With remote working and distributed workforces becoming part of the corporate status quo, migrating office communications to the Cloud has become an organisational priority. Importantly, the in-the-office and remote office experience should be similar; while reachability and availability of staff and teams – from everywhere – has become the standard requirement, along with being able to use any device to access the Cloud services. Parallel to the requirement to work from everywhere, there is an increasing requirement to accommodate multi-channel communications: starting with text, and moving to audio and visual communication when required.
Whether it is online collaboration tools that ensure teams are productive or Cloud PBX systems that facilitate efficient communication between stakeholders, the Cloud represents a radically more agile and cost-effective environment as we head into the new year.
Of course, highlighting the cost benefits of going the Cloud route is hardly new. The positive impact on the financial bottom-line has long been a popular argument to convince more traditionally-minded organisations to make the leap. However, events of the past year have shown that the Cloud is now a business imperative for any organisation – regardless of size or industry sector – to remain operational. If employees are unable to work out of an office, black swan events notwithstanding; or customers cannot reach their sales contacts, the business will quickly lose relevance and impact in a digital-centric environment.
A unified approach
In many respects, the concept of unified communications (UC) has been the glue that binds various Cloud initiatives. Long considered purely a marketing concept, UC is actually much more than that. It is the integration of real-time enterprise communication services that include mobility and instant messaging with non-real-time channels such as voicemail, email, and SMS.
In basic terms, UC enables a person to send a message on one medium, and receive it on another. For example, accessing your corporate voicemail through your personal mobile phone or getting an instant message on your laptop.
In the past, UC constituted a combination of multiple solutions. But through innovations such as Telviva One, all this functionality and integration can now be delivered behind a single pane of glass. Not only does this greatly improve the user experience, but it also enhances the visibility of all communication in the organisation…and greatly reduces costs.
Suits the pocket
Telviva has analysed cost savings for four major customers (35 000 extensions over 2700 sites), including before and after migration to the Telviva Cloud environment. On average, the migration has translated into a 20% cost saving after paying for a whole new system (i.e. the new solution was free). This translates into a savings of almost R100 per user, per month, after getting a completely new service. Given the current economic environment, this has massive consequences when looking at optimising budgets into the new year.
Importantly, going the Cloud route with Telviva has eliminated line rental charges for customers. And, a Cloud solution ensures that calls ‘on the network’ of the company are free, resulting in all internal communication costs all but disappearing. Outbound calls are also cheaper as it leverages an IP-based system.
For Telviva One customers, a Cloud-based UC environment has empowered them to standardise, simplify and streamline their communication infrastructure. So, updates happen automatically through the Cloud with the software featuring the latest security patches and other innovations as they become available. Furthermore, Cloud-based solutions such as Telviva One shift the cost to a consumption-based model. This means that the company only pays for the services and features it uses – allowing it to scale up, and scale down, according to the business growth path.
Understanding the journey
It is clear that on-premise PBX systems do not provide organisations with the flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency which Cloud-based solutions deliver. Moving business communications to the Cloud can bring instant cost savings and introduce greater control over the PBX environment. This enables users to work from anywhere, using any device and still be in touch using office numbers and extensions.
Once the communications environment has been migrated to the Cloud, the system can easily integrate with contacts, calendar features, and even customer relationship management systems to enhance stakeholder engagement. This further enables the organisation to reinvent its processes to increase customer intimacy and business efficiency.
And because Telviva One is built on open standards, organisations can leverage other Cloud solutions like Amazon Web Services, Google, smart assistants, and data analytics to name just a few – to boost their ability and improve their capacity for innovation in this fast-paced, high-pressure digital environment.
While the future of the work environment is difficult to predict given what has happened in 2020, one of the few certainties is that the Cloud will be a fundamental component of how companies will engage, both internally and externally. From their remote workers all the way through to communicating with clients, partners, and other stakeholders, a Cloud-based UC environment will be a key component of the office of 2021.
For more information – https://www.telviva.co.za/
By: Rob Lith, Chief Commercial Officer of Telviva
