According to IWG, 70% of employees already work remotely for at least one day each week, while 53% work remotely for half of the week. As the digital world continues to deliver new and improved ways to keep professionals connected, it makes sense to cut down the overhead costs and restrictions associated with keeping staff members in a physical office.
The age of the digital worker has even prompted some ambitious entrepreneurs to start their own businesses with a focus on remote working. In these companies, there are no physical business locations, only employees, contractors and freelancers connected over the web.
When there’s no option to connect with someone face-to-face, choosing the correct telephone platform becomes increasingly crucial. For many remote enterprises, these platforms must enable not only audio calls, but video, instant messaging, and collaboration features too. Here are just some of the most popular options available.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams started off as a collaboration-focused supplement to Microsoft’s Skype for Business solution. Today, Teams has all the features of Skype, and then some. It’s a complete solution for chat, calling and online meetings, where remote business leaders can host web, video, and audio conferences with people inside or outside of an organisation.
You can also pair your Microsoft Teams experience with “Phone System,” “Calling Plan” or a Direct Routing service to access a full business calling solution within Teams. While you’re talking, Microsoft offers access to the popular Office 365 portfolio too, ideal for collaborating over files on PowerPoint, Excel, Word, SharePoint and more.
RingCentral Office (and RingCentral Glip)
RingCentral, a leader in cloud tech across the globe, offers instant and reliable communication to remote business owners through RingCentral Office. The RingCentral Office productivity solution provides remote workers with an all-in-one service where they can collaborate easily with colleagues, engage with customers on numerous platforms, and connect anywhere with internet access.
RingCentral Office also comes with access to RingCentral Glip, an application that allows for instant messaging, and collaboration. Glip provides you and your colleagues with an opportunity to collaborate over projects and files quickly, through the versatility of the cloud.
Cisco Webex
Cisco Webex is a diverse telephone system and productivity suite that offers everything from whiteboarding, to online meetings, file sharing and more. The solutions available as part of Cisco Webex include:
- Webex Meetings
- Webex Teams
- Webex Calling
- Webex Devices
Cisco Webex also benefits from the ability to integrate with a host of existing tools in almost any communication stack, including Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Trello, Google Drive and many more. On top of that, Cisco provides one of the most secure platforms on the market with end-to-end encryption, which may be why 93% of the Fortune 100 use Webex products for communication and collaboration.
Unify Circuit
Finally, Unify Circuit provides everything the remote business needs to communicate over the cloud, within a single app. Circuit features video, voice, screen sharing, file sharing, and instant-messaging, within a unified tool ideal for accelerating workflow. Unify Circuit is designed to provide a natural and seamless user experience so that people can collaborate as organically over the web as they would in person.
To help people find the information they need faster, Circuit has a content storage and history service, as well as a powerful contextual search feature, ideal for tracking down data. Like all of the solutions in this article, Circuit is also available for use on any device, including smartphones.
Which collaboration-infused telephone system is right for YOUR remote business?
