadrant. 8×8 unites workforces worldwide while providing world class multi communication channel collaboration for the enterprise.
Zoom was founded in 2011 and witnessed explosive growth in 2020 with the widespread global pandemic. Zoom is headquartered in San Jose California is a leader in video-first unified communications. Zoom offers frictionless, ,ease of use and unmatched scalability on a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones and meeting room conferencing environments. Zoom has recently announced Zoom Phone, a modern cloud phone system that includes traditional PBX (Public Branch Exchange) call routing and management features, desktop and mobile applications plus a wide choice of desk and conference room hardware devices to complete the solution. Zoom has 66,300 customers with more than 10 employees and 446 customers contributing more than $100K in trailing 12 month revenue. Zoom is a leader in the Gartner 2019 Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions and the Frost & Sullivan 2019 Global Company of the Year, Video Conferencing Industry. Zoom has enjoyed success in the Financial Services, Education, Government and Healthcare industries.
Five9 has 18+ years of cloud contact centre experience with 500+ Enterprise customers. Five9 enjoys 35% year over year enterprise customer growth while maintaining 99% customer retention. Five9 handles 5B+ call minutes per year. Gartner named Five9 the vendor with the “highest ability to execute” since the inception of the CCaaS Magic quadrant. Virtual Contact Centre includes ACD, IVR, CTI/CRM integration, dialer, Call Recording, Reporting & Compliance, Omnichannel routing and management. Driven by local support and the support of Canadian data privacy regulations, in June, 2020, Five9 began the rollout of their Canadian data centers leveraging the power Google Cloud. Five9 has doubled local Canadian field services teams year-over-year for the past three years with a focus on adding Canadian-based Support, Professional Services, Cloud Infrastructure, Partner Ecosystem, and Customer Success Teams. Five9 will be expanding into new office space later this year in the Downtown Toronto Area, which is fast-becoming the Silicon Valley of Canada. None of this would be possible without Canadian companies who are unreservedly harnessing the cloud to become more agile, responsive, and able to deliver truly connected customer service experiences from any location.
Dialpad was born out of the Voice over IP (VOIP) solution space, a predecessor to Unified Communications. Dialpad is a UCaaS/CCaaS solution and was the first business communications and contact center provider to bring native, real-time transcription, automated note-taking, live sentiment and voice analytics to market, and with the rising demand for remote collaboration, the company has grown as a leader in the space. Dialpad is a business communications platform that combines best-in-class telephony with HD audio and video, leveraging native AI for real-time call coaching and voice analytics. With more than 500 employees, and a plan to grow headcount dramatically over the next year, Dialpad serves more than 70,000 customers from large enterprises to small and mid-size companies. Dialpad, the AI-powered cloud business phone and contact center provider for modern businesses, announced $100 million in Series E funding on Oct 6, ,2020. The round reflects the strength of both Dialpad’s business and the strategic role that best-in-class work from anywhere communications tools are playing for businesses worldwide. In total, Dialpad has raised $220 million, and the valuation over $1.2B demonstrates its leadership position in the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) marketplace and solidifies the role of, and need for, AI-powered insights on all calls as a strategic differentiator for businesses of all sizes. San Francisco based Dialpad has 380 employees, 65,000 customers, 4 products and 10 offices around the world.
Mitel offers MiCloud a premium VoIP (Voice Over IP) UCaaS/CCaaS solution. A Canadian telecom company, Mitel was founded by Michael Cowpland and Terry Matthews, ex Bell Northern Research employees, in 1973 with headquarters in Ottawa Canada. Their telecom switching business grew rapidly to $100M in annual revenue by 1981. Today, Mitel provides a fully hosted end-to-end solution that is easy to provision and provides scalability to meet your immediate needs. MiCloud is built on Google Cloud. The softphone interface supports PCs, Macs, iOS, Android and requires no VPN for remote workers. Mitel Teamwork is the collaboration tool for business teams to create public and private workspaces for sharing and conferencing. Today, Mitel is a privately held company, serving over 100 countries. Mitel generates $1.3B in revenue and supports a base of 1.4M UCaaS users.