Perspectives on a Recent Conversation with Frost & Sullivan

By Martin Classen, CPO Enreach

Sometimes, when we are entrenched in our daily activities, it takes an external force to remind us just how far we’ve traveled, and what lies ahead. This type of objective feedback is necessary for not only ensuring that we are on track to meet our objectives, but to also reflect on the success we have achieved.

It was this type of input that I found so revealing during our recent conversation with analysts from the global research firm Frost & Sullivan. The call was initially scheduled to help our team understand the nuances within Frost & Sullivan’s recently published Frost Radar™: European UCaaS Market 2022. The report provides an evaluation of the European cloud unified communications as a service sector and goes into great detail about how the major vendors are performing in terms of both growth and innovation. While the information Frost shared on the development of the Radar was no doubt valuable, it was the ensuing conversation that really validated our core business strategies and initiatives. As Frost & Sullivan reminded us, Enreach has accomplished great things, and we are properly poised for even greater growth.  

The Radar ranked Enreach extremely high in all categories. In fact, our company outpaced all other European-based vendors in terms of growth. Analysts Elka Popova and Robert Arnold noted, in the highly competitive UCaaS market, our company has shown that the combination of robust solutions and a strong go-to-market strategy remains a solid foundation for attracting customers and partners, and for building brand awareness. We certainly appreciated their thoughts and perspectives on the Radar. The subsequent conversation, which centered on market trends and customer expectations, was even more revelatory.

As Popova and Arnold describe, businesses are becoming much more aware of the wide range of applications and services available and are more vocal about adding these capabilities into their organisations. This is a trend that Frost & Sullivan sees across the board—from enterprise to SMB—and is showing no sign of abating.     

The Need for Mobility

One area that Frost & Sullivan expects to become more important is the ability for users to access unified communications and contact centre services through their mobile devices. Even as the impact of the pandemic wanes, there will remain a strong reliance on remote and mobile workers, and businesses want to make sure that there is no lag in productivity, efficiency, or customer service if team members are out in the field.

Enreach has always placed mobility as one of its core strategies. As a company that owns its own mobile assets, we have taken all necessary steps to make sure the mobile services we provide are dependable, secure, and scalable to address SMB, mid-size, and enterprise needs. The philosophy is simple: customers should not have to settle for fewer features and functionalities in a mobile environment. The experience should be consistently productive and satisfying for all our customers, regardless of the network.

The Frost & Sullivan Radar specifically highlighted Enreach’s core native mobile UCaaS offering and effective fixed-mobile solutions as a significant differentiator in the European market. Frost & Sullivan acknowledges the leadership role Enreach has taken with regard to mobility, and sees our solutions as a tremendous asset as the market continues to evolve. This is certainly welcome news. We have always believed in the power of mobile tools. The conversation validated this strategy, reinforcing our belief that mobility will become even more prominent next year and beyond.

Another important advantage of Enreach’s UCaaS offering is rooted in our strategy to converge all individual ways of connecting — fixed voice, mobile, video, chat, email, social channels and more — into seamlessly integrated converged contact solutions. This is not limited to our own product range; we work with best-of-breed technology partners like Microsoft, so Enreach customers and partners benefit the most from the convergence of different communications, collaboration and productivity tools. One example of this is our offering of integration options for Microsoft Teams enriching the user experience with additional PBX features, mobile capabilities, contact centre functionality and more. We also integrate with most existing CRM systems allowing businesses to enhance productivity and customer satisfaction.

All About AI

Popova and Arnold also mentioned another topic that aligns perfectly with our strategy: the growing interest in AI-driven tools that can automate—and in some cases, transform—cumbersome and time-consuming business processes and workflows.

As both analysts explained, automation integrated into UCaaS and CCaaS platforms are allowing customers to increase productivity, become more efficient, reduce costly mistakes, and allow personnel to shift their focus to sales, customer service, and other critical needs, instead of performing menial tasks.

Enreach has been at the forefront in bringing AI-powered tools to the market. We’ve already helped businesses as diverse as financial institutions, taxi companies, and medical practitioners integrate these solutions into their communications platforms. The results we’ve seen so far are nothing less than extraordinary. By embedding automation into the contact centre platform, our financial services customer has already seen a significant increase in collections through efficient outbound campaigns. The taxi company has found it can use AI to compete with popular rideshare services by integrating innovative automation features into its contact center; the company now automates taxi dispatch and payment acceptance services through WhatsApp, giving customers an efficient and secure way to hire a driver and pay for the services—without having to wait in queue to speak with an agent or downloading an app. These types of use cases are just the beginning. As more companies explore the use of AI, we will no doubt find numerous examples of how these capabilities can deliver profound and unforeseen benefits.

We are certainly proud of what Enreach has achieved over the last few years, and it’s even more gratifying when those who cover our industry recognize the innovation we bring to the market and see how these capabilities translate into customers and revenue. But, as our friends at Frost & Sullivan remind us, the journey ahead will be even more exhilarating. This is what happens when talented people work together to produce great outcomes.  

Enreach has recently received the 2023 Enabling Technology Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan. The award recognises Enreach’s vision and leadership in delivering conversational AI capabilities to businesses through its integrated UCaaS and CCaaS offerings.