Summary Bullets:

• Telecom companies are facing many challenges moving beyond their legacy business and adopting digital solutions including AI to drive business transformation.
• Amdocs is helping telcos to drive transformation with AI and its consulting-led services play a key role to accelerate the process from customer engagement to backend operations.

Telecommunications companies (telcos) are in various stages of transforming their businesses. The industry as a whole faces several challenges that have hindered progress.

These include regulations (e.g., to meet quality of service, data privacy, consumer protection, etc.); the need to constantly invest in their networks (e.g., upgrading mobile networks to 5G and 5G-A), legacy systems, and processes (including IT, network, and operations support system); and growing competitive pressures from traditional competitors to new telco start-ups and disruptive players (e.g., over-the-top providers, cloud providers, LEO satellite companies, etc.). They also have a huge workforce that may not be ready to transition into new technology areas such as AI, data science, cybersecurity, and cloud computing. While telcos’ leadership teams are well aware of the opportunities of emerging technologies, they have to take a more holistic approach in transforming the business, not just adding new digital capabilities. They need to reimagine their business (i.e., define the core business and operating model), right-size the organization with the right talent, adjust the company culture, and ensure effective change management.

This means opportunities for technology services providers including consulting firms, systems integrators, and other telco vendor partners to help telcos modernize their technology and transform their business. Amdocs is a key player within the telco partner ecosystem. It already serves 350 communications and media providers across more than 85 countries, including many tier-1 telcos (e.g., AT&T, BT, Telefonica, and Globe) with long-standing relationships. The company offers a range of products for catalog management, commerce and customer care, billing/monetization, network deployment and optimization, service & network automation, and more. Amdocs has also embedded AI (including GenAI and agentic AI) into its solutions. For example, its customer engagement platform is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution to deliver AI-driven customer journeys and personalized services serving both consumer and B2B customers. This is developed in partnership with Microsoft, leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Azure, verticalized for telecoms by Amdocs. Amdocs amAIz suite lays the foundation for telco data management, AI control and governance, and AI application and AI agent deployment. More importantly, since Amdocs is already embedded in telcos’ operations, the company has a deep understanding of the telco business and operational requirements. This places the company in a better position to help telcos adopt AI, particularly agentic AI, to automate workflows (from IT operations to business operations and network operations) to deliver the desired business outcomes.

However, due to the aforementioned challenges, many telcos are facing in transforming their business: They are not merely looking for more technologies but partners that can help them drive business outcomes. Many technology vendors choose to partner with service providers to help telcos close their capability gaps, recognizing the need to work across technologies from different vendors, which may require systems integration. Amdocs has taken a different approach by building a more comprehensive set of services to support telco customers, which it can also extend to customers in more verticals over time. Besides services to support network management and operations, the company is also helping telcos to transform various aspects of their business from CX to the modernization of backend systems. This is through Amdocs Studios, which has broad expertise across cloud services (e.g., strategy, migration, and operations), data and AI (e.g., data strategy, AI & analytics, and GenAI), and consulting services (e.g., experience design, product development, cybersecurity, and risk management). Amdocs is developing agentic services to support operational aspects of the Amdocs Studios’ main practices, including application modernization, data modernization, quality engineering, and more. The company has an extensive partner ecosystem to deliver the right outcomes for customers. For example, it has strategic partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, and Red Hat to offer cloud services.

Consulting services in particular are crucial in aligning technologies with business outcomes and helping drive change especially in using cloud, data, and AI to improve customer experience, employee experience, and operations experience (the processes involved to facilitate the interaction between a customer and a brand). Successful implementation will require enterprises to focus on the experiences they want to deliver and the brand image they want to establish. In particular, a human-centered design is crucial especially in AI initiatives to promote trust and focus on the benefits to enhance human capabilities (not to replace them).

Amdocs has invested significantly to develop experience design capabilities, which will be pivotal to compete with other service providers. Some global systems integrators also have strong creative design consulting capabilities (e.g., Accenture Song, Deloitte Digital, and TCS Interactive). As businesses are adopting digital solutions to drive business and operational changes, it is imperative for service providers to have an industry-focused approach for their go-to-market. This is already the case for most global systems integrators. While Amdocs does not have the scale of some of the largest global systems integrators, it has deep expertise in the telco sector. However, the company will continue to face stiff competition from systems integrators, especially Accenture, Infosys, and HCLTech, which have made acquisitions, high-profile customer examples, and extensive partnerships with vendors important to telcos.

