Service Providers: How to navigate the shifting UC landscape in the age of automation

Service providers must navigate a myriad of factors to stay profitable. Amidst this dynamic environment, UC automation management and analytics tools such as VOSS address many of the pressing concerns faced by service providers. Read on!

Bias and entrenchment towards UC platforms

Service providers have heavily invested in hiring and training engineering staff proficient in mainstream UC vendor platforms. However, retooling for newer cloud platforms triggers the need for retraining, which can be complex, expensive, and slow. The transition and upskilling of staff are influenced by economies of scale. As more customers come on board, the viability of transition and uptake increases, but it remains a challenging process.

Service provider engineers often exhibit bias and entrenchment towards the UC platforms they are skilled in, trained in, and accredited in. Accreditations are valuable and transferrable, further solidifying this bias. Sunk costs also play a role here, complicating the adoption of newer platforms.

There’s an opportunity here for service providers to deploy a multi-vendor UC automation management platform – such as VOSS – that overarches all UC technologies and enables the provider to centrally manage all their customers from a single point of control. With role-based access control, entry-level engineering support staff or local administrators can manage day to day service requests and resolve tickets in real-time. By leveraging cheaper resources for the more basic routine tasks, the service provider can reduce costs and speed time to resolution, responding to change more quickly and being more profitable.

Adapting to managed service models

Another challenge for service providers is to accept that the managed service pendulum always swings from the centrally managed model to the distributed management model. As systems become simpler to use, customers will take back control, moving from an outsourced model to an insourced model. This threatens the service provider’s profitability, and they should be looking for opportunities to provide thought leadership on how they can offer hybrid managed service models. This would give customers the ability to take on as many service management elements internally through automation and integration as they wish, while the service provider manages the more complex elements, ensuring continued viability and profitability.

This gives the customer a much needed element of control and empowerment, with improved visibility into the performance of their UC estate.

Challenges and opportunities in the cloud era

The advent of cloud UC brings both challenges and opportunities for service providers. Customer expectations for cheaper services, coupled with the need for digital speed and automation, create pressure for service providers to adapt. Cloud UC also simplifies some aspects while increasing complexity in management, requiring automation and analytics for efficient operations.

With Cloud UC, there is less room for service providers to differentiate their services and outmanoeuvre competitors. However simply cloud started, it is getting more complex to manage, as cloud features ramp to on-premises systems feature sets, making automation a necessity.

In fact, gaps in cloud capabilities present short-term opportunities for service providers, not just for automation, but devolved administration, insight and analytics as well. Despite the allure of single-vendor solutions, the reality is that cloud UC often involves multi-vendor ecosystems, offering revenue opportunities for service providers in migrations and managed services.

The reality of multi-vendor UC

While a panacea of single vendor, like Microsoft Teams, has been sold to the market, the reality is that even single vendor cloud UC is very much a multi-vendor ecosystem once SBCs, endpoints and, third party software such as recording systems, contact centers, are integrated. Service providers must be able to manage their customers’ multi-stack UC estates, to benefit from revenue opportunities in migrations, and to continue to develop innovative managed options for their customers.

Reducing cost to serve and embracing automation

Service providers often find themselves stuck in the middle, with vendors taking large chunks of the service profits and the economies of scale, while customers expect managed service pricing to reduce or go away substantially.

Additionally, service providers are under pressure to deliver UC applications and services cheaper, and customers expect lower costs as they move to the cloud, which creates price pressure. As a result, service providers must be innovative in the way that they deliver value to customers.

To stay profitable, service providers must significantly reduce the cost to serve, especially in the face of shrinking budgets and a scarcity of UC specialist skills. UC automation and analytics become not just an option but a necessity for service providers to thrive in the UC landscape.

To find out more about how VOSS can help you introduce UC automation and analytics into your service offering, please get in touch.