Supercharge Your Enterprise Communications with CPaaS

Have you been hearing a lot of buzz lately about CPaaS? As the technology has gained popularity, providers have proliferated , and it’s a lot to take in if you’re unfamiliar with the service.

So What Is CPaaS, Anyway?

A communications platform as a service (CPaaS) consists of communications APIs that make it easy for enterprises, product owners, and developers to add communications functionality to Internet-enabled applications or devices without traditional hardware or infrastructure. In other words, it can enable you to add calling, texting, and 9-1-1 access to your existing communications platform or that cool app you just created.

The CPaaS market has seen huge growth in recent years. Because of that growth, there are more providers to choose from than ever before, so how do you go about picking the right one for your business?

What to Consider When Picking Your CPaaS Provider

There are a lot of factors to consider when picking your CPaaS provider, but remember the most important thing -- this is all about you. Your specific business requirements, available resources, and needs are what’s most important when evaluating different solutions. Start there, and begin your selection by looking at the types of providers to narrow down your search.

There are a few main categories of providers that are sorted by the way they approach delivering CPaaS capabilities:

• Messaging Aggregators like Sinch (rebranded from CLX) and MessageBird are major players in the short-code industry, and may make sense if you have an existing short-code business.
• Pure-Play CPaaS like Nexmo, Plivo, and Twilio offer more out-of-the-box functionality, so if you’re light on developer resources and have a need to spin up very quickly with assets like visual builders and click-to-code functionality, these providers may make more sense for your business.
• Voice Network Owners like Bandwidth are able to offer greater quality control and price economy through the value of network ownership, so look here if you’re a medium-to-large enterprise looking for greater flexibility and scale.

Next up, ask yourself a few questions and create a checklist of your must-haves. Not all CPaaS providers are created equal, and you need to make sure you have the right resources.

• Does the provider have APIs for everything you want to do? Different platforms have different feature sets. For example, Bandwidth is the only CPaaS provider to offer 9-1-1 access. Here is where you figure out what your needs are out of the box, and what you need to build.
• What level of control do you need and have over your communications? Network ownership and visibility will affect this.
• Where are your regional focuses? Just like you, many CPaaS providers center their focus on certain parts of the globe.
• Do they offer the level of support you want? Some providers, like Bandwidth, include support for every customer. Others may have pay-to-play tiered structures or are lacking support.

The good news is, most providers offer a free trial so you can explore their tools, sample code, and more.

Let Us Help

Are you wanting more flexibility and control over your communications stack? Still confused about picking the right provider? Tune in to the associated webinar on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 2:00 p.m. ET, and let us, along with Irwin Lazar, of Nemertes Research, help your business understand which provider will be right for you, and the benefits of plugging CPaaS into your existing enterprise communications solution. If you already have an existing UC or contact center platform, and wonder how that integration plays out, check out the webinar for more info!