Summary Bullets:

• The combination of omni-channel capability, effective data management, and AI will drive better customer experience.
• As Twilio’s business evolves from CPaaS to customer experience, the company focuses its product development on themes around trust, simple, and smart.

The ability to provide superior customer experience (CX) helps a business gain customer loyalty and a strong competitive advantage. Many enterprises are looking to AI including generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI to further boost CX by enabling faster resolution and personalized experiences.

Communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) vendors offer a platform that focuses on meeting omni-channel channel communications requirements. These players have now integrated a broader set of capabilities to solve CX challenges, involving different touch points including sales, marketing, and customer service. Twilio is one of the major CPaaS vendors that has moved beyond just communications applications programming interfaces (APIs), including contact center (Twilio Flex), customer data management (Segment), and conversational AI. Twilio’s product development has been focusing on three key themes: Trusted, Simple, and Smart. The company has demonstrated these themes through product announcements throughout 2025 and showcased at its SIGNAL events around the world.

Firstly, Twilio is winning customer trust through its scalable and reliable platform (e.g., 99.99% API reliability), working with all major telecom operators in each market (e.g., Optus, Telstra, and Vodafone in Australia). More importantly, it is helping clients win the trust of their customers. With the rising fraud impacting consumers, Twilio has introduced various capabilities including Silent Network Authentication and FIDO-certified passkey as part of its Verify, a user verification product. The company is also promoting the use of branded communications, which has shown to achieve consumer trust and greater willingness to engage with brands. Twilio has introduced branded calling, RCS for branded messaging, Whatsapp Business Calling, and WebRTC for browser.

The second theme is about simplifying developer experience when using the Twilio platform to achieve better CX outcomes. Twilio has long been in the business of giving businesses the ability to reach their customers through a range of communications channels. With Segment (customer data platform), Twilio enables businesses to leverage their data more effectively for gaining customer insights and taking actions. An example is the recent introduction of Event Triggered Journey (general availability in July 2025), which allows the creation of automated marketing workflows to support personalized customer journeys. This can be used to enable a responsive approach for real-time use cases, such as cart abandonment, onboarding flows, and trial-to-paid account journeys. By taking actions to promptly address issues a customer is facing can improve the chance of having a successful transaction, and a happy customer.

The third theme on ‘smart’ is about leveraging AI to make better decisions, enable differentiated experiences, and build stronger customer relationships. Twilio announced two conversational AI updates in May 2025. The first is ‘Conversational Intelligence’ (generally available for voice and private beta for messaging), which analyzes voice calls and text-based conversations and converting them into structured data and insights. This is useful for understanding sentiments, spotting compliance risks, and identifying churn risks. The other AI capability is ‘ConversationRelay’, which enables developers to create voice AI agents using their preferred LLM and integrate with customer data. Twilio is leveraging speech recognition technology and interrupt handling to enable human-like voice agents. Cedar, a financial experience platform for healthcare providers is leveraging ConversationRelay to automate inbound patient billing calls. Healthcare providers receive large volume of calls from patients seeking clarity on their financial obligations. And the use of ConversationRelay enables AI-powered voice agents to provide quick answers and reduce wait times. This provides a better patient experience and quantifiable outcome compared to traditional chatbots. It is also said to reduce costs. The real test is whether such capabilities impact customer experience metrics, such as net promoter score (NPS).

Today, many businesses use Twilio to enhance customer engagement. At the Twilio SIGNAL Sydney event for example, Twilio customers spoke about their success with Twilio solutions. Crypto.com reduced onboarding times from hours to minutes, Lendi Group (a mortgage FinTech company) highlighted the use of AI agents to engage customers after hours, and Philippines Airlines was exploring Twilio Segment and Twilio Flex to enable personalized customer experiences. There was a general excitement with the use of AI to further enhance CX. However, while businesses are aware of the benefits of using AI to improve customer experience, the challenge has been the ability to do it effectively.

