Trust is now the foundation of public sector communications. So what does that mean for vendors like Zoom, Microsoft, and others competing for these sought after contracts — and what must buyers and procurement teams watch for as we enter the wave of AI-first communications?
*This content is sponsored by Zoom.
Public sector organisations across EMEA are under sustained pressure to modernise services while maintaining security, resilience, and public trust. That’s the headline finding from research covering 2,000 public sector IT and digital decision-makers (1,000 UK, 1,000 Germany).
The overall findings show that trust, data control, and secure communications now shape almost every technology decision in the public sector.
Furthermore, there’s a pressing need to integrate frontline and back office staff. For example, contact centres are no longer back-office functions working in silos. They are now central to citizen experience, workforce productivity and service continuity.
Public Sector Priorities in 2025–26
Cybersecurity remains the single most cited modernisation priority, identified by 50% of UK and 45% of German respondents.
Alongside security, public sector leaders are prioritising:
- Modernising communications and collaboration platforms (49% Germany and 40% UK)
- Upgrading contact centre and citizen engagement systems (43% Germany and 33% UK)
These findings suggest that communications transformation is no longer isolated. It’s increasingly tied to resilience, service performance and citizen trust.
In addition to these priorities, broader industry and sector sources point to evolving imperatives shaping communications strategies:
- Hybrid and unified communications models are becoming mission-critical: Organisations are shifting toward hybrid communications systems that support remote, in-office, and citizen facing interactions in a seamless, resilient way, with 63% of organisations prioritising UC modernisation and 92% emphasising hybrid deployment models in recent multi-region research covering the UK and Germany.
- Customer/citizen engagement remains a primary driver of technology change: 52% of organisations are focused on improving customer engagement through upgraded communications solutions, reinforcing the focus on contact centre and citizen interaction modernisation.
- Platform sprawl and fragmentation continue to hinder performance: 31% of public sector organisations cite internal challenges with multiple disconnected tools, underscoring the need for unified platforms rather than point replacements.
- AI adoption and secure integration shape future priorities: 47% of public sector organisations expect government policy to accelerate AI usage across communications and CX functions within three years, indicating that future-proofing around AI and secure data integration is now an emerging priority.
These trends demonstrate that public sector communications transformation is no longer a series of incremental upgrades. It reflects a strategic redesign of communications capabilities, driven by security, hybrid engagement, unified platforms, and emerging AI expectations.
The data points to a clear shift: communications platforms are being evaluated as part of broader digital infrastructure, not standalone tools.
Data Sovereignty: From Compliance Requirement to Strategic Enabler
Data sovereignty and residency are near-universal concerns, with 99% of respondents in both the UK and Germany stating they are important when evaluating communications platforms.
Public sector leaders are concerned not just about where data is stored, but about:
- Operational control
- Lawful access
- Third-party and supply-chain risk
Germany, in particular, shows higher concern around cloud security and third-party risk, reflecting a strong regulatory and governance culture.
Against this backdrop, local infrastructure investment is increasingly seen as a practical response to sovereignty requirements rather than a marketing differentiator.
Zoom’s investment in regionally hosted infrastructure, for example, reflects this shift toward greater sovereignty controls in cloud communications designed for public sector assurance. In addition to existing European data infrastructure serving EMEA — including facilities in Frankfurt and Amsterdam — Zoom has announced the launch of a new UK data centre.
This local presence will support core services like:
- Meetings
- Webinars
- Rooms
- Team Chat
- Phone
- Note
- Docs
- Zoom AI Companion
Furthermore, UK-only meeting zones and telephony gateways are designed to give public sector organisations greater confidence that data is processed and stored in line with national expectations.
The Reality of the Public Sector Technology Stack
Most public sector organisations operate complex, multi-vendor environments built up over time. This stems from “best-of-breed” tools, complex integrations, and bespoke requirements from line of business leaders.
During the coronavirus pandemic, there was no bigger winner than Microsoft when it comes to collaboration technology. While the bundling and “free” implementation of Microsoft Teams has come under scrutiny, it’s now deeply embedded across both UK and German public sector organisations, often serving as the default collaboration layer.
However, there is a considerable amount of app overlap, too.
Research reinforces this reality: interoperability with existing systems is ranked as one of the top decision factors (around 42% in both UK and German markets) when selecting communications technology.
Rather than replacing core platforms, public sector IT leaders are focused on extending capability, reducing risk, and avoiding disruption. In reality, this means communications platforms must integrate and interoperate with each other to stand a chance of success in public sector organisations.
Coexistence, Not Competition: The Role of Open Platforms
For almost 10 years, on this blog, in other publications, and throughout almost all my clients external materials, I’ve been banging the drum for some keywords:
- Interoperability
- Integration
- Coexistence
Throughout major organisations and even inside most leading unified comms as a service (UCaaS) providers, it’s become widely accepted that customers benefit when technology plays well together.
The alternative? Forced migrations. Picking one tool over another and upsetting handfuls of users in different departments and locations.
Say, for example, Geoff in accounts uses Microsoft Teams because that’s what he’s been used to for the last five years. Asking Geoff to now use Zoom for all his chats, calls, and meetings — and exporting and migrating all that data — is a major process and habit change that Geoff could do without. That’s not to mention the physical migration required by IT teams.
While history dictates the public sector, especially in EMEA, isn’t the quickest to adopting new integrative technology, service providers coming together to provide interoperability solutions removes the pain and time from this process.
The next phase of public sector communications is not about choosing a single vendor, but about how platforms work together.
Cavells’ research shows that vendor reputation, interoperability and ease of integration matter as much as feature depth.
In Germany, vendor expertise and integration rank even higher than these three selection criteria.
That’s no coincidence.
