Cavell Summit 2025 returned this week with a stellar line-up of senior speakers tackling the biggest challenges in the industry – from navigating the challenging transition from traditional voice services and adopting AI to verticalisation and product diversification.

Cavell Managing Director, Matt Townend, set the stage with his keynote, chronicling the industry’s journey from siloed technology to an integrated intelligent workplace where data is shared between previously siloed platforms.

Matt’s presentation mapped the progression from basic infrastructure at the top of the value chain – like fibre connectivity and network services – through various technology layers down to more sophisticated employee and customer experience solutions at the bottom.

This vertical progression illustrated how traditional telephony and connectivity services have become commoditised while integration, automation, and customer experience technologies represent the true value frontier.

“The intelligent workplace isn’t just about technology deployment but about solving specific business problems,” Townend emphasised, noting that organisations across various verticals are increasingly focused on outcomes rather than technical specifications.

In a compelling panel discussion moderated by Townend, four industry CEOs shared their perspectives on what’s driving their business strategies in 2025.

Gamma CEO Andrew Belshaw highlighted the company’s expansion into Germany, where they now have 450 employees and generate approximately €130 million in revenue.

“What’s been my driver in the last 12 months and will be in the next 12 to 24 months is establishing our business in Europe,” Belshaw said.

8×8 CEO Sam Wilson emphasised a fundamental shift in business priorities: “In 2020, we saw a massive shift in spending towards customer retention. For 25 years, it had all been around customer acquisition… now it’s retaining customers.”

Wilson presented compelling data to underscore this shift: “One in three customers will leave a brand they love after one bad customer experience. Every brand has only 2.4 chances before they lose their customers.” This small margin for error explains why businesses are investing heavily in customer experience technologies.

Alianza CEO Brian Beutler said service providers are presented with “the largest opportunity in the communications industry since of the big transformation from analogue to digital services,” pointing to AI and the “hyper verticalisation of business applications” as driving this opportunity.

This year’s Cavell event introduced a dedicated CX Summit for the first time, with automation and AI dominating discussions on the future of customer experience.

The summit arrived at a critical moment for the industry, with customer experience technology shifting from a nice-to-have to a must-have investment for businesses across sectors.

Cavell’s Senior Analyst Finbarr Begley’s keynote presentation delivered a comprehensive breakdown of enterprise CX trends, drawing from Cavell’s extensive 800-person contact centre manager survey.

The research revealed a dual growth pattern: expansion in first-time contact centre deployments alongside growth in established, larger contact centres.

Perhaps most tellingly, the survey highlighted a dramatic shift in automation attitudes, with most companies now expressing confidence that their customers would be satisfied with semi-automated or mostly automated CX systems.

This represents a significant reversal from previous years when conventional wisdom held that customers preferred human interactions. The data suggests that organisations increasingly view AI-assisted and self-service interactions as cost-saving measures and genuinely customer-friendly options.

An audience poll conducted during the keynote revealed that service providers are particularly interested in understanding AI’s impact on customer experience and the growth potential for SMB-focused CCaaS offerings. This aligns with the broader trend of bringing enterprise-grade capabilities to smaller businesses through more accessible, cloud-based solutions.

The summit’s first panel session brought together heavyweights from across the CX platform world, with representatives from Five9, ContentGuru, NICE, BrightPattern and Dialpad engaging in a spirited debate about the future of customer experience technology.

Despite their competitive positioning, these industry leaders found common ground on one critical point: automation and efficiency will be central to next-generation solutions.

Where disagreement emerged was around implementation priorities – should development focus on fully automated customer interactions or concentrate instead on augmenting human agents with AI assistance?

The panel ultimately concluded that successful implementations would likely blend both approaches, with the optimal mix determined by specific use cases and customer preferences. What became clear is that the future isn’t a binary choice between humans and machines but rather finding the right combination of both.

One noteworthy point raised during the discussion was identifying a significant skills gap in the market.

Despite all the enthusiasm for AI-powered customer experience, service providers and end customers often lack a deep understanding of AI capabilities and implementation approaches. This makes it challenging to realise the potential benefits of these technologies fully.

This gap presents both a challenge and an opportunity for providers who can effectively bridge it with education and simplified implementation paths. This point resonated with many attendees based on post-panel discussions.

The main program was complemented by focused sponsor sessions, with Luware highlighting the benefits of Microsoft Teams-focused contact centres. Their presentation demonstrated how organisations can leverage existing Teams deployments to create seamless integration between collaboration and customer experience platforms.

Meanwhile, 8×8’s sponsor session focused on creating smarter customer experiences through CPaaS and AI. Their presentation showcased practical examples of how these technologies can be deployed to enhance customer interactions across multiple channels while maintaining consistent experiences.

The CX Summit track underscored the growing convergence between unified communications, collaboration tools, and customer experience platforms.

As organisations seek to create more integrated experiences for employees and customers, the boundaries between these previously distinct technology categories continue to blur, creating challenges and opportunities for traditional providers in these spaces.

