Patrick was joined by special guest Sahil Rekhi who is the Managing Director for RingCentral EMEA.
Firstly Sahil explains that from a RingCentral perspective it is not a great surprise that Gartner have ended the UC Magic Quadrant. He explains that all of the innovation in the space was taking place within the UCaaS Quadrant so effectively the UC equivalent was becoming redundant. Sahil tells Patrick that for enterprise organisations the UC quadrant wasn’t offering them the sort of insight they need to assist them with their next buying decision.
“It was the natural move from Gartner’s perspective to wind down the UC MQ and move everything towards a UCaaS approach.”
Sahil puts forward various reasons that have underpinned this latest shift. He explains that RingCentral are no longer having to extol the virtues of a cloud based approach as most of the customers that they speak to are already familiar with the benefits such an approach can offer.
“The conversation is more about, how are you going to effectively manage my transition and give me an enhanced user experience.”
RingCentral and Sahil believe that the cloud has enabled the true definition of unified communications. In a world with more flexible working habits and a more globalised work culture the only way to truly realise the benefits is to leverage the power of cloud integration. Also Sahil tells Patrick that the ease of use and the ease of uptake when it comes to cloud models has massively overshadowed any benefits that on premises systems are able to offer.
Sahil also illustrates that the cloud is going to be vital for organisations to be able to utilise the next generation of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. It is a combination of these various factors which is leading to a huge shift towards UCaaS solutions.
Patrick then asks Sahil about the RingCentral approach to new customers now that they don’t have to relay details on the benefits of cloud solutions as a whole. Sahil explains that the approach is entirely solution led and helping their customers in their own transition from more traditional systems to the next generation is key.
Finally Patrick asks Sahil to give him some of his predictions for the market in general. Are the more traditional legacy players going to be able to shift their approaches to offer more cloud centric solutions or are we likely to see more of them disappear with further industry consolidation as they purchase new companies or are purchased themselves?
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Presenter and Tech Journalist Patrick Watson is joined by special guest Sahil Rekhi of RingCentral.
