UC round-up Opinion


Balancing the budget Why UCaaS could be the answer


In this day and age, it’s safe to assume that in nine out of ten work meetings, there will be at least one person dialled in remotely, wheth- er it be visually or audibly. With flexible working becoming more com- mon, it’s rare that a meeting will be entirely ‘in-person’. There are so many different tools and technologies that can enable this, and these tools, when used correctly, can help improve the experience for everyone. Gone are the days of unreliable, unbearable dial-in con- nections – now we can have a fully immersive experience, regardless of location or device. But while the deployment of UC is continuing to rise, new evidence suggests that there are still plenty of barriers in the way that could potentially be hindering adoption. Richard Buxton, head of collaboration at Node4 assesses the challenges businesses are facing when it comes to adopting UC and the most efficient, cost effective way to overcome them.


New research published by Node4 suggests that, although there is not one factor singu- larly responsible for holding back UC investment, the big- gest limitation was identified as monthly costs, with 31% of respondents


agreeing. When


it comes to IT budgets, it’s no surprise that UC isn’t at the top of the list, however, with the growing need for collabora- tion in the workplace, it’s im- portant that businesses ensure they are allocating budget to allow this to happen as easily and as smoothly as possible. Additionally, the report found that other barriers in the way of adoption were scalabili- ty (20%), user training (19%), the need to deal with multiple vendors (19%), and poor data sharing abilities (19%). Taking all of this into account, busi- nesses should be looking at how they can best overcome these hurdles, especially as UC provides so many benefits for employees and businesses striving to be agile.


When it comes to a business, communication is key, espe- cially with employees working remotely. So, the collabora- tion industry can easily begin to tackle some of these issues head on. One of the biggest drivers behind remote and flexible working has been the advent of cloud technology, which enables easily accessi- ble services and solutions at a competitive price. The UC industry, then, can take all of this into account and offer a cost effective, easy to use and scalable solution – Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS).


Becoming agile


Essentially, UCaaS delivers collaboration technology such as voice, messaging, file shar- ing, video conferencing and collaboration, all via a cloud model from a single applica- tion or platform. This enables employees in the meeting to interact quickly and in multi- ple different ways, all from a cost-efficient platform. UCaaS therefore enables users to be more productive and efficient when working re- motely, supporting a more ag- ile business approach. Gartner


has even predicted that there will be a firm increase in UC spending, and the industry has already seen that the migration from on-premises UC solutions to a cloud-first model – such as UCaaS – is well underway. UCaaS is the perfect answer to businesses keen to adopt the much sought after ‘agile’ ap- proach.


light on capital


UCaaS solutions are also expenditure,


meaning that it directly helps businesses get over the biggest limitation they were initially facing. Additionally, a hosted UCaaS solution enables ac- cess to the latest functionality, means less internal business admin, a guaranteed service level


agreement (SLA), and


a level of expertise that can be hard to achieve internally – particularly when it comes to smaller businesses. Again, this deals with some of the previously mentioned setbacks suggested in Node4’s research, as there will be no need to deal with multiple vendors and user training is kept to a minimum. Other business benefits in- clude companies being able connect to any device and col- laborate across one service, be- ing able to control cost spikes, detect inefficiencies and man- age calls better, and allowing employees to securely file and connect easily – no matter where they are. However, with there being so many UCaaS providers and solutions available on the mar- ket, and with businesses facing issues such as cloud integra- tion, security, compliance and support – where can organisa- tions begin when it comes to comparing all of the options out there, and how can they tell if it’ll be worth the investment?


The UCaaS market


The best place to start when it comes to comparing UCaaS providers is starting with what you know best. Your customer’s business.


Think about what


your customer want to achieve out of adopting UCaaS and set some targets and expectations that are practical and achiev- able in both the short and long term.