This convergence mirrors the broader trend seen across the main Cavell Summit, where the lines between UCaaS, CCaaS, and CX solutions are increasingly difficult to distinguish as providers expand their portfolios to address evolving customer requirements.

The key takeaway for service providers navigating the market is that specialisation and deep expertise in customer needs may prove more valuable than broad technology capabilities alone.

A recurring theme throughout the summit was the transformation from traditional voice services to comprehensive business solutions.

“Voice happened in 1877. It’s 2025 – it’s 150 years old,” 8×8 CEO Wilson remarked bluntly. “What the customer wants is not voice; they want a solution to their business problem.. and they’re willing to pay us for that solution

On the CX side, Wilson said that customers need expertise in complex areas like “setting up an inbound contact centre that has deepfake detection and PCI-compliant payments across multiple time zones with agent assistance”.

This shift requires providers to move beyond technical expertise in “number porting and voice communications” to become experts in technology integration and business problem-solving. Wilson emphasised that customers “will happily write you a cheque” for solutions that address specific business challenges.

Gamma boss Belshaw, meanwhile, highlighted the challenge of bringing enterprise-grade features, particularly around AI to smaller businesses.

While enterprise clients increasingly request AI capabilities (joking that they often ask “How much AI is in it?”), small businesses represent a different opportunity.

“SMEs aren’t going to buy contact centre solutions, but they will want some of those features,” Belshaw added.

He also highlighted a growing challenge for channel-focused businesses: “If you go to your partners and say ‘I’ve got 100 things that you can buy,’ people get very confused.”

This aligned with what Cavell is hearing from partners – they don’t need a comprehensive PDF of features; they need to know how the technology will solve their customers’ problems.

A dedicated panel session moderated by Cavell’s Patrick Watson explored the challenges service providers face in selecting communications platforms – a decision with far-reaching strategic implications.

The panel began by defining what constitutes a communications platform. Akshay John from Destiny described it as “a foundation that enables a function, but what it allows to deliver is services and value up the stack.”

Anand Buch from Netsapiens took a more technical approach, describing their platform as “an operating system… a platform at the core that you can build on, make extensible so that service providers can build services in their own image.”

John Tucker from Intermedia expanded the definition beyond technology: “For me, a platform starts with being partner-centric.” He stressed that while the technology stack is important, it’s only “maybe 10% of the total problem space”.

Tucker identified two fundamental dynamics driving platform shifts: “One is the huge shift in expectations from the end customer about what we can deliver for their business, particularly leveraging AI.” The second driver, he noted, was the changing vendor landscape.

Jed Pell from Alianza emphasised that migration must deliver meaningful value: “Just moving to the cloud for like-for-like sake is not going to do it.”

The panel acknowledged that platform migration is challenging, with Enreach boss Bertrand Pourcelot noting that “as a service provider, you usually hate migrations because it’s more work for probably similar revenue.”

When selecting a new platform, panellists offered several key considerations for service providers:

• Deployment flexibility
• Commercial model alignment
• Partnership alignment
• Future-proofing capabilities
• Integration capabilities
• Data sovereignty considerations

Pourcelot cautioned service providers to be strategic in their platform choice: “Very key for the service provider is to very well define their own strategy in terms of go-to-market… where they want to differentiate and create value in the future.”

The M&A roundtable painted a sobering picture for communications companies planning acquisition sprees – investors are increasingly sceptical about promised synergies and demanding tangible results.

The days of buying businesses “just for EBITDA” appear to be over, according to participants in the candid discussion among investment professionals, executives, and industry analysts.

A central theme was the marked shift in attitudes toward roll-up strategies, which have been a staple of the communications sector for years. Major investors have begun pausing acquisition activities to focus on driving promised synergies from existing portfolios.

This scepticism stems from the industry’s troubled history with integration. As one participant noted, a major player had completed a staggering 70 acquisitions in just two and a half years, taking what was described as a “brutal” approach of replacing everything to minimise operational drag.

The roundtable identified distinct schools of thought emerging on integration approaches. Some businesses remain comfortable pursuing synergies only at the operational and back-office levels, allowing acquired companies to maintain independent brands and platforms. Others insist on comprehensive integration across back-end systems, product portfolios, and brand identities.

Companies that have successfully integrated acquisitions and created genuine synergies are performing well financially, according to roundtable participants. In contrast, those presenting as unified entities but operating as collections of unintegrated acquisitions are struggling to maintain investor confidence.

Factors driving business valuations have shifted significantly, with verticalisation and specialised professional services increasingly valued by investors. Geographic expansion strategies are also being reassessed, with investors now emphasising the importance of achieving significant scale within specific markets rather than spreading thinly across multiple countries.

Customer experience capabilities emerged as a particular focus area for future M&A activity, with participants predicting increased investment in CX-focused businesses over the next 12 months.

