Services Australia has signed a $578MN deal with Optus to deploy a CCaaS solution and related connectivity services.
That CCaaS solution is the Optus Cloud Contact platform, powered by NICE CXone.
NICE CXone is a market-leading CCaaS platform, according to the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave reports into the market.
Optus Cloud Contact leverages numerous of CXone’s enterprise-grade capabilities, including its various channels, workforce engagement management (WEM), AI solutions, and more.
In implementing the platform, Services Australia will transition from its Telstra-based service, which currently handles over 55 million calls and one billion online transactions a year.
According to the government agency, those numbers make its contact center the Southern Hemisphere’s largest service operation.
Sharing more, a spokesperson for Services Australia told iTnews: “It’s vital we have efficient and effective tools and capabilities in place to support our customers.
Optus’ modern, cloud-based contact center solution – which they use for their own contact centers – provides us with known capability and the flexibility and scalability we need to support whole-of-government policy objectives and to modernize our services into the future.
“Optus is an Australian leader in integrated communications, supported by a network that spans throughout Australia.”
Services Australia hopes to go live with the solution from the start of 2026 and will continue with its Telstra-based contact center platform until the end of the year. That will give Optus enough time to deploy and familiarize the team with its tech.
The deployment is part of a big push by the agency to modernize its customer and employee experiences, having overhauled its telecoms in January for the first time in 12 years.
Services Australia reportedly put its faith in Optus due to favorable feedback from its other government clients, including the Australian Taxation Office, Home Affairs, and Defence.
NICE Is the “800-Pound Gorilla” In the CCaaS Space
While Optus is the primary beneficiary of this deal, NICE will get its slice of the pie.
That slice, if this is the APAC customer win that Barak Eilam, CEO of NICE, teased in June, could be worth over $100MN.
Yet, it’s only one of several CCaaS megadeals the company has recently won. Indeed, the CEO highlighted during a recent earnings call how NICE secured five eight-figure contracts in Q2.
Eilam also revealed a 26 percent year-over-year (YoY) jump in cloud revenue over the quarter and stated:
The leadership gap between NICE and the rest of the industry continues to widen. We are winning, displacing competitors, and increasing our market share.
While other brands are experiencing double-digit CCaaS growth – with Five9 one example – NICE is outpacing much of the market by winning these big deals.
Indeed, it now works with six of the Fortune 10, nine of the top global financial services, and all ten of the top US health insurance firms.
Referring to similar statistics, Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, labeled NICE as “the 800-pound gorilla in the space.”
He also hinted that the vendor’s data strategy and vertical focus are serving it particularly well.
“What I appreciate about them is how forward-thinking they are in using their data to help customers change the way they operate,” noted Kerravala on his YouTube channel.
“For example, in banking, they’re using data to mitigate risk in compliance, and in public safety, they’re utilizing digital evidence beyond just 911 interactions.
They have a deep understanding of their customers’ challenges and know how to address these issues at a business outcome level.
“I think they’re doing this better than anyone else in the space right now,” he concluded.
The recent Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” for CCaaS perhaps reflects Kerravala’s take, which labeled NICE as the only “Customers’ Choice” vendor.
However, Eilam will step down as CEO in January despite such successes. In August, NICE named Scott Russell his replacement, who promised to lead the company’s “next phase of growth”.
What might that look like? Prominent CX analysts speculated during a recent episode of CX Today’s Big News Show, which is available here: The Latest on NICE’s New CEO, Salesforce’s PredictSpring Acquisition, & Five9