Twilio is simplifying the process with Segment and conversational AI solutions. The company is tackling another major challenge around AI security, through the acquisition of Stytch (completed on November 14, 2025), an identity platform for AI agents. AI agent authentication becomes crucial as more agents are deployed and given access to data and systems. AI agents will also collaborate autonomously through protocols such as Model Context Protocol, which can create security risks without an effective identity framework.

It has come a long way from legacy chatbots to GenAI-powered voice agents, and Twilio is not alone in pursuing AI-powered CX solutions. The market is a long way off from providing quantifiable feedback from customers. Technology vendors enabling customer engagement (e.g., Genesys, Salesforce, and Zendesk) have developed AI capabilities including voice AI agents. The collective efforts and competition within the industry will help to drive awareness and adoption. But it is crucial to get the basics right around data management, security, and cost of deploying AI.

Summary Bullets:
• T-Mobile added data connectivity to T-Satellite in an announcement pivoting from “emergency messaging” focus of the service’s launch towards app-based data services and higher enterprise relevance

• Early business app integrations, coupled with an expanded set of consumer apps, position T-Satellite as a broader competitive play in satellite-to-mobile, though IoT support and performance limitations remain concerns

When T-Mobile launched T-Satellite commercially in July, the focus was firmly on safety and resilience. SMS, MMS, and text-to-911 formed the core offering, with compelling stories of hikers rescued and emergency alerts broadcast in disaster zones. At the time, the service’s competitive strengths were clear: broad device support, seamless integration with existing smartphones, and unique value in public safety. But there were also several limitations: no data or voice, little to offer enterprises beyond the “resilience” messaging, and no clarity on IoT support.

The company did promise to add support for data in October, and it kept that promise by announcing its availability on the first day of the month. With data now switched on, T-Satellite can support popular apps like WhatsApp, AllTrails, AccuWeather, Google Maps, and T-Mobile’s own T-Life customer portal. The key feature is WhatsApp voice and video chat over satellite, demonstrating that T-Satellite is no longer limited to one-way messaging and can now support real-time communications, albeit with constrained performance compared to terrestrial 5G.

For consumers, it’s a tangible leap in functionality, making T-Satellite relevant not only in emergency scenarios but to outdoor enthusiasts, travelers, or anyone in a rural dead zone (who can now stay connected with their smartphone apps despite the lack of mobile signal). Apple’s Emergency SOS and satellite iMessage have so far offered narrower sets of features, whereas T-Satellite is making mainstream apps usable in off-grid conditions, targeting a wider appeal and one not limited to a single device ecosystem.

On the enterprise side, T-Mobile noted support for several apps relevant to business and public sector users. Dialpad (unified communications), FLORIAN (real-time location monitoring), MultiLine (secure, compliant business communications), and T-Mobile Direct Connect (push-to-talk) are all now supported by T-Satellite. This is a notable step toward the enterprise relevance that was absent at the initial launch. For field services, first responders, and regulated industries like finance or healthcare, the assurance of “always-on” communications, even beyond terrestrial networks, addresses real gaps in continuity and safety.

Still, the new announcement does not address all potential use cases. IoT support remains unaddressed by T-Mobile, and organizations in industries such as logistics, utilities, and agriculture will continue to look to rivals who are further ahead in satellite IoT integration. In addition, while T-Satellite now supports data-based apps, performance (throughput) is limited, and the experience will not replicate terrestrial mobile broadband. T-Mobile acknowledges this openly, describing the connectivity as designed for critical functions rather than data-heavy use.

In terms of competitive positioning, the service is now more than a safety/emergency add-on. It strengthens T-Mobile’s differentiation versus AT&T’s FirstNet and Verizon’s Frontline, demonstrating both consumer value and initial enterprise relevance. The fact that it is included in top-tier T-Mobile plans at no extra cost (and even available to AT&T and Verizon customers for $10 per month) is an aggressive marketing move. By broadening access, T-Mobile appears confident that the real differentiator will be the user experience and partner ecosystem, not exclusivity.

Looking ahead, T-Satellite’s trajectory in the enterprise space will hinge on two factors: how quickly T-Mobile can move from early enterprise applications to full vertical solutions, and whether it can articulate a credible IoT roadmap. Without those, the service risks being viewed primarily as a consumer perk with limited depth for business users. With them, it could become a crucial feature in industries that depend on connectivity anywhere.

For now, the new announcement is a genuine milestone, achieving a goal that T-Mobile set for itself. T-Satellite has moved from a narrow emergency communications tool to a platform supporting both everyday consumer apps and the first enterprise-oriented solutions, strengthening T-Mobile’s relevance in direct-to-device and satellite-to-mobile conversations.

Summary Bullets:

• Vocus has launched its business-focused MVNO brand, Vocus Mobile, aiming to disrupt the market and inject fresh competition into an already hypercompetitive landscape.
• Backed by an expanded customer base from the TPG Enterprise acquisition, Vocus is well-positioned to accelerate growth with its existing client base.

Australian telecoms infrastructure provider Vocus has finally launched its own business-focused MVNO brand, Vocus Mobile. Leveraging Optus’s 4G and 5G networks the company aims to position itself as a one-stop provider for enterprise communications, offering connectivity solutions across networking, collaboration, and now mobility as it looks to stand out with a range of self-serve features to create a better user experience for its clients. Will the entrance of another MVNO challenger selling basic mobile connectivity in an already crowded market make a difference?

At launch, Vocus will offer three traditional types of mobile connectivity services, including mobile voice and data for Smartphone use, 5G data plan for broadband, and 4G backup to support business continuity when primary networks are down. Customers will be supported by its self-service mobile fleet management platform, Mobile Fleet 360, giving businesses the ability to manage their mobile fleets with near real-time dashboards, bulk activation of services, and the able to configure roaming settings, reducing the reliance on traditional support channels. Vocus’s foray into the enterprise mobile services market is not surprising following on from its acquisition of TPG Telecom’s fiber network assets and its enterprise, government, and wholesale fixed infrastructure business. It has been anticipated for many years, with the company having a long-standing wholesale agreement with Optus through its consumer and SMB brands Dodo, iPrimus, and Commander. While back in 2019, the company extended its agreement to include its various other brands to provide 5G access to support its growth strategy by expanding and growing market share in large enterprise and SMB segments.

The Australian mobile market has three mobile network operators with Telstra maintaining its superior network leadership for many years. Telstra covers 95% of the country’s population with 5G coverage and 99.7% with 4G coverage, equating to land coverage of approximately three million square kilometers, almost three times the land coverage than any of its nearest rivals. To compete against Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom (owner of Vodafone in Australia) recently formed a network sharing agreement earlier in 2025, which extends their 5G coverage to 80.5% of the population and 4G reach to 98.4% of the Australian population with over one million square kilometers.

While the Australian enterprise telecommunications market remains in flux, with many providers struggling to achieve growth and facing revenue declines across their connectivity portfolios. The enterprise market is positioned for growth, with GlobalData expecting the business mobile market to grow 5.5% by 2029. Though service providers continue to battle it out to grow their mobile market share, with the country having three enterprise challenger brands including Aussie Broadband, Macquarie Telecom, and now Vocus all leveraging Optus’s mobile network by trying to break the incumbent’s stronghold of approximately 65% of the business mobile market. While all challengers have struggled to make a meaningful impact in the market, to date, all only offer basic mobile connectivity instead of delivering outcome-driven solutions that enterprise customers increasingly expect, such as IoT, asset tracking, and other advanced 5G innovations like network slicing.

Summary Bullets:

• Sale of BT Radianz to Transaction Network Services (TNS) is the latest phase of BT ‘tidying up’ its international business as it looks to focus mainly on the UK market.

• Underlines how service providers are having to refocus their strategies from general goals to specific, achievable ambitions.

BT has announced that it is to sell its BT Radianz business, which connects financial information exchange networks and a base of brokers, institutions, exchanges, and clearing houses across capital markets worldwide, to TNS, a global provider of ultra-low-latency trading infrastructure, connectivity, and market data services.

This marks the latest step in BT’s retreat from its historic global retail ambitions as it looks to transition to focus on the UK market for business, consumer, and wholesale customers, and to evolve its international business base around its Global Fabric Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform.