The Women in Telecoms roundtable offered a frank discussion about both the obstacles and opportunities facing female professionals in the communications industry.

Participants explored several key themes, with the need for structural changes to recruitment, development, and promotion processes emerging as a priority. The roundtable noted that while many companies have diversity initiatives in place, these often focus on entry-level recruitment without sufficient attention to career progression.

Several attendees shared successful approaches their organisations have implemented, including mentorship programs specifically designed to support mid-career women in technical roles, leadership development initiatives that combat unconscious bias, and flexible working policies.

The conversation highlighted how the industry’s transformation creates natural opportunities for greater inclusivity. As telecommunications evolves from primarily engineering-focused to more solution-oriented, it opens doors for professionals with diverse skill sets beyond traditional technical backgrounds.

The session concluded with attendees committing to specific actions they could implement in their own organisations – with the consensus being that creating a more diverse and inclusive industry requires persistent, deliberate action rather than passive expectations of gradual change.

The panel discussion revealed interesting insights into regional market variations across Europe.

Dstny CEO Daan De Wever shared an eye-opening observation about Germany, noting with surprise that “50% of the SMEs in Germany still buy fax machines,” highlighting significant untapped potential for even basic digital transformation in some markets.

This observation sparked a broader discussion about varying technology adoption rates across countries. While some markets are rapidly embracing AI and advanced CX solutions, others still have significant untapped potential, even for basic cloud communications.

The executives agreed that these regional differences present both challenges and opportunities, requiring localised approaches rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.

As AI and data analytics become more integral to communications solutions, executives identified security and trust as increasingly important competitive factors.

In response to an audience question about compliance and customer data, Beutler suggested that traditional service providers may experience “a renaissance in their voice business” because of the trust gap between service providers and over-the-top application providers.

“In this next transition from voice to AI-enabled voice and intelligent business processes, customers and businesses are going to look back to service providers because that’s who they trust,” he argued. Beutler believes service providers are uniquely positioned to deliver “highly secured encrypted experiences” because they “own the entire experience.”

This perspective revealed an interesting strategic divergence between Beutler’s belief in service provider resurgence and Wilson’s view that service providers will primarily remain “bandwidth providers… fibre and wireless companies” rather than becoming customer experience leaders.

Companies represented on the panel are rapidly diversifying their product portfolios to address evolving customer requirements. Wilson noted that 8×8 has moved “from 2 products that we sold two years ago to 10 products today, with more coming.”

This product expansion has required significant organisational changes, with Wilson revealing that 8×8 “had to change out half our sales organisation to be able to sell the solutions.” Traditional sales approaches focused on the number of lines or pricing are giving way to consultative, problem-solving approaches.

The focus on vertical-specific solutions emerged as another key strategy. Wilson highlighted 8×8’s success with solutions tailored for specific industries: “If you’re in the UK market, we have Active Assessor and Remote Fix for housing authorities here.”

Belshaw acknowledged the importance of this approach but noted the challenge of building everything in-house: “The sort of myriad of small businesses might want 100 things… next year it’ll be 200… We can’t build that.” Instead, Gamma focuses on strategic partnerships with “large global organisations like Microsoft and Cisco.”

When an audience member asked whether partner enablement is more important than the technology itself, the panel unanimously agreed on its critical importance.

“Part of the Gamma product is the thing, but it’s also the wrap around that. It’s about how we help our partners to sell it,” said Belshaw, emphasising that technology alone isn’t enough.

Wilson added that channel partners themselves need to evolve: “You have to step back and realise that you need to evolve your business… Really understand your customers.” His comments suggested that traditional communications resellers must develop deeper business expertise to remain relevant.

De Wever shared research on changing sales dynamics, noting that younger generations “don’t want to speak anymore with salespeople… They do a lot of research, so reference checking and first-hand experience is extremely important.”

Wilson provided additional insight into the enterprise buying process: “The first thing every enterprise asks you for is a demo. Then they ask you for a proof of concept and then for four references that are exactly like them.” This risk-averse approach explains why vertical specialisation is becoming increasingly important.

As the panel concluded, Beutler offered a compelling perspective on how companies should approach the rapidly evolving market: “There is room enough in this market for all of us and then some. What’s important is that you think about what you can be hyper-relevant at, be really good at, and focus.”

He cautioned against trying to do everything, noting, “We have a human tendency that we can do anything… that’s a recipe for disaster. Pick where you want to play, focus, define success.”

Townend appeared to agree with this assessment, referencing a book called “Riches in Niches” and suggesting that specialised focus is key to success in today’s complex communications market.

The Cavell Summit EU 2025 highlighted how the communications industry is evolving beyond siloed technology to the Intelligent Workplace, where the focus shifts to business outcomes. Customer experience has also emerged as a critical differentiator. As traditional boundaries between UCaaS, CCaaS, and CX solutions blur, companies are taking varied approaches to addressing the market – from vertical specialisation to geographical expansion and channel transformation.