It’s no secret that data analytics have the potential to dramatically enhance the customer experience. Likewise, cybersecurity issues and digital fraud protections are an essential need in this process. But as the world becomes increasingly more mobile, and as emerging markets expand, innovative solutions are required. For TeleSign, a global leader in customer identity and engagement services, these are the types of solutions they provide. It also is now a rising Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) leader.
Not only does TeleSign expect an evolving need for companies to utilize their two-factor authentication services for customer identity solutions, but it also plans to develop its CPaaS for business. CPaaS offers security protections by using mobile numbers instead of passwords to verify authenticity. But also, it offers CPaaS as a means to collect data and customize communications with consumers. In a mobile society, this has tremendous potential.
TeleSign, a Little Background on Its Rise as a Global CPaaS Leader
Initially arising out of an incubator in California, TeleSign and its three founders went through the struggle of getting the startup off the ground. Despite developing its patented two-factor authentication model to verify consumer identity, convincing others of the potential was difficult. Disraeli and his co-founders were ready for all kinds of challenges. “
Adaptability and willingness to change – when we were first starting out, one of our largest clients threatened to leave – fraudsters had found a way around our product that had initially blocked almost all their fraud. This situation led us to develop and innovate as a company to address an immediate market need, and ended up being the beginning of a new data product release for TeleSign. It forced us to recognize the need to always challenge assumptions and continuously innovate.” -Ryan Disraeli, TeleSign CEO
But in 2008, TeleSign acquired its first major client. Today, TeleSign generates over $100 million a year, operates in over 200 countries, and provides services in 87 languages. Similarly, TeleSign protects billions of consumer accounts.
In essence, TeleSign gained recognition by enhancing consumer identity verifications through a mobile phone-based pin code verification process. In doing so, password requirements could be bypassed, and the potential for hackers, fraudulent registrations, and account takeovers became minimal. This was notably important for apps as well as web applications. But since, demand for expanding these services with data analytics and consumer engagement strategies has increased substantially. This is where CPaaS comes into the picture.
The Potential of CPaaS for Businesses
When it comes to content marketing, CPaaS has tremendous potential from the perspective of TeleSign. As a shift away from passwords occurs, and the use of mobile numbers offer new identification services, mobile data becomes golden. Enhanced contextual communications can take place with customers as well as better solution-oriented experiences. CPaaS can provide marketing campaign opportunities such as alerts, reminders, invites as well as two-way communications. Not only is TeleSign developing these CPaaS offerings, but they are also combining these with enhanced security processes as well.
In addition, mobile carriers are offering more insights in terms of the data they have regarding their customers. While Internet data will remain rich, mobile data now has tremendous potential as the world increasingly adopts mobile devices. This is a major reason for the acquisition of BICS of TeleSign. BICS, a major Belgian telecommunications firm with a massive international mobile network, offers TeleSign greater global access to mobile users. This will reduce bandwidth leasing costs for TeleSign while granting greater access for their CPaaS services.
“TeleSign is uniquely positioned in the market after being acquired by BICS. The acquisition created the first end-to-end CPaaS player in the market which ensures not only direct carrier connections for quality routing and delivery of messaging but also access to data that can help our customers protect, connect, and engage with their users.” – Ryan Disraeli
The acquisition created the first end-to-end CPaaS player in the market which ensures not only direct carrier connections for quality routing and delivery of messaging but also access to data that can help our customers protect, connect, and engage with their users.”
Bold Leadership Among a Dynamic Field of Competition
For TeleSign, competition is something the company has dealt with almost since its inception. Twilio Inc., also a CPaaS platform provider, offers communications via voice, text and web-based applications for software developers. Symantec VIP is another global company doing biometrics and mobile authentications to enhance traditional password security processes. And Duo Security similarly provides two-factor authentication systems that can be integrated with websites, VPNs and cloud services.
Despite intense competition, TeleSign looks to be in a good position to capture a sizable share of the CPaaS market moving forward. In addition to its recent purchase by BICS, the company is extremely focused on its clients and versatile in its solutions. And with recently named co-founder, Disraeli, as CEO, the company enjoys bold leadership to help tackle any challenge. At least for the immediate future, the company looks to be leading the pack in CPaaS and identity services.
For a profile on TeleSign CEO Ryan Disraeli, check out this week’s Bold Leader Spotlight.