Radianz, originally formed in 2000 as a joint venture between Reuters and Equant (the then-brand of France Telecom/Orange global business services), was sold to BT in 2005 for $175 million as part of the UK incumbent’s then ambitious global growth strategy. The company is reported to have current annual revenues of GBP142 million.

The move makes perfect sense both parties. For TNS it complements its existing core business of IaaS-based financial transactions for point-of-sale (POS) terminals, ATMs, and various other payment systems, and for BT as it continues to refocus its business towards being UK only. BT has not released details on Radianz’s revenues or profitability, but it is clear that Radianz is no longer a core proposition and does not obviously fit inside the new BT International’s stated go-to-market strategy. The deal also releases further valuable capital for BT Group to invest in UK infrastructure and deal with other corporate challenges facing the provider.

Outside the UK, BT now only has its BT International division which essentially operates as an arm’s-length business unit. BT is in the process of figuring out how best to use its BT Fabric proposition to realize some return on its investment in what is largely regarded as a cutting-edge international NaaS platform. To date, the asset shedding has been more decisive and clearer than the future of BT International – but that must surely come soon.

The move also underlines the changing nature of telecoms service provider global strategies. Many are withdrawing in part or in whole, or focusing on niche markets where they have a clear advantage (e.g., T-Systems). Others continue to look to serve multinational and enterprise clients across borders with both connectivity and value-added services like cybersecurity (e.g., Orange Business and Telefónica). Then you have the likes of NTT DATA, looking to offer the full stack from telecoms and data center infrastructure to systems integration. The main point is that service providers are choosing their strategic focus and looking deliver on it.

Summary Bullets:

• RingCentral continues to aggressively grow its portfolio of AI-infused features both for team collaboration and communication as well as for contact center.
• The most significant enhancement to RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR) is the introduction of a standalone version called AI Receptionist Everywhere (AIR Everywhere).

RingCentral has maintained a very aggressive cadence of compiling AI-infused features in its portfolio. That is true with respect to both its team collaboration and communication platform called RingCentral RingEX (RingEX) as well as its contact center platform known as RingCentral RingCX (RingCX). Mirroring a growing trend, it has also implemented features that link team collaboration/communication and contact center, allowing for employees throughout an organization to influence the customer experience. RingCentral’s latest portfolio fortification has arrived in the form of new features for RingCentral AIR.

RingCentral AIR is an AI phone agent that can answer or route customer calls using natural language capability. RingCentral AIR now includes appointment booking with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook, and it now supports British and Australian English, Spanish, and French, including Canadian French. In addition, RingCentral AIR will be available in the UK and Australia by the end of September 2025.

The most significant enhancement to RingCentral AIR is the introduction of a standalone version called RingCentral AIR Everywhere. RingCentral AIR Everywhere is especially intriguing because it brings the capabilities found in RingCentral AIR to third-party telephony systems – and thus to users who are not RingCentral customers. RingCentral AIR Everywhere is currently in controlled availability.

The addition of new languages to RingCentral AIR coupled with the compatibility of RingCentral AIR Everywhere with third-party telephony systems will allow RingCentral to expand the RingCentral AIR customer base. That is saying a lot because RingCentral AIR has already seen rapid adoption and growth since its release only six months ago. RingCentral AIR boasts more than 3,000 customers at the end of Q2 2025, triple the number compared to Q1 2025.

RingCentral AIR is also noteworthy because it marks RingCentral’s entry into the latest phase of AI, agentic AI. Agentic AI is an advanced form of the technology that stretches beyond merely generating content, featuring agents that perform tasks independently on behalf of users ranging from the mundane to the complex. Agentic AI can act autonomously, make decisions, and take actions without human intervention. It can adjust its approach based upon new information or changing circumstances.

RingCentral is tipping its toe into the agentic AI waters on the early portion of the adoption curve, reversing a tendency to play the role of follower and unspooling a long lag time versus competitors. RingCentral AIR joins the ranks of rival offers such as Agentforce from Salesforce, Copilot Agents from Microsoft, and Webex AI Agent from Cisco.

