The Cloud is king.
No matter how much you love your hardware legacy systems, it’s impossible to ignore just how important the Cloud has become to the communications industry, as it continues to pave the way for new and improved business models, giving companies access to scalability across the globe. As more small businesses embrace the natural scalability of the Cloud, analysts have begun to scale their predictions up to match the rise in demand.
For example:
- Deloitte says that spending on IT-as-a-Service solutions will rise to around $547 billion by the end of 2018
- Cloud computing popularity will increase from a value of around $67 billion in 2015 to $162 billion in 2020 – delivering a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of around 19%
- 74% of CFOs suggest that Cloud strategies will have the most significant impact on their business operations in the age of digital transformation (DX)
The Power of Cloud Communications
In the past, if you wanted to upgrade your communication strategy, you needed to commit yourself to a potentially huge investment. Changing a phone system meant buying a range of new equipment and desk phones for your company, not to mention paying your the experts to set everything up.
The rise of Cloud Communications has eliminated that problem for good. Prompting a significant rise in spending for public Cloud deployments. The natural versatility and scalability of the Cloud mean that companies of all shapes and sizes can simply tap into the communication features they need, adjusting the size and complexity of their strategy within moments. Today, if you want to implement a new voice recording system into your call centre, adapt your strategy to include Artificial Intelligence, or even embrace a brand-new telephony solution, it can take hours – instead of weeks.
Multi-Tenancy Platforms Lead the Way for Small to Medium Businesses
The growth of software solutions on the Cloud has also lead to a rise in popularity for multi-tenancy platforms – particularly in small businesses. Multi-tenancy solutions mean that a single software instance can be applied throughout multiple tenants or users. Multi-tenancy is incredibly economical for growing companies because maintenance and software development costs are shared.
The price, simplicity, and features of a multi-tenanted platform mean that SMBs don’t have to worry as much about security concerns, and the provider only needs to make updates once, for all tenants to get the same features. For instance, a SaaS, or Software-as-a-Service vendor could run one instance of an application on a database and give web access to multiple different customers. All the while, each tenant keeps their data isolated, and invisible for other tenants.
Getting Ahead in Cloud Communications
The key to getting ahead in the Cloud communications world is making sure that you don’t focus entirely on the potential of Voice. While Voice Communications are still an important part of the business framework, today’s organisations want a lot more from their Unified Communications providers. Focusing on voice alone could mean that you end up competing on price, which is never a good situation to be in.
While a lot of traditional telecoms companies are still seeing success selling through the traditional model for voice only, lines and minutes, and break-fix maintenance, the brands that get ahead will be those who know how to think from the perspective of digital transformation. Many newer companies are beginning to offer additional ROI through new vertical solutions like video and collaboration or providing value-add-ons like Application Programme Interfaces (APIs), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) integration, and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS).
As the modern workplace grows more collaborative than ever, a Cloud Communications strategy that can enhance business processes and staff productivity will generally address a lot more than voice alone. Just make sure that you don’t compromise on ease-of-use, just to tap into richer feature sets.
