As the world continues to make the rapid shift to the cloud and “anywhere working”, there’s a lot for business leaders to consider. It’s not enough to simply have the right technology available for your team. Organisations need to ensure that during interactions, data is secured and that they respect privacy rules and regulations.
Innovators in the world of communications and digital transformation, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE), have responded to the growing demand for better data sovereignty and protection in the age of the new normal. With the unique Rainbow™ by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise solution, combining full fledge CPaaS and comprehensive UCaaS functionality, Rainbow can provide teams with a way to fully protect and respect user data and privacy.
I spoke to the Head of the Cloud Business Engine for ALE today, Samuel Tourbot, to learn more about how Rainbow is helping European customers to communicate more securely.
Data Sovereignty in a World of Unified Communications
Samuel Tourbot is well-positioned within the ALE team to offer an insight into how the data protection and security strategy works. He’s in charge of the business for the cloud division in ALE and helps to ensure that ALE customers get the best experiences for both their teams, and their end-users. Samuel also told me that his team pays close attention to the trends happening in UCaaS and CPaaS, to stay ahead of the curve.
When I asked Samuel why data sovereignty is so important, he told me that this is a request that ALE has been receiving from their customers for a while now. There’s a growing demand for companies to serve their customers with better privacy, particularly in certain industries like government and healthcare.
“Even at the beginning of the lockdown, we had some contact from governmental institutions that needed a European solution for their data management”
According to Samuel, now more than ever, companies need to ensure that they can keep their data in the environment that’s safest to them. Rainbow, as a solution from a European company, offers the flexibility for businesses to access the communications tools they need without compromising on security or compliance.
The Data Challenge
Any company that has access to customer data needs to ensure that they can protect and preserve that data in the right way. As Samuel told me, sometimes that means keeping the data close to home. ALE is recognised around the world as a reliable solution for all businesses, including those in complex environments like healthcare and government.
Although compliance and security have always been important concerns for businesses, this is growing increasingly evident in a space where employees are working in remote and distributed environments. The way that companies and consumers connect is changing, and new compliance considerations are arising with it.
“Regulation is a serious concern for a lot of businesses right now. Things like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) are on everyone’s mind, and it’s important that these issues aren’t overlooked when implementing new technology. We’re in a great position to show how serious we are about staying up to date with the regulations. We’re a unique provider certified with GDPR, ISO 270001, HDS, CSPN (on-going), and various other certifications are on the way.”
Connecting 2 Million Users Securely
ALE is a unique provider in the cloud communications environment right now. This European company isn’t subject to the Cloud or Patriot Act, and it’s the only non-US vendor to appear in the UCaaS Gartner Magic Quadrant. ALE ensures that it can offer a flexible environment for data protection and management. One of the things setting the company apart is its strong partnership with OVH (open trusted Cloud), a unique and trusted provider of open cloud solutions.
“We make sure that our customers can deploy in the way that suits them. We can deliver our Rainbow service through a worldwide infrastructure, with public cloud access through our OVH data centre in Europe. There’s also private cloud support available through Rainbow Edge. This allows end-customers to use their own preferred data centre. We even have solutions for hybrid architecture to connect any PBX to Rainbow.”
Rainbow from ALE is a global industrialized solution with more than 2 million users. More than just an offering for UCaaS, Rainbow also supports CPaaS technology, so users can build in their own functionality and extra features to suit their needs. All that, and the unique workflow engine within Rainbow helps to connect all parts of the business together, from people and processes to objects and things.
“Rainbow gives the customer complete control over their data, and we’re seeing an incredibly positive response to this. We already have banks and government groups investing in Rainbow with us, and we’ve even been able to deliver Rainbow onto a range of ships.”
Flexible and Compliant
According to Samuel, the ability to offer a completely flexible and compliant environment in Europe is a huge differentiator for ALE as a brand. The only non-US solution recognised in the UCaaS Magic Quadrant, ALE is going above and beyond to invest in providing its customers with the right kind of deployment and compliance options.
“Being a European company that can offer fantastic flexibility and regulation support is an important thing for our customers. We’re working alongside different governmental organisations from different industries and ensuring that we can provide solutions that serve a range of needs.
“Rainbow goes far beyond regular UCaaS services, providing the capabilities to integrate real-time communications and collaboration services into our customers’ app thanks to our open CPaaS platform and APIs available for them to develop themselves their own applications. We even have a community of more than 2000 developers to help innovate for your service”
For companies who need to ensure that they’re adhering to compliance and regulatory requirements in this new world of work, ALE is paving the way to simplicity and control. Businesses can have the innovative features and functionalities they need without compromising on security, privacy, or data sovereignty.