Although positive on balance, the launch of RingCentral AIR enhancements suffers a blemish, with no expiration date indicated for the controlled availability period for RingCentral AIR Everywhere. RingCentral is losing an opportunity to generate a dash of market momentum. Even a vague launch date such as ‘Q4 2025’ would be preferable over staying mute. Still, once RingCentral AIR Everywhere does become generally available, RingCentral will officially have yet another impactful offer in its portfolio.

Summary Bullets:

• Comcast has nearly doubled the energy efficiency of its network ahead of its 2030 target while also carrying 76% more data.
• Other examples of greater energy efficiency through new technology include BT Global Fabric, where the replacement of legacy platforms will see a 79% energy consumption reduction.

Comcast announced that it is near to reaching its goal of doubling its network energy efficiency ahead of its 2030 target, stating that it is “delivering dramatically more data at faster speeds and greater reliability at the highest quality for our customers, all while conserving the amount of energy needed to power our network.”

Comcast reported that it has achieved an 11% reduction in energy usage between 2019 and 2024, while at the same time carrying 76% more traffic over the same period as all customer segments use their connections for applications and services needing higher bandwidths – ranging from streaming videos to unified communications. As a result, the energy savings combined with network growth have delivered a 49% reduction in electricity per consumer byte since 2019 (from 18.4 kWh [kilowatt hour] per Terabyte to 9.3 kWh in 2024). Like many others, Comcast has noted both the increase in data as a result of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution as well as its potential to optimize network performance, including enhanced monitoring/network diagnostics, and optimization.

The other trend driving improved sustainability and efficiency in networks is the latest generation of equipment, with decommissioned legacy technology having been far less efficient. GlobalData analysis has found that replacing copper lines with fiber can be up to 85% more efficient, and power-saving measures using AI can lead to energy savings of up to 40%.

Another notable example is BT’s move to the BT Global Fabric Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform, which replaces multiple previous technology platforms and will result in a 79% energy consumption reduction. These technology developments and evolutions are all helping to keep telecoms service providers – national and international – in the vanguard of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given recent flash floods in Texas (US) and wildfires across Europe and Canada, alongside further destructive climate change impacts on society and nature, these examples of progress should be celebrated and encouraged.

Summary Bullets:

• New Zoom CX features are noteworthy for their value and symbolize the rise of Zoom.
• The features connect two key trends – the arrival of agentic AI and the transformation of contact centers.

Earlier this month, Zoom announced new features that are noteworthy for the value they add to its customer experience (CX) platform, Zoom CX. However, the real headline is that the features sit at the intersection of two key trends – the advent of agentic AI and the transformation of contact centers – and are emblematic of the rise of Zoom as a competitor.

A quick examination of the features is in order to better understand their weight. Zoom Virtual Agent 2.0, a self-service customer support agent, can complete complex tasks without the need for human intervention such as processing returns, updating account details, or booking appointments. It also demonstrates reasoning capability, understanding context across interactions, and recalling recent conversations to provide personalized support.

In addition to Zoom Virtual Agent, capabilities that enhance contact center operations were unveiled. Zoom CX Analytics helps assess operational efficiency and service quality; Zoom CX Insights, planned for availability later in 2025, provides recommendations for improving agent performance; Zoom AI Scheduling forecasts demand for agents and generates scheduling accordingly; Zoom AI Topic Detection identifies trending themes in customer interactions so that issues can be isolated and analyzed in real time; new features for its advanced quality management score customer interactions and enable supervisors to surface insights into agent interactions through natural language.

The common thread running through the announced features is agentic AI. Agentic AI debuted in H2 2024 and is already considered to be the next big phase of AI. Agentic AI is an advanced form of AI that stretches beyond merely generating content, featuring agents that perform tasks independently on behalf of users ranging from the mundane to the complex. Agentic AI can act autonomously, make decisions, and take actions without human intervention. It can adjust its approach based upon new information or changing circumstances. Zoom and every competitor, it seems, is leveraging agentic AI in some shape or form.

Agentic AI is not the only link connecting the features. They also reflect the profound transformation contact centers have been undergoing with the concept of a ‘contact center’ yielding to the broader concept of ‘customer experience’. Contact centers are converting from having human agents to including AI agents, from reactive to proactive, from transaction-oriented to relationship-oriented, and from generic to deeply personalized. Zoom and rivals such as Cisco, Microsoft, and 8×8 have been rolling out a steady stream of capabilities to help organizations make the transition.

