During the initial transition from PBX, UCaaS and CCaaS's primary selling point was the mere fact of 'being in the cloud.' However, with the cloud becoming so prevalent, providers need to develop new differentiators and value propositions.
"For 2nd- and 3rd-generation users, the cloud isn't so exciting, requiring providers to enrich their propositions significantly," notes Pragma MD, Will Morey.
Another noteworthy trend impacting the cloud communication market is the increase in budget typically allocated to solutions like Salesforce, HubSpot, and their counterparts, requiring special attention to integrations.
"The cost of these solutions can amount to up to 10 times the cost of a voice solution," Morey notes.
"This means that having your voice solution integrate perfectly into your very expensive CRM or vertical market applications is absolutely critical."
Finally, we have hyper-personalization: people seeking solutions that work for them as individuals. This trend effectively means that solutions not only need to be tailored to their vertical market but also to their specific role.
"Two individuals from the same vertical market can have very different requirements for solution integrations, as they're using two completely different sets of applications in their day-to-day work," Morey explains.
Of course, there's the overarching trend of AI, constantly being implemented in new ways to leverage UCaaS and CCaaS experiences.
Attuned to these trends, Ericsson-LG Enterprise have worked to deliver APIs enabling their partners to deliver on this evolving set of requirements. As ELG's exclusive distributor in the UK, Pragma continuously utilises them to create new integrations, adaptations, and add-ons for ELG's iPECS Cloud solution.
In the last few months, Pragma has worked closely with CoSoft, a voice centric developer and software specialist, and released three products developed using ELG's APIs, and a fourth one is coming out soon. All heavily feed into these trends. Here they are.
Connect for iPECS: Nuanced Integrations, Enhanced Productivity
Using ELG's APIs, Pragma has developed Connect for iPECS Cloud to offer a hyper-integrated experience for businesses. This not only includes seamless integrations into popular applications but also tailored integrations into market- or business-specific ones.
"Other than lots of off-the-shelf applications like Zoho CRM, Salesforce, SAP, and HubSpot, we offer very bespoke integrations as well," Morey says.
A rather unorthodox example demonstrating the richness of integrations Connect can offer is Pragma's customer in the Livestock Management industry.
"They're quite a big business, and they were very reluctant to change from their existing platform, as it enabled them to integrate into compliance-critical software for livestock management," Morey shares.
It was an all-or-nothing situation: either allowing integration into the software or no deal. While other providers reviewed it and said they couldn't integrate, Pragma managed to help the business tap into a significant opportunity for UCaaS that had been sitting dormant.
"We've worked hard on ensuring sure that Connect enables our reseller partners and users to always be in a position where integration is possible, thanks to this incredible set of APIs from Ericsson-LG Enterprise," Morey says.
Whether it's vertical software like Vincere for recruitment, a very bespoke CRM, or any other niche application – Connect is up for the job. It also integrates out-of-the-box with productivity and project management apps like monday.com, Asana, and Clockify.
"We're seeing the value of these integrations in allowing businesses and employees to manage both their voice and projects in one interface, and we're developing that into more vertical markets," Morey shares.
