Frost Radar™: European UCaaS Market, 2021

The year 2020 was marked by significant changes in the way European businesses operate and serve customers. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many people to leave their traditional workplaces and move to work-from-home setups to comply with social distancing mandates and limit the spread of the virus. In addition to continuing to adequately serve customers, European organizations are compelled to seek ways to keep employees engaged, motivated, and productive. Digital technologies and cloud communications and collaboration services, in particular, have provided a solution to European businesses and public sector organizations looking to bridge physical distances across employees, customers, suppliers, and partners. Flexible consumption models, mobile-ready solutions, and collaboration-rich user experiences have proved their value at a time of unprecedented physical disconnectedness. To grow revenue above historical levels, unified communications as a service (UCaaS) market participants must create a robust growth pipeline incorporating strategic imperatives in the post-pandemic world to empower a globally connected organization, a demographically diverse workforce, and digital-native customers. Increasing competitive pressures in the European UCaaS market are driving continued mergers and acquisitions among European providers seeking to scale their operations and diversify or solidify their portfolios. However, market fragmentation is perpetuated by the continued entry of US-based providers seeking new growth opportunities as the US market matures. Going forward, UCaaS provider success will be determined by both scale and ability to offer a differentiated value proposition. Service providers core capabilities will need to be augmented by effective technology partnerships and reseller channels. The Frost Radar™ reveals the market positioning of companies in an industry using their Growth and Innovation scores as highlighted in the Frost Radar™ methodology. The document presents competitive profiles on each of the companies in the Frost Radar™ based on their strengths, opportunities, and a small discussion on their positioning. Frost & Sullivan analyzes hundreds of companies in an industry and benchmarks them across 10 criteria on the Frost Radar™, where the leading companies in the industry are then positioned. Author: Robert Arnold