How do you build a CPaaS business case?
No matter how big or small the deployment, building a business case for CPaaS is essential to creating a more flexible and controlled communications environment.
Communications platform as a service has been gaining popularity for both collaboration and customer service needs, but its business value is not well understood. As with cloud-based unified communications and contact centers, CPaaS can be deployed as a standalone development platform, but most businesses do not have the necessary expertise to justify that.
The benefit of providing more flexibility and control over managing communications applications is what will likely drive CPaaS forward. In legacy environments, these capabilities are limited and often constrained by proprietary technologies that can only be modified by vendors or external parties.
CPaaS opens up new possibilities, enabling IT leaders to think differently about communications technology. This recognition is the starting point for deploying CPaaS. With that, here are two principles for building a business case, even if it's just for a small-scale deployment.
1. Open APIs
CPaaS platforms are developer-centric by nature, where open APIs are the building blocks for programmable communications. The pool of developers is rapidly growing. With no limit to creating new applications to enhance communications, CPaaS development is not the sole domain of vendors and integrators.
With today's open APIs, businesses have many options for tapping the expertise of developers. The business case for CPaaS has become more attractive as it has grown increasingly easy to boost CPaaS with the advent of no code/low code, either through third parties or in-house. This is not just because open API development costs are affordable, but also for the control CPaaS provides for getting exactly what the organization needs.
2. Rapid time to market
This becomes another business case driver because it helps the organization become more agile. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, business conditions remain uncertain, and agility has become a strategic priority for staying competitive. This means being more responsive to customers, along with being able to adapt to fast-changing conditions.
With the flexibility and control that comes with CPaaS, businesses can be much faster to market, which helps them stay one step ahead of competitors. Accordingly, customers feel more valued when they are updated in a timely manner about new offerings or fixes.
The more responsive and personalized the response, the greater the business value will be. Consider how much better it will be using CPaaS than having to rely on vendors or partners to develop new capabilities, which are often on their timetable and not yours.