Most significantly, the new features are symbolic of the profound metamorphosis taking place at Zoom over the past 20 months. After its video meetings capability became renowned virtually overnight in the dark, nascent days of the pandemic, Zoom ignited a steady evolution of its platform. With the October 2023 introduction of Zoom AI Companion, that evolution took a sharp trajectory upward and morphed into a full-blown renaissance marked by the introduction of GenAI features. With the implementation of agentic AI capabilities, Zoom has now entered yet another a new chapter. It is safe to say Zoom is poised to continue its ascent.

Summary Bullets:

• BT, Orange, and Vodafone have launched significant multi-channel advertising campaigns targeted at the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market, underlining its importance to future growth.

• They all emphasize the evolving role of the service provider beyond connectivity, with a focus on security and digital business-enabling solutions that characterize the future of enterprise.

Traditionally, telecom companies have focused mass media advertising campaigns on the consumer market. But now major European service providers are advertising to target the enterprise market, focusing on smaller businesses (e.g., SMBs). This reflects both their strategic shift toward SMBs as offering the best potential for revenue growth, and that their portfolios of technology solutions have become far more relevant in running businesses of all sizes – the market has moved beyond connectivity.

BT Business, Orange Business, and Vodafone Business (there is a trend here in the naming conventions) have all been using adverts across TV, online, and other digital media to promote their business solutions. All their adverts cover similar messages but are also distinctive and memorable.

The BT Business campaign is based on the line ‘We’ve Got Your Back.’ It aims to “showcase BT’s support for every type of business, from the person just starting out at their kitchen table, to major multinationals and critical public services.” The focus of the campaign is to recognize that every business today is a digital business. The goal for BT is to position itself not merely as a supplier, but as a partner offering digital solutions and security alongside reliable connectivity:

BT Business campaign – screengrab

Orange Business aims to underline “the importance of network and digital integrators in the digital ecosystem.” The campaign illustrates the challenges of interconnected components in a complex digital landscape as well as underlines Orange Business’ ability to help across technology areas such as AI, IoT, connectivity, cloud, data, and cybersecurity, promoting the concept that ‘it works better when we work together.’ The campaign avoids the dullness often associated with technology by taking a comedic angle across its adverts, with the goal of making businesses think ‘maybe they should have asked Orange Business?’

Orange Business campaign – screengrab

Vodafone Business’ campaign is based on the strapline ‘Your Business Can’ (echoing Vodafone Group’s ‘Together We Can’ strapline) and is aimed at SMBs that can benefit from digital tools to help boost productivity and security. It also looks to help move the perception of Vodafone as ‘just’ a mobile company to support its strategic push into the broader business market with solutions such as cybersecurity, collaboration tools, and connectivity products.

Vodafone Business campaign – screengrab

Although adverts are often seen as ‘fluffy,’ these three campaigns absolutely underline the seriousness with which these major service providers are focused on the SMB market. Telecom companies globally have realized that the SMB market provides the best opportunity for selling additional services beyond connectivity, with the goal of adding revenues from value-added solutions, leveraging their resources to differentiate against price-focused competitors, and cementing longer-term, stronger relationships with customers. Adverts might just be seen as ‘a bit of fun,’ but this is serious stuff.

Summary Bullets:

• Vodafone Business Germany’s partnership with Envoria offers CSRD-compliant ESG reporting for enterprises as service providers continue to shift toward offering technology-enabled business solutions.

• Growing range of ESG reporting portals being made available to enterprises from telecoms services providers to meet evolving legislation and customer demand.

Vodafone Business Germany has teamed with Envoria, a sustainability reporting specialist, to help its customers meet the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting requirements of the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). This requires sustainability reporting by large companies and listed SMBs. Some non-EU companies also must report if they generate over EUR150 million in the European Union market. The companies must apply the rules for the first time in the 2024 financial year for reports published in 2025.

The new offering, ESG Navigator, aims to act as an all-in-one solution for collecting and analyzing ESG data. According to Vodafone, “companies can use the tool as a central collection point for all relevant data, bringing together sources from different locations and systems for processing and analysis.”