Planning against these tar- gets will help businesses keep


on track by accurately and consistently measuring the impact of the strategy. It will ensure


that the third-party


solutions will align with busi- ness needs, and that every- thing stays within budget. It’s also important to keep some specific considerations in mind. Having a list of UCaaS applications offered can make it easier to decide whether the provider meets or exceeds the functionality re- quirements. Cost will also be a key factor, as some provid- ers will only offer the required functionality at a premium cost. There may have to be some compromising on the cost, but make sure you’ve researched into it fully. Also, when relying on a third-party provider to deliver business-critical


functional-


ity, such as UCaaS, having solid SLAs are essential to ensuring uptime and perfor- mance meet your


business


requirements. Additionally, check out the network access requirements. How much access to your network does the provider need in order to implement and support


its


UCaaS solution? How does this impact on the business’ security and compliance pos- ture? It’s important to take all of this into account when select- ing a UCaaS provider. Finding one that suits all the specific business needs, while staying in budget, can seem like a mammoth task, but keeping the above considerations in mind can take away a lot of the pain.


Additionally, once the


UCaaS provider has been selected, possibly the best advice out there is to simply find out every last thing the chosen technology can deliv- er and make sure that every- one has user training so the customer can really maximise


ROI. If all your customer’s em- ployees understand the tech- nology, it can help smooth out any difficulties and consistently deliver a rich user experience for every meeting. In addition, your chosen provider should offer on- going consultancy to ensure that users adopt the features that have been purchased.


Connected workforce


Since the first IP-based voice networks were built over 20 years ago, Unified Communications has come a long way. Around two million businesses in the UK alone have adopted hosted voice – and it’s predicted that by 2020, 50% of businesses will have taken on hosted solutions. We have now entered the mod- ern era of the ‘connected em- ployee’, and UC has helped to usher this in by allowing a more agile and flexible working culture within many businesses. By in- vesting in the right UCaaS solu- tion, businesses can embrace and drive this ‘new normal’ into the next generation of UC and collaboration,


benefiting both


employees, and the business as a whole.


AV News battling the background noise while attempting to podcast at a busy UC Expo.


lion users each month around the


world. This combination allows companies to streamline


claimed to set GlobalMeet apart from the competition. GlobalMeet Collaboration is


UC Expo report


This year’s UC Expo provided a showcase for an expanded selection of UCaaS and integrated to rationalise the tools available to end users. Here is a round-up of innovations and news from a number of vendors.


UC Expo’s attendance reflect- ed the high levels of inter- est in collaboration and agile working. According to Frost & Sullivan, hosted IP telephony and UCaaS users accounted for only 5.1 percent of the to- tal workforce in 2017 and this figure is expected to reach 20.9 percent by 2024. The cloud voice and UCaaS mar- ket in Europe is ripe for growth and organisations are eager for competitive solutions to enable them to communicate more ef- fectively so that they can drive business progress.


It was also a chance to get to know some of the larger global players in UC and C with limited exposure in the UK market. PGi, for example, announced the launch of its unified communications as a service (UCaaS)solution offer- ing via the GlobalMeet platform in EMEA on the heels of the U.S. announcement a couple of months ago.


GlobalMeet includes cloud voice capabilities and an award-winning collaboration app


that drives productivity and teamwork for over 17 mil-


the number of software tools and vendors utilised, optimise employee productivity and ac- celerate business growth in a rapidly


evolving technology


market. The move marks PGi’s commitment to supporting Eu- ropean businesses with productivity


and


quirements. GlobalMeet By using


growth


their re-


PGi’s


carrier-grade,


global network, GlobalMeet targets businesses who need enterprise-quality voice com- munications, powerful collabo- ration and business messaging capabilities, and a great cus- tomer experience. GlobalMeet customers can replace existing PBXs and other phone systems and consolidate their business communications and collabora- tion services onto a single, uni- fied solution and user experi- ence. The GlobalMeet platform is cloud-native – an important feature to customers for speed and efficiency. This cloud-na- tive architecture is reinvent- ing the concept of reliability for UCaaS customers and is


P10 AV News June 2019


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