As an increasing number of companies consider migrating to Microsoft Teams, they may be wondering about the best way to do it.
If they are considering a Microsoft solution, they could either go to Microsoft themselves and arrange things using internal resources, or they could bring in a trusted partner to help them.
Microsoft partner CPS spoke to UC Today to illustrate how it can deliver a seamless transition to Microsoft Teams to better support their communications stack.
Dean Woolgar, a UC Solution Architect at CPS, says: “Microsoft have a lot of different partners, at CPS we are well-positioned to help with solutions around Teams Voice and related services.
“While companies can go direct to Microsoft, they will only typically deal with items native to Teams, we will wrap the customer’s detailed requirements around the deployment, whether that’s contact centre functionality, call recording, devices, or security and compliance to help run the company’s communications efficiently – we provide a joined up solution as a one-stop-shop.”
Big bang or phased
Some customers aren’t in a position to go for a “big bang” approach and entirely move into the cloud to run all their communications. Many prefer to initially keep their legacy PBX in place from the likes of Mitel or Avaya, for instance.
Woolgar says: “If they ultimately want to migrate to Teams Voice from their current PBX, partners can help them to achieve it. At CPS, we have different competencies and certifications across the company and can help them, whatever legacy vendor is involved.”
As for Teams projects, to help customers move to a successful migration, partners often provide adoption and change services such as virtual drop-in clinics for key staff, classroom training for users and a “train the trainer” service for company staff.
Woolgar also says that partners have better access to third-party vendors that may be integrated to customers’ Microsoft systems due to pre-existing and mature relationships, if they need ongoing deployment support. “It’s easier for partners to deal with issues than customers doing it themselves, as they know all the right people to approach at other vendors.”
Cost/price
He also maintains that Microsoft partners can advise on the most cost effective approach. “We spend time getting to know the customer, by learning about their future technology roadmaps and potential expansion plans. We can guide the customers and consider where they may have existing investments that need to be accounted for. Customers may get a better price on devices or third party solutions by going via a partner, rather than going direct.”
On the services side, Woolgar says partners can handle issues across the comms stack seamlessly. “If you have multiple vendors in your system, and if you have a problem, multiple job tickets may have to be raised to help solve it. We can act as a single point of contact, so raise one ticket with us and we will deal with all the suppliers to solve the problem. Our support services are invaluable.”
Woolgar says that if there are system issues affecting multiple customers in the wild, CPS gets to know about them quickly, as it gets all the notifications from the vendors. “We can be more proactive than the end-customers when problems appear, and have a substantial knowledge base to help us deal with issues quickly,” he says.
As for Microsoft itself, Woolgar says CPS has a very good relationship with the company and often assists Microsoft in delivering their own engagements to customers.
“Between July and December last year, I worked with Microsoft Consulting Services to deliver some big customer projects around UC,” says Woolgar.
“CPS have years of experience in this space across all sectors and can help you on your journey to Microsoft Teams,” he says.
