UCaaS and CPaaS: Greater than the sum of the parts

Jacques Der Ohanian

January 30, 2019

UCaaS is exploding in popularity with ready-to-go applications. However, adding CPaaS into the mix can take a communication experience to the next level.

A look at UCaaS

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) isn’t a new concept, for the marketplace or for ALE. While it hasn’t evolved as rapidly as analysts first predicted, it has been consistently on the radar in the communications market. Although the nature of collaboration and conferencing has changed from on-premises to cloud deployment, and other areas as well, the aim of UCaaS remains the same: Companies still need to collaborate from any place, at any time, using any device.

What about CPaaS?

Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) implementation is clearly a critical consideration for any company. At first glance, CPaaS can seem like a complicated concept to implement into any business. In simple terms, however, CPaaS is basically APIs for communication strategies. In the past, implementing APIs was a complicated process. Today, CPaaS is becoming more accessible with new technology making it easier to create and implement APIs.

While it’s pretty common knowledge that CPaaS can enhance digital engagement, businesses can’t efficiently support a customer if they don’t have the right collaboration tools inside of the company. The best collaboration starts with UCaaS: That means people talking to people. An evolution, to support people talking to devices, as well as new services to offer a better customer experience, can follow.

UCaaS and CPaaS: New dynamic communications

Combining CPaaS and UCaaS clearly benefits businesses. While UCaaS connects people inside or outside of a company, with the implementation of CPaaS, companies can connect people with applications, services, and processes. For example, people can connect to calendars and directories to access useful information and context as they interact with others. With a deeper dive into CPaaS, bots can be added to create automated answers for customers, connect objects (IoT) that can trigger alert to the right person, as well as be monitored, use artificial intelligence (AI) based on advanced analytic patterns, and go beyond what used to be possible with just unified communications.

Greater than the sum of the parts

Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow™ offers a step-by-step solution for UCaaS and CPaaS integration that lets businesses start with UCaaS and then implement CPaaS capabilities one at a time. The ability for businesses to evolve the solution at their own pace is what sets Rainbow apart from other solutions.

With CPaaS and UCaaS, enterprises can start with the standard UCaaS client for their partners and subcontractors to use, when interacting with employees. Customers can communicate and collaborate from any device or environment with a mobile application integrated with CPaaS, while leveraging already installed devices or systems and ensuring data privacy. ALE is also working with IBM, to bring artificial intelligence and automation into the communication network. Creating bots and automating conversations will not only improve efficiency, it will also help provide context and useful information as businesses serve their customers.

Find out how Rainbow raises the bar to deliver a superior customer experience.