Over the last five years, leading providers in the ICT industry have expanded into the contact centers-as-a-service (CCaaS) space by integrating natively built contact center (CC) capabilities into their offerings. Leveraging their strengths in unified communications (UC), video conferencing, networking, and artificial intelligence (AI), these companies now provide full-suite solutions that streamline operations and enhance customer experience (CX). This shift has disrupted the contact center landscape by intensifying competition and driving innovation. The result is a more interconnected ecosystem that necessitates improved growth strategies.

However, this raises questions —
Are traditional vendors that originated in the contact center space losing ground, or is the industry expanding for all?
How does this disruption impact customers?

Frost & Sullivan contends that while mergers and acquisitions (M&A) remain healthy in the CCaaS space, and start-ups are acquired or fail for various reasons, the CCaaS market is currently growing. What was referred to as coopetition 20 years ago, when competitors and partners navigated to expand their piece of the pie, has now evolved to partners being indispensable, with broader relationship building and better go-to-market (GTM) strategies.

To gain a deeper understanding of the impact these providers are having on the CX industry, Frost & Sullivan hosted a Think Tank on February 12, 2025, and invited key individuals from several companies in the “disruptors” category. The insights from the that Think Tank helped to round out Frost & Sullivan’s opinion of expansion versus contraction.