[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, listeners, and thanks for tuning in to this edition of our metrosight podcast. I'm Beth Schultz. I'm the vice president of research and a principal analyst at metrogy. And with me today is Diane Myers. Diane is our senior research director and she heads up our Metracas service. She's joining me here today to talk about our 2026 CCAS Metrorank report. Welcome, Diane.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hi, Beth. Glad to be here. Thanks.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Okay, so, Diane, before we get started, started Talking about the 2026 results, why don't you give our listeners a quick review of our MetroRank methodology in general?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So for those that are new or maybe tuning back in to hear about, you know, a metrorank report. This is our big benchmarking report where we, we score and we evaluate companies across six different categories.
The first one to even be included into these reports is market share. And it varies, you know, based on product that we're looking at, but market share, financials, market share, momentum. So how is their market share? How are they doing relative to their peers? Right. Are they growing or expanding market share or is it contracting? We look at the product mix, we score their product capabilities, and then two customer categories that come out of our big studies, the customer sentiment and the customer business success.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Okay, great. And now for ccas metrorank, we have something new. Not, it's not the first metrorank report that, that we're, you know, that we're making this, we're using this in. But it's the lead, the landscape leader segment, right? Or landscape. What are we calling it? The landscape.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's the Metro Rank landscape.
And yeah, so let me talk a little bit about that. Right? So for, for the folks that are familiar with our Metro Rank reports, right, we, we rank companies from 1 to 10 or 1 to 12, however many companies we're including in the report. And, and that' been doing now for, for three, four years now. And now we've taken it a step further in 2026 by including a visual where we are plotting companies based on two different scores. They're all the scores that we have, right, that we've created an axis that is the foundation score, which is the financials and the product. We have the customer score, which is the, the two customer sentiment and business success that I just mentioned. And then we look at the size of, you know, the bubble, right? So, you know, we put each company as a bubble based on, you know, market share and kind of market share changes. And, and we plot them, right? And then we have the, the groupings across Three different categories. So it's a, you know, so it's a, it's on a graphic. People will be able to see this and, and how we then start to look at companies and it doesn't, it isn't as nice and clean. You know, the companies that you think about is from 1 to 10, you think, oh, maybe the, you know, the top three fit here, here, here and that's not the case. So it's very interesting to look at. And the three categories are leaders. Right. So those are companies that have a high foundation score, a high customer score, you know, that, that where they, how they fit. We have the challengers which are the, the middle band. Right. And then we have performers. So you know, those are, those are the three kind of groupings of, of how we two different axes.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Who's in the report? Who can you tell us about?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so let's start talking about the leaders. Right. So I'll kind of take each into these groupings. Right. So when we think about the leaders, let me start with the, the, the top two who are also the top two in, in our rankings, which is nice. And Genesis. Right. So those are two companies that, you know, anyone if you said CCAs, you know, who, who do you think is CCAS leaders? Who, who kind of is head of the market? Those are two that are always going to come up. Right? Those are two that are going to be mentioned, you know. Right. Right off share leaders.
They, you know, they've been in the market for a long time. Genesis particularly on the, you know, on the, on prem side, you know, stalwart in that side and definitely, you know, a leader and growing on the, the CCAs. And then obviously there's the nice. And so those two kind of are standouts. And then we have the, the next two that we think about which would be 5, 9 and AWS, Amazon Connect in this case. Those are the other two in terms of market share. Right. So they're also leaders.
They have different strengths and the like, but those two also show up in the leadership category. And then the other two that are maybe a little bit unexpected or you wouldn't think, oh, they're also leaders is Cisco and 8x8. So let me take each of those. So Cisco has the last few years done quite well in our overall rankings in large part because their WebEx contact center. Right. So that's their CCAAS service has really been growing at a rate that is faster than the overall market. Right. Or their, their peers. And so their market share momentum has been quite well, you know, so that does well also they're just the finance, the most financially strong company in the, you know, in the top 15.
