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Accessing the Benefits of ‘Anything-as-a-Service’

Companies across industries are seeking voice-enabled solutions to improve the customer experience. In response, anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) providers are installing best-of-breed technologies as native components to help elevate customer experience and accelerate time to market. Some of these best-of-breed technologies are voice and speech technologies. Businesses implement speech software into workflows to enhance interactions along the customer journey, boost flexibility and deliver a compelling return on investment (ROI).
 
Defining XaaS
XaaS encompasses an array of software products, tools, and technologies provided as cloud—or network-based services. It represents enterprise capabilities not part of its core competency managed as a service.
 
For example, suppose an airline wants to provide speech recognition capabilities to its customers. In this case, the airline has two options: (1) it could use its own technology, resources, and data center to develop and manage speech-enabled customer touchpoints, or (2) it could implement speech-enabled applications through a XaaS provider.
 
Access to a much broader portfolio of sophisticated, ready-to-go, speech-enabled tools is one benefit of using a XaaS provider to provide applications. Enterprises often choose XaaS providers to manage costs better and simplify IT deployments. Delivering this through a service provider relieves internal IT teams of the development and maintenance burden.
 
Hastening the Death of “Black Box” Solutions
The expansion of XaaS is disrupting “black box” solutions that have long been the norm. Typically, black box tech solutions fill business function gaps or provide new, single-use capabilities. XaaS providers deliver the same functional ability through simple, intuitive cloud-based. XaaS providers are displacing black box solutions by installing partner technology native to their cloud-hosting environments.
 
Take Twilio and LumenVox. Twilio, a company that provides programmable communication tools and other communication functions through web-service APIs—uses LumenVox’s software to deliver voice-enabled experiences. Twilio can integrate LumenVox’s speech-enabling software as its own and streamline customer-agent interactions that are secure and enable self-service capabilities.
 
As XaaS providers continue to integrate critical components natively, they hasten the death of “black box” solutions.
 
Moving Forward
According to this Deloitte study, “Gaining and sustaining a competitive edge with cloud and as-a-service IT,” 60% of XaaS adopters feel they are “gaining some competitive edge through XaaS.” Adopters say that XaaS has played a vital role in innovation and the reinvention of business processes and has changed how they sell to customers.
 
As organizations adopt XaaS, they must determine areas where they can provide the most value. It’s also essential for enterprises to evaluate and identify the right XaaS providers. For example, they should look for XaaS partners that deliver reliability and performance, offer integration with other XaaS solutions, help optimize efficiencies and provide robust data security and privacy protection.
 
In the coming years, enterprises will continue to shift much of their technology to XaaS for increased efficiency and flexibility; and offer personalized interactions to customers. And in the pursuit of growth, XaaS providers will deliver more service-based solutions.
 
To learn more about LumenVox, check out our most recent award from Frost & Sullivan – Enabling Technology Leader – North American Contact Centers.