A lot can change in a year. This March marked a year since the COVID-19 pandemic forced organisations around the world to drastically change the way that they run their operations.
Now, after a year of hastily pulled together remote working, organisations are planning and implementing solutions that will allow them to not only survive in the year ahead but even thrive. At the core of these strategies is the cloud-based technologies that facilitate a hybrid and flexible model of work, making it easy for employees to switch between their remote and in-office working environments.
In particular, we are seeing rapid growth in the Unified Communications and Contact Centre tools that enable organisations to collaborate and keep operations running smoothly with minimal friction — regardless of where they are located.
During the past year, UC platforms like Microsoft Teams witnessed immense adoption across a range of industries. A report from October 2020 found that the number of daily Teams users grew from 75 million to a whopping 115 million over a period of just six months.
While these numbers are already quite impressive, new research indicates that there is still room for growth in cloud-based tools.
A December 2020 report from Frost & Sullivan — now available from UCaaS, Contact Centre and collaboration provider CallTower — found that IT decision-makers are moving full steam ahead on transitioning to the cloud.
The report found that 80% voiced that “A cloud strategy is essential to remaining competitive in our industry.” Another 75% cited the cloud as “the most critical part of our Digital Transformation strategy.”
Looking at the numbers in the report, it appears that these IT decision-makers are backing up their statements with actions.
- 39% have deployed Enterprise IP Telephony solutions; 38% will do so within two years
- 54% have deployed Video Conferencing solutions; 29% will do so within two years
- 44% have deployed Instant Messaging & Presence; 35% will do so within two years
Based on these numbers, it would appear that these organisations have not only made significant adjustments during the pandemic, but are on their way to building back to be more resilient moving forward.
What appears to be emerging is not just a trend of managing a difficult situation but a shift towards a new model of communication for work across all levels of organisations.
Shifting to Communication as a Service
In speaking with CallTower’s CRO, William Rubio, he tells UC Today that by the end of the year, Microsoft was already reporting that some 500,000 organisations were now using Teams for their UC needs.
Rubio explains that organisations are now streamlining all of their UC, Contact Centre, CRM, devices and other communications needs into unified solutions. Interestingly, he notes that he is seeing this trend impacting organisations that are not the regular first adopter-types in tech and finance. Now organisations of all kinds and sizes — including “first line” operations — are moving over to a new standard for how their employees communicate.
A key driver behind this transition is the fact that these services are now available as cloud-hosted licensed services, making it much easier for smaller organisations to adopt. By moving to a licensing model, they avoid large capital expenditures and have the flexibility to scale up or down as needed.
By making the move to Microsoft Teams, these organisations can provide their employees with easy-to-use apps on their phones or desktops that enable them to communicate from a factory floor, at home, or really anywhere that work is getting done.
From an employee point of view, especially for those of younger generations, the transition to these app and cloud-based solutions is more appealing since they are familiar with similar platforms in their personal lives. These workers expect their work experience to be on par with how they communicate with their friends and family, and not restricted to outdated modes from the on-prem era.
Another driver that we are seeing for IT decision-makers is that when they move to the cloud providers, it removes many of the burdens of maintaining these services themselves. Many organisations that lack the internal resources and expertise to support enterprise-level solutions can now access it through cloud services that come with full support. This includes security updates and other infrastructure issues that would otherwise overwhelm a smaller IT team if they tried to spin up these solutions in-house.
While UCaaS solutions are increasingly customisable and easier for IT crews to get up and running faster, every organisation has its own specific requirements. Understanding those needs, down to a departmental level, is important for building a roadmap. This is why finding the right partner to help get there beyond the specific offerings of any one platform is essential.
The Value of Working with the Right Partner
For organisations that are ready to plan their next UCaaS steps, CallTower can help make sure that they have the right combination of turnkey solutions and support.
CallTower is a Microsoft Gold and Cisco Premier partner, which allows them to incorporate services from all the leading providers. In practice, it can mean providing some specific Cisco services that complement a Microsoft Teams environment.
They are also a provider of native Direct Routing service, which allows organisations to add PSTN voice to Teams that lacks this capability. Among several of their key integrations with Teams, CallTower delivers additional services for Contact Centers and Devices are also available through their partnerships with Five9 and Poly, helping to round out their range of offerings.
The key advantages that CallTower brings to the table are their years of experience in working with customers to customize their solutions as well as providing 24×7x365 support for security and service.
To learn more about how IT decision-makers are preparing for the new hybrid remote/in-office working environment and how CallTower is helping them reach those goals, the Frost & Sullivan White Paper referred to above is available for download.
