An innovative contender in the world of Unified Communications, Fuze is a company that's focused on bringing true unity back to UC. Their business model is built upon a UCaaS platform that includes everything from messaging and video, to voice and content sharing. Fuze deliver their services to enterprise customers, often with global, multinational footprints, to help them become more focused and productive.
Derek Yoo, the co-founder and recently-appointed CPO of the company, joined us in our Strategic Insights for 2018 series, to share his thoughts on everything from customer experience to digital transformation. Derek has been with Fuze for 10 years, only recently moving from CTO to CPO to focus his efforts on part management, engineering, tech operation, and product development. Before co-founding this new brand, Derek was building his knowledge in the Dev-Ops market with BladeLogic.
What has Fuze Been Doing to Help Customers/Partners Succeed in 2017?
Fuze is just one of the many companies that have entered a stage of transformation and growth over the last couple of years. I was interested to find out how Derek felt the brand had been responding to the evolving nature of UC in 2017, in a backdrop filled with new technology and opportunities.
"If I reflect on this year, it's safe to say the market has been changing. There's been a lot of maturation and consolidation happening. I think part of the reason for that is that there's now more agreement on what it means to have a UC platform. In the past, there were different opinions based on what different companies could offer."
"Now, it's much clearer that you need exceptional voice functionalities, messaging, and cloud to power the world today. It's a broad platform to work with, and you need to achieve a certain scale to address functionality across the whole range."
For Fuze, the consolidation and clarification of the market is a positive thing and a sign that the industry is maturing. To help their customers and partners achieve a more competitive edge in this environment, they've been focusing heavily on data, and the potential it provides.
"We had a revelation a couple of years ago around the importance of data - all the different interactions that customers have on our platform, and how we can use the types and content of those interactions to create in-depth models for the future. There's a lot of rich data to tap into, and so much amazing technology available for those who have the right data. That's where much of our R&D budget is going right now."
How Have You Learned and Progressed in 2017?
With a better understanding of where Fuze has been, and where the brand is heading, I was keen to hear Derek's thoughts on the key takeaways he had encountered over the previous year. For him, the main lessons were around the importance of data, and how it can be used to fuel customer experience and digital transformation in the years ahead.
"In the contact centre, we've had a long tradition of using data and analytics to understand the performance of agents. Where I see a lot of opportunities is not in the contact centre, but in the general information worker."
"One of the things we've been doing this year, and something we started on in 2016, was to create a platform that can collect all this generated data in real time and send it into a cloud platform. Once you have that data, you can then use it to power new models with machine learning techniques."
"It means you can ask yourself what makes a more effective salesperson, and then measure the performance of employees against the guidelines you have."
For Fuze, the more you can make positive changes to the enterprise based on analytics and evidence, the easier it becomes to improve customer experience and enhance business performance at the same time. However, none of this transformation can be achieved without the right information:
"You really need to be in the middle of all these interactions to get the right data sets."
What Opportunities and Challenges Do You Predict for 2018?
With so much transformation and consolidation to spark movement in 2018, many companies in the Unified Communications industry are moving into 2018 with big plans for development. As an already agile and innovative business, Fuze is no exception to the rule. Derek told me that they're currently working on further empowering their partner channels:
