Microsoft Teams has played a massive part in bringing UC capabilities to users, providing a consistent, ubiquitous and familiar experience. This has seen Teams replace traditional platforms and telephony methods but is the technology really ready to meet the global requirements of enterprise customers? The answer is both yes and no.
Yes because Teams provides a professional-standard means to collaborate, hold meetings and have rich conversations for the majority of users, most of the time. Integrations into adjacent apps and the rest of the Office 365 Suite have made Teams an attractive proposition and it is intuitive to use. Also, complexity is being minimised in terms of configuration, support and maintenance.
On the other hand, no because there are still a lengthy series of ‘gotcha’ situations in which Teams either is sub-optimal or simply impossible to use. Examples include situations such as factories or remote sites where Teams may not have the reach of traditional telephones. The separation of the location being contacted from the person being called that Teams enables isn’t ideal if someone is trying to call a specific area on the production floor of a factory, rather than a specific person.
Similarly, a customer who wants to contact a branch or remote office, may find it challenging to call that location using Teams. Further irritations surround how Teams integrates with systems such as alarms or Tannoy systems. Old telephony systems enabled Tannoy announcements to be made at the touch of a button, Teams doesn’t have this simplicity of integration yet, although alternatives such as Teams Call Groups, in which all users can be called, provide an alternative. Few would find this as convenient as making a campus-wide announcement at the touch of a button in case of an emergency, such as needing to find a first aider.
Increasingly, the Teams community and Microsoft itself has developed work-arounds for some of these challenges but in a world where upgrades should bring experience improvements, users seeking these features will be disappointed.
Perhaps of greater impact are situations in which enterprise communications are regulated. These include countries that have lone worker regulations or where telecommunications is highly regulated. For lone worker compliance, it’s typical that employers are required to ensure that employees are able be in continuous contact with colleagues and safety officers. Arguably, Teams does not allow that in a way that complies with the spirit of regulation.
In addition, in countries with tightly regulated telecoms markets, how Teams traverses the telephony network needs to be addressed in a way that is compliant. In some countries, this is either impossible or highly complex for enterprises and their service providers to achieve.
Teams Voice expert Resonate has vast experience of moving complex global enterprises to Teams and have designed solutions, including Voice for Teams Direct Routing for practically all scenarios. Solutions Architect Naheem Hussain explains:
“We find complexity in most deployment scenarios for enterprise customers and each customer’s scenario is unique. For example, for Page Group, a global recruiter, we had to deploy on-prem SBCs in countries such as China, India, Turkey, UAE, Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan to meet regulatory requirements and deploy and support an E911 solution for all US and Canada based users.”
“Then for Securitas, we had to integrate intercoms, door entry barrier systems as well as third-party SIP speakerphones to interconnect with their Twilio phone system while, for a global energy trader, we had to integrate with legacy analogue devices such as handsets, fax machines and lift phones using analogue gateways deployed locally.”
None of these problems are insurmountable but enterprises deploying Teams need to consider whether these or other gotchas blunt the appeal of Teams in their operations. If they do, they should turn to Microsoft Teams specialists such as Resonate, who have the experience to identify potential issues and resolve them as part of an optimised Teams deployment. By doing so, teams can be empowered to work smarter, regardless of the specific barriers to optimised Microsoft Teams deployment they face.
