If implemented correctly, cloud-based communications can increase productivity across your entire organisation
Moving from a traditional PBX to a cloud-based unified communications platform can be a complicated task. To make sure that such a move is a success, companies need to make critical decisions at the beginning of the process and amass data in order to have a solid plan for implementation and adoption.
Many organisations should decide whether they will deploy a unified communications solution and applications on-premises or in the cloud. There are a great many reasons to choose cloud, from lower deployment costs to the diversity of features available in a cloud-based platform.
Dean Holmes, Technical Product Marketing Manager at Fuze, told UC Today in an exclusive interview that there are two parts to getting started with enterprise communication in the cloud: technical readiness and organisation readiness.
“Part of the sales process is making sure that everyone understands that yes, this is going to work from a technical standpoint, and here’s all the things that we have to do to implement the solution,” he said.
“The people side is one where it’s really as important, if not more important. Once we get to the implementation phase of the process and talk about cloud enablement, it really comes down to how we get your employees ready for this new platform as it impacts so many people”
Holmes said that organisations should start with the adoption game plan, aligning and strategising with the teams within the platform, formalising adoption requirements and milestones, and identifying people within the organisation that are going to be ambassadors who help to spread the news about the new technology.
Ask your end users
Enterprises should also survey end users and understand how they do their work in order to better grasp requirements and a much better sense of the use case.
“From there we can go into the internal launch campaign, promoting and preparing people for this platform,” he said. Holmes added that his company can provide templates for internal email communications, all to help setting up email campaigns to talk about what’s coming and features or functionality.
He said that enterprises should run “town halls” where the new unified communications platform is talked about and demoed to users, showing them how it works and how it can easily integrate into their work day.
Following that, there can be use case workshops. For example, support teams can learn about using the platform and its integration with NetSuite. Sales teams can find out how it can integrate with Salesforce to make for a more seamless selling experience.
“The really big jump is going to live support,” said Holmes. This entails getting everybody to go through their getting started guides. Gamification can also be used here, getting the first hundred people to log in with the chance of winning a $25 gift card.
Holmes said that the last piece of implementation is ongoing nurture. “How do we measure and reinforce the platform? We have a data platform that covers our entire platform. We can see what is being utilised and what’s not. How are people logging in, and how many phones are being assigned versus how many people are using a softphone versus the mobile client.”
Evaluate the responses
This information can help enterprises see, for example, how unified communications solution adoption rates differ in various regions and where certain functions may not be leveraged. “Are they using another tool? We need to go back and talk to them,” he said.
Ultimately, Holmes said these are the steps to making a success of enterprise cloud communications. “How do you enable your organisation for the cloud and how do you really get someone to adopt a new communications technology? The biggest part of it truly is about the user adoption. It is that people readiness versus technical readiness.”
Having a better handle on use cases and goals and objectives for the platform is the best way to start with rolling out cloud communications for enterprises. Holmes concluded,
“When we talk to customers that have done that, or at least have started down that path, we see the success rate and adoption rate much higher”
See more tips and templates in the Fuze Adoption Playbook.
