Global Contact Centre-as-a-Service (CCaaS) market will grow at 216 percent to reach $15.6 billion by 2027, from $4.9 billion in 2022, says a new report from Juniper Research.

The growth is driven by the breadth of services offered within subscription-based models, including advanced analytics capabilities, AI‑enabled chatbots and personalised video solutions.

The report has ranked Twilio as the top CCaaS vendor, with CM.com and Infobip in 2nd and 3rd position, based on evaluation of a number of criteria such as depth and breadth of offerings, service innovation and future prospects.

Research author Elisha Sudlow-Poole said, “Offering unique innovative services is not enough to stand out in the market. Enterprises will choose their preferred solution based on the comprehensiveness of the value-added services available. As a result, vendors must look to expand the solutions offered via their CCaaS platform to provide crucial differentiation in a highly competitive market.”

Key market drivers of CCaaS service include omni-channel communications, social media, cloud-based comprehensive offerings, automation using AI and ML technologies.

The research predicted that social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook will become an important medium for enterprises to interact with their customers in the future. Thus CCaaS vendors who integrate inbound communications from these channels into their solutions will be able to provide the maximum reach to end users for CCaaS clients.

Offering omni-channel functionality will enable CCaaS vendors to strengthen product portfolios; mirroring the success of the CPaaS (Communications Platform-as-a-Service) ecosystem, the report said.

However, the CCaaS market can be impacted by emerging threats which can grow multifold in omnichannel applications. Some of the leading market constraints as identified by Juniper Research include IVR fraud, security risks, cyber attacks and data security. Since many contact centers allow work-from-home facility, these factors need to be addressed on priority.

Lack of sufficient bandwidth can also emerge as a constraint while providing a telephony system that is operated as a cloud-based service.

P2A Voice Traffic Identification is another area that providers need to focus on. In order to ensure maximum ROI, operators must be able to identify how much voice traffic is attributable to contact centres. If this P2A traffic is not identified, it will be assumed as P2P traffic, which is essentially free to the consumer. To facilitate this identification, voice firewalls should again be used to identify P2A traffic and distinguish it from P2P and A2P.

Juniper Research predicts that operators and CCaaS providers will accelerate their investment in technologies such as RCS to offset the loss over SMS revenue over the next five years.

Despite the staggered deployment of RCS, CPaaS (Communications Platform-as-a-Service), SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) and MaaP (Messaging-as-a-Platform) solution providers will play a significant role in the future support and roll-out of RCS. Specifically, CCaaS providers will act as a link between operator networks and the consumers who wish to use the technology, the report said.

Other prominent technologies gaining traction among CCaaS vendors include IVR, dialer, 5G interactive calling and programmable voice.