If you’ve got multiple platforms, you need experienced professionals across a number of platforms. You can’t ask a Microsoft engineer to prepare your Zoom implementation and assume everything will run as smoothly as someone who’s been working with Zoom for a decade.
Open platforms that can coexist with Microsoft environments allow organisations to:
- Maintain continuity
- Add new citizen-facing capabilities
- Avoid locking services into a single channel or tool
Zoom’s approach to interoperability with Microsoft environments reflects this shift towards coexistence, enabling public sector organisations to extend communications and engagement without wholesale change.
In his newsletter, Kevin Kieller, Co-founder and Lead Analyst at enableUC, points out, “While Zoom and Microsoft often compete, more organisations that use the Microsoft 365 productivity tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, etc.) are choosing to also use Zoom for meetings and collaboration.”
Kevin goes on to mention this making the pairing (Zoom and Teams) stronger in tandem for a number of reasons:
- Cost
- User choice
- Enhanced customer experience
- Improved resiliency and data sovereignty
To the last point (improved resiliency), Kevin includes important documentation of Microsoft’s outages during 2025. The goal here is not to highlight one provider’s failings. Rather, it’s to highlight the need for dual vendors of a similar service in large organisations that rely on their telephony and collaboration estate.
Tim Banting, a leading telecoms analyst in his own right, commented on the newsletter, pointing out that Teams and Zoom being used together has become a common concept in large enterprises. He cites several reasons:
- Buyers no longer forced to choose a single platform
- Hybrid work rewards context-based working
- No longer considered a compromise but an informed, deliberate choice
Contact Centres as the Digital Front Door for Public Services
Contact centres are rapidly evolving from voice-only environments into multichannel engagement hubs. Thus, we see an increase in uptake across a variety of non-voice channels when assessing the state of public sector communications in EMEA.
Digital channel usage varies by country:
- Email is used by 53% of German organisations, compared with 43% in the UK
- Telephone remains more prominent in the UK (46%) than in Germany (43%)
- Germany also shows higher adoption of web portals and live chat
Of course, this data comes with the caveat of, “if you don’t have the technology to enable these channels, you can’t offer them to your customers”.
Secure, cloud-based contact centres are increasingly viewed as the digital front door to public services, where trust, performance and data protection converge.
Ensuring a single platform, or, as a minimum, a connection between contact centre and back office communications technology, becomes vital for the future of public sector businesses looking to modernise their estate without adding to vendor sprawl and mass administration and support.
Barriers to Transformation (And How Organisations Are Responding)
Despite strong intent, public sector organisations face consistent barriers:
- Skills shortages (~41% in both countries)
- Data protection and compliance concerns (~40% UK, 42% Germany)
- Procurement complexity (~39% UK, 42% Germany)
These challenges are driving demand for platforms that:
- Reduce vendor sprawl
- Simplify procurement
- Provide deployment and adoption support alongside technology
Public sector leaders increasingly value partners that understand governance, risk and long-term operational realities. Zoom’s partner program, for example, has been created to define a more flexible, value-driven approach designed to better support partners and simplify the customer journey.
This focus will not only be hit with public sector organisations needing a steer with procurement and vendor sprawl, but all partners inside the Zoom ecosystem.
“I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have a vendor listen to their partners and actually execute on pain points that have caused friction in the relationship. Leadership at Zoom is fully committed to the channel and being a part of the PAC allows our voice to be truly heard.”
Matt Pingatore, Packet Fusion, CEO.
Key Questions Public Sector Leaders Should Be Asking
As guidance, note these questions and the types of answers you should be expecting.
| Strategic Question | Why It Matters | Best Outcome / Desirable Answer |
| Where is our communications data processed, and what level of control and visibility do we retain? | Data sovereignty controls are now a core metric of citizen trust and compliance. | Core data is processed in-region (e.g., UK or EU); the organisation retains administrative control, audit visibility, and compliant storage under local regulation. |
| Can this platform integrate and coexist with our existing Microsoft environment? | Public sector estates are Microsoft-heavy and coexistence avoids major disruption. | Platform offers native or certified interoperability with Microsoft 365, Teams, and Azure AD, minimising retraining or migration effort. |
| How does it support both internal collaboration and citizen-facing services? | Unified experience improves efficiency, accessibility, and service continuity. | A single platform (or integrated stack) supports internal collaboration tools and external contact centre/citizen engagement channels. |
| Will it help us improve accessibility, resilience, and trust? | These are increasingly the key success indicators for digital communications projects. | Measurable improvements in accessibility (accessibility and inclusivity are among the most important measures of success, cited by 47% of German and 41% of UK respondents), uptime, and resilience through multi‑vendor architecture, and transparent data practice driving citizen confidence. |
| How does the platform address AI readiness and ethical deployment? | AI‑first communications require responsible, transparent governance. | Built‑in guardrails and controls for AI features, works with regionally hosted data with transparent explainability and oversight. |
| What level of deployment, adoption, and partner support will we receive? | Procurement complexity and skills gaps stall transformation. | Vendor or partner ecosystem offers deployment support, training, and long‑term governance alignment, not just license provision. |
Conclusion: Building Communications That Citizens Can Trust
Research from Cavell and other sources backs up the feeling that public sector communications strategy is now inseparable from service delivery, security and citizen trust.
Following guidance and data, we can draw several conclusions:
- Data sovereignty controls, interoperability and resilience have become baseline expectations rather than differentiators.
- EMEA organisations may differ in channel mix, but they share a common goal: reducing complexity while improving engagement and assurance.
- Platforms designed to support sovereign cloud requirements, coexist with existing ecosystems, and scale citizen engagement are best positioned to support the next phase of public sector transformation.
- Zoom’s investment in UK-based infrastructure and sovereignty controls reflects this broader shift towards communications platforms built for long-term public sector trust.
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