And that really helps for. For their foundation score. Right. So relatively speaking, not to say others are not financially sound other, but they just hit the high marks across and they've got, you know, they've got good, solid customer input. But really it's that foundation score.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: It's the product, it's the finances that really is a standout for them as a leader. And then the Other one is 8 by 8. 8 by 8 is a smaller company. They're smaller than a lot of the companies in even our challenger band. And when I say smaller, I mean smaller for, for their CCAS market share. Right. There's a few that are bigger, but really what stood out for them in this report and within our landscape visual is their customer scores. They did so well on the customer scoring this year that it just, you know, it was just. They are probably the one company that kind of had, you know, before, before we, you know, you start pulling all the scores in and you start calculating everything, you know, you think of them maybe in that metal band typically and historically, but they really just had this big jump and just a big highlight because of how well their customers scored them and how well their customers are doing with the platform.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Well, that. And that's great for eight by eight.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: For sure. For sure.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: So that's six companies that found the leader space. And we ranked. How many companies did we rank overall this year?
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I should have mentioned that we did 12. Right. So we always look to do 10. Right. Within. Within any of our metro rank categories, we really strive to look at who are the top 10. For the last few years under CCAS, we've done 12 because from, from like 7 to 12, you know, from number 7 to number 12, the market shares are so close. Right. That it almost is a disservice to take off the top the bottom two. So we do 12.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Okay. All right, great. So, so curious say anything else about the ranking, any of the companies where they fall?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: So let me.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, so let me just talk a little bit about who's in our challenger bucket and then. Or our band and then. And then on the performer side, let me just mention them. I won't go into depth because you can absolutely find all the details by looking at the report itself. But we have Twilio and Twilio also is a little bit of a standout. Like eight by eight. Twilio had very. And they're kind of almost on that border, like, gosh, just a little bit here, a little bit there would have put Twilio into the leader category. They're right on that the line there. And that they had very strong customer scores also. Right. Twilio had very, very good customer input. And then the other companies that you think about that are, there are talkdesk, you know, a long standing CCAS company, Content Guru, the European based company Sprinklr and Vonage. Right. Those five made up the challenger band. And then on the performer side is Dial Pad. And so those are, you know that, that's the 12.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: All right, great. So anything that you didn't expect or really stood out to you as you did your analysis?
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Well, I think the ones I mentioned, right. Which was 8 by 8 and Twilio had a big jump and they were not as high overall this year as they had been in previous years. So I mean, I mean they were higher this year than they had been in the last previous year. So. So Twilio got a Twilio and 8 by 8 were probably the bigger, like, oh, oh, that's interesting. This year. Right. They kind of like, like, wow, I hadn't expected that. I wouldn't have expected that. And, and so there was a little bit of a change up, right. In terms of, of some of the rankings. You know, yes, market share is market share and market share is always going to, to be consistent. But I think what's really interesting and what's key when we do these Metro ranks is that we can have things shifting and changing because of the customer input sometimes and the financials. Right. We have companies that maybe four years ago a company like a Twilio, for example, wasn't really financially strong on a lot of the metrics we look at and they have really turned the corner on that. Right. So you know, most of the companies in the space are, you know, unless they're privately held and we don't have input into all of that, are really solid companies at this point, but also kind of the momentum, you know, when we think about market share momentum and companies that are really growing and doing well, the two companies that stand out, I mentioned Cisco earlier, but also Dialpad, so Dialpad is in our last band, the performer band, but they had very strong market share momentum. They are definitely growing and expanding and moving on the market share front.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: They're coming on strong with AI, of course.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yep.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Okay. So you mentioned how crowded the market is. What providers didn't quite make that, you know, they didn't make that, that 12 cut. Who are you, who, who are you watching nonetheless.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, and I would say that it wouldn't. You know, there's over 50 companies, right in terms of CCAS companies and some of them are very country specific. You know, we have some in China, we have some in, in, in Southeast Asia. So like we've got in, you know, in other countries. So we definitely have some really country specific companies that are doing things and, but you know, companies that maybe don't, I wouldn't even say just miss the mark, but companies that have the ability or they have the power to really make a big impact in this space, whether it be in the next year or, or in the next few years that I think are really worth mentioning and people would probably be remiss or wonder why we didn't mention them. Would be Zoom. That would be the first one I'm going to talk about is Zoom. Right. Zoom launched their ccast service in 2022 and it's been growing and we hear about them all the time and you know, we do believe or we do, you know, they're right on the cusp. Right. You know, and will we see them next year? Probably in this report. Right. So, so Zoom, Zoom is one. The other would be Ring Central. Right. So Ring Central had a partnership and still has a partnership but you know, the nice relationship was the foundation for their CCAS offering for years until two years ago. Well, three years ago, you know, in 2023 they launched their own Ring CX and that has continues to grow and be, be really, be really Strong for, for RingCentral and we continue to hear good things and good adoption data in terms of the ringcenter. You know, Ring cx ujet. You Jet's been the market a long time. They have the close partnership with Google. They're doing some really great things on the product side.
They're ones that, you know, definitely should be on the, you know, on a lot of companies as shortlists and to look at. So, so you Jet and then the, the last two I'm going to mention are big ones, right? Big companies. Salesforce, right. So Salesforce this year in March, right. Launched Agent Force Contact center. And yeah, that has the, you know, they've been doing things on AI. They've been doing, you know, dabbling in different pieces here. But the having the full Agent Force Contact center puts them squarely in competition with comp. Some of these companies who are their partners but also, you know, like Avonage And Amazon, but now they're in it and they're definitely one, we're watching closely 100%.
And just the fact of their size and their scale gives them the power to really have a big impact. And lastly, Microsoft, and we are seeing Microsoft showing up, particularly with their Dynamics product.
More and more they're in discussion, their name pops up all the time. We're seeing good traction there. And so I think Microsoft, in conjunction with Salesforce, and then we think About Zoom and RingCentral next year, have the, have the ability to really be quite disruptive in this space.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: It'll be so, so interesting to see what happens. I mean, we've been talking about Microsoft around Contact center for so long and, you know, are they finally going to make a, you know, sizable dent? So we'll see.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: I think, yeah, we'll see. I think that they have the ability to. And I think we see, we hear right. They come up in more discussions and people are saying, yep, they're part of the evaluation. So if, you know, you move those POCs and you move those evaluations into real deployments, they have, you know, that they could, you know, be a real big threat.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. Okay, so thank you, Diane, for walking us through the 2026 CCAS Metrank. Before we sign off, why don't you tell us what's next for metrocast?
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, so we always have the ongoing market shares, right? So our, our market shares for the first half of the year. So Q2 will be coming out in, you know, August time frame, so those will be coming up. And then also just our larger study, we published the customer experience study results, but we'll be publishing the workplace collaboration results along with the metrostars. So those will be up before the market shares. And then we. I'm just going to give another plug, right. So for another Metro Rank that we'll have coming up, which will be, we're doing a combination, we're looking at CC and uc, right? So those vendors who have that combination of a UC and a CC platform. And what does that look like? And so that's probably, to me, the more exciting new thing to keep an eye out for.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: And don't forget cpass, metrorank, which I'm responsible for, so can't forget that one. And then also CRM, right. That'll be another new Metro Rank on
[00:14:21] Speaker B: our, A lot of benchmarks coming up for sure.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's great. Okay, so listeners, as a reminder, you can find our CCAs, Metrorank and all of our Metro Rank reports on the Metro g
[email protected]. and as always, we're happy to hear from you. So you can feel free to reach out to us, Diane or myself or anybody at Metro G via email. Just our first namestrogy.com or you can use the contact button on the Metrogy website. Everybody. That is all for now. On behalf of Diane and the rest of the metrogy team. Goodbye till next time and take care everybody.
