The modern workspace of today would be entirely unrecognizable to a professional only a couple of decades ago. Major changes have occurred as a result of brand new technologies, growing markets, and current trends.
For instance, more people are working partially or even entirely from home now. Working hours are becoming more flexible, and there’s a new focus on collaboration-promoting open office spaces as opposed to the separated nature of old cubicles.
What is unified communication is the theme here. In such a heavily competitive market, the firms that come out on top are the ones that can perfect the way their staff, departments, management, and teams work together. UC platforms are becoming a necessity in the workplace of the future.
What is Unified Communications (UC)?
COVID-19 has only accelerated these trends. It’s becoming more pressing for businesses to adopt robust forms of unified communication (UC) in the face of great change and adversity. And we’re also starting to see companies outsource certain business tasks and functions to third-party services.
A combination of these two developments has resulted in the proliferation of UC platform as a service, which cover a wide variety of features like:
- Instant messaging
- Email and telephone support
- VoIP communication
- Video conferencing
- File sharing
- Encryption and data security
- API and integrations
- Apps for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices
“Best of all, all of these offerings are available in a single, centralized, unified platform for a seamless experience. No components are isolated from the others, resulting in an overall easier approach to unified communications.”
Have you ever emailed someone and later wanted to text that person, only to realize that you don’t have the phone number associated with the email address? A UC software solution is the answer to this frustration.
Why Should It Be in the Cloud?
You’ve probably heard of a term called UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service). The “as a Service” portion of this acronym refers to the cloud-based delivery method popular with modern firms. Why would you want a cloud service provider for UC?
- Outsourcing: Since the third-party business handles the maintenance, updates, and support, you don’t have to bother with building up your own communications servers and software. Outsourcing brings most of the heavy-duty work away from your staff so that they can focus on what matters most to your own business.
- Price optimization: You can pick and choose the features or integrations you need and select how many users you want to be supported on the platform. Service providers can give you exactly what you need and charge you accordingly. For an in-house deployment, you’d need to build everything up yourself and can’t efficiently address temporary spikes in demand.
- Security: Cybersecurity is a big topic today given the large number of data breaches we hear about in the news. Luckily, many cloud-computing solutions have encryption and other cybersecurity features that are instantly available to you. It’s the fastest way to protect you, clients and business partners, helping you stay compliant with government regulations regarding data security.
- Mobility: A cloud service can take the form of a desktop program, a smartphone collaboration app, or an application on any other type of device. Today’s workforces are more mobile than ever, and being able to update yourself on project statuses on the go as opposed to being tied to your desk is a boon for the modern employee.
- Data analytics: A UC platform usually has mechanisms for collecting tidbits of information from the interactions between your company and your clients or partners. Such data can be used to generate actionable insights to improve productivity in the future.
- Data protection: Businesses with in-house services for their UC run the risk of losing all of their data in the event of a major disaster. Even a few hours of downtime can have huge implications on your ability to keep internal operations going. Cloud services, on the other hand, can help you recover from data loss fairly quickly and keep you running through server redundancies.
- Environmentalism: We all should try to reduce our carbon footprints, and you can add UCaaS to your list of sustainability initiatives. By moving this specific business function to a specialized third-party with the experience to provide it efficiently, you don’t have to furnish your own infrastructure and can scale upwards without buying all that extra equipment. Plus, there’s the usual benefit of digitization cutting down on paper waste.
Overall, UCaaS gives you a significant competitive edge and will remain one of the best investments you make for your business.
Embrace Collaboration With Cloud Softphone
If you aren’t sure where to start your search for a new mobility solution, Cloud Softphone can help.
Designed especially for businesses, Cloud Softphone is a customized experience that you design and deploy yourself.
Pick and choose all the customizations you need for the optimal UC experience tailored for your firm’s specific needs. Book a meeting today to get started.
