If cloud-readiness was the biggest differentiator of fast adjustment to remote working overnight, it’s a miracle that so many enterprises somehow maintained at least an appearance of business as usual. But behind the scenes the difference was vast, between those who were already well positioned to work from anywhere, and those struggling to catch up.
Mike Sharp
I spoke to Mike Sharp, Chief Product Officer for UCC at LogMeIn, who explained that some had to make massive transitions: “many businesses were not set up for the shift to remote working, and had to quickly adapt, make hasty decisions, and approve budgets quickly to rapidly introduce work-from-anywhere capabilities – in some cases, literally overnight. This rapidly accelerated adoption trends for UCaaS services, positioning them as the backbone for business success and continuity across the majority of industries.”
15 months on, and a PWC survey of 32,500 participants from 19 countries showed that 70% of people want to split their post-pandemic time between in-person and remote working. Inevitably there’s a collective revaluation of company’s operations, communications policies and vendor lists, as a hybrid workforce with increased remote workers become the new normal for enterprises globally.
Challenges of the Hybrid Environment
“The ‘new normal’ of workplace flexibility is leading organizations to re-evaluate their IT spending plans, including the adoption of cloud-based digital technologies (such as UCaaS).”, Sharp continued. Companies are asking “Which UCaaS providers will allow the company to scale and flex, as the business right-sizes post-pandemic, what providers will ensure productivity while ensuring enterprise-grade security, and how can they streamline costs and where possible reduce the ever-increasing bloated UC vendor list?”
Hybrid workforces will need to be supported not just through UCaaS, but also through helping to secure their identity, access, data and passwords, andthe ability to remotely access and manage all devices from wherever they work. So the ‘new normal’ will bring new challenges for organisations, as Sharp explained — requiring a holistic approach to communications, both internal and externally facing:
“Hybrid will create two fundamentally different employee experiences to manage – without the right tools, organizations find it increasingly difficult to deliver the same great employee and customer experiences. Implementing the right UCaaS and CCaaS (Contact Center) solutions is a critical decision as organizations look to to mitigate any disparity between those who work remotely or in the office” he pointed out.
Completing the Cloud Transformation
According to Gartner, by 2024, 74% of new UC licences will be cloud-based, this is an increase from 48% in 2019. Furthermore, recent Wainhouse reports indicate that 65% of IT Decision Makers say they have a ‘cloud-first strategy’ for new applications.
But for legacy systems like many business phones, this will mean grasping the opportunity and finally completing the journey to the cloud that many started years before. After all, well-signalled yet seismic shifts like the forthcoming PSTN switch-off can hardly be regarded as unforeseen events like the pandemic, and solutions which might be acceptable in an emergency — like forwarding to personal mobile numbers — have no place in a sustainable hybrid communications strategy.
An agile and flexible approach will support businesses of all sizes and industries to be resilient in the face of change, whether that change is expected or not, and making hybrid environments work will be a good test of continuity.
As Sharp concluded:
“There’s never been a better time to switch away from on-premises telephony solutions. Adopting a UCaaS solution confers major organisational advantages, including lower cost structures, increased reliability, freeing up of IT resources, boosted capabilities and integrations available, analytical and reporting capabilities, instant feature upgrade access and taking advantage of the advances in AI and 5G to name a few”
However, considering the uncertainty of how the new hybrid workforce will impact each business or where each employee may decide to work from and if they may change their mind, the agility the cloud offers might just be the decisive factor for a business to move their legacy calling applications over to complete the transition.”
UC Solutions such as LogMeIn’s GoToConnect are designed to unlock the potential of the modern remote workforce and the agility needed for businesses continuity, whatever the new normality holds.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/2RRfGKX
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