Bandwidth strives to make best-of-breed CCaaS-UCaaS convergence a reality

This post was originally published by Charlie Mitchell in CX Today.

Bandwidth’s new MaestroTM platform provides a connectivity fabric between many mainstream enterprise communications solutions.

Consider the current state of the CCaaS and UCaaS spaces, as per the latest Gartner Magic Quadrants. NICE, Genesys, and Talkdesk are the leaders for CCaaS. Microsoft, RingCentral, Zoom, Cisco, and 8×8 are the leaders for UCaaS.

Across these reports, no single vendor is a leader in both markets–despite a prolonged push to pull these technologies together. Some are relatively close, including the likes of Cisco and 8×8.

Nevertheless, this status quo highlights how brands wanting to converge CCaaS and UCaaS with a single vendor must accept a “lesser” solution in one of those areas.

The alternative is for brands to cobble together best-of-breed solutions. Enter Bandwidth MaestroTM.

Bandwidth releases its Maestro solution

Bandwidth has released its Maestro platform, positioning it as the connectivity fabric that allows businesses to bridge the gap between best-of-breed CCaaS and UCaaS tools.

“It’s an entire ecosystem of partners and integrations, pulled together with this key differentiator: a visual builder,” said Travis Hinton, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Bandwidth in conversation with UC Today.

The visual builder includes a drag-and-drop interface that allows businesses to build and customize communication workflows across the two platforms.

Moreover, it also integrates with conversational AI and CPaaS platforms for businesses that wish to pull other capabilities into these workflows and extend them.

One such conversational AI offering is Cognigy–a Magic Quadrant leader in that space.

Yet, as well as bringing all these tools together, Maestro includes machine-learning-based fraud detection, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text tools – all of which are interoperable.

After making this point, Hinton stated:

“We want enterprises to pick-and-choose solutions and to help them realize their vision for what a truly composable communications platform looks like–and we’ve done that with Maestro.

The “Overall best of Enterprise Connect award” winner

Bandwidth Maestro won the “Overall Best of Enterprise Connect Award” during the recent conference and expo – pushing the solution further into the limelight.

Analysts noted that this proved a unique platform, as Bandwidth leveraged its position as the underlying network services provider to many of the most significant UCaaS companies.

In doing so, it can combine Teams, RingCentral, Zoom, and the solutions of other prominent UC players with leading CCaaS solutions–including those provided by NICE and Genesys–in a new way.

Indeed, many have long heralded the convergence of these tools to improve knowledge sharing, agent support channels, and cross-function collaboration.

Moreover, by making CCaaS tools–such as telephony, a knowledge base, and automation–available through UC platforms, HR, sales, marketing, and many other departments may benefit.

Yet, these business units rarely have the resources to leverage contact center tools, with some considering it overkill. Bandwidth strives to make this process much easier. In addition, the vendor offers full PSTN replacement services in 38 countries and territories.

With this proposition, Bandwidth aims to become the “universal platform for Global 2000 enterprise cloud communications.”

While this may prove a tall order, the solution will offer an exciting proposition for many, as long as Bandwidth can keep all these CX vendors onside.

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