Datacom’s convergence lessons for partners

As major player expand into more services, Datacom shows flexibility is the partner’s best strategy.

Datacom is seeing boundaries blur as contact-centre players are pushing into CRM and analytics.

Those partners facing convergence challenges need to learn how to adapt and be flexible as the technology landscape shifts.

As one of the region’s largest IT service providers, Datacom spans cloud, customer experience and digital transformation across enterprise and government.

Major vendors such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft and others are extending beyond their core services and moving into contact-centre and workflow territories. This “stack convergence” forces partners to navigate overlapping ecosystems.

Dean Fox, Datacom’s director of product, partnering and pre-sales, said the trend is accelerating.

“We’re seeing CRM players become contact-centre providers and ticketing systems add engagement layers,” he said from the Twilio Signal event in Sydney this week.

Datacom’s technology-agnostic model means it partners with major hyperscalers and CX providers, allowing it to remain flexible rather than anchoring to one stack.

The company is customer-outcome led, selecting the best combination of tools for each deployment, and this flexibility allows it to shift strategy.

“If a partner goes down a path we don’t want to follow, we can pivot easily. Agnosticism gives us that flexibility,” Fox told CRN Australia.

AI is accelerating convergence

AI is amplifying the push towards convergence. As customer support services become more automated and data-driven, AI offers promising integrations that improve outcomes.

“AI’s making experiences better — it’s the layer that enhances what’s already converging,” Fox said.

In its own operations, Datacom uses AI to speed software development, monitor and summarise calls and remove repetitive human work.

For partners, AI means new services — but also tighter integration expectations.

“This moment was made for the contact-centre industry and technology like AI is really primed for partners like us to use,” he told CRN Australia.

Locally, Fox says global vendors see Australia and New Zealand as innovation testbeds and are investing accordingly.

He expects sovereign-AI to work alongside hyperscaler platforms and global AI services.

“There’s definitely a place for sovereign AI,” he said.

Pandemic-era shift still playing out

When the pandemic hit, Datacom needed to stand up contact centres within days, but it faced the problem that legacy telco infrastructure couldn’t scale quickly.

It turned to Twilio’s usage-based, API-driven platform, which allowed Datacom to deliver flexible capacity and rapid deployment tailored to customer needs.

“Twilio’s model let us deploy contact centres in days and flex capacity to customer demand,” Fox said.

The experience reinforced the value of composable platforms and vendor collaboration. It’s an approach other partners can emulate when technology players reposition.