CPaaS for enterprises: To develop or co-create? That is the question.

In case you missed it, Gartner recently published its 2020 Market Guide for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). We at IntelePeer are delighted to be included as one of the Representative Vendors in this report. This Market Guide is full of expert insights into the CPaaS market, the components of CPaaS and how it can be used across the business, emerging trends, and much more. 

The CPaaS market has exploded in recent years, this year being no exception with the need for digital experiences accelerated across all industries. As Gartner states in the report, “CPaaS is no longer limited to digital natives like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. Brick-and-mortar organizations, including finance, healthcare, utilities, transportation, and retail (followed by all other verticals to some degree), are embracing CPaaS.”  

More companies are jumping (or thinking of jumping) on the CPaaS train and are faced with a diverse offering of vendors and capabilities, making the decision seem like a choose your adventure game. Thankfully, Gartner also provides guidance through the vendor landscape, distinguishing them as either “developer-focused vendors” or “co-creator vendors.”

Developer-focused vendors take a DIY approach to CPaaS, providing the basic tools such as communication APIs for better customer engagement and documentation for development teams to build unified communications-enabled applications and processes. A key requirement of going with a developer-focused vendor is having a development team that can dedicate time to code applications, automated customer experience processes, and integrations with other systems. 

On the flip side, you have co-creator vendors that take a more consultative approach, offering visual builders to accelerate development, access to a wider range of users, and solutions to your business challenges. This makes life easier for even the most technical team by providing them the guidance and additional tools that come from a co-creator vendor. Sometimes even basic use cases can turn out to be a little more complex than originally planned. For example, when setting up a SMS payment reminder, you also need to consider integration to your CRM and payment systems. Co-creators provide the additional functionality within platforms that can be easily leveraged, along with access to their teams to help with implementation.

There are a lot of vendors represented in the Market Guide so we would like to call attention to our approach as a co-creator. While other vendors may have started as developer-focused and added capabilities to become co-creators, IntelePeer has been a co-creator focused on delivering solutions for enterprises from the get-go. Here’s how we can be your partner in co-creation.

• Ease of use and implementation: our low-code/no-code platform was designed to be friendly for non-technical users such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Finance. Developers are able to use our visual designer to build solutions in a snap and create deeper customization and integrations with existing systems.
• Solve business challenges with innovation: we enable our customers to access capabilities such as omnichannel automation, embedded AI, and advanced analytics all in one platform to solve challenges across all verticals. 
• Deliver real results: on average, our customers see a 53% increase in revenue, 28% decrease in costs, and 28% boost in customer ratings.
• Partner in co-creation: we have an awesome Managed Solutions team to provide expertise and best practices while handling the heavy lifting. 

If you haven’t had a chance to read the Gartner 2020 Market Guide for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) yet, we can hook you up with a copy! To learn more about why IntelePeer is an expert co-creator CPaaS vendor to help solve your business challenges, contact us today.

Gartner, Market Guide for Communications Platform as a Service, Daniel O’Connell, Lisa Unden-Farboud, 14 October 2020

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.