In recent months, Avaya’s bankruptcy has become the talk of the CX town.
Yet, it's far from the only vendor in the space to experience financial woes.
Last month, that reality shifted further into sight, with Lifesize following Avaya into Chapter 11.
Reacting to the news, Dave Michaels, Lead Analyst at TalkingPointz.com, told CX Today:
Quite simply, it’s too many companies and too little growth… Microsoft is sucking the air out of the ecosystem, and companies like Lifesize don’t stand a chance.
In the UCaaS space, this is most evident, with Microsoft reaching 300MN monthly active users on Teams earlier this year.
Yet, consider the other realms of CX. Microsoft only occupies 5.8 percent of the CRM market – according to 2022 research from the IDC.
Meanwhile, some analysts have placed doubt on its ability to compete in the CCaaS market, in the short-term at least.
Sensing this, many UC players have switched the focus to CCaaS in recent months, anticipating additional room for growth in that space.
8x8 has made this strategy crystal clear. Meanwhile, the like of Cisco, Dialpad, and Zoom are placing a lot more emphasis on the contact center.
Yet, as these vendors have made this shift, the CCaaS space – like the UCaaS market - has become highly saturated.
Moreover, new entrants like Salesforce and Google have only suffocated the space further.
"A Lot of Companies Around Us That Are Struggling" - NICE CEO
Given the current macro-environment, in which deal cycles are expanding, increased suffocation in the comms space is especially concerning.
Indeed, Barak Eilam, CEO of NICE, highlighted the financial strains of rival CCaaS vendors during a recent earnings call – despite NICE posting solid revenue growth itself. He stated: