Unify turns attention to contact centre space after 'resurgence of interest'

Cloud and AI are reinvigorating the contact centre space, according to Unify CMO Paul Cunningham

Unify is reviving its focus on the contact centre space after witnessing "renewed interest" from SMB clients, according to CMO Paul Cunningham.

The comms firm was purchased by French IT services company Atos at the end of 2015, and Cunningham admitted that over the course of the integration the contact centre business was not given as much attention as it should have been.

"Now we are finding that with a large proportion of deals - even in a relatively small to mid-market sector - there is a need for some kind of contact centre functionality. We've seen a complete resurgence of interest," Cunningham (pictured) told CRN.

"Some people thought three or four years ago that that market was - not done, so to speak - but it was relatively stable," he said.

"Now with the onset of cloud - particularly as a service - there has been renewed interest in doing it in every scale of business, because it is now possible for a small business to access interesting functionalities and services through the cloud, which they previously wouldn't have thought about."

Cunningham said that artificial intelligence (AI) is also driving the resurgence of interest in its contact centre services.

"The combination of cloud provision and the influence of AI and learning start to make it much more interesting again," said Cunningham. "We saw with the Google and Atos announcement. There, for example, we are taking Google and AI learning and embedding it in our contact centre functionality."

The CMO also said that Unify is looking out for new partners, but added that it would be a "self-selecting" group based on ambition, capability and alignments of the technologies that Unify works with.

"The Atos connection has given us interesting ideas around innovation and what we can draw from the Atos portfolio into the Unify functionality, and that is interesting for existing and new partners," claimed Cunningham.

"It is about striking a balance between helping existing partners make sense about what is coming in terms of technologies but also using it as an opportunity to get new partners on board who already understand the things we are doing in cloud and cybersecurity."