The last 12 months have seen unified comms and collaboration platforms adopted like never before.
But a by-product of deploying new technology at such a frantic pace is that infrastructure can become siloed, as old systems are not integrated or simply left to gather dust.
That is the view of John Tucker, VP of UC at Metaswitch, who said that while adoption of next-gen tech has accelerated as businesses battle through the pandemic, in many cases, this has not translated to true digital transformation.
“It’s true that there has been massive adoption of new technology in business, but transformation is not just consuming the new, it’s about addressing the legacy, whether it’s transforming it or retiring it,” he said.
“That hasn’t really happened. There are huge amounts of businesses that haven’t turned off the contract for their premises; it’s still there and currently redundant because no one is in the office.
“We’ve spent 12 months basically with our finger on the pause button of transformation.”
Tucker explained that the adoption of new tech, coupled with not phasing out the old, has created silos in businesses that need to be addressed – particularly as more people return to offices and companies experience true hybrid working on a mass scale for the first time.
This is also true for operators, some of which will have rolled out new technology at an impressive pace, perhaps at the expense of having a complete story to take to the market.
Tucker said that operators which had already embraced new UCaaS and collaboration tools before the pandemic have thrived because they knew how to address the customer’s challenges.
“If an operator has built out its capability set with a discreet trunking platform, a separate white-labelled UCaaS, a separate division managing customers that want to consume Teams, it becomes very hard to meet customers where they actually are.
“The operators that will be successful will be the ones that can build more joined-up and integrated solutions”
The Teams Effect
It is likely that many of these operators will be creating solutions around Microsoft Teams, which rocketed to 115 million daily active users last year.
Metaswitch itself is now under Microsoft ownership with the acquisition announced back in May. Tucker stressed that Microsoft remains committed to an “open ecosystem” in the comms space, and enabling operator owned and branded services from Metaswitch along with its own Teams stack.
He said that this creates an opportunity for channel partners and operators to add value to the end customers.
“We know that not every business will choose to do everything on Teams, likewise with Cisco and RingCentral. There are a lot of solutions out there, even the operator’s own.
“The IT integrators and solutions providers can come in and weave together a solution from multiple providers, but our view is that, particularly in the SMB, there is a big opportunity for the operators to add value.
“Operators can add value around the network, and there are no other organisations out there that have the voice expertise and skillset to join together these hybrid estates like the operator can”
There are obvious benefits that come with being purchased by one of the most significant IT vendors on the planet.
But Tucker said that these benefits run in both directions, with Metaswitch’s credentials giving Microsoft a better understanding of the comms space with operators.
“I think it is bidirectional, he explained. “Metaswitch is seeing and understanding a broader perspective now.
“We were a vendor to the operators with a specific set of solutions but through the development with Microsoft and their wider operating strategy we see and understand how we can join together with the bigger picture in the cloud and IT sphere.
“But it also goes the other way because we bring that telco DNA into the Microsoft organisation. I think that’s having an impact and an influence on some of the decisions being made.”
Metaswitch will be talking more about hybrid working opportunities for operators during its upcoming webinar.
