Mitel, a global market leader in business communications, recently published the results of its Europe-wide survey regarding the adoption of cloud-based communications among European companies. This is the third year in a row that the company has been conducting its survey, but this time, it comes as the European markets are facing a global economic crisis. The recent survey was done among more than 1,000 IT decision-makers across Europe, and its results clearly indicate the following trend: European companies show newfound maturity towards migration to the cloud.
This trend is currently experiencing another surge of growth, which was undoubtedly caused by the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this year. The unprecedented rate of people suddenly having to collaborate remotely has been forcing companies to turn to cloud-based communications as a means of survival. However, Mitel’s survey shows that European companies were already maturing towards this transition before COVID struck: 44% of respondents were willing to consider migrating their contact center to the cloud (an increase of 29 percentage points compared to the year before).
“What we’re seeing with COVID is that more companies are realizing it doesn’t make sense to have all their equipment sat in an office,” says Leigh Thomas, Mitel’s Director of Consulting Sales Engineering. “People are realizing that it makes more sense to drive certain technologies from the cloud, so that they can be totally flexible with their employees and allow them to work from anywhere. It also means IT teams are freed up to focus on more complex projects.“
Productivity is Key
According to Rami Houbby, Mitel’s VP of International Cloud Sales, one of the main factors attracting companies to the cloud is productivity.
“If we were to run this survey again now, I think the emphasis will be on ‘how do we enable anywhere working,’ and how we actually put collaboration at the heart of everything we do. When I say ‘collaboration’ I don’t just mean video conferencing. I’m talking about all the various tools that help people meet, share, and develop ideas – and the integration of these tools into business applications. At the end of the day, all of these things are meant to increase productivity. And if we look at the results of the survey, it is clear to see that productivity was always on the minds of the 1100 IT managers and directors that we interviewed. Everything is centered around that.“
Another key factor arising from the survey is agility. It appears that European companies were already beginning to understand the critical importance of adopting more flexible work methods pre-COVID.
According to Houbby, the desire for agility has a lot to do with the issue of competitiveness.
“In a global economy, it’s not just the price that is the market differentiator – it’s also the customer experience. Nowadays, CX ranks really high. A part of being agile as a business is offering the best CX, and that’s front and center of communication”
“When we talk about communications, it’s not just about the telephone system – it’s about your customer contact center, customer engagement services, and how you bring them all together.“
Trend Acceleration
What results would we have witnessed had we conducted Mitel’s latest cloud survey right now? Well, the trends arising from it would probably be quite similar. The manifestation of these trends in percentages, however, would almost certainly be more prominent.
“What we’re seeing in this survey is very much relevant today,” says Houbby. “The main difference is, today we would probably see an even a stronger appetite for cloud migration, an acceleration in the adoption. What we are seeing, post the pandemic, is the wide acceptance of public cloud architecture across the board. So when it comes to all of these key metrics that we presented, I think we’re just going to see them either growing stronger or happening sooner. The pandemic has been a triggering event. The switch of the ISDN service in the UK is planned for 2025, and that’s been one of the main catalysts for driving adoption on migration to the cloud. But I think now, by the time we get there, it may not have the impact people expected , because the pandemic would have driven a lot of the migration already.“
The UK has always been an early adopter when it comes to cloud-based communications, but the survey definitely demonstrates an all-European tendency towards the cloud, which is only likely to grow stronger.
What about Channel Partners?
One of the main roles in navigating customers through their journey to the cloud is in fact assumed by channel partners.
“At the end of the day, the channel partners are the ones that have the relationships with the end customers,” says Houbby. “They are the trusted advisors, consultants, and providers that navigate the customers through their journey – whether it’s enabling their on-prem technology with business continuity and remote working, or taking them to the cloud through a transition phase. Personally, we see our partners as playing a pivotal role in both delivering service and guiding customers.”