The tool lets customers create and export reports, including visualizations that comply with the CSRD’s predefined templates. Alongside the tool, Vodafone Germany is also offering workshops, training courses, and demos to help customers’ relevant employees to use the software correctly.

The scope of regulation both for telecoms services providers and their customers continues to grow because technology plays an ever greater role in all business and personal aspects of life, and because the technology sector as a whole is a major source of greenhouse gases – most notably this has recently been further highlighted by the impact of generative AI (GenAI) in data center usage, with both Microsoft and Google admitting the impact of heavy cloud computing usage is responsible for their net-zero targets being impacted. They are still committed to reducing their emissions, but they are going to have to be very smart and innovative to meet their goals. This also impacts enterprises along the supply chain as part of Scope 3 emissions targets – which are tougher than Scopes 1 and 2 where companies have greater direct control.

Failure to comply with the EU’s goals, or goals set by corporations themselves, will potentially attract fines by the EU (and other) regulators. Other potential negative impacts include corporate reputation and a growing number of customers and consumers choosing only to deal with enterprises that they perceive to be responsible. This is particularly true in Germany where the Green Party (even though its vote share in the recent European Parliament election fell to 12%, it is indicative of substantial environmental concerns in the country).

Offering solutions like these also makes commercial sense for telecom services providers targeting the enterprise market. As noted in GlobalData’s recent quarterly SMB Watch report, there is a continued movement away from selling connectivity products to selling services that have tangible positive business impacts. These are largely focused on productivity and security, but increasingly include sustainability – and they will embrace GenAI over time too.

Summary Bullets:

• A history of offers that are difficult to distinguish is a significant hurdle holding back Microsoft in the contact center space.

• Implementing a definitive flagship contact center offer coupled with Microsoft Teams would go far in alleviating competitive pressure.

Microsoft tore the wrapping paper from its latest contact center offer with the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center on July 1, 2024. When it comes to Microsoft, contact center is the gift that keeps on giving. Pre-dating this new arrival is a string of ancestors born annually, featuring overlapping functionality and sometimes bearing similar names. Sorting through the morass is confusing.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) offer that works across channels including voice, SMS, chat, email, and social media apps. It incorporates Microsoft Copilot, a proprietary generative AI (GenAI) and natural language processing engine to provide personalized self-service as well as automate repetitive agent tasks such as summarizing conversations, drafting emails, and offering suggested responses. Intelligent routing can transfer self-service requests to an agent best qualified to assist. Real-time reporting allows supervisors to assess center operations. Users can also connect to customer relationship management (CRM) systems and custom apps they already use.

While the benefits of the offer are clear, what is not clear is whether Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a unique persona or merely a twin. The name reads like a cross between ‘Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform’ released in July 2022 and ‘Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service’ released in March 2023. Also, functionality bears a striking resemblance across the three offers. For example: the option of self-service capability or connection to a virtual or live agent; support for numerous customer engagement channels; suggested responses to customer inquiries; automation of multiple agent tasks; and extensive use of GenAI.

The confusion does not terminate there: Microsoft also just introduced ‘Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium,’ which takes Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center and layers on top another service – the similar sounding ‘Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise.’ The combined offer is an integrated contact center and CRM service solution that creates personalized customer journeys. However, the value of the offer gets lost in the shuffle of confusing naming conventions.

A sequence of contact center offers that are difficult to parse is only one Achilles’ heel that Microsoft needs to resolve. Competitors such as Cisco, Zoom, and RingCentral bring contact center offers to the market as well, and they are continually enriching them with new features and capabilities. In addition, they don’t suffer puzzling nomenclature, nor do they come with historical baggage attached: Customers avoid the struggle of attempting to decipher the portfolio.

Microsoft could alleviate some of the competitive pressure by mimicking those same rivals and coupling Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center with Microsoft Teams to fill the growing need for integrated unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) and CCaaS that allows all customer-facing employees to better serve customers.

It is surprising that Microsoft has not taken that logical step. If it does and plants a firm stake in the ground with an unwavering, definitive, flagship contact center offer, it would make for a nice springboard for future success in the contact